A few days later Tia was sitting in the Slytherin common room, attempting to re-educate Derrell Silvern's hand-me-down chess set. From her lap, The Court of Nine Queens' Leftover Ember tried to grab a bishop. The sudden lack of attention was seriously annoying the cat.

"Put the knight down. That's right. Yes, they are allowed to jump over your head, and...Hey! Don't eat that queen! Spit her out! Derrell!" Tia grabbed hold of the offending rook and attempted to extricate her queen from its throat.

"Disanimate!" A spark from Derrell's wand touched the pieces and they fell apart, hitting the table with wooden clicks.

Tia gathered up her pieces, frowning at the tooth marks all over her queen. "I give up. You just tell your brother he can have his set back, they're beyond hope. Wait, I've got a better idea. Re-animate that rook and stick it under his bed sheets tonight. Maybe then he'll discipline his own chessmen, yes?"

Derrell snickered. "I'll keep that in mind."

Just then a loud knocking was heard on the hidden door to the common room. Derrell and Tia both looked at it for a minute. The knocking got louder.

"Well, aren't you going to get it?" Tia snapped.

"Why don't you get it?"

"You're standing already."

Derrell rolled his eyes and stalked over to the doorway. He stepped out into the hallway beyond for a moment and then reappeared, smirking. "Hey, you don't hang out with Hufflepuffs, do you?"

"No." That was true, anyway. She only hung out with one Hufflepuff.

"Well, there's one at the door, asking for you. Go figure." Tia rolled her eyes and extricated herself from the chair and her cat. It was probably Kerry coming to apologize, finally. She'd wondered when he was going to get around to it. Derrell was great for hanging out, but he was terrible at potions. Tia was looking forward to having her old partner back.

"What do you want? You're ruining my reputation here." Tia blinked. The girl staring at her from across the hall was definitely not Kerry. "Er…I mean…I thought you were Kerry."

"No, he's still avoiding you like the plague, haven't you noticed?" Obviously this Hufflepuff didn't have Kerry's sarcastic disability.

"Fine. What do you want?"

"I want you to apologize to Kerry."

Tia stared. Then she started to laugh, she couldn't help it. "Me? Apologize to him? I think not. Is that all?"

"No!" The Hufflepuff girl shook her head angrily. "I can't stand to be in the same room with him anymore, and I have to put up with him as potions partner! All he can do is complain about you, or stomp around the common room, sulking. It's really pathetic, so why don't you just apologize and we can all be rid of it?"

This was a little much. "Excuse me, but I'm wondering why, if everyone's so unhappy, you don't tell Kerry himself to come over here and apologize. I certainly don't need to be reprimanded by some Hufflepuff lackey!"

The girl was getting annoyed now. "You Slytherins are all the same! You can't ever stand to show a little humility, especially if it helps someone else."

Okay, that was it. Tia grabbed the girl by the arm and marched her to the end of the hall. "This has nothing to do with houses, understand me? If I hear one more stupid comment about how Slytherins are like this and Hufflepuffs are like that, I will personally find myself a new Slytherin role model and throw you off the highest tower in Hogwarts, understand?"

"Let go of me!" The girl pulled hard at Tia's grip. At the last minute Tia let go and the girl stumbled to keep her balance. "I don't know why I even tried." She snapped. "I thought it would do some good, but I think I'd better tell Kerry just to leave well enough alone. He must be better off without you for a friend." She turned and stalked off down the hall.

Tia shook her head. What was that all about? Stupid Hufflepuffs, always trying to do some good, and inevitably botching it. She wasn't really fighting with Kerry, it was just a friendly squabble. So they'd said some stupid things late at night when they were both tired. And then they'd made it worse the next day at breakfast, but that was no big deal. And all that avoiding each other in the hallways was just part of the game. They'd both get over it soon enough…right?

She peered back in the common room. Derrell had disappeared into the dormitory, and Ember was curled up in Tia's vacated chair, looking like she had no intention of moving any time soon. Stupid cat. Tia had no idea why she liked her so much. She turned and walked down the hall instead, enjoying her bad mood. All she needed now was someone else to yell at, that would just put the cap on it. She turned into one of the main hallways, almost deserted as the day drew to its close. She stepped onto a staircase and waited for it to swing across the shaft to the other side. Then she rode it back.

Stupid Kerry. After everything that went on this week, now she had to deal with his little snit. Couldn't he take a joke? She hadn't been serious about that whole Voldemort thing. Certainly not. After living through that whole mess, two extremely frightened children, with Deatheaters swarming around and people just randomly disappearing and then reappearing in twelve different places… how could he even think she would try to… Tia leaned over the rail and peered down the shaft with no real interest. Idiot. She'd just been stressed and annoyed, and she always said stupid things at night, he knew that.

Tia glanced up, surprised by a sudden lack of movement. The staircase had stopped in the middle of the shaft. She kicked at a railing experimentally. The staircase moved a few inches then shuddered to a stop again.

"Move, you piece of….of…" Lacking a suitable epithet, she kicked the rail again. "Move!" she jumped on the tiles a few times.

"That is hardly the way to go about it, Miss Tiamat Raven." A familiar voice spoke from one of the entrances to the stairwell. Tia looked up at Professor McGonagall. "These stairs can be ornery at times and must be handled with care, or they get insulted."

Insulted? Tia tried not to laugh. "Professor, with all due respect, stairs…do…not…think!" She punctuated each word with a further blow to the stairs, and finally, grudgingly, they creaked across the gap and reattached themselves next to McGonagall. Tia hopped off, grinned at the Professor, and then turned and bowed elaborately to the retreating stairs.

"A very pretty show, Miss Tiamat Raven, but would you kindly tell me how you're going to get them to carry you back to your dormitory now? Where you have to be in," she looked at her watch. "Five minutes?"

"Er…" Tia paused. Then she turned and dashed down the hall. "I know a shortcut!" she called back.

Dashing down the corridors, Tia soon found the hallway she'd taken the day she and Kerry had gotten 'lost.' The secret staircase should take her down to the same level as the common room without having to apologize to any animated bridge-work. She studied the doors in front of her. Which had she taken? Pretty sure in was the first one down, she opened it. Two broomsticks, a large bag, three mops and a metal bucket came clattering out, causing Tia to jump back against the opposite wall. The mops and one of the brooms set up a game of pick-up sticks while the second broom floated overhead, looking for a way in. The bag burst and scattered rags and dish towels all over the floor, and the bucket, enjoying its freedom, continued rolling down the hall. Tia winced as it banged into the third door down with a final, loud crash.

Looking around hurriedly, she crept down the hallway with every intention of leaving the entire mess for the house elves to find. As she passed the third door, it swung open, causing her to trip over the bucket and very nearly fall into the student who emerged. "Ack! Watch what you're doing!" she snapped, regaining her balance and glaring at the boy in the doorway.

"Shouldn't you be in your dorm? It is after hours, you know," he stated.

"Only just. I was on my way…" Tia started to explain about the cleaning closet, but stopped as she got a better look at the student. A sixth or seventh year with one of those red and gold armbands the Gryffindors had taken to wearing lately. House pride or some such load. She didn't need to make excuses to a Gryffindor. Always thought they were above the rules, but still real quick to point them out to anyone else. "Wait a minute…shouldn't you be in your dorm?" She countered instead.

"That's none of your business!" His reply was a little too quick, defensive. It sounded like a chance to catch a Gryffindor breaking rules. Tia wasn't going to miss this.

"You're not in Slytherin, which means you're a lot farther from your common room than I am." She mused out loud. "Hmmm-hmmm, which means you don't have the excuse of 'I was on my way,' which means…"

"Which means nothing."

"…that's you're doing something you don't want anyone else to know about!" Tia finished triumphantly, trying to peer around the door, which opened out into the hallway and blocked her view of the room beyond. "So…what's in the room?"

"Nothing. I told you already."

"No…actually, you didn't. Why don't you tell me and I'll avoid telling any teachers that I saw you here at this time." Tia didn't know why she suddenly cared so much, she was just in one of those moods.

The boy looked over his shoulder, into the room. He kept licking his lips, like he was really nervous. Then he stepped back, suddenly. "See? There's nothing!" He gestured grandly towards the room. Tia didn't even bother to look. There was obviously no point anymore.

"Oh well, guess I'll have to report you for that waste of my time, then." She started back down the hall.

"You can't do that, you'll get in trouble too!"

"Ah, but I was on my way back when I had an accident with the closet, see? Professor McGonagall can vouch for me," she hazarded. "If you want to ask her." To her surprise the boy looked worried.

"Professor McGonagall…" he stopped, glaring at her. "She wouldn't care if I was here, anyway."

"I think you're lying, and you're bad at it. Oh, I've got it, you must be in Gryffindor." Tia faked surprise.

"Was that supposed to be an insult?"

"You said it, not me." Tia picked up the fallen cleaning supplies and shoved them back into the closet along with most of the rags and pinned the whole thing in with the floating broomstick. Turning, she saw the boy still standing there, staring angrily at her. She sighed, this guy was just no fun to bait. "Look, I don't really care, okay? I'll go to my room, and you go to yours and we'll just forget about the whole thing. Deal?"

"No!"

Tia shook her head, what was this guy's problem? "Fine, you can stay here all night then, but I'm leaving." Turning, she opened the correct door and trotted down the stairs to the lower level.

By the time she had reached her common room she had rehashed the whole incident in her mind three times. She was also thoroughly confused. Obviously he'd been hiding something, but whatever it was had somehow disappeared while he delayed her at the door. Fascinating, but not enough to lose sleep over. What really bothered her was how much interest she had shown to him. Letting herself be so caught up in an argument over nothing with a Gryffindor was even more embarrassing that being seen chasing a bucket down a hall filled with rags. If she'd been smart she would have ignored him in the first place and then looked in the room later. Of course, whatever it was probably would have been gone then, too. If there was anything there at all. He could have just been trying to annoy her. Then again, that wasn't really the Gryffindor way. Then again, why not? Nothing said a Gryffindor couldn't be annoying just because he felt like it. And she was making a huge deal out of nothing and really ought to just go to sleep and forget about it. Right.

Slipping through the door, Tia crept into her bedroom and fell asleep.