The Gryffindor common room was noisier that afternoon than Issie had ever heard it. It was as if every celebration they'd been denied the previous year had been saved up, and was being had simultaneously.

As she came through the Portrait Hole, Jake, who had managed to get up to the castle ahead of her, grabbed her into a flying hug, and swung her round, to general whoops all around them. He was still in his Quidditch gear and damp with sweat, but so was she, and she didn't care.

'You did it!' he yelled. 'We did it! We won! Happy birthday!'

'My birthday's not 'til tomorrow, you twat!' Issie shrieked in his ear, though she was grinning so widely she thought her face might split.

He set her down, laughing. 'Tomorrow's only seven hours away! And we're still going to be celebrating in seven hours, so that makes this already your birthday party!'


Two parties took place that night, one in the Gryffindor common room, and one somewhere in West London.

Rose had attempted to leave all thoughts of work back at the office. It was Lily's birthday, and Lily was, at long last, starting to look and act a bit more like her usual self after what had happened in the summer. Rose was glad of that, and had been all prepared to help her cousin celebrate her twentieth in the usual style.

They'd started out at James's flat, as Lily still lived with her parents, but had soon spilled out into the bars, so that the party had grown and spread, and Rose was no longer sure who was technically with them and who wasn't. Lily seemed to have at least a passing acquaintance with just about everyone in the Wizarding World under the age of thirty.

But the case kept pushing itself into Rose's mind.

There was still no explanation for the news that had come from the French Ministry. The discovery of a body in Julius Bulstrode's house in France, the body of a middle-aged man of Bulstrode's build, wearing Bulstrode's clothes, but so decomposed that proper identification was impossible. The house had been found empty and abandoned, and must have been so for months before the authorities got there. The French Ministry were convinced the body was that of Julius Bulstrode, and were now hunting for his vanished niece as the prime suspect in his death. But it couldn't be him. The body had been there since before the Venomous Tentacular murder. Possibly since before Julius Bulstrode even arrived in England, though that was more doubtful.

The trouble was that all their evidence that Bulstrode was responsible for the Tentacular murder lay in Scorpius Malfoy's experimental, unproven, magical invention. Kennet believed it was genuine, and so did Persis McKay, but it wasn't proof. And until they could provide an alternative theory about whose body had been found in Julius Bulstrode's house, and where his niece might be, the French authorities were going to remain sure that they'd got it right.

'Hey, Weasley. How about that contest then? Or are you too drunk again?'

Rose was wrenched out of her thoughts, her head jerking up to find Urquhart standing beside her, smirking at her. Fucking hell.

'Why are you always where I am?' she demanded, not bothering to hide the dislike in her gaze. 'What happened to never talking to each other again?'

'You threw that rule out of the window when you swore you could, what was it, drink my Pureblood arse under the table. So how about it, Weasley? You going to follow through?'

She stared at him for a second. At the gleam in his brown eyes—she couldn't see the colour in the dim bar light, but she knew they were brown, and she hated that she knew that—and the amused curl of his lips. She was no longer so completely confident in her abilities now that she wasn't quite so drunk as she had been that other time. And she hadn't been intending to drink much tonight at all. But she had issued the challenge.

'Okay, fine.' In for a Knut, in for a Galleon. 'I'll get the first round. Shots of Firewhisky do you? Or would you rather start softer?'

At least if she got hammered, she could stop thinking about unsolvable mysteries for a while. And hopefully wipe that grin off his face in the process.


Issie woke with a dry mouth and a pounding headache, to the sound of a loud argument happening in her dormitory.

'GET OUT!' Sam's voice bellowed. 'What are you doing here?! No, don't answer! That's so wrong! Just GO!'

'All right, all right, I'm going!' Jake's voice answered, sounding annoyed, though not as angry as Sam.

Wait, Jake's voice?

Issie sat up, pushed her curtains aside, and peered out. Alice's head appeared from the bed beside hers, blinking blearily, having clearly also just woken up.

Sam stood in the middle of the room in her pyjamas, her hair tousled, glowering at Jake who was edging towards the door, minus his shirt, although mercifully wearing trousers.

'You can't have sex in our fucking dormitory!' Sam continued, still at top volume. 'We sleep here too! That's gross!'

'We weren't having sex!' Tiggi burst out, yanking her curtains fully open and glaring at Sam, though her face was nearly the same colour as the curtains. 'Merlin, Sam! Look, I'm fully dressed, for fuck's sake!'

She pulled the covers off herself, and she was indeed still in the leggings and top she'd been wearing the night before.

'He's not,' Sam pointed out. 'He's half naked!'

'But I don't have sex with the half that's naked,' Jake said, with a grin that disappeared as both of them scowled at him. 'But seriously, Sam. We weren't actually doing anything. We just fell asleep.'

Issie, despite her sore head, was holding back helpless laughter. She looked at Alice, whose hand was pressed against her mouth, and it was the undoing of both of them. They collapsed into giggles, and the others looked around, apparently noticing them for the first time.

'Hey, it's Issie! Happy birthday, Is!' Jake said, brightening up. 'Right, that means no more arguing—not on Issie's seventeenth!'

'I'm not arguing,' Sam said, sounding slightly less annoyed. 'I'm just saying…'

'Well, no saying,' Jake broke in, hastily. 'No saying, and no discussing—of anything—on Issie's birthday. Subject over!'

'What, no discussing anything?' Alice said, still giggling.

'Exactly! Ssh!' he told her. 'Anyway, time to get up. Come on, girls, rise and shine—breakfast time! I'm going to get a t-shirt.'

'And some clean underwear, I hope,' Issie remarked.

He flipped her off, and darted out of the room.

'Merlin, Sam,' Tiggi said, when the door had closed behind him, folding her arms over her chest.

'Look, no way are you going to treat me like I'm in the wrong here!' Sam protested. 'Issie, Alice, back me up! You can't bring a boy back to sleep in a communal bedroom! I mean, okay, I believe you, you weren't having sex. But don't tell me you weren't doing anything! Plus, we didn't know he was here. I could have walked out in my underwear.'

'Um. Yeah, I'm with Sam,' Issie decided. 'You can't do that. Not without telling us he's here, anyway.'

She wasn't sure she really cared if Jake saw her in her underwear, but that was just because he was Jake, and she thought of him much as she thought of Alice. That wouldn't go for all boys, and anyway, whatever he and Tiggi had or hadn't been doing, sleeping two beds away from it was uncomfortable.

Tiggi glowered at them.

'Just because none of you has a boyfriend! You don't get it,' she said. 'There's nowhere private in this school, in case you hadn't noticed.'

'So keep it in your pants,' Sam huffed, still grumpy, as she headed for the bathroom, and slammed the door behind her.

Tiggi bit her lip, suddenly looking less defensive and more miserable. It was an unusual look on her—she was usually so poised and calm—and Issie felt sorry for her, despite the typical Tiggi-ish dig about none of the rest of them having boyfriends. After all, they'd all been drunk the night before, and she very much doubted that either Jake or Tiggi had intended to get caught with him still here in the morning.

'Sorry, Issie,' Tiggi said. 'I didn't mean to spoil your birthday morning.'

'You didn't.' Issie swung her legs out of bed, and groaned. 'This headache spoiled it.'

She seemed to remember that she and Alice had, between them, polished off the entirety of a large bottle of Hot Cauldron—a lethal concoction that tasted like pumpkin juice, which was what made it so dangerous. No wonder she felt rough.

'I get what you mean, though, Tiggi,' Alice said, then went pink as Issie looked at her in surprise. 'I mean, not that it's relevant to me. But it's true—there's nowhere to go where you know you won't find any people.'

Tiggi also looked surprised, but gave Alice a flash of her usual smile.

'Well, thanks, Alice. I mean, I wouldn't have let him sleep here, if I'd thought about it. It just happened! There was no need for Sam to go off the deep end, though. We were only sleeping, I swear.'

'Yeah, it's okay, we believe you,' Issie said. She supposed Alice was right—although so was Sam. 'Maybe we need to set up some dorm rules that do give you some privacy, or something,' she suggested. 'Then you won't need to try and sneak around, and we don't need to wake up to the sight of Jake topless in the mornings, because that's something I definitely don't need on top of a hangover.'

She came down to breakfast with Alice, to find Lucy, Tilly, and Max Bailley, Lucy's fellow seventh-year Hufflepuff, sitting at the Gryffindor table with Artemis. Pádraig was nowhere to be seen, which didn't surprise Issie, considering the state he'd been in the night before. She'd last seen him leaning a dangerously long way out of a window while he shared a spliff with Tansy Kent.

'Happy birthday!' Lucy scrambled up, and flung her arms around Issie.

'Hey. Thanks.' Issie winced, wishing that she could stop feeling nauseous.

'This is from all of us,' Tilly said, pushing a beautifully wrapped present, tied up in red paper with a gold bow, across the table at Issie.

'Including Pádraig, even though I think he might be dead.' Artemis added, looking a bit worse for wear herself as she hugged a cup of tea to her chest.

'Oh, wow – thanks, guys!'

Issie and Alice both sat down, and Issie poured herself coffee before attending to the present again, which she suspected had been wrapped by Tilly, judging by the artistry of it.

Jake had yet to appear again, after exiting the girls' dorm, but she'd already opened Alice's gift, a signed copy of Flying with Eagles, the recently-published memoir of Catriona McCormack, one of Issie's Quidditch heroes. She hadn't really been expecting anything much from her other friends.

'Go on, open it!' Lucy urged her. 'It's Pádraig's own fault he's not here.'

Issie untied the bow, and pulled off the paper, to reveal a soft black hoodie. She unfolded it, held it up and choked with laughter, then groaned as it set her head throbbing again.

'Holy shit, it's amazing,' she said. 'Thank you.'

The hoodie had red writing across the front, which read:

Stage Manager: 90% of the work and no applause.

Seeker: 10% of the work and all the applause.

Life balances out.

'Tilly came up with it,' Lucy said, with a grin. 'We thought it was pretty good, so we got it printed.'

'Well, the second part seems about right, but I'm not buying that she does 90% of the work in our shows,' a teasing voice said behind them.

Issie twisted around, and the three Slytherin seventh-years of the drama club were standing there. Weylin, who had spoken, smiled at her.

'Happy birthday, Issie.

Issie smiled back. 'Thanks.'

'Hey, guys! Come and sit down!' Alice offered, shuffling over, and smiling more brightly than Issie thought she had a right to, given that they'd both drunk the same amount.

Weylin sat down on the bench beside Alice, sitting sideways with his long legs on the outside of the bench, and leaning on the table. Oscar perched beside Max, and inspected the hoodie.

'Nice,' he said. 'So, what are you doing today, Issie? You've got a day pass out of school, haven't you?'

'Yeah.' She nodded. 'I'm going out somewhere with my mum and dad, but I don't know what we're doing—they wouldn't tell me.'

Although she answered Oscar, she was looking warily at the third member of their trio, who was still standing beside them, his hands shoved into his pockets. He narrowed his eyes at her.

'Sheer fucking luck,' he said.

'Pure fucking skill,' she retorted.

Titus's face cracked into a reluctant grin.

'Well, good game, Malfoy. And happy birthday. How hungover are you?'

Issie rubbed her eyes with a groan.

'So hungover. And my dad's going to be here to get me in, like, an hour.'

Titus laughed. 'Good thing I got you a present then.'

He pulled one hand out of his pocket, and in it was a small glass vial. Issie looked at it suspiciously.

'What is it?'

'Hangover Potion. Secret recipe, but it works.'

It did work, and Issie felt considerably better by the time she headed for Professor Longbottom's office, where her dad was Flooing to pick her up.

She left the others still lounging around the breakfast table, since it was Sunday, and there was no hurry to do anything. Jake and the other Gryffindors had come down, although Pádraig was apparently still asleep, and Lucy was just saying, as Issie departed, that he'd better be up in time for the rehearsal that afternoon.

'Hey!' a voice called from behind her, as she walked down a corridor.

Issie paused, and swung around. Eris was behind her—not exactly hurrying, because Eris rarely appeared to hurry, but moving quite fast towards her. She slowed as she approached Issie, and stopped.

'Sorry. I missed you at breakfast, so I wanted to say happy birthday,' Eris said.

Her words and tone were casual, but almost too casual. After four years of watching Eris on the stage, and knowing her off it, Issie thought she was starting to recognise the subtle signs of when Eris was performing and when she was not. Why she would be putting on an act right now, Issie had no idea, but then you could never quite predict Eris. Sometimes she just seemed to do it for fun.

Then again, it was weird that she'd apparently missed Issie at breakfast, when Issie had been exactly where she always was, at the Gryffindor table, with most of their mutual friends.

'Oh, um. Well, thanks,' she said.

'I got you something,' Eris went on, still with that airily casual tone.

She held out a small package, and Issie took it slowly. Well, that maybe explained it. Eris didn't like to show she cared. In fact, Issie hadn't really known she did care to the extent of buying her a birthday present. In fact…

'That's really nice of you, thank you,' Issie said. 'But… but I didn't get you anything. I'm sorry…'

Eris's birthday had already passed, in September. Issie had signed the card they'd all passed around, and put in a Galleon for the box of chocolates the whole drama club had bought for their leading lady, but it hadn't occurred to her to get Eris anything more personal. They weren't at that level of friendship—were they?

'I know you didn't.' Eris shrugged. 'I don't care about that. I didn't get you it because I thought I needed to get you something. I got you it because I was in a shop and saw it, and I thought you'd like it. Don't look so worried,' she added. 'I didn't spend my family fortune on it.'

It was the thought, not the money, that was making Issie feel guilty. Though she had to admit that she was also somewhat touched.

'Well, thank you,' she said again. 'You didn't have to…'

'I know I didn't have to,' Eris said, with an exaggerated air of great patience. 'That's what I was just saying. But I did. So maybe open it, or something?'

Issie smiled. That was Eris sounding more like herself.

She unwrapped the small parcel, which had a second layer of paper inside. From under that, something heavy-ish and metallic fell out into Issie's hand. She turned it over, and found that it was a circular green pin, about the width of her palm—dark green, with a gold talon in the middle, and the date 1986 inscribed on it. A Holyhead Harpies badge, in a genuine vintage design, with the date of the Harpies' most famous recent League win.

'I think it's original,' Eris said. 'It's not in totally perfect condition—the design's a bit scratched at one edge. But I saw it, and you're the only one of my friends who supports the Harpies, so.'

'Eris, it's amazing, and that's so nice of you!'

Impulsively, Issie stepped forward, wrapped her arms around Eris, and squeezed. The only times they had hugged before had been jubilant group hugs after performances, and Eris stiffened, then hugged her back, a little awkwardly.

'All right, don't overreact,' Eris said after a moment, pulling back.

'Just say you're welcome, and don't ruin it,' Issie told her, with a grin. 'Where did you get it, anyway?'

'Agatha Fontaine's.' Eris looked at Issie cautiously, as if waiting for a reaction. 'If you don't mind a present from Knockturn Alley.'

Issie raised her eyebrows. 'I'm not totally sure who you think I am, but my grandfather used to have an account with Borgin and Burke's.' And possibly still did, but Issie had never enquired too closely into that.

Eris laughed, looking more relaxed. 'Yeah, but you're the good little Gryffindor of the family, aren't you?'

'Oh, shut up. Anyway, Agatha Fontaine's Emporium's pretty harmless, as places on Knockturn Alley go,' Issie said, with a slightly overdone shrug.

She wasn't exactly sure why, but she didn't want Eris thinking she'd never set foot in somewhere like Knockturn Alley. Actually, she'd only been there once in her life, but she did know that Agatha Fontaine's, a little antique and vintage shop full of knick-knacks, was one of the more normal and less dark-art-orientated shops there.

'Yeah, well. Sycorax is living above it, so I had a poke around.'

Issie gave Eris's face a quick glance, but it gave nothing away.

'I didn't know Sycorax was living there,' she said, then wished she hadn't said anything, even though her words had been pretty neutral. So much for acting like she was cool with Knockturn Alley and everything in it, if she then went and judged Eris's sister for living there.

However, Eris only shrugged.

'Yeah, she's working at the Hopping Pot,' she said, naming a little café with a somewhat seedy reputation.

Issie did her best not to show that she was startled. Sycorax Montague had seemed a little bit of a mess during her last couple of years at school, but the Montagues were well-off, and prided themselves on their respectability, despite their short-lived associated with the League. She couldn't imagine Eris's parents were very pleased with Sycorax working as a waitress, or whatever she was doing.

'Is she still going out with Searle Nott?' she said, cautiously.

Eris let out a short laugh that didn't sound very amused. 'Going out,' she said, making air quotes. 'That's one way of putting it. He turns up at hers, they shag, he complains he's got no money so she gives him most of hers, and then he fucks off for the next month.'

This time, Issie didn't bother hiding her distaste. She wrinkled her nose.

'Shit. That's awful. Poor Sycorax.'

Although she had to remember that Eris was well-known, not only for saying exactly what she thought, but also for putting a decidedly biased spin on facts at times. Issie had no love for Searle Nott, and could believe anything of him, but it was possible that Sycorax might tell a different version of the story.

'She's a fucking idiot,' Eris said, impatiently. 'It's her own fault. Anyway,' she went on, 'Aren't you going to be late for meeting your dad?'

'Merlin.' Issie suddenly registered how much time was passing. 'Yes. He'll be having to make polite conversation with Professor Longbottom. I'd better go. See you later, Eris—and thanks for the present!'


Rose woke in a bed that wasn't hers. For a couple of seconds, she stared at the ceiling, the full horror of the situation sinking in.

Fuck. It was worse than last time. At least then they'd gone to hers, and she'd kicked him out well before morning. This couldn't be happening—she didn't do this sort of stupid thing.

Except here she was in his flat, and broad daylight was showing between the curtains. And there he was, fast asleep at the other side of his bed. Rose sat up and glanced over at him, then looked away again quickly. What was wrong with her? Once was a mistake. Twice was… She didn't even want to finish that sentence. And she couldn't even use the excuse that she'd been black-out wasted either, because she hadn't been. She'd been drunk, sure, but their contest hadn't ever reached its conclusion, because they'd started arguing, and then he'd kissed her, and she'd let him. She remembered the entire thing, damn it.

She wasn't wearing anything, and that was a situation he mustn't wake up to. Where were her clothes? All in different places, she realised, with a hot burn of shame. Her shirt was all the way over by the fucking front door.

Rose gave another quick look at the sleeping man beside her, and slid out of bed, moving to collect some clothes and pull them on as fast as possible. She found her underwear, and her shirt, which was long enough to cover the girls' boxers she was wearing, but couldn't immediately see her jeans. Damn. How did a pair of trousers disappear between the door and the bed?

In looking for them, she was distracted by looking at his flat. It was, she had to grudgingly admit, nice. It was open plan, a sort of studio flat, because it was too big to be called a bedsit. It was the attic floor of an ordinary Wizarding townhouse, although he had his own entrance and stair, and it was obviously quite old originally, with beams in the ceiling and a big brick fireplace. But it had been recently done out, with polished wood floors, new kitchen units, and a vast king-size bed. His belongings were scattered around, but it was surprisingly clean and tidy.

He probably borrowed his parents' house-elf, she thought, uncharitably. And he certainly didn't pay for a flat like this, on Diagon Alley, out of his junior-level Ministry salary.

She should just find the rest of her clothes and leave, before he woke up. But curiosity made her pause longer. It was her habit always to look at people's bookshelves, and his was better stocked than she'd have expected. There was a pile of old school text books on the bottom shelf, and on the one above it several books on more advanced magic than was required even for NEWTs. Her eyebrows lifted slightly as she spotted a couple on dark magic and its detection that she'd bought herself for her Auror training, and another on poisons. What exactly was Dannicus Urquhart's interest in the dark arts?

The top two shelves, however, were fiction, and she liked his taste. No Romilda Vane here—Urquhart liked clever thrillers, and detective novels on the literary end of the scale. And Beedle the Bard, apparently, she noted with a faint grin, as her finger moved over the thick spine of the familiar book of fairytales.

'Enjoying yourself, Weasley?'

She turned, and he was sitting up and looking at her, with an expression she didn't quite know what to make of. With a great effort, Rose forced herself to be calm. She was not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her embarrassed again. After all, it was, as Sapphie had said when Rose had finally told her about it, only sex. And she was just going to ignore the fact that she had no trousers on, because who cared if he could see her legs?

Though it made it difficult to ignore, when he was quite blatantly staring.

'Eyes up, Urquhart,' she snapped, then smirked. 'Nice copy of Beedle you've got there.'

She spotted her jeans at last, half hidden under the bed, and pulled them out.

'Yeah, hardback edition, 2008, with the original illustrations. Not many of them around,' he said, without missing a beat, his eyes following her. 'Don't get dressed because of me, or anything,' he added with a grin, leaning back with an arm behind his head.

Rose ignored this, and fastened her belt.

'I'm leaving,' she said. 'Where are my boots? Oh, there.'

'Seriously?' His grin disappeared, and he scowled at her. 'You're not even going to stop for two seconds to talk about this?'

'This?' Rose shoved her feet into her chunky red boots—specially chosen instead of her usual black ones for Lily's birthday night out—but didn't bother with the laces. 'What are you on about? There is no this.'

Once was a mistake. Twice was two mistakes. That was all there was to it.

'Well, I didn't mean it to happen, any more than you did,' he said, his voice even. 'But here we are. Again. You could at least stay for breakfast while we figure it out.'

'Why, do you have some sort of domestic fantasy you want to live out? There's nothing to figure out. You're a good lay, I'll give you that.' Too bloody good, that was the problem. Nobody had the right to be that good with their tongue. 'But that's all. We're not even friends. And that is the way it's going to stay. Okay?'