A/N: Hey, here's the latest chapter. The last part is a bit fucked up, so sorry about that. And someone suggested that I give Ron and Harry the 'list' that Effy had given Freddie and Cook in Series 3 Episode 1. I'm hesitant on that because Ron and Harry don't seem like the people that would do that, so I'm giving you guys the choice. Do you guys want the list or no?

And since this is the seventh chapter and usually Effy's episode is usually the seventh or eighth that means things are going to get really fucked up in Effy's life soon.


Chapter Seven: Not Built For Romance


It was Hogsmeade weekend and Ron was walking down the stone pathway with his hands in his pockets and looking down at his shoes. He was going to meet his older brothers, Fred and George, and their friend, Lee Jordan, at the Three Broomsticks since he was no longer on speaking terms with Harry and Hermione, he hardly ever talked to her anymore seeing as she was always with Harry now. And as for Effy? Ron didn't know what the hell was up with her. They were both getting along so well then poof, suddenly Effy was avoiding him or when he talked to her she said very little.

When Ron was nearly at the Three Broomsticks he lifted his head and he stopped dead in his tracks. There she was. Effy Stonem was leaning casually against the wall of the Three Broomsticks smoking a cigarette not paying any attention to the judging eyes of the other Hogwarts students. She was looking straight at him, her stunning blue eyes boring right into him. They seemed to see right through him, and see what most cannot see. Oh, the magic that was Effy Stonem.

Ron took a deep breath, buried his hands deeper in his pocket and made his way towards the door and Effy. She was watching him, and he knew. With that stare of hers, the one that went with a special look, one that was completely and utterly unreadable. It always puzzled Ron, he wanted to know what he was thinking but he knew that was impossible.

"Uh, hey Effy." He said, awkwardly. In his head he sounded so much cooler.

She greeted him with a wisp of a smile. "Hi."

Effy then lets the cigarette drop from between her fingers and to the ground. Ron looks down as she stubs out the cigarette out under a scuffed shoe and blows a trail of smoke into the air. "What are you doing here?" She asks, furrowing her brow slightly. "Meeting anyone?"

Ron nods his head quickly, looking back up at Effy. "Yeah, uh, I'm meeting my brothers and their friend for some butterbeers."

"Can I meet them?"

The question startles Ron. Effy wants to meet...his brothers? Well, he certainly didn't expect her to ask that. But then again, you never know what Effy is going to say.

"Uh..." He says, rubbing the back of his neck. "Sure, why not."

Effy smiles slightly as she pushes herself off the wall. "Cool."

Ron opens the pub's door for her and the two walked into the already packed Three Broomsticks. He could already see his brothers and Lee, they were laughing loudly with butterbeers in their hands. Awkwardly, Ron took Effy's hand and led her to his brothers.

As they approached, Fred and George raised their eyebrows at a girl being with their little brother. "Hey Ronniekins." They said in unison, their eyes moving from Effy to Ron.

"Who's your girlfriend?" asked George.

Ron felt his face grow hot, which meant his face was turning red. "She's not my girlfriend. Well, uh, she is but she's my friend that's a, uh, girl."

The three boys nodded their heads, grinning as the two sat down. "Hey, aren't you that Beauxbaton transfer student?" asked Lee Jordan.

Effy nodded. "Yes. I am."

"Elizabeth Stonem, right?" asked Fred before taking a sip of his butterbeer.

"Yeah, but instead of Elizabeth it's Effy. Elizabeth was a rather shit name." She said in that same old mysterious tone of hers. "And what are your names?"

"I'm Fred." Said Fred, raising his hand slightly.

"George. His twin." He said pointing to Fred with his thumb.

"Lee...Jordan."

Effy nods her head again. "Cool." She says simply.

"Now Effy," says Fred, setting down his buttbeer down on the table. "what is a girl like you, Slytherin, and beautiful doing with a guy like my brother?"

Ron rolls his eyes at his brothers' comment. Bloody git, he was.

But all Effy did was smile and shrugs her shoulders causing the boys to look at her with a confused look. The same look that Ron always gave her when she gave him one of her Effy riddles.


The Three Broomsticks was packed, mainly with Hogwarts students enjoying their free afternoon, but also with a variety of magical people Harry rarely saw anywhere else. Harry supposed that as Hogsmeade was the only all-wizard village in Britain, it was a bit of a haven for creatures like hags, who were not as adept as wizards at disguising themselves.

It was very hard to move through crowds in the Invisibility Cloak, in case you accidentally trod on someone, which tended to lead to awkward questions. Harry edged slowly toward a spare table in the corner while Hermione went to buy drinks. On his way through the pub, Harry spotted Ron, who was sitting with Fred, George, Lee Jordan, and...Effy. The more she saw him spending time with Ron, the less of the chance he thinks he has with her.

As Harry was passing Ron's table he was resisting the urge to give Ron a good hard poke in the back of the head, he finally reached the table and sat down at it.

Hermione joined him a moment later and slipped him a butterbeer under his cloak.

"I look like such an idiot, sitting here on my own," she muttered. "Lucky I brought something to do."

And she pulled out a notebook in which she had been keeping a record of S.P.E.W. members. Harry saw his and Ron's names at the top of the very short list. It seemed a long time ago that they had sat making up those predictions together, and Hermione had turned up and appointed them secretary and treasurer.

"You know, maybe I should try and get some of the villagers involved in S.P.E.W.," Hermione said thoughtfully, looking around the pub.

"Yeah, right," said Harry, only half paying attention to Hermione. If you hadn't guessed his attention was on Ron and Effy who were laughing at a joke that the twins had just made. Harry took a swig of butterbeer under his cloak. "Hermione, when are you going to give up on this spew stuff?"

"When house-elves have decent wages and working conditions!" she hissed back. "You know, I'm starting to think it's time for more direct action. I wonder how you get into the school kitchens?"

"No idea, ask Fred and George," said Harry.

Hermione lapsed into thoughtful silence, while Harry drank his butterbeer, watching the people in the pub. All of them looked cheerful and relaxed. Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbot were swapping Chocolate Frog cards at a nearby table; both of them sporting Support Cedric Diggory! Badges on their cloaks. But soon his gaze returned to Effy, who was smiling and Ron looking down at her smiling. She wasn't wearing a Cedric badge though...This cheered up Harry very slightly. But Harry did get the pang of jealously inside him when he saw the way his 'best mate' was smiling at the girl he fancied. He knew Ron fancied Effy as well, it was obvious, but it still made Harry jealous that she spent more time with him and she did with him.

When Harry looked at Effy again he noticed that her eyes were locked with his. It was like she could see right through his Invisibility Cloak and see him. Her lips curled into a smile, that Effy smile. The smile that was never readable.


Effy sat there with the three Weasley's and Lee Jordan, smiling at the jokes the twins made. Lately, she had been so fucking confused on what to do. After what Hermione told her about what she was doing to her friendship with Ron and Harry, she felt guilty. And Effy Stonem has never felt guilty before, so it made her even more confused than she already was. What the fuck was happening to her?

She wasn't supposed to feel the way she was feeling about Ron and Harry. She wasn't supposed to care about them. She has never cared about anyone except Tony. Only Tony and no one else, well maybe Pandora, but she those were the only two. But now...shit...

She knew that both boys they wanted more. They wanted to be seeing either like girlfriend and boyfriend shit, not fucking each other. But that was the thing; Effy gets fucked and fucked up, she's not built for romance.

You've basically ruined everything.

Why couldn't she get Hermione's words out of her head? They were stuck there. Tattooed into her brain for some unknown reason but she wanted it out. She wanted out of all of this. Out from Ron, out from Harry, out from Hogwarts. They just made everything more and more complicated than they already were.

Effy stands up from the table, and suddenly the eyes of everyone at the table are on her. "I've got to go." She says quietly. "It was nice meeting you," she says to the twins and Lee, she then turns to Ron who looks at her sadly. "Bye Ron." She tells him, avoiding his eyes before walking out of the Three Broomsticks.

As soon as Effy had exited the Three Broomsticks, someone was already calling her name. She groaned and turned to see Cook walking towards her, Cook wearing a huge grin on his face.

"Hey princess." He says, stopping in front of her.

Effy's arms are crossed over her chest, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "What are you doing here, Cook?" She asks raising an eyebrow.

"Well, I heard you Hogwarts kids were coming out to Hogsmeade so I thought why the fuck not come and join. I ditched the others and came here."

"And to do what?"

Cook shrugs. "I dunno, Eff. Maybe just hang, Freddie and JJ can be fun sponges at times, you know?"

The two stand there, silent. They haven't known each other long but Effy likes Cook, he's brave. That's what she loves about his personality. He seems like a person who could get in a shit load of problem but he's the type of person who'd stick up for his friends, wherever, whenever.

"Wanna go for a walk, princess?" He suddenly asks, the grin gone and his hands in his pockets.

Effy nods. "Sure, why not." She says, arms still crossed over her chest as her and Cook begin to walk through Hogsmeade.

"Read 'bout you, in that rubbish paper." He says, keeping his focus straight while walking.

Effy raises an eyebrow. "Oh yeah? I was in the paper? And what did it say, may I ask?"

"How you and that Granger girl or whatever have been spending a lot of time with Potter lately and that you're all secretly in love." A smile is forming on his face. "It's by Rita Skeeter, so of course it's fucking bollix."

Not complete bollix, Cook. She thinks to herself, sighing.

"Complete shit. That's all she publishes." She says, nodding her head.

And it's true for the most part, all Rita Skeeter puts out in the stupid Prophet is all lies with occasional truth but that's rather rare. But Effy had an attraction to Harry, there was no denying it, but she wasn't in love with him.

She never loved, only Tony. Tony was the exception to love and care for Effy.

Only Tony and no one else.

"Well from what I've seen you've been spending a shit load of time with Harry's best mate, are you two like seeing each other?" He asks, looking at Effy.

Effy shakes her head. "No." She says firmly. "Ron and I aren't seeing each other."

"Are you two fucking occasionally then?"

"No, we're not fucking either, Cook."

"No fucking. No dating. No nothing?"

Effy nods and sighs. "No nothing."

"Well that seems like shit. You three obviously have something for each other."

Effy raises an eyebrow. "And what the fuck do you mean by that Cook?"

Cook shrugs. "Dunno, Eff. I guess I mean that it's pretty fucking obvious that Ron and Harry feel something for you by the way they look at you, but you already know that don't you? Yeah, I know. I'm right. Cookie's always right, princess. But maybe you feel something for them. Just you don't know it, Effy."

Effy is surprised by what Cook has just said to her. He went from the Cook she knows which is someone who is wild to someone who understands how people feel.

"Hey, Cook?" She says after a while.

"Yeah?"

"Do you, Freddie, and JJ want to come to a party tonight?" She asks. "My friends from Beauxbatons are throwing one, they've got Firewhiskey and spliffs and all that shit. We're sneaking out onto the grounds, near the Forest but not near Hagrid's Hut. So what do you say?"

Cook grins and nods his head. "You know it, babe."


Harry was walking back to the Gryffindor Common Room under his Invisibility Cloak after meeting with Hagrid about his First Task. He was going to be facing Dragons. Real life fire breathing Dragons. Blimey, he was terrified. He didn't know what to think actually. His thoughts were all jumbled together, words popping out: Fear. Tournament. Ron. Anger. Dragons. Sirius. Fire. Effy.

Harry let out a sigh as he turned a corner when he noticed a figure down at the end of the hallway. They were stumbling a bit as they walked down the corridor, letting out small laughs. Girl laughs. A girl who seemed to be drunk on school grounds. There was only one person who Harry knew who would get drunk on school grounds.

Effy.

Harry walked over to the stumbling Effy, and slowly removed his Invisibility Cloak, even though he shouldn't have. As Harry approaches sees that her clothes are ruffled, her hair a tousled mess. Her eyes are still heavily made up and her lips are glistening slightly with a light layer of lip gloss on her lips. She smells of alcohol and smoke which makes Harry's nose scrunch up.

"Effy, you alright?" He asks, though he thinks it sounds like such a dumb question.

Effy stares at him blankly for a minutes before blinking letting the Effy he knows return. The mysterious one. The one that is unreadable no matter how hard you try. She looks at Harry with her intense blue eyes and shrugs. "I got a bit fucked up with my friends outside." She said, pulling out a baggie and showing it to Harry. "It's MDMA. You want some?" She asks, raising an eyebrow. "Me and you, let's get fucked some more, yeah?"

Harry shakes his head, and takes the baggie from Effy's hand and puts it in his pocket, just in case. "What were you doing outside, Eff?" He asks.

"Just...having a little party with my friends."

"Do you need me to help you get to your common room?" He asks.

Effy shrugs. "Dunno. Can I crash at your common room for the night, Harry?"

The question catches him off guard. Effy wants to go sleep in the Gryffindor common room? Was that even allowed? Should he even let her sleep there? Well, she is pretty messed up at the moment and she doesn't seem able to make it back on her own if he leaves.

"Uh, sure."

She smiles slightly, making his heart skip a beat. Her smile, it's so beautiful when she smiles. She should do it more often, he thinks.

"Thanks Harry." She says.

Harry nods and takes her hand. "I'll show you the way." He says, leading her towards the portrait of the Fat Lady.

But the sudden thought struck him as they approached the sleeping portrait. Sirius. He had to make it to the fire and talk to Sirius! Merlin, he had forgotten! How stupid of him. Maybe, he could bring Effy quickly up to the dorms without waking anyone, especially Ron, then sneak down to the fire just in time and maybe sleep on the couch.

"Balderdash!" Harry says in a whispered yell.

"If you say so," she muttered sleepily, without opening her eyes, and the picture swung forward to admit him. Harry climbed inside still holding onto Effy's hand. The common room was deserted, and, judging by the fact that it smelled quite normal, Hermione had not needed to set off any Dungbombs to ensure that he and Sirius got privacy.

Effy had slipped her hand out of his as they entered, walking over to the couch and sitting down on it. Harry looked at the fireplace quickly, no one was there. Good. He then turned back to Effy. "Effy, why don't you go upstairs to my dorm and sleep there?" He suggests.

"I wanna stay here for awhile." She says.

No, no. This isn't how it's supposed to be. He thinks.

Harry looks back into the flames, and jumps.

Sirius's head was sitting in the fire. If Harry hadn't seen Mr. Diggory do exactly this back in the Weasleys' kitchen, it would have scared him out of his wits. Instead, his face breaking into the first smile he had worn for days, he looked back at Effy then back to Sirius, it was too late. Harry scrambled over to the where Sirius' head was and crouched down by the hearth, and said, "Sirius - how're you doing?"

Sirius looked different from Harry's memory of him. When they had said goodbye, Sirius's face had been gaunt and sunken, surrounded by a quantity of long, black, matted hair - but the hair was short and clean now, Sirius's face was fuller, and he looked younger, much more like the only photograph Harry had of him, which had been taken at the Potters' wedding.

"Never mind me, how are you?" said Sirius seriously. But his lips soon curled up into a smile. "I see your doing quite well. Who is that girl that you have with you, Harry?" He asks, amused.

"Uh, she's my friend. Effy Stonem." Harry says, looking behind him to meet Effy's confused gaze. "But I'm—" For a second, Harry tried to say "fine" - but he couldn't do it. Before he could stop himself, he was talking more than he'd talked in days - about how no one believed he hadn't entered the tournament of his own free will, how Rita Skeeter had lied about him in the Daily Prophet, how he couldn't walk down a corridor without being sneered at - and about Ron, Ron not believing him, Ron's jealousy...

". . . and now Hagrid's just shown me what's coming in the first task, and it's dragons, Sirius, and I'm a goner," he finished desperately.

Harry did not care that Effy was there, he needed to let his feelings out. Sirius was like his father figure, he told him everything. Later on, he would make up something about what Effy was witnessing or tell her the truth.

"Harry..." Sirius says his voice half-amused by the fact that Harry had brought Effy to Gryffindor and half-serious. "could you ask your friend if she could leave us alone for a few moments?" He asks.

Harry nods and turns to Effy. "Eff...you could sleep in my dorm for now, just try not to wake the guys, yeah? They'd probably freak."

"I don't know which one if your dorm." She says simply.

"I'll show you," He says then turns back to Sirius. "I'll be back in a minute." He says before getting up, taking Effy by the hand once more and leading her to his dorm.

"I won't tell." She says when they're standing in front of the door. "I promise."

Harry smiles slightly. "Thanks, Effy." He says.

"You're welcome."

And before Harry knows it, Effy's lips are on his, kissing him. And he's kissing her back. Her lips are soft against his and Harry doesn't know how to react properly seeing as Effy is his first kiss. She tasted like cigarettes and beer and lip gloss. Her hand slowly moved from her sides to his face, her soft fingers tracing the line of his jaw.

Effy was actually kissing him.

And when she pulls away from the kiss, Harry can't help but feel a bit disappointed that it is over. But all Effy does is smile her smile and open the dorm door as quietly as possible before slipping inside and closing the door.

Harry stands there a moment longer, the feeling of her lips on his lingering on his lips. When he remembers he had left Sirius, he snaps back into his senses and hurries back down the stairs.


Ron had been sleeping peacefully when he's awoken by two people talking outside the door. Two voices that he recognized right away. It was Effy and Harry. But what was Effy doing here in Gryffindor Tower when she was a Slytherin?

Ron listens to their conversation, still lying down on his side with his eyes open.

"I won't tell." He hears Effy's voice say. Won't tell about what though? "I promise."

"Thanks, Effy." Harry's voice then says.

"You're welcome."

Then there is no more talking but silence. No one is talks for a long time, Ron notes as he counts the seconds that pass before the door to their door quietly opens. Ron sits up expecting Harry to begin walking in; he was going to give Harry a piece of his damn mind but instead Effy walks in looking messed.

"Ron." Says Effy, stopping right in her tracks. Her voice is surprised. "Hi."

"Hi." Says Ron. "What are you doing here?"

She points her thumb to the door. "I had a party with my friends, got a bit fucked on some MDMA that we managed to get, Harry found me and he said I could crash here for the night." She explains, walking over to the Harry's empty four poster bed and sitting down on it.

"I heard were you two talking outside the room, you said you'd promise him something." Says Ron, throwing the blanket off of him revealing his too small maroon pajammas.

Effy shakes off her leather jacket revealing her knit black top, she puts it on top of Harry's trunk and unbuttons her pants and pulls it down revealing her long lean legs and black and white stripped knickers. Ron can't help but stare.

"It's nothing, Ron." She says, folding her jeans and sitting back on the edge of the four poster bed.

"Where's Harry?"

Effy doesn't answer him this time; she just crawls under the covers making Ron more curious than ever before.

Deciding he'd go for himself to find Harry, Ron stands up from his bed and makes his way towards the door. If Effy wasn't going to tell him where his ma—Harry was then he'd go find him himself.

"Where are you going?" Effy asks. Ron turns around to see that she's gotten out of the bed and is now standing in front of him.

"To see where Harry is." He says with a careless shrug before opening the door and stepping outside, his feet cold against the stone floor.

He could hear Effy's footsteps right behind him, following him. "Ron, wait!" She says, catching up to him as he makes it to the top of the staircase.

"What?" His voice comes out more bitter than he means it too.

Why? It's because he's jealous that when Effy is with Harry she seems to let him in more than she does when with him. She's can strip down to her knickers and sleep in his bed maybe even sleep next to him in her knickers, keeps his secrets and promises never to tell a single soul, she had never done those things to him and it made Ron jealous though he'd never dare admit it aloud.

"Why don't we just go back to bed and Harry will probably come up eventually. It's late anyways." She says.

Ron shakes his head. "No, you can go back if you want, Eff, but I'm going to look for Harry."


"Go!" he hissed at Sirius. " Go! There's someone coming!"

Harry scrambled to his feet, hiding the fire - if someone saw Sirius's face within the walls of Hogwarts, they would raise an almighty uproar - the Ministry would get dragged in - he, Harry, would be questioned about Sirius's whereabouts –

Harry heard a tiny pop! in the fire behind him and knew Sirius had gone. He watched the bottom of the spiral staircase. Who had decided to go for a stroll at one o'clock in the morning, and stopped Sirius from telling him how to get past a dragon?

It was Ron. Dressed in his maroon paisley pajamas, Ron stopped dead facing Harry across the room, and looked around.

And Effy was standing right behind him. Dressed in a knit black shirt that was worn over the leather jacket from earlier and she is also just wearing white and black striped knickers. Were Ron and her...? No. They couldn't have, could they?

"Who were you talking to?" Ron said.

"What's that got to do with you?" Harry snarled. "What are you doing down here at this time of night?"

"I just wondered where you -" Ron broke off, shrugging. "Nothing. I'm going back to bed."

"Just thought you'd come nosing around, did you?" Harry shouted. He knew that Ron had no idea what he'd walked in on, knew he hadn't done it on purpose, but he didn't care - at this moment he hated everything about Ron, right down to the several inches of bare ankle showing beneath his pajamma trousers.

"Sorry about that," said Ron, his face reddening with anger. "Should've realized you didn't want to be disturbed. I'll let you get on with practicing for your next interview in peace."

Harry seized one of the POTTER REALLY STINKS badges off the table and chucked it, as hard as he could, across the room. It hit Ron on the forehead and bounced off.

"There you go," Harry said. "Something for you to wear on Tuesday. You might even have a scar now, if you're lucky... That's what you want, isn't it?"

He strode across the room toward the stairs; he half expected Ron to stop him, he would even have liked Ron to throw a punch at him, but Ron just stood there in his too-small pajammas, and Harry, having stormed upstairs, lay awake in bed fuming for a long time afterward and didn't hear him come up to bed.


Effy stood there the entire time; silent, watching Ron and Harry bicker at one another. It strangely reminded her of when Tony and her dad used to fight in the morning, but now her dad and Tony didn't bicker no more because well, her dad fucked off. Maybe that would happen between Harry and Ron, they'd bicker over her, over this Tournament, then when one of them is pushed over the edge they'll just fuck off. Like all the rest.

But she doesn't want that to happen. She doesn't want Harry or Ron to fuck off; she wants them to become best mates again just like in the beginning of the year when she had first met them. If their friendship falls apart, it'll all be on her, it'll be her fault and Hermione knows it, Effy knows it, everyone knows it. She's ruining everything just like Hermione had told her and the guilt was chewing at her insides though she tried to conceal it from others.

When Harry stormed past her, he could see the anger in his eyes as their green and blue eyes locked for just a moment. He was angry at Ron, himself, her, the world. It was all there. And she wanted to after him because when she had kissed him it had been for fun at first but the kiss was actually like something she had never felt before. But Ron held her back, not physically of course but emotionally, he held her back because she knew if she went after Harry she could lose him. And she didn't want too. She had lost too many people in her life before and she wasn't going to let that happen to her again.

If she kissed Ron, right there, right now what would she feel? The same thing she felt when she kissed Harry? Should she dare even try?

But if she kisses them, they'd probably think they're dating know. That's probably what Harry thinks now. But Effy doesn't do that. She doesn't do romance. Why? Because Effy gets fucked and gets fucked up; she's not built for romance.