Thank you to: The Tester, susiipie, Arlath's Daughter, silverbirch, Joelle8, Marciabarcia, Likewow5556 and Doni.

And now I feel so guilty, after you were all so wonderful and reviewed. You might have noticed that I always do seven chapters per year - but I'm so sorry!

I opened the file for this chapter, and realised that it was a duplicate of last chapter, which was obviously no good. And then I checked all the files for 4th year, and there were only six - anyway, you don't need me to jabber on any longer. I've substituted one of the random characterisation drabbles that I write, just because I like the organisation of having seven years with seven chapters.

Thank you, all of you so much, if you reviewed last chapter. And I swear, I've checked, you get a real chapter next time. x

Chapter 26: Can't Read My Pokerface

Early January

Everyone has things which they hide, secrets about their characters and their opinions. Knowledge which most of their friends cannot be told, for fear it would drive them away.

Aisha: Cowardice

What would it be like, she sometimes wondered, to take a break? To not wonder how every phrase would be received, what the most insignificant person will think of you. To not consider every test as practice and as information that could stop you on a path to greatness.

She didn't want to be without her ambitions. They made her who she was. But she wasn't always sure if she liked that person, the person who hid behind the sympathetic look or the fake smile which always reached her eyes. No matter how genuine it was. The mind which was secretly judging those who she spoke to, weighing them up. The catty comments that she would never voice, but that would rise to her mind each time she saw someone.

It might be a weight off her mind, she knew, to be able to just blurt things out. But the words wouldn't come.

In the end, she just wasn't brave enough.

Albus: Jealousy

There was something lurking, behind his wisecracks and his friendliness. Behind the angry instinct that reared up to protect any of his friends or family when they were insulted. Behind the boy who would make a comment about keeping the house warm when the feather he was supposed to be levitating, spontaneously combusted instead.

It was in the slight glance he would throw at Rose, who had already moved six steps ahead of the rest. The annoyed flare when Scorpius, too, mastered it, despite having done as little work as him.

He would be furious if anyone else brought up his best friend's ancestry. But he'd caught that traitorous thought occasionally, when Scorpius was the centre of attention – shouldn't that be me? Harry Potter's son, not Draco Malfoy's?

But he'd crush it viciously and make a joke.

After all, nobody can laugh at you if you're laughing too. Right?

Alice: Lies

They mounted up on her. The different people, the different acts. The facets of the character she herself had created and taken upon herself.

Sometimes she got confused – would Alice laugh at this joke? Would she return this gaze? Would she stop the boy now? Now? When?

She'd wonder what Alice, the Alice who boys thought she was, would be thinking now.

She'd imagine what Alice, the Alice who girls thought she was, would be saying here.

She'd picture what Alice, the Alice who her parents thought she was, would do in this situation.

Then she'd wonder what Alice, the Alice who she'd lost among all the other interlopers in her mind, would have done.

Lia: Ingratitude

People presumed that because she was honest, because she was Hufflepuff she didn't know what it was like to live a pretence. But they were wrong. Huffleuffs were patient, and she'd been brought up polite. All of this conspired to leave her assuring people that she didn't mind as they forgot her name; that it was fine for her to listen to their problems without them even caring about the most basic facts about her; that after so many years, being so invisible didn't have a sting.

She didn't want to be noticed, hated being the centre of attention. She wasn't asking people to include her in everything. She didn't need them to remember every time that she had helped them, before they'd push past her in the corridor. She didn't expect thanks every time that she did someone a favour.

But just once, it would be nice.

Lily: Ambition

She loved her brothers. Both of them. And maybe she'd made her bed, so she should lie in it. But hanging around with AL's friends just made her more into 'Albus Potter's little sister'. Why couldn't she be more than that?

Why couldn't she be the polite, friendly self that she was to those who she hardly knew, when she was with her friends, rather than the cow who was effusively, pathetically grateful for their companionship one second, dismissively cold the next and outright sharp the next?

Why couldn't she be a better person, like Lia. Why couldn't she have ambitions, like Aisha? Why couldn't she be funny, like Albus? Why couldn't she be magnetic, like Alice?

Why did she feel the need to compare herself and continually try to beat older people who never even realised that they were in a competition.

Lorcan: Exaggeration

He'd never hidden who he was. The strange things he said were the strange things he thought. But he did hide how perceptive he was. It astounded him, sometimes, how people could realise that he knew them so well – yet never expect him to have picked up on what people thought of him.

In all truth, he didn't always hear the whispers. He didn't always notice the looks. But you'd have to be blind to never notice them, and deaf not to notice what weren't really whispers, but outright comments.

And sometimes, some peverse pixie in him pushed him to just be that little bit odder. In situations when he would have been normal, to say things that would be considered different. It was his slot, his niche, and he wasn't sure who he'd be without it.

Lysander: Trickery

He couldn't help but feel guilt, sometimes. For all those victims who never suspected that despite his honeyed tone and pleasant smile, he was poking fun at them with his sarcastic words which they didn't comprehend or backing them into a corner where they would have to agree with him.

It didn't help to see Lorcan, so lacking in any sort of guile, and know that the people who he preyed on were exactly like his brother, too naïve to realise.

Once he saw a magician. He'd been so impressed with his magic, even better than that of his parents. Pulling rabbits from hats? Never-ending string? But then he'd seen him prepare his tricks, and felt a bitter sting of disappointment at the fakery.

And he wondered if he was that charmer? Taking advantage of the innocent to further himself. Getting from point A to point B, no matter who he hurt on the way.

Rose: Expectations

Sometimes, she wondered which had come first – the high grades, or the high expectations. The chicken-or-the-egg hypothesis, but with a more destructive outcome.

There was that feeling sometimes, that strange whispering what if. The sort of voice which says what if you just leaned forward off that high wall. What if you just burst into song in the middle of the Great Hall. What if, for a change, you didn't revise for a test.

Oh, she felt flattered every time that people asked her for help with their work, and there was a glow inside of her when she got her high results. She knew that she didn't achieve just for other's reactions, but for herself too. But as time went on, it became harder and harder to beat her own expectations.

And when anything less than perfect is a disaster, how can there be any joy in getting that score?

Scorpius: Unworthy

Scorpius hated people who hid things from him. Whether it was for his own protection or not, he wanted to know! Not in the way that Rose wanted to know all about everything under the sky, but the things that made his friends tick, that they knew and he didn't.

Maybe it had been born when he was very young, and constantly wondering what the mystery was when people in the street would stare and point at his family.

Maybe it was after that, when his grandfather suggested that he pretend to be close to his friends, so as to keep them on his side.

It was certainly the reason why he would get so angry at his friends when they didn't tell him anything, even to protect him. When they'd suddenly stop mid-sentence as they were relating old stories or repeated gossip. He was a Gryffindor! He was strong enough to hear it.

But he was a hypocrite. He hid things himself, feelings which he would never confess. The reasons why he'd not told anyone about the bullies a few years ago. After all, a true Gryffindor would have stood up to them. He was always first to hold the door for another, to volunteer to take the fall for a group.

He tried so much harder to be the chivalrous knight, the perfect man. Because all the while, there was a little nagging voice telling him – you don't belong here. You don't deserve this.

In the end, there was one solution to all of their problems, and it was this that they had been lucky enough to find – a friend who they could confess this to.

Like I said – not much plot. We will return to their actual schooling next chapter. These are just written when I've got writer's block but want to write, if that makes sense. They help me get a handle on the characters. I've got lots on different prompts – colour, sense etc. but this one was the only one that was based while they were still this age.

Chapter title - Lady Gaga - Pokerface