Right, so I'm trying to keep to my 20k word cap for chapters, because I don't want to kill any of your eyes, but I'm a wordy bitch, so this one got ridiculous. It's basically one long scene, but there was a convenient sort of break-ish point in the middle, so I went ahead and split it. If you need to take a break at that point and come back to it later, the point I split it is at enough of a discontinuity that it shouldn't be too disorienting at all to pick it back up at the second part. Since this is all just one big scene, I'm labelling them as (a) and (b), and not giving them separate numbers.

With that out of the way, let's get this silly nonsense going.

Liz stepped out into Severus's library at precisely six-thirty in the morning, dressed and ready to go, her bag slung over her shoulder. Theoretically, she could have used her trunk to carry the things she'd need for the week, shrink it and carry it in her pocket, but there were all sorts of things that could go wrong with that, she'd decided to use her school bag instead. She'd stitched very basic expansion spells into it last term — it'd only maybe doubled the internal volume, and it was vulnerable to failure if the fabric of the bag was damaged — but she didn't need a whole lot of things just for a week, and she'd be wearing her uniform half the time anyway, so it would be fine for this trip. She was all packed up, the weight of the bag half-leaning on her hip, idly fiddling with the strap crossing over her chest, flicking her lip ring with her tongue.

She couldn't help fidgeting a little, she was, just, oddly excited, she could barely sit still. Which was sort of silly, or at least she felt silly — it wasn't like this was really that big a deal. But, duelling was fun, and the tournament looming over her head, and it was finally happening, she was practically vibrating with contained energy. She felt very silly and childish, but, well.

Severus was, unsurprisingly, sitting at one of the chairs with a book, the same shoulder bag he'd brought to the Greenwood resting nearby on the floor. He'd dressed formally, as he always did when he was going to be around mages, but passibly muggleish, black slacks and a nice shirt — they'd be dropping by a muggle place for breakfast on the way, presumably he'd throw on a cloak or something once they got to the keyport. "Good morning, Elizabeth," he said, somewhat absently, his attention still on the book. "Do you have everything? Nilanse may not be able to reach you in Romania."

"Yeah, I'm ready to go."

"Did you remember your shower things?"

"Oh shite, no, those are still in the bathroom." She'd been waiting for them to dry off before returning them to her bag, and completely forgotten, oops. "Be right back." The excitement was maybe making her steps a little heavier than necessary, her boots clunking against the floor, but she probably wouldn't be able to stop herself if she tried.

The book had been put away by the time she got back, Severus stood waiting in the middle of the room, bag flung over his shoulder and looking over a sheaf of papers. As she walked in, he folded the papers up, slipping them into a pocket, and he looked up. An odd nauseating shiver lurched through his head, Severus frowned a little. "Is that what you're wearing?"

She hitched to a stop, blinking. "Well, yeah?" Glancing down at herself, she didn't realise what the big deal was — she wasn't dressed that weirdly. Not normal for her, maybe, but. The boots that went with her duelling uniform — they were just normal black leather boots, heelless and cutting off just under her knee with only minimal enchantments to prevent turning your ankle and the like, they wouldn't fit in her bag and they were innocuous enough, so — denim shorts and a plain black tee shirt (with a too-tight vest underneath to prevent her lopsidedness from showing), and a new black and blue and red scarf for her hair. Apparently fashion scarves were a thing, she'd found a bunch shopping for new muggle clothes, they did the thing she needed them for the same but the material was thinner, not going to make herself too warm. Which was a concern, because, "I thought Jassy was really hot in the summer?" She did prefer skirts and things, but she was worried it would be hot, and she wasn't comfortable wearing a skirt much higher than her knees, so...

Severus hesitated for a moment, seeming oddly awkward — for some reason, Liz had no idea what was going on here. Whatever it was, he apparently decided to dismiss it, just sighing the matter off, the mess in his head diminishing to a low simmer of discomfort. "Never mind. Let's go," he said, holding out a hand.

A moment of dark, tight, twisting apparation later, and they were in London, judging by the architecture around probably somewhere in Westminster. A short walk later brought them to a coffeeshop, possibly the same one Severus had gone to while she was clothes shopping last summer, but she wasn't certain about that. They also served breakfast, apparently — most of it were all sweet buns and shite (Severus got some kind of cinnamon bun, it had frosting, eich), but they also had normal food, Liz ended up with a toasted bacon sandwich thing, which was fine. While giving their orders and shite, she got an odd, weird, tingly feeling, almost like something was brushing up against her from behind, though thinner than that, somewhere between a physical pressure and like the blast of hot air from an oven (though of course not that intense temperature-wise). She glanced over her shoulder in time to catch a man at a table behind them look back down at his newspaper. That...wasn't normally how people's attention felt like, but this mind magic stuff was bloody weird sometimes, who could say. Anyway, the coffee wasn't excellent, but it was fine. Liz hardly noticed, practically jittering with nerves, her boots tapping under the table in a steady rhythm as her knee bounced.

He mostly kept it off his face, but Liz could feel Severus smirking at her, a sort of warm amusement wafting off of him. Honestly, she realised she was being silly, no reason to make fun of her...

Before too long — it felt like bloody ages, the minutes passing at a crawl, but it couldn't have been an hour after they left the house — they apparated again, to...somewhere in the City proper, she thought. She wasn't familiar with the particular street, but she could make out the Barbican Towers over that way, and the Stock Exchange Tower right there, so. They walked along the pavement for a little bit, weaving through the crowd — not as dense as it might be, it was early on a Sunday — before turning into an alleyway, after a few steps a tingle of wards crossing over her skin, and the alley abruptly opened up into what was obviously a magical site. A market street, it looked like, shops along both sides and booths set up out on the street, what were presumably flats stretching out overhead — the style much more modern than in, say, Charing, though not that modern, all brick with little intricate bits here and there, looking very much like Liz assumed most of the City had around the time of the Statute. (Or at least the nice parts.) Kind of like parts of Westminster, or the Latin Quarter in Paris, just, more colourful, with occasional signs of magic here and there. And if it was too early for everyone to be out and about on the muggle side, it was stupid early here — most of the shops were still closed up, only a few people just starting to set up at their booths for the day.

"Where are we?" There were magical enclaves dotted around London, but the only one she'd really ever spent much time in before was Charing. She'd been under the impression most of them were primarily residential anyway.

"It has had many names over the centuries, but you'll most often hear it called Old Town. This was the original site of the magical district within London, before it was relocated west during the Anglo-Saxon period. These days, it primarily serves as shopping and lodging for international visitors coming into the country through the keyport. The physical location of the Ministry building is also near here, though it is not considered part of Old Town." So, the magical equivalent of Westminster, but actually in the City of London, got it.

A few people here and there gave them glances, but the two of them passed through the street without incident, before long coming to a wide stone staircase set into the middle of the street, leading down under their feet. Sort of like an entrance to the Underground, she guessed, though probably twice as wide and not set over to the side. (Mages didn't have to worry about cars and shite, after all.) Liz felt a crackle of wards on the air as they descended — it was hard to tell without an obvious point of reference, but she thought they went down far enough for two storeys. The large open staircase was mostly empty, save for a handful of people going down, a couple individual business-man-looking types, and a single chattering family going up opposite them.

Eventually the stairs ended, the walls dropping away and the ceiling arcing up, they stepped into a large, high-ceilinged room. It was mostly made of white marble — the same stuff used in the Wizengamot Hall, she thought — though there were other materials here and there, shops and offices along the sides, a restaurant of some kind surrounded with tables set square in the middle. The ceiling overhead had been enchanted to show the sky (clear and sunny today), like at Hogwarts or the Wizengamot, which was kind of neat, but she suspected the sun would be awfully bright on the marble closer to the middle of the day.

She spotted big signs toward the right side of the room marking the floo bank for domestic travel — done in English, French, and what Liz suspected was a Scandinavian language — and toward the left ones pointing toward international portkeys. Severus led them that way, the sign directing them down another wide marble staircase, splitting in two at the first landing. There was a sign pointing to receiving — that is, incoming portkeys, where locals went to meet visitors — down a corridor to the left, but for outgoing portkeys they doubled back and continued down another flight of stairs.

There was a sudden transition in building materials to wood panels, the ceiling pointed overhead almost like a church (she was pretty sure they hadn't gone down far enough for that to fit, magic was cheating), and they stepped into what was obviously a waiting room of some kind. It was rectangular, much narrower than it was long, an information kiosk thing set every several metres, only two of them that Liz could make out from here currently staffed with clerks in Wizengamot purple and white, the floor dense with rows and rows and rows of chairs. There were doors along both walls, some of them simply numbered, others were bathrooms or teashops, Liz noticed a bookstore. For people to hang around until their portkey left, she guessed.

Severus didn't bother checking in with one of the receptionists, moving straight toward one of the clumps of chairs. They were here stupid early, but they weren't quite the first to arrive — the professors in charge of all three of the participating duelling clubs had beaten them here. Flitwick seemed to be about as excited as Liz, grinning and all but vibrating in place, his voice noticeably quicker and louder than normal. The professor from the school in Oxford was a middle-aged bloke with an obvious curse scar across his face, named Caerwyn Plunkett. (Their Defence Professor, a former Hit Wizard, which was presumably what the scar was from.) The duelling instructor from the Irish school — she wasn't a proper Defence Professor, she just ran the duelling club, managed and helped train the teams — was a quiet-but-pleasant woman named Clíodhna Ní Chaoimhe. (The Caoimhes were a powerful family in Ireland, but there were a bloody million of them, it was impossible to say whether this one was anyone important.) The only other kid here was Ceallach Ó Caoimhe, from one of their senior division teams — Clíodhna happened to be his mum, so he was here early for the same reason Liz was.

Introductions went around, which didn't take very long — all the adults already knew each other, from organisational meetings and the like, and of course everyone already knew who Liz was. From then, it was time to wait. Over the next while, more duellists slowly trickled in, the clump of chairs around their door gradually filling up. Many of them were accompanied by adults, a few of whom stayed with their group (more chaperones coming along for the trip), but most just said hello to the adults in charge quick, said final goodbyes to their kids, and then left back up the stairs again. There was a lot of chatter going on, introducing themselves and talking about whatever, all in a confusing mixture of English, Cambrian, and Gaelic, but Liz quickly went off on her own, poking through the nearby bookstore instead of hanging around.

There wasn't a whole lot in here, mostly touristy information shite and a selection of novels for bored travellers, but she did pick up a map of the ICW states (basically Europe), out of a mix of boredom and curiosity. It had the basic geography of everywhere, sure, but also mapped out all the magical enclaves and shite (anywhere with a public floo), which was neat — she knew very little about what the layout of the magical world was actually like. She didn't even know Britain that well, honestly. So, probably not a bad idea, and it wasn't like she had anything better to do at the moment...

She'd been sitting off on her own looking through the map for a little bit when someone swished down into the seat next to her, something clinking a little with the motion. "You're Liz Potter, right?" There was a noticeable Gaelic accent on the boy's voice, but it wasn't that bad.

Blinking, she glanced up at him — older than her by a few years, long curly hair a reddish-orange, round face dotted with freckles. She had no idea who he was, which was odd, because generally only people who'd actually met her called her 'Liz'. "Yes?"

"Mathúin Mac Aodháin. My grandparents told me about you, I thought I would say hello." When she didn't respond right away — frowning, trying to remember who the fuck he was talking about — he added, "Uilleag and Fiadh?"

"Ah! Right, sorry, I remember now." The Aodháins were some of her neighbours, on the same block a couple houses away — they were some of the ones who made a point of keeping an eye on her, not entirely happy with a thirteen-year-old girl living alone. As completely unnecessary as that was, they weren't that annoying about it. Uilleag had just come by a few times to ask if she needed help with anything, particularly when she'd been tearing out the grass, and Fiadh had tried to invite her to tea a few times, had brought over biscuits and shite until Liz managed to explain she didn't eat sweet things and finally gave up. (Very grandmotherly sort of woman, despite looking too young for it, because mages aged weird.) They weren't being too intrusive, really, and they were friendly enough, so Liz had mostly just been politely brushing them off and not worrying about it. "Um, hello, I guess."

Thankfully, Mathúin did just want to say hello, that was pretty much the end of the conversation right there. Liz wondered whether his grandparents had told him to keep an eye on her for them while she was out of the country, but that was probably being overly paranoid.

They sat in silence for a couple minutes before someone shouted something in Gaelic, and Mathúin said something back, started picking his shite back up to leave; at the same time, Liz felt a familiar mind approaching, Katie flopping bonelessly into the chair next to her. It was less obvious how much taller Katie was than her when she was sitting like that, her chin-length black hair scattered across the backrest. Sometimes Liz thought Katie was distractingly attractive — all tall and athletic and, just, fun — but she tried not to notice. They were on a team together, she didn't want to make it awkward.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"Of course you're just sitting off here reading on your own, I didn't even have to look for you."

There was a flicker of something in Mathúin's head, he shot a glance at Katie, didn't know what that was about. "You know how I am with smalltalk. Besides, I don't even know most of the people over there," she said, nodding over at the crowd, having grown significantly since she'd gone off to the bookstore. Compared to the other magical schools in Britain, Hogwarts was tiny — at least as far as the student population went, Liz thought the Castle and definitely the grounds were the largest of the three — Hogwarts only had one team for each division but the other two had multiple. She had been told exactly how many, but she'd forgotten since. Regardless, lots of people, it was actually getting a little noisy in here.

"You know, that's at least part of the whole point, or why they do it the way they do, so all the kids get to meet people outside of their little enclaves."

"Honestly I'd rather just stick to hexing strangers, actually talking to them is just tedious."

By the feeling of Mathúin's mind, Liz was pretty sure he thought Katie was laughing at her, but she could tell by the warm, light quality of the amusement pulsing off of her that she just thought Liz was funny. But that was fine, her friends didn't get her and Katie either, and it wasn't like it was Mathúin's business.

Over the next little while, people from their team started gathering around Liz and Katie — Oz turned up first, and then Gladwin and Brendan. Cynfelyn and Cass didn't join them, she noticed both of them were in the main group talking to people. Liz put away her map at this point, since concentrating on it would be pretty difficult with the team chatting around her, and also she'd already seen most of it anyway. There were some actual interesting things to talk about, anyway, some last-minute strategy stuff, what magic they'd managed to learn since their last meeting. Everyone was very sceptical Liz could actually do quick-step now — it wasn't easy magic, generally not seen very frequently even in the senior division — but after half a year of practices and things they were used to Liz picking things up quickly, so nobody actually said anything about it. Besides, everyone knew Sirius had fought in the war, and she said they'd been practising and she'd been picking up hexes from him too, so.

Gladwin didn't say it out loud, but he thought it was very unfair that Sirius would practise with her — he had relatives who'd duelled professionally and were in the Hit Wizards or the Aurors, but they were all too busy or whatever. Sucks to be him, Liz guessed.

Finally, after what had to be almost an hour, there was a sharp whistling noise, the conversations around petering out as people looked around. In front of the door they'd gathered around, Clíodhna was standing on a (presumably conjured) stool, her hands raised at her sides for attention. Once everyone was more or less quiet, she spoke at what sounded from the quality of her voice to be a normal conversational volume, but some spell carried it easily all the way over to Liz. "Good morning, everyone. It is almost time for us to leave. We're going to do a headcount quick first, to make sure everyone is here. Try to keep with your teams, so we can more easily find who is missing. An ollscoil, in front of me; Oxford, to my right; Hogwarts, to the left." She pointed right at where Liz and most of her team were already sitting, so that was convenient. A sharp clap of her hands, "Ceort go leor, let's get started."

There was noisy chaos for a moment as everyone moved around, team captains raising their hands and shouting to call their people to them. Thankfully, Liz didn't have to get anywhere near the big mess in the middle, over the next seconds the Hogwarts people split off in their direction, Cynfelyn and Cass coming to them. When they got here, Cynfelyn checked in with Liz quick, and also Katie and Brendan — apparently he'd run into everyone else already at some point. They were also joined by Severus, and an unfamiliar blonde woman in light summer robes. She looked like she was maybe in her twenties, but magical ageing was confusing, so Liz guessed she was probably someone's mum.

While the Irish kids were still organising themselves — Liz thought Oxford might have more students (at least just in the OWL programme), but the Irish school had more duelling teams — the woman walked up to where Liz and Katie were sitting. "Hello, girls, I thought I'd introduce myself quick." There was enough of an accent on her voice Liz guessed her native language was Cambrian, but it wasn't super obvious or anything. "I'm Lleucu Bagshot, I'l be tagging along for the week."

Oh, so she was Oz's mum — glancing between the two of them, there was a resemblance, but it was a pretty subtle one. When Liz thought about it, she guessed it made sense that they had one male and one female adult chaperone, just in case, Liz hadn't really given it much thought. Katie popped up to her feet, "Hello, Missus Bagshot. Katie Bell."

They shock hands, Lleucu giving Katie a little quirk of a smile. "Just 'Lleucu' is fine, dear."

Liz didn't bother standing up, just waved up at the woman from her chair. (Handshakes weren't that bad, but she still preferred to avoid touching strangers if at all possible.) "Liz."

She must know from Oz who Liz was, but thankfully she didn't make a big thing about it, just smiled and nodded down at her and moved on. For Liz's part, she was remembering something about Grindelwald and the Bagshots being related somehow, though she didn't know how closely — close enough that Grindelwald had gone to live with them when he'd fled Saxony as a teenager, but. The thought had occurred to her before, talking to Oz at duelling practice, it'd just never seemed appropriate to ask. They probably got that shite all the time, and Liz knew what that was like...

Anyway, after a little bit of idle chatter, Flitwick came by to count them up — both of the Hogwarts teams were all here, at least. They had to wait a little bit for the other two schools to count everyone, and it seemed they were missing someone from Oxford, some of the adults were huddled up talking about— And then a boy appeared at the bottom of the stairs, closely followed by a man carrying a sizeable suitcase hugged in both arms, the two of them rushing over all red-faced. Cutting it pretty close there, but okay. Clíodhna hopped up on her conjured stool to talk at them again, come on in the door, press in around the edges of the room, there will be instructions from the attendant, let's get going.

Liz waited for the crowd to ooze through the door for a minute or two before standing up, most of the Hogwarts kids lingering behind as well. (After all, pushing in toward the door wasn't going to get them there any faster.) When it was time to get going, Liz hung toward the back of the group with Katie, slowly shuffling forward as the group poured through the door.

There was another odd, tingly feeling pushing against her, warm and almost tactile, she glanced over her shoulder, frowning. She couldn't spot who it was coming from this time...actually it was multiple people this time, she thought, the feeling brushing along her back and down her legs, still didn't know what that was about.

She happened to be looking around, so she spotted Adrian sidling up next to her before he got there. "Hey, Adrian."

"Liz. How's your summer been so far?"

"Eventful." Which was a little odd, she normally didn't do much over the summer, but there'd kind of been a lot going on lately. "You?"

"Rather stressful, honestly — stuff to do with arranging an apprenticeship after graduation, it's a long story. I don't suppose you've ever gone by portkey before?"

"Nope."

"Right, didn't think so. Don't lock your knees, be ready to take a little bit of an impact on landing — not a big one, not much worse than dismounting." From a broom, he meant. "Oh, and close your eyes. There's a lot of spinning, but the visual effects and the magic aren't in sync, I've heard it can be really disorienting for people with magesight."

"Okay, thanks."

"Sure. See you on the other side." Adrian returned to the senior team, huddling up close with Alex Ingham, the two of them muttering about something. They'd been dating for some months now, despite Alex being betrothed to someone else — Liz still thought that was weird, but the nobles could be bloody weird, it wasn't her business.

On the other side of the door was a featureless square room, every surface covered with off-white ceramic tile. As smooth and clean as it all was, it was kind of fucking with Liz's depth perception, even with the people around it was hard to tell how big the room was. They were spread out in a ring around something on the floor in the middle, taking up most of the space, but Liz was too bloody short to see what it was. At the centre waited a man in the same purple and white uniform as the receptionists, standing on a stool to see over the crowd.

Liz grimaced a little at the people pressing in on all sides, shifted around Gladwin to squeeze in next to Katie. The older girl shot her a glance, and without a word, her hand resting on Liz's shoulder for just a moment as they repositioned themselves, Katie put herself directly behind Liz, her mind broadcasting calm, cool and smooth. Not perfectly consistently, other thoughts and feelings slipping in now and then, and it only blocked off a segment of the room, but it helped, a little. "Thanks."

"Sure," Katie said, flat and casual, like it was no big deal.

(If Liz had to have someone pressed up close behind her, she'd rather it be Katie — they were in a trio together, she was used to the idea of Katie having her back at this point. She'd have no idea how to ask, though, thankfully she hadn't needed to.)

The last few people slipped into the room, the crowd jostling a little — people occasionally nudging her, a couple times Katie's hand finding her arm or her shoulder to keep them together — but before too much longer they were all inside. "Is that everyone?" the attendant called, his voice amplified. "Okay, you right there, close the door behind you." There was a brief pause, and then a clunk of the door latching. "Good, thank you. I can't imagine any of you are in the wrong place," with a little drawl, "but this is a private portkey, arranged by Hogwarts Academy, arriving in Jassy at about nine thirty E.M.T. — for those of you unfamiliar, that's eight thirty here, and it'll be eleven at your destination."

...Honestly, Liz had never thought to wonder how mages kept time. She was pretty sure the time in magical Britain was the same as muggle Britain, but...

"You will not be able to hold anything during the transition, so I'll need to secure any loose luggage. A bag with a strap, like this gentleman here," he said, pointing at someone Liz couldn't make out from here, "will be fine, but anything you need to carry will not. If you could levitate all of those up to me, please, I'll shrink them and stow them away." There was a bit of noise and shuffling around as people did that, Liz getting jostled some more, the attendant shrinking them one by one as he went on. "Is there anyone here who's never taken an international portkey before?" Liz raised her hand — it was hard to see, as bloody short as she was, but she was pretty sure she was hardly the only one. "Alright, all of you come up here, in the middle."

Liz was a little reluctant to leave Katie, but noticing that thought suddenly made her feel terribly awkward, she lurched into motion. Pushing through the crowd was a little uncomfortable, but people cleary figured out she was trying to get through, so it wasn't that bad. The thing on the floor turned out to be a big web made out of rope — it looked sort of like a fishnet, though at large scale, the rope too thick and the gaps much bigger, enough for a couple people to stand inside each link. There were maybe a dozen other kids moving up toward the– actually the attendant must have vanished the podium, kneeling in the middle of the web, sticking the luggage into a ceramic box attached to the rope over there. "All of you go ahead and pick one of these cells in the middle," idly waving in a circle around himself, "I'll be by in a minute. Multiple people to a cell is fine, but you'll get very cosy with each other."

That didn't sound pleasant, Liz darted forward to claim one of the 'cells' in the central ring for herself. She noticed the rope wasn't uniform, at a couple points around each hole were smooth bits made of ceramic, obviously a handle, attached nearby something she couldn't quite make out — a strap of some kind, maybe? While she was looking it over, the attendant called, "That's all of you? Right, good. If all of you could bend down and pick up one of the handles, please, I'll be along shortly. More experienced travellers, go ahead and begin securing yourselves, I'll do a final check once I'm done with the newbies."

Liz had been wondering how exactly the attendant was supposed to get around if they were holding up the net, but it wasn't as stiff as it looked, drooping enough that there were still plenty of places he could step over. The handle was definitely ceramic, smooth and cool to the touch, and with some kind of magic to it, sour and clinging. By the feel of the clinginess, she thought it might be a sticking charm of some kind, but she wasn't sure. Distracted feeling out the spell, she wasn't paying attention, was a little startled when the attendant suddenly appeared in front of her. "Other hand," he said, gripping the rope near the handle to hold it up. "Don't want your bag flying off in transit." Oh, right, that made sense when she thought about it — with her right hand holding the thing, if the strap went over her head her bag would only be able to go so far, the rope in the way — so Liz swapped hands without question.

The attendant then yanked at the bundle of leather wrapped around the rope near the handle — yep, that was definitely a strap. She twitched when the attendant's hand unexpectedly clamped over hers, wasps crawling over her skin and her heart jumping into her throat, her arm jerked, as though to pull away, but she managed to stop herself, her teeth grit hard enough her jaw hurt. The attendant wrapped the strap around her wrist, cinching it closed — there was some kind of lining on the inside, smooth and soft, but it still had sharp tines of tension crawling up her arm, she forced herself to take in a deep breath, trying to calm down, her throat not quite cooperating — magic tingling in the strap too, which probably wasn't a great sign, that they needed to strap the passengers onto the thing. (Magic transportation was always awful, maybe even by definition, Liz had a budding theory about nature magic and sacrifice, it wasn't important.) His voice turned fuzzy and indistinct in her ears, the attendant was saying something, but she didn't quite make it out — don't let go, she thought, though the strap would hold onto her if she did, it might make the ride more unpleasant, and she'd probably fall on landing. She practically jumped out of her skin when the man grabbed at her bag, tugging to make sure it wouldn't—

—the fabric of the cloth scratching against her bare skin, Uncle Vernon's hand hot and heavy on her shoulder holding her down, and—

Forcing a hissing breath out through her teeth, Liz squeezed her eyes shut, tightly enough random blotches of colour danced in the darkness. She felt her hand holding the portkey shaking — gripping too tight, her fingers were already starting to hurt — she tried to stop it but it really wasn't working, she concentrated on taking slow breaths one after the other, struggling to calm down.

The echo of it stubbornly lingering around her like a bad smell, it looked like Liz had managed to go from feeling perfectly fine (well, a little uneasy from the crowd, but mostly fine) to freaking the fuck out in the space of five seconds — and over nothing, when the fuck would this stuff, just, stop?! It was ridiculous, she was fine, she knew she was fine, why was she like this...

She really wished people wouldn't touch her without asking first.

It didn't help that she was bloody tied down onto the thing (Liz hated feeling trapped), or when there was another reappearance of that odd tingly feeling, warm and— It didn't really feel like a mind magic thing, a soft pressure approaching her from behind, spread from her waist down her hips and her bum to her legs, the pressure a little harder in some places than others, but where that place was inconsistent, wandering around. This wasn't what any mind magic thing before had felt like, but she didn't know what else it could be. She guessed it could be a Seer thing — none of those nudges had ever felt like this either, she didn't have a better explanation.

Just as she thought she was managing to, slowly, pull herself out of it, the more intense part shifted, and Liz was abruptly reminded of Vernon's hand at the small of her back and hooking around– she had to take a moment to focus on her breathing again. A glance over her shoulder, the rows were offset, so the person straight behind her was actually two rows back — an older boy, Liz didn't recognise him, must be from one of the other schools. He noticed her looking, shot her a sheepish sort of smile before turning to talk to someone next to him.

...Liz had no idea what that was about.

Over the next minutes — Liz focussing on her breathing, unblinkingly staring at a spot on the tile in front of her until it was practically burned into her retinas, trying not to completely lose her shite in public like a fucking crazy person — she managed to calm down...somewhat. She didn't think she was in danger of having one of her bad episodes, anyway, but she was definitely not comfortable, the strap of the portkey cold and sharp around her wrist (she tried not to remember her pants slipping down her legs), and the one on her bag warm and heavy on her shoulder (she tried not to remember Vernon's hand shoving her down), she kept adjusting it (not that that helped), her breath thick and hot in her throat as she took one deep breath in and out, and another, and another, her skin crawling like ants and a headache beginning to pound behind her eyes. So, not great, but this was fine, soon enough they'd be in Romania — it didn't help, that the thing she was tied to was some weird magical object that was going to transport her to the opposite end of the Continent, a thousand miles, who knew the power that went into that — and she'd be able to get this thing off her, and she'd be able to go find Severus or Katie again, and she'd be fine. Or, better yet, she could get a calming potion out of her bag — she hadn't thought it a great idea, she didn't know how much time they had and getting it out and the cap off with one hand would be a pain, but they would have a whole schedule when they arrived, so she probably should, just to get through it all...

"Alright, that's everyone," the attendant called, moving back to the middle of the net (the crawling grew worse, stinging, like wasps). "And excellent timing, we have..." He pulled a watch out of a pocket, plain steel on a matching chain, fixed onto his clothes somewhere. "...about one minute and thirty seconds. Perfect. Keep breathing normal, everyone, try to bend your knees on landing."

It wasn't helping that there was another repeat of that odd pressure against her back, she glanced back to see the boy watching her again. Unthinkingly, feeling too jittery and jumpy, she reached out to his mind to— She jerked, her stomach lurching and her skin crawling sharp and hot, turned back around forward. Focussing on breathing again, she tried not to cringe at the warmth pressing against her, to not, she didn't know, something, not draw even more attention to herself...

He was staring at her bum. That's what that was, that boy was staring at her bum and having sexy thoughts about it.

"One minute. I won't be travelling with you — you'll meet my Romanian counterpart on the other side, he'll take care of any accidents and get your luggage back to you. Try not to swamp the poor bloke, he most likely doesn't speak English."

It could be worse. The boy wasn't thinking about anything particularly creepy, more just like a hmm, that person looks nice sort of thing — actually, from his perspective it felt a lot like when Liz noticed Daphne or Susan or Katie or Narcissa (or whoever) was pretty and got kind of distracted for a moment before she caught herself. Which kind of happened a lot, if she was being honest, but she tried not to be too obvious about it. Though, maybe she was being too obvious about it, if it felt like this from the— No, stupid, they weren't mind mages or Seers or whatever, they wouldn't be able to feel it at all, fuck. It could be worse, she'd actually caught a lot of creepy shite in men's heads before, because paedophiles were a thing — rare, thankfully. There was always something slimy and gross to it, when she'd caught that sort of thing, she'd always just mind-magicked them to ignore her, it was really uncomfortable. This was still uncomfortable, just, not in the same way.

But she really didn't like it. It didn't help that she was trapped at the moment, tied down to the portkey for at least another minute, and she couldn't compel him to ignore her, someone might notice. She was already still on edge from being grabbed at, and she couldn't get— She hated feeling trapped.

And it was still weird that it felt like this, she hadn't noticed anything from— Actually, now that she thought about it, she was usually also in Daphne's head at the time, and it could be pretty hard to tell what feeling was coming from what. She might have just thought this was part of what Daphne was imagining, and ignored it. She hadn't noticed it before with the creepy blokes but, well, if this was a Seer thing, she did suspect that paying more attention to the nudges had made her more sensitive...or maybe not, but more consciously aware of it, at least. This didn't really feel like a Seer thing, but, she was also a mind mage, and funny things could happen when different kinds of magic got mixed up into each other. Or not really different kinds of magic, mind mages were technically a special class of Seers, but that just made it more likely that they could sort of plug into each other a little. Language magics did the same thing — apparently omniglots reacted strangely to magical languages, Babbling could speak parseltongue including the magic part, the ability to give temporary intelligence to snakes and everything, she said the omniglot's intent to understand and the parselmouth's intent to enforce understanding (on snakes, but still) kind of plugged into each other and made a feedback loop, when Babbling had been eight or nine she'd copied it from a parselmouth at the Greenwood in about three minutes, gave her a horrible headache, she'd needed days to sleep it off—

"Thirty seconds. Hold on tight through the whole trip — the straps will keep you on course, but getting dragged flapping around is not much fun, let me tell you."

This was what Severus had meant, when he'd asked if this was what she was wearing, he'd expected something like this might happen. Maybe not that it'd be as terribly uncomfortable as it was, if that was really a Seer thing, but— He should have said— Well, he had said something, but she hadn't understood why, he should have warned her. She was trying to be angry with him to distract herself — eyes crawling on her skin like wasps, the warm pressure against her lifting now and then but coming back a few seconds later, her breath thin and hot in her throat — yeah, it wasn't working. It didn't help that she knew it wasn't really his fault, after all, he wasn't a Seer, he wouldn't have known...probably that she could feel it at all, when she thought about it, he might have assumed if she was comfortable with it...

He might have assumed she'd gone out dressed like this before, but she hadn't. The shorts were new, and— They were kind of little, and tight, she guessed, but she hadn't been thinking about that in terms of what it would look like — Jassy was hot in the summers, and she'd learned she liked close-fitting clothes, just for comfort reasons — and even if she had considered what it'd look like, she wouldn't have...

Honestly, the thought of people looking at her like this just...hadn't occurred to her. She was, well, it was still baffling that Daphne didn't seem to mind.

But if it was going to be one thing, it— Liz didn't really have proper tits at all, but she had needed to get new clothes multiple times because they were getting too small around the hips, even while she hadn't really been getting that much taller. It was noticeable, at least in how her clothes kept not fitting right, though she honestly had no idea how noticeable from the outside. She avoided paying attention to her body at all, really, so it wasn't like she was trying to get a look of her own arse in the mirror or anything... But if there was one part of her that was going to be, er, more developed, she guessed that would be it, yeah, sort of made sense.

She did not like it. She really wished he would stop.

(Unfortunately, wishing people wouldn't even look at her was about as unreasonable as wishing they wouldn't feel things around her all the time. She wouldn't want to not be one, she would have been helpless as a kid, but sometimes being a mind mage sucked.)

Distracted as she was by her own thoughts — her breath hot and thick, hating that boy behind her, angry with herself for not thinking it through, hating her stupid arse, wishing she could be, just, not here right now — she completely missed the attendant giving the count-down. At least, she assumed he must have given one, she didn't hear it at all. She was only drawn out of her thoughts by a jumpy, energetic surge of magic leaping out of the rope at her, crawling up her arm in a flash, far quicker than she could react, latching on to her somewhere around her middle, and then there was a hard yank—

Her feet left the ground, her stomach jumping up into her chest as she fell, and the room around her was gone, her ears abruptly filled with a roar of wind, blasting over her head to toe, her hair and scarf fluttering. The room had vanished, Liz could still see the other kids holding on to the web of rope — she didn't know why the attendant had warned them to hold on, the magic was holding onto her and pulling so tight she doubted she could let go if she wanted to — and even still feel their minds, but there was nothing past them, just a swirling maelstrom of clashing colours, spinning around them as they fell, but she felt the magic dragging her into the portkey, but also back and to the right, jittering a little back and forth as they went. Like Adrian had warned her, the colours seemed to have nothing to do with the direction of the magic, or even the wind, it was quickly making her nauseous, she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to keep her feet under herself, her knees bent just a little, breath hissing through gritted teeth. If she hadn't had so much experience reorienting herself in mid-air during quidditch practice, she might not have been able to manage that nearly as well.

She was too disoriented to try counting, but it was maybe only ten, fifteen seconds before reality came crashing back, the roar of the wind cutting off and the iron-hard grip of the magic finally letting her go. (Liz hated feeling trapped.) Her feet slammed against the floor, but she was ready for it — she did stagger a couple steps, but she managed not to fall over like a clumsy idiot. (A quick glance showed maybe only a quarter of their people had managed to stay standing.) Her fingers shaking a little, scrabbling at the strap, it only took a couple seconds for her to figure out how it was buckled closed, roughly ripped it off, the rope falling limp at her feet. She let out a shaky breath, rubbing at her wrist.

Honestly, that hadn't been so bad. The spinning might have been a bit much, at least it hadn't lasted very long, she'd been worried it might be more like a plane flight or something — she'd never been on one, but she thought those took hours? It hadn't even been much longer than an extended floo trip, and she thought the magic itself had been less unpleasant.

If it hadn't been for needing to be tied to the thing, portkeys might well be her least-unfavourite method of magical travel so far. Since it did, fucking thing, she wasn't looking forward to having to do it again.

At least she couldn't feel that bloke staring at her arse anymore, so she wasn't complaining that much.

This keyport reminded her very much of the one she'd passed through in France, stone and metal and glass, looking very modern and muggleish to Liz's eyes — which made sense, it was probably new. (Romania had gotten about as beaten up in the Revolution as France had, though by the opposite side.) The room they appeared in was done in stone tile, mostly black and blue, with a row of pale pinkish...dog-roses, she thought, all the way around at about head-height. (Her head, she meant, there were enough people in the way she hadn't noticed it at first.) The attendant on this side, in fact, did not speak English. There was a brief greeting in what Liz assumed was Romanian (it sounded vaguely Italian, but Liz was not an expert), the instructions from there in obviously accented but understandable French — she sounded kind of like Valérie's southern friend, especially in the vowels, not getting the nasal stuff right. After everyone's luggage was unshrunk and passed back to them, they were shuffled through the door into a big hallway — also done primarily in black and blue, but with decorations in red and yellow — which didn't really have much in it, apparently just for arriving travellers to walk through to get where they were going, signs pointing off to things here and there.

Liz felt her spine stiffen, that warm, tingling pressure again brushing against her — someone was staring at her arse again. For fuck's sake, she'd just started calming down, too...

Their guide pointed them down a turn, the sign overhead reading Diplomatic Reception — in multiple languages, the only one Liz understood was the French (though one was German-ish) — which was odd, because Liz hardly thought a student duelling tournament was a diplomatic event. Though, when she thought about it, the ICW had probably arranged everything, so maybe it did count. Whatever, a brief walk down a somewhat narrower hall, her steps turning stiffer as she went, her skin crawling, her throat turning hot and thick, someone was still watching her, fuck fuck fuck...

Eventually they came to a rather fancier-looking room, the colours brighter, gold accents glittering in the sun coming in through a bank of windows, some furniture about but much nicer, with finely-embroidered upholstery and the wood bits carved in delicate curving patterns, it was all a bit much. Liz guessed this was the direction dignitaries would be taken through, so, that kind of made sense. There was enough room for them all to hang around, but barely — Liz slipped over toward the edge of the crowd, putting her back to the wall. She might have done that anyway (she didn't like crowds), but she immediately relaxed when the eyes on her bum vanished, letting out a shivering sigh.

Though she didn't actually feel that much better, frustration clawing at her chest, it took some effort to keep breathing normal. She was just so— She hated this, that was all. Hopefully she would get used to it, because she didn't think she could stand it. She really should have worn something else.

Too distracted by her own thoughts, she completely missed that they were being given instructions again. People were shuffling around, Liz wondered whether she should ask somewhat what was going on, before she noticed Oz waving her over — Katie, Gladwin, Oz's mum, and Brendan were already standing with him, apparently they were grouping up by teams. Reluctantly, Liz started making her way toward them, stiffly elbowing her way through the crowd.

She somehow managed not to curse out loud when she felt someone staring at her arse again — for fuck's sake, they were standing so close in here, how were they even finding an angle?! Ugh...

Though, with all the people around, nobody could look for very long, line of sight kept being broken, which she guessed was one upside to being stuck in the middle of far too many people. Their minds pressing in on her was irritating, though — at least everyone was all cheerful and excited about the trip, the energy simmering around her like sauce in a pan, bright and fragrant, so it wasn't too unpleasant — and when the staring came back it always surprised her, once she thought she visibly twitched, bloody thing.

"You alright, Liz?" Oz asked as she sidled up to him. Cass had turned up at some point, so now they were only missing Cynfelyn. "Portkey give you trouble?"

"No. I don't like crowds." She would not be telling them about how people kept staring at her arse, because that just seemed awkward — also, it was happening again, she tried not to shiver, held in the urge to turn and glare at the boy a few steps behind her. Oh, he belatedly realised who she was and looked away, she was only thirteen, beating himself up for being a creep, that was kind of funny...

(Thirteen was old enough in magical Britain, but Liz guessed that the law being creepy and stupid didn't necessarily mean people had to be.)

"Oh, come here," Katie said, waving her over while shuffling a little closer. Oh, well, she guessed people couldn't stare at her arse if Katie was in the way, that was a great idea. Standing so close behind her, Katie did bump into her now and then, especially with the crowd jostling them, but it was only Katie, so that was fine.

Liz idly wondered whether Katie had noticed the shorts, and woah, where had that thought come from? As uncomfortable as she was at the moment, she couldn't spare much attention for it — also, she tried not to be a creep about Katie, she didn't want to make things awkward — but why would she even— This was awful, she didn't want Katie staring at her along with whoever else, honestly...

They were milling around for a few minutes, the air thick with dozens of voices in too small a space and all the minds around her making her tense and jittery, before Cynfelyn managed to squeeze his way through the crowd toward them, a bundle of stiff, almost cardstock-looking paper in his hands. "Right," he said as he reached them, "I think these are in alphabetical order, let's see — Oz, Katie, Gladwin, myself..." Obviously, instead of trying to hand that one to someone, he shifted it to the back of the stack, holding it awkwardly between his pinky and ring finger. "Liz, Brendan, and Cass."

Liz noticed immediately that hers looked different than the others. They were little pamphlet things, in blue and black, the paper thick and hard, about the size of a standard sheet of paper cut through the middle top to bottom. There were letters stamped onto the front in gold, along with an unfamiliar coat of arms thing, but they were in Romanian (presumably) — that word was probably guarantee, but she wasn't sure about the rest. Liz's was in red, and in addition to the gold lettering had an outline along the cover, looking almost like plaited gold threads beaten into the material (but she was sure it was actually paint, which was a neat trick). It opened up, and there were papers inside, some looked to be legal forms of some kind, some of them were rather dense with text — alternating in Romanian and French paragraph by paragraph — Liz squinted down at it, this bit picked at random had something about compensation for...

Gladwin asked before Liz could get to it. "What are these?"

"Certificates of entry — proof of who we are, and that we're here for a sponsored I.C.W. event. Don't lose them. If any of you manage to get in trouble it's supposed to be handled by the I.C.W. courts, without these on you you could end up in Romanian custody before anyone realises what happened." From what Tamsyn had said, Romanian prison wasn't Azkaban bad, but they weren't one of the neocommunalist countries, so their justice system still wasn't great. "Except Liz, you have condition immunity. Do you know how that works?"

"Yeah, I've visited France before, the customs people there explained it."

"Good. Still try not to make trouble — there might not be legal consequences, but the I.C.W. can ban you from future tournaments. Anyway, there's some explanation about how all the legal stuff works in there, I don't expect any of you will do anything stupid but you should still maybe read it before bed tonight. As soon as all the teams get theirs handed out we'll be—"

"Hold on a second," Cass said, frowning a little. "Why is Liz's different?"

"She's a Lady of the Wizengamot, different rules." Cynfelyn didn't explain past that, but Cass just let out a little hum, so apparently that was enough. "Anyway, since we only have the two teams Flitwick didn't have many papers to deal with, it'll take the other schools a few minutes to get everyone sorted. But we'll be getting out of here any minute now. The sponsors will be meeting us in the main hall to walk us to where they're putting us up, after getting settled in there'll be someone to talk to us about the schedule, and from there..."

It took about as long for Cynfelyn to talk through their itinerary for the day, answering a few questions from the team (only some of which he knew the answers for), as it took for the other schools to finish passing out their papers. There was another amplified voice, Liz thought that was Clíodhna again, and they were shuffling through the door. Liz would rather keep near the back, but she was pretty sure they were supposed to stay with their teams — if nothing else, getting sorted into their rooms would be easier if they didn't get all mixed up again — and it wasn't like Liz knew anyone else here anyway, so she put up with getting squeezed through with everyone else. Standing crammed so closely together and occasionally getting nudged back and forth was not helping her nerves.

Thankfully, they could spread out a bit when they got back into a hallway, and then spread out even more so they didn't trip each other up on a flight of stairs. They stepped out into a huge open room, glass ceiling high overhead, scattered all over the place seating areas and coffeeshops and restaurants and shite, for people waiting for their portkey or meeting people or whatever, continuing the colour scheme from downstairs, all looking very sleek and polished and modern. It was reminding Liz very much of the big open hall she'd passed through on her way to the outgoing floos at the keyport in France, though maybe a little smaller, with rather fewer people around. (Jassy wasn't a big international transportation hub the same way Lille was — according to her map Romania had three, in Beltsy, Galatz, and Craiova, but the only international travellers coming through the Jassy keyport were actually going to Jassy. It was the capital of the country, though, so the keyport was still big and fancy anyway.) There was a brief moment of milling around at the top of the stairs, but they almost immediately continued on — it took a moment for Liz to realise they were making for a big British flag hanging somewhere in the middle, presumably where their escorts were waiting for them. The magical British flag, she meant, a red dragon on purple.

Looking closer, there was a second flag a short distance away, which Liz didn't recognise — Portugal, apparently, she overheard someone answering that question nearby. They'd been told that the arrivals of teams were staggered, following the sun, starting with Muscovy, Ukraine, Crimea, and Novgorod, and ending with Britain, Portugal, and Spain, having big flags up must be how they'd decided to show where people were supposed to go. (No Spanish flag, they must have come and gone already.) But, as they got closer, Liz noticed that the British flag was actually split into two segments, the other half showing an ornate golden harp on a deep blue background. Liz guessed that must be a Gaelic thing, which was fair enough, over half of their teams were probably from the school in Ireland anyway. Except, Liz had thought the Gaelic flag was a white sun on green? That was the one she saw at the Refuge now and then. Oh well, not actually important.

(It turned out the white and green one was an explicitly nationalist flag, suggesting support for the Gaelic independence movement — the blue one was more politically neutral, so in retrospect it was obvious the ICW would choose the safe one. Though, Liz thought that they'd felt the need to represent the Gaels at all kind of hinted at an opinion anyway.)

After they were all gathered together under the flag, pausing quick to confirm they hadn't lost anyone in the last five minutes, there was a brief introduction from their guides. Liz didn't know how much good it did — it was in French, and she had no idea what proportion of the kids understood any of it. She didn't hear much of it either, but that was mostly because she felt that warm pressure on her again, her skin crawling, her posture turning stiff with tension.

If they could hurry it up already — she'd like to get to her room so she could change, please.

Liz cringed as they stepped out onto the street, bright and sunny and awfully hot. She'd looked it up, and it regularly got above 30 degrees in Jassy in the summers — it was further away from the sea, so temperatures tended to spike in both directions more than they did almost anywhere in Britain. And Liz was living in Ireland now, which tended to be even milder than London. Honestly, she doubted it ever got as hot as the average July day in Jassy, anywhere in Ireland, ever.

Stepping out of the keyport, the heat was an almost physical force, all but slapping her in the face, the sun beating down on her. The street was made out of some kind of stone, and it'd obviously absorbed the heat through the morning, radiating back up at her, squeezing her from above and below. She pulled the edge of her scarf out a little bit, trying to cover more of her face, and there was a little bit of a breeze, but neither helped much, the humid air seeming to cling to her throat. It only took a minute before she was completely miserable, her headache worsening, sweat beginning to bead under her shirt and the sun harsh on her skin — and it wasn't even noon yet, it was only going to be worse in a couple hours, ugh...

Hopefully she'd get used to it. If she didn't, Syracuse was probably out, if she transferred down there she'd be dead before the holidays.

And it didn't help that she was still feeling eyes on her, pressure roaming over her hips and her legs and— The too hot, too thick air wasn't the only reason her breath was unpleasantly thick in her throat, she could barely breathe, the warmth pressing against her just making the weather even more stifling, the combination of the heat and the sun and the staring— They'd only been walking for a couple minutes before her nerves were, just, shot. She didn't see much of the magical district around them at all, staring blankly at the boots of the person in front of her, all of her attention focussed on trying not to freak out like a crazy person.

It must be obvious she wasn't doing great, she could feel the concern wafting off of Katie, Oz, Brendan. She didn't have the energy to spare for that just now, but she assumed she was going to be interrogated about it as soon as they were in private.

Thankfully, the walk didn't take very long — the Romanians had put their professional duelling ring in the same magical enclave as Jassy's keyport, they hadn't had far to go. (Britain's, on the other hand, was on Anglesey, which sounded like a pain to organise...though she didn't know how long it'd been since Britain hosted, if every ICW country took turns it'd take over fifteen years.) Staring down at the ground, she hadn't seen the building they were approaching, just noticed that their group was slowing down somewhat. In time they passed out of the sun, a tingle of wards sweeping over her, and it was significantly cooler, Liz felt herself relax. She didn't think she'd have to go outside in the day much, which was good, because that had been miserable. And hey, bonus, nobody was staring at her arse at the moment, so it—

Aaaand she spoke too soon, for fuck's sake...

As tense and uncomfortable as she was, she still wasn't paying much attention to what was going on around her, just following the crowd. The floor under her feet was made out of stone tile, arranged into some kind of colourful mosaic, by the echo of voices they must be in a pretty big open space. They crossed through one hall — the Long Gallery, she'd later find out — leading to a big spiralling staircase leading them downward. Sort of like the stairs at the Wizengamot, curving in a slow arch as they descended, though Liz was pretty sure they went down rather further here. As shallow as the stairs were, they were still at enough of an angle that nobody could make out her bum, the absence of the unnerving, almost physical touch against her letting her breathe, finally start getting a look around. The stairs were mostly dark stone — not properly black, more a dark blue, Liz suspected magic had been involved getting the colour — with decorations on the columns and arches in red and gold. Because there were columns and arches, on the inside wall there was a long railing but on the outside there was one arch after another after another, one pillar set higher than the other to accommodate the slope of the stairs. The arches were open, no wall behind them, looking out over...

Well, those weren't windows, Liz was certain — they couldn't all be looking out at the same place. (Also, she was pretty sure they were underground.) Some were views of cities or little villages, in some cases magical enclaves but some of them were definitely muggle, forested river valleys and mountains, in some of them dramatic images of castles or churches or whatever seemingly in the middle of nowhere up a mountain or on a cliff over a river, which seemed impractical but was certainly very pretty. There were people in some of them, a market square here or a café or something here, but mostly it was all outdoor, birds-eye-view shots of neat shite Liz assumed must be in Romania somewhere. They weren't just still pictures, the images animated, looking very real, she assumed they must have been recorded and projected here somehow — they couldn't just be piping the images of things as they were right now in here, because some of them were at night, and that one of a quaint little mountain village right there had definitely been taken in winter, all that snow...

It was pretty neat, Liz guessed, but she didn't entirely get why they'd gone through the effort. Showing off how pretty their country was to visitors, maybe, like trying to get them to go somewhere other than just Jassy and spend some money doing touristy shite? Whatever. It gave her something to look at on the way down the stairs, at least.

Eventually they came to a place their guide called the "Curtea" — um, courtyard, maybe? Liz was pretty sure courtyards were supposed to be outside, which this definitely wasn't, but what did she know. If she understood correctly, it was basically a big long common room, where duellists here for one event or another could hang out when they weren't busy. It was mostly made out of wood, the polished floor gleaming under their feet, the panels broken by stone bricks where they'd put planters, little banks of flowers or trees dotted around. (Liz immediately knew from the quality of the light in here that it was elemental sunlight, for the plants, but she couldn't say how she could tell.) There were little seating areas set up, chairs and sofas and long benches, some of them occupied by people wearing colourful clothing in an eclectic mix of styles, only some of which were at all familiar to Liz — mostly school-age, Liz assumed they were all from foreign teams. Halfway down the overly long hall was a sizeable stand, by the look of it selling coffee or tea and pastries and newspapers and things, many of the people hanging around had a cup of something on hand. A few heads swivelled to their group as they walked in, waves and calls of what Liz assumed were greetings — or possibly taunts, as they were competitors here — just for a moment before everyone went back to their business.

The long hall was split both left and right by a row of columns, the ceiling on the other side rather lower, forming a pair of smaller hallways lining the Curtea. The outside wall had a bunch of doors leading off, their guides pointed toward the bathrooms in here — they were clearly marked, in French — before leading them toward one of the doors. The doors were pretty wide, doubled panels hanging open to let them through, but as big as their group was it still took them a moment to funnel through. (Liz grimaced at the feel of eyes on her arse, come on...) Trying to distract herself, she looked around, noticed there were flags hung flanking the door — one was familiar, a repeat of the split magical British/Irish flag, but she didn't recognise the other three. It wasn't just their door, a bunch of the other doors around had flags too.

With the shuffling of the crowd Liz had drifted a little apart from her team, but there were Katie, Oz, and Brendan at least, she shuffled over closer. "Hey, who are those flags for?"

"That's Holland, Saxony, and, um..."

It was clear Katie was drawing a blank, so Brendan said, "Germany."

"Right. I knew that Saxony's the one with the horse."

"Yes, Bell, Saxony is the one with the horse."

"Oh, go to hell, Prince. There are too many of the damn things, how am I supposed to keep them all straight?"

Katie shouldn't complain, at least it wasn't just stripes of colour with nothing on them. Only one of these was like that — three stripes in red, white, and blue, which Liz was pretty sure was identical to the muggle Dutch flag (though she could be wrong) — at least the other two had identifiable pictures of things. Far too many flags in Europe were just coloured stripes, it was very confusing.

Anyway, there was a tingle of magic going through the door, Liz assumed there was some space-bending effect teleporting them elsewhere. (Magical buildings could be confusing like that.) They walked into what looked very much like the lobby of a hotel — which was basically what it was, so Liz guessed that was appropriate. It was a relatively nice one, everything done in shining polished wood, the ceiling arching overhead, some plush armchairs and sofas around for people to wait. The receptionist's desk had gold accents on it here and there, a couple signs she couldn't read from here, stacks of pamphlets and things. They were told to split up by teams again, so they went ahead and did that, Brendan (the tallest of the group Liz was with) raising his glowing wand above his head to make them easier to spot. Gladwin and Cass showed up before too long, and Oz's mum was already here, so they were just missing Cynfelyn...and Severus, she guessed. Liz leaned against the back of a sofa (so she wouldn't be stared at) and settled in to wait, mostly ignoring the chatter going on around them.

Severus and Cynfelyn turned up a few minutes later, Severus carrying a bundle of papers under one arm. Their team split off from the crowd — though they weren't the only ones, clumps of people here and there starting to break away — heading down one of the side hallways, narrow and a bit dim (but pleasantly so, nothing glaring to the eyes), before long coming to staircase. They went up one, two, three levels, coming out into a perfectly identical hallway. "We are looking for D.-Eleven," Severus said, pointing at a sign on the wall — looked like D11 should be to the right. After a short trip down the hall, they had to take a turn to the left, squeezing past another team that'd apparently taken a different staircase — one of the Irish teams, Liz thought — and before long found the right door.

Instead of giving each of the competitors their own room, or pairing up in doubles, they'd instead put each team in a kind of mini-dormitory. (Liz suddenly wondered if that was what the "D" stood for.) There was a common room in the middle — the walls wood-panelled, the floor covered in thick speckled red-brown carpet, scattered with sofas and little tables — much smaller than the common rooms back at Hogwarts, but they only had nine people, and she didn't know how much time they'd be spending in here anyway. There was a tiny little kitchen area in one corner, but Liz doubted it was up to much more than brewing tea and storing a few snacks. There were four doors leading off, two on each side, into the bedrooms.

Leaning to look inside one, Liz blinked in surprise — bunk-beds. Stacked two high, one against each wall, with dressers and closets for people to put their shite in squirrelled to each side, very compact and modern-looking. Despite being very normal, actually, it was still weird, Liz didn't think she'd ever seen bunk-beds in the magical world before. Honestly, she would have guessed mages didn't even know what bunk-beds were. Each of the bedrooms had their own connected bathroom, with a toilet, a shower, and a bathtub — the bath had dials on the side and seats and shite, looking weirdly like a hot tub to Liz, which, okay.

After a bit of wandering around, Severus called everyone back to the common room. He pointed at one of the doors, said Liz and Katie would have that room, and the one next to it Oz and his mum could share. He paused for a second, Liz thought by the one-eyebrow-raised look silently asking Oz if that was okay — Oz shrugged, so apparently it was. From there, Severus and the boys started talking about how they wanted to split up the remaining rooms — it sounded like Brendan and Cass definitely didn't want to sleep in a room with Severus, which was honestly kind of funny — but Liz didn't bother sticking around to find out, headed for her room.

"I figured we'd each just take half of the room."

"Sure," Katie chirped from a few steps behind, tossing her bag onto the bottom bed on the right. "There'll be showers at the arena, but I'm guessing you're going to want to do that here."

Resting her own bag on her bed, flipping it open to get at her clothes, Liz took a second to roll her eyes at Katie. "Yes, obviously." The rumour had gotten around that she didn't like public showers long before she'd actually joined the duelling team — she assumed someone on the quidditch team must have talked about it and it'd spread from there, but she'd never bothered asking. "I might have to run up here a couple times a day, depending on how gross I get." She leaned a hand against the bed-post, loosening her boot with a tap of her wand.

"I'll probably have a shower in the morning, and maybe soak in the tub before bed — I think it's heated, might be nice, you know." For sore muscles and lingering aches from healed injuries, she meant. To relax after a long day of duelling was probably why that thing was in here in the first place. "You can join me, if you like."

"Yeah, that's not happening." Liz plopped down on the bed, started pulling off her boots.

"I was thinking we'd be wearing swimsuits, I know you wouldn't be comfortable without."

...Did mages even wear swimsuits? She'd honestly never heard of that before, swimming didn't seem to be a thing in magical Britain like it was on the muggle side. When people went swimming in the Lake at school, it was usually in their underclothes (or rarely naked). But, Katie's dad was muggleborn, so her bringing them up didn't necessarily mean anything. Not that it mattered, because, "I don't even own one. I never have." She couldn't swim, actually, but since she'd never been in water once in her life so far, she couldn't imagine how that would be a problem.

"Right, never mind, then. You know, I think we're leaving pretty soon, you should probably keep your boots on."

"I need to change," Liz said, waving the dress in her hand as she stood. "I'll just be a minute."

"Why?"

"I can feel people staring at my arse, it's really uncomfortable."

"Oh, yeah, I imagine that could be."

Didn't know what to say to that — really, Liz should have expected something like this, she hadn't been thinking — so Liz just shrugged and started for the bathroom. She hadn't even quite made it to the door when she felt it again, warm and tingly, a pressure almost like something physically touching her, low on— Liz jumped, spun around, glaring up at Katie. "Hey!"

Katie smirked at her, amusement sparkling in her head. "Sorry, just checking."

...Nope, Liz had no idea what to say about that either. She forced out a huff, stepped through the door — backward, so Katie couldn't see — and yanked it closed behind her.

She winced at the noise, way louder than expected — she hadn't meant to slam it that hard. Oops.

Anyway, she'd also picked up this dress while in France, and while it was a little skimpier than she'd normally wear — the skirt about knee-length, sleeveless, though the neckline was high enough to not show the vest she had on underneath — it wasn't little enough to make her too awkward. Maybe if it were windy, but they'd be inside, so. It was a little tight in the middle, she could feel the cloth hugged around her waist, but she checked in the mirror, and she couldn't really make out anything distraction-worthy, so it should be fine.

And she did like the colour — a deep vivid red, her solid black hair and too-damn-pale skin making it stand out. She'd been maybe thinking of, she didn't know, going out for coffee or whatever on her evening off, with Daphne. In this, she meant. She thought it didn't look completely shite, but who could say, she didn't trust her own judgement on these things. And while it was noticeably cooler inside than it'd been out on the street, it was still a little warm, so. She replaced her scarf around her neck and over her head, keep her hair out of her face, and stepped back out into the bedroom.

She was a little surprised Katie was still here, moving a few things into the closet on that side, her duelling uniform already hanging off one of the rungs on the ladder up to the top bunk. Something about her felt a little off, fidgety, her mind squirming and uncomfortable. "Hey," she said as Liz walked in, sounding about as uncomfortable as she felt, "I didn't mean anything by that, a second ago. I was just joking around."

"What are you— Oh, yeah." The just checking bit, she meant. Liz was pretty sure Katie hadn't been entirely joking around — she didn't think it would have felt like that if Katie hadn't...well, been partially serious about it, at least. She was aware from some of the teasing that went around at duelling practice sometimes that Katie did like both boys and girls, so. But she got what Katie was trying to say. "Yeah, it's fine. Just don't do that kind of shite too much, please. I'm still...you know," she muttered, awkwardly turning to stuff the shorts and tee shirt back into her bag, mostly so she didn't have to look at Katie. She quick loaded up a smaller bag (which she'd also gotten while in France, because dresses never had any bloody pockets), grabbing a few emergency potions (including her calming potion), a wad of...pounds, right, she forgot. Just leave that here, then, she didn't think they'd be getting to the bank today...probably didn't need her draft book or her entry papers...

"Yeah I get it, puberty's a bitch."

Liz let out a snort of reluctant amusement — that about summed it up, didn't it.

Out of a lack of anything better to do — they'd be brought down to lunch and from there get a tour of the venue, but their guide was probably giving them a little bit to get settled in first — Liz wandered back into the common room, the rest of the team trickling in over the next couple minutes. It looked like Cynfelyn had volunteered to take one for the team, splitting a room with Severus while Brendan, Gladwin, and Cass shared the remaining one, which wasn't really a surprise, people could be odd about Severus. (Again, she wondered how exactly Severus and Brendan were related, but it would probably be rude to ask.) They'd just started talking, wondering how long they had to wait here and when they'd be given the Book, when Severus briefly paused behind Liz's chair, leaned over to mutter that he needed to talk to her for a second, swept off toward Liz and Katie's room. Which, okay then, she couldn't have fucked anything up already...

Liz closed the door behind her, assuming whatever Severus wanted to talk to her about alone was going to be private. "What is it?"

"Is something wrong? You seemed to be having trouble earlier."

She failed to hold in a sigh — she didn't want to talk about people staring at her arse in general, and especially not with Severus. She'd rather any conversation with Severus not involve her body in any way, just on principle. (Though she realised that was never going to happen, since he was her guardian and also practically her paediatrician, or whatever the proper word was, so.) Though, she was also curious. "Can you feel it when people look at you?"

One of his eyebrows ticked up, his mind lurching with surprise and confusion. "How do you mean?"

"You know, I can feel people's attention on me. It's warm, in an uncomfortable, clingy, muggy sort of way, and kind of prickles? It's more unpleasant if they're thinking something unflattering, it's not so bad if they like me." She was picking up on a shifting uncertainty, Severus giving her an odd look. "Is that not something that happens to you? I thought it was a mind mage thing."

"No, that's certainly not mind magic. I receive sympathetic echoes of feelings and thoughts strong enough to create an impression on the magical environment, or if a mind is broadcasting particularly loudly—" Like Liz herself, he meant. "—but aside from that, I know very little of minds I am not in direct contact with. The physical sensations you describe are also entirely unfamiliar to me — other people's feelings to me seem as magic, or else as an echo of the feeling itself."

Liz frowned. "Other people's feelings usually feel like that to me. I mean, not the same thing, but it's a..." She waved her hand vaguely, coming up completely blank on the words. "...a physical thing, you know, sometimes coming from outside and sometimes not, depends."

With something unpleasant and sharp flashing in his head — like a hundred cold knives pressing against her skin and a tang of copper in her mouth, which was apparently not normal, she'd thought it was normal — Severus bit out a short but harsh sigh. "Of course. You're an empathic legilimens."

"Um...what's that?" That had to be a technical magic term, because anybody could tell Severus that empathy wasn't exactly her strong suit.

"A somewhat imprecise term for when a talent for mind magic and psychometry coincide in the same individual. The possibility should have occurred to me before — you are a Seer, and certain of your intuitions have been...quite suggestive. I apologise for not thinking of it earlier."

Well, Liz wasn't sure why it should make a difference — they'd already known she was a Seer and a mind mage, she wasn't sure that being a special kind of Seer-mind-mage combo actually changed anything — so she didn't really think that apology was necessary, but. "It's fine. I'm not a– I don't have psychometry, though. I mean, I know my blood test thing said I have the potential for it, but I thought that was all about, like, feeling the history of objects and shite, and I don't get any of that."

"Psychometry is not a receptiveness to echoes of the history of objects, but the echoes of experiences associated with those objects. It is the intent of the crafter or the feelings of the people who handled it the Seer perceives, not sterile knowledge. Or more rarely strong historical or cultural associations with similar objects — for example, individuals with the talent often find they cannot stomach sugar."

It was obvious what he was trying to say with that, Liz wasn't that much of an idiot. "But I don't like sweet things in general, not just ones made with sweeteners that were mass-produced with slave labour for centuries." She was almost positive that was why a lot of Seers couldn't eat anything with sugar cane in it, anyway. "Also, I wear cotton all the time, and shouldn't that have the same problem?"

One of his eyebrows ticked up. "You do frequently wear cotton, but you find your formal robes made of silk and leather to be more comfortable." Okay, true, but that wasn't why, though... "And Seers in the past have noticed an intolerance for alternative sweeteners as well. Especially when young, the Seer may not understand why they find sugar to be so terribly unpleasant, and may develop an aversion to the taste regardless of whether the underlying cause is present. An artefact of how the mind draws connections between experiences, you understand." She did, obviously, she was a mind mage, but she still didn't think that was why she didn't like sweet things. "Your own Sight seems to be focussed primarily on the current moment and the immediate future, perhaps as a consequence of how your gift for mind magic was triggered, but I would not be surprised if you find it begin to broaden over the next years. Something else to keep an eye on."

Of course, another bloody thing, she wasn't even really surprised. And this was getting too weird and confusing and uncomfortable, she'd rather go back to the thing they'd gone off alone to talk about in the first place — which was slightly ridiculous, considering how much she hadn't wanted to talk about that either. "Whatever, I'll think about it. That's what was bothering me earlier, the feeling people's attention on me thing — specifically sexy attention, on my bum." There was a flash of something cold and unpleasant, quickly followed by squirming discomfort. Honestly, Severus being uncomfortable just made her feel less awkward about it, which continued to be bloody weird — that kind of happened a lot, though she still had no idea why. (She was pretty sure it was just because she was particularly freakish at times, but whatever.) "Yeah, not pleasant. That's why I changed, and, I should be fine now, I think. So."

Severus hesitated, clearly uncomfortable — though, Liz was a cheater, his face was still flat enough she doubted anyone else would be able to tell. Honestly, the hesitation was brief enough she kind of doubted anyone who wasn't a mind mage would notice that either. "I see. You are coming to an age where that sort of thing is going to start happening." He somehow managed to keep entirely off his voice how very uncomf– furious and disgusted he was with the idea — Liz was only thirteen (though only for a few more weeks!), Severus thought she was still too young — and that he'd probably be fantasising about gouging the eyes out of anyone he caught looking at her funny.

She had no idea if that was supposed to be amusing, or even if she was supposed to catch all that in the first place, but she felt an unconscious smile pulling at her face, she couldn't help it. For a second, she considered telling him that everyone she'd actually noticed today had been other contestants, older than her but not by that much, but she doubted it'd make a difference. And then she considered telling him that she had come across paedophiles before, but that just seemed cruel. "Ah. Yeah, I guess, I just didn't think—" She cut herself off before she could admit that the thought that random people might think she was worth staring at had just never occurred to her — that seemed like the sort of thing that would lead to a talk, about feelings and Dursleys and her issues about herself she was already entirely aware of, thank you, and she wasn't in the mood for that. "It honestly wasn't that bad at first, didn't realise what was happening and I was mostly just confused, but then the portkey bloke back in London grabbed at me without warning, and tugging on the strap of my bag, and I had a— You know, yeah. Um. I'll be fine, though."

Severus clearly didn't like that she'd had a flashback moment in public (and hadn't said anything), but he tried to push back whatever that was he was feeling, kept his face mostly neutral. "Very well. Do you not have a calming potion on you?"

"No, I do, I just— I was already tied to the portkey, so I wouldn't have been able to get it out. And by the time I could, I thought I should be able to get by without it. That was before I realised people would keep looking and setting it off, though, I probably should have taken some, in retrospect." No matter how awkward it would have been to pull out a potion in public like that, people would have noticed. Honestly, she didn't like that she needed potions to keep herself from losing her bloody mind sometimes, it was annoying (and embarrassing), she tried to avoid taking them in public if she could help it...

"For the return trip, I would recommend taking a small dose ahead of time."

"That's a good idea, remind me to do that. I don't like being tied down to things."

There was a flutter of something in Severus's head, he gave a solemn sort of nod. "I'm not comfortable with it either, honestly." Yeah, if Liz had thought to wonder about it, she might have guessed. "If you're having trouble in future, tell me, and I'll ensure you have a moment alone to collect yourself."

"We had to stay with the group."

"We would have caught up — I knew where we were going, and I could have asked Flitwick and Lleucu to hold our things for us. It wouldn't have been any trouble."

...Oh, well, okay then. "I'll keep that in mind for next time." Liz didn't doubt that there would be a next time she lost her shite in public. That was just how things were, unfortunately.

A moment later, they returned to the common room, Liz following a few steps behind, surreptitiously watching him. She felt...odd right now, though she couldn't say exactly how. It still didn't occur to her most of the time that there was an adult around that she— It was just weird, that was all. It'd been a good year or so now, and she still didn't know how she felt about him, them.

It wasn't a bad feeling. Just, odd.