Once inside, they took off their wet coats, boots, and socks and set them in front of the brazier to dry. It was a bit chilly but infinitely better without their wet things on. Jane had seemingly planned ahead for such a predicament. It looked to Hermione's eyes like she was paging through an invisible book. A profusion of clothing instantly popped out of nowhere, plopping neatly into her waiting arms. She handed a light blue sweater, a pair of socks, and a pair of slippers over to Hermione. Jane had already slipped herself into a vibrant red sweater and began pulling on the warm, dry socks.

"I was a camp fire girl," Jane said, answering the unasked question. "And my dad was a boy scout... always be prepared and all that."

And with that, she put on her apron and began to pull ingredients out of the cupboards briskly. The sounds of clattering bowls filled the room. She cheerfully gave Hermione directions on what needed to be started first. There were two different types of buttercream frosting she intended to use.

Italian buttercream would be used on the outside as it didn't tend to get melty straight away. The filling inside would be French buttercream prepared using the pâte à bombe technique. French buttercream frosting tended to be very fiddly and melted easily, which was why it was a better pick to fill the cake. It was also why she would be making it herself, as the recipe was rather difficult even for the most experienced home baker. She directed Hermione to make the Italian buttercream. The recipe she had was modified first by her father and then she'd made her own adjustments which made it easier and, most importantly, tastier.

Pointing out all the ingredients and her very own recipe book, complete with hand written alterations, she watched carefully as the young witch prepared the frosting. She could tell the girl was nervous as she had admitted to not being much of a cook. It didn't matter and Jane told her so. All she really had to do was follow the directions.

You didn't need to be an expert baker to make good frosting, in her opinion. Hermione had lots of questions which interrupted her own work, but Jane didn't mind all that much. She could make frosting in her sleep and helping a friend out was really no trouble. The one impression Hermione was left with was that Jane Crocker would have made an excellent teacher.

It was by no means an easy recipe, but Hermione thought she had acquitted herself very well. The frosting was light and buttery and it tasted amazing. She gave it to Jane for a final test and it was approved with a smile. Setting it aside as Jane had yet to finish the filling, Hermione settled for watching her work. It was fascinating to say the least. Her movements were easy and economical as she was perfectly at home here. Despite the complexity of the recipe, she was able to converse with Hermione without difficulty. All the while, she traded stories with Hermione about family and friends.

While talking, she noticed something strange - while Jane stirred there was what could only be described as fire emanating from her skin. It was light blue in color and ran from her hand to the spoon straight into what she was cooking. Jane noticed her rather indiscreet staring and gave a little cough.

Hermione started, realizing she'd been caught. "I'm sorry. It's just... I've never seen anything like it."

"Well, I wouldn't expect that you have," Jane remarked with a shrug. "It's just part and parcel of my particular Aspect. Whenever I'm cooking it flares up. It likes to be a part of things like this and I guess it just can't help itself."

"You talk about it as if it's alive."

"In a way, it is - it's Life, after all. And I'm Maid of it," she chuckled, taking particular joy in Hermione's look of confusion. "I think it flares like this when I'm cooking because food is such an essential part of life for all of us. It's a bit embarrassing when someone who isn't used to it sees me do it for the first time, but it does have its advantages. Life as an Aspect has healing properties. So it means whatever I cook is infused with those properties. I've always felt like cooking for people is a way to give something of yourself in the most elemental fashion - my power just makes it more literal."

"Made of life..." Taking this all in, Hermione hummed softly. "So, Life is your Aspect. Isn't there another bit to your title though?"

"I see you didn't get my terrible joke." Jane smiled and gave her a little wink. "I'm THE Maid of Life. Get it? My whole title is a pun. The Maid of Life who is made of life. Very silly but the Game is full of things like that. Look at John's title - Heir of Breath. Air as in the air we breathe and as the heir he inherits the wind."

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to be rude, but what does this game have to do with anything? You've mentioned it twice."

Jane looked as if she'd been slapped. "I don't understand. The Game... it's why we have our powers! I mean, I wasn't born with this, not really. None of us were. We all won the right to wield our power this way via the Game. Roxy told you, didn't she? How else could you explain-" Heart beating extremely fast, she looked at the young witch who wore a look of complete confusion. Inhaling shakily, she put down the frosting she'd been mixing. "She... she didn't tell you, did she?" The dread she felt was palpable as she saw Hermione shake her head slowly. "God, she didn't."

She turned around abruptly, inwardly fuming and trying desperately to figure out the best way to explain everything. Slamming her hands on the counter, she said forcefully, "Well, there's nothing for it. Hand me that pastry bag."

Alarmed, Hermione did as she was asked, handing the pastry bag over to Jane warily. With nimble grace, she placed the cake onto a small raised plate so she could apply the frosting. Carefully, she spooned the French buttercream into the bag and twisted it sharply, and she turned back to the cake and squeezed the frosting out onto it. As she worked, she began to speak.

"First of all, I don't want you to be angry at Roxy that she didn't tell you. I'm not happy about it but I understand why she didn't. Roxy... well, what you have to understand is the way she grew up... I mean, it's her story to tell and if she hasn't, I won't break her trust by saying anything. But it was isolated and she was very lonely. Her only friends were me, Dirk, and Jake for the longest time."

She paused briefly to align the top part of the cake with the bottom, pressing it down gently but firmly. "Because of her situation... her friends are more like family to her. Heck, it's that way for all of us to greater or lesser degrees. I'm sure you understand. Anyway, sometimes when it comes to stuff like this - Roxy can get a little irrational. She gets it in her head that she needs to protect you and then does something reckless and counterproductive. She once blew up my computer in hopes of preventing me from playing the Game. In the end, she was right to be suspicious, but..." Jane looked up at the ceiling with a little shrug. "This is no different. So, please don't judge her."

"Wait, Dave said they were all related... he, Roxy, Dirk, Rose... if that's true then-"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Jane chided as she portioned out the Italian buttercream into smaller bowls. "I'll get to all that because it's all sort of interconnected. You asked about the Game. So we'll start there."

As she squeezed food coloring into one of the smaller bowls and began to mix it, she started speaking slowly. "The name of the game as we knew it was SBURB, and I urge you never to repeat it and I will only ever say it once. It was billed as a multiplayer virtual reality video game with world building elements. According to all the advertising, it was supposed to be the next big gaming innovation. It was supposed to 'change the world' and it did... but not the way anyone thought it would," she said with a little tremulous laugh. "What all the slick merchandizing failed to mention was that minute you installed the damned thing it'd bring about the end of the world."

She paused, eyes narrowing. "Honestly, when I say that out loud it sounds insane." Shaking herself, she had begun carefully pouring out frosting onto the cake. "And if I hadn't experienced it first-hand... if I was in your shoes right now, I suppose I'd think that whoever told me such an outrageous story was as mad as a hatter. There are days where I wish that it was some tall tale a crazy person came up with. That it didn't really happen, but it did and we all have to live with it somehow."

She went very quiet for a second or two, her brows furrowed as she mixed a second color into the smaller bowls of frosting. In the seemingly endless quiet, Hermione could not help but voice the question that had been bubbling inside her. "I'm not saying I believe you but... if it's true... well, once you knew what would happen, you could have just refused to play."

"Well, here's the thing. Roxy knew and she told me beforehand, hence her attempted sabotage of my computer. And just like you, I didn't believe her. Who would?" She laughed again; it was a terribly tired sound. "Like I said before, she tried to keep me from playing it. But the Game doesn't make anything that simple. On the surface, it seems very easy... and I suppose if you think about it a certain way it was." And she exhaled shakily, her eyes taking on a slight sheen. "Our planet... our entire universe had been marked by the Game for destruction from day one and the only way to escape it was through the Game. Whether or not we installed it was irrelevant. It boiled down to whether we wanted to live or die. And despite all our reservations, we all chose to play. We chose to live."

"Marked? What do you mean?"

Carefully spooning blue frosting into a pastry bag, her lips thinned momentarily. "The Game chose our planet and marked it using a game construct, a temple, which was placed through a temporal portal and sent to our earth. Even the players were chosen because we were meant to... we were made to play it, sending us back through those same portals like some weird living portents of doom. So, really, there wasn't a choice at all. Temporal destiny fucked us good, which is the way Dave described it at one point," Jane said with a sardonic eye roll.

"Roxy said something about... that I wasn't made for the things she dealt with," Hermione exclaimed with a little gasp. Her brows furrowed suddenly in thought, piecing strands of information together as the puzzle began to knit itself together. "Is that what you meant about all of this being interconnected?"

Biting her lip as she carefully formed a flower petal out of frosting, she nodded her head affirmatively. "Yep! The process behind it is a little esoteric and hard to explain. But put simply, we were all created by the game, not born like normal people. Dirk and Roxy, Jake and I, were genetic bases for four other players - John and his friends. So while Rose is actually Dave's sister, Roxy and Dirk are more like their parents. But because of game time shenanigans, we're all the same age. Doesn't make sense to call someone dad when you're both the same age, does it. And none of us were ever meant to meet had we played the game as intended."

Without preamble, she went into further details about the game as she decorated the cake. Apparently there were two sessions, Alpha and Beta. John and his friends were part of the Beta session and had played the game first, which seemed illogical but that was par for the course, really. The point of the Game itself was to create a new universe. In John's session, it was viable and therefore able to create a new universe but unwinnable due to a strategic flaw. The players could chose to ride out the session and die or scratch it - restart it entirely with new parameters.

Jane made it very clear that restarting was not much better than death. In the new session, John and his friends would switch places with those that were their parents or guardians on their version of earth. In the new reality, it'd be Jane and her friends, their parents, who played while John and his friends would take on the more passive roles as their guardians. They would lose all memory of who they were before and all that had happened to them. Jane wasn't clear on the details, but they had somehow figured out how to retain their memories and join the new session intact. It involved a three year journey and a yellow yard and help from players in an entirely different universe, none of which were fully explained.

"Well, what happened when they entered your session?"

"We won and created a new universe," Jane replied simply, standing back from the now beautifully decorated cake.

"And that's it?!" she exclaimed incredulously. The ending of such a story, whether it was true or not, left a lot to be desired. It was as if Jane Austen had ended 'Pride and Prejudice' abruptly in the middle with "and they got over their issues completely and were married. The End." A fact Hermione wasn't shy about pointing out.

"We don't really have the time for the whole sordid tale. We'd be here for at least a week if I explained everything." Hermione gave her a look that was positively mutinous. "I've told you the most important points. Except one." A troubled look flitted over her pretty face. Instead of immediately explaining the comment, she began to clean up as if giving herself time and space to explain the next bit.

"Which is?" Hermione had hoped she didn't sound too impatient, but the truth was, well, she was dying for an answer. Even though the story was nigh unbelievable, it had the ring of truth about it and even if it wasn't true, it was a very good tale. Besides, Jane didn't seem like a person to whom lying came all that easily - especially a lie of this breadth and scale.

"I mentioned that John's session contained a critical flaw that made it impossible for them to win. The flaw wasn't there by accident but by design. It was put there by a rather malevolent entity that shall remain unnamed, for safety's sake. This entity engineered this flaw and placed it in order to allow his 'employer' to enter our universe and to give him unimpeded access to both our sessions." Almost as if she could hear the question before it was asked, she continued, "This employer of his was... a demon, I guess it's the best way to put it. This demon had been cutting a swath of destruction through various universes for a very long time. Ours was only one in a long string to suffer his influence. The damage done to the fabric of reality by his rampage was... extensive."

"That's why you're here, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is. He had quite the grudge against, well, reality itself. The fact that the whole point of the Game was the propagation of existence..." Jane trailed off with a jerky shrug. "Anyway, he hijacked the Game's own mechanics against it so that he could continue his reign of terror. We were the unlucky schlubs who pulled the short straw and had to deal not only with beating the game but dealing with him as well. We did it, but it'll never be over until the fabric of space-time is healed, which, as you might imagine, has not exactly been all that easy."

The seriousness of what they were doing hit Hermione right then. It was easy for her to somehow pretend that whatever they were here for wasn't all that dire. The lackadaisical American way of going about things had perhaps blinded her. There was one thing that did confuse her.

"Why tell me all this? You implied earlier that I ought to know... but I think Roxy is right. This is beyond me."

"Well, you're still in school, still learning," Jane corrected gently. "Besides, from what I've read of you and your friends, you all have handled things most adults couldn't deal with." That garnered a small smile. "And in four years, you'll truly be a force to be reckoned with. That's why we're here after all! Well, firstly, because we will need your help quite badly. And secondly, when we first met you in what will be your future you knew a whole lot about us. So obviously, we had to go back and make sure it happened, lest we create a paradox. I guess we all assumed it was Roxy that'd tell you. Turns out it was me. Either way, you know what you need to now. So, paradox averted!"

It strangely hurt to hear that the only reason they came was to give her information she needed. They had treated her very much like a valued friend, but once again... would she only ever be a valuable font of information? Jane could see where her train of thought was going. Wiping her hands off on her apron, she touched her shoulder and rubbed it gently.

"I know what you're thinking. But you're wrong. Dave and Roxy had one job. Tell you everything I just told you. Instead, they frogged around because they were having such a good time hanging out with you. Leaving me with all the dirty work," Jane complained, though it was obvious she wasn't all that bothered. "Roxy for all her faults is a great judge of character. So if she befriends someone, it's pretty much guaranteed they are objectively a great person. And she wouldn't have insisted on this party if she didn't consider you a friend. Dave is the very same way, being her son and all. It may have started out as a mission but in the end they got so attached to you that they couldn't stand being the bearer of bad news."

"Aw! D'ya really think all those nice things about me?" chimed a very familiar voice, wearing a Chesire cat grin a mile wide. "Makin' me feel mad guilty over here for ostensibly shirking the shit outta my one job." Roxy had the good grace to grimace a little at her admission.

Jane's eyes narrowed a bit before her expression softened into fondness. "Yes, I do mean all those nice things and yes, you should feel guilty, you big horse's caboose."

"Sorry," she said though it sounded more like a question than a statement. "Ya mad at me?"

Jane made a very familiar flat expression that implied exasperation. With an eye roll, she shook her head. "I really ought to be but everyone knows I can't. I mean, look at that face."

Roxy beamed happily, skipping over to give Jane and then Hermione a bone crushing hug. Her attention was quickly diverted by the confection sitting innocently on the counter. "Yay! CAKE!"

She swiped a finger-full of frosting off the recently decorated cake. Jane gave an indignant squawk, slapping her friend's hands away irately. She gave her a dirty look before shoving the now empty bowl of frosting into Roxy's hands, mumbling the entire time about having to fix the damned cake.

While she re-piped the side of the cake, she turned to Roxy, who was happily licking frosting off a spatula. "So, where are the boys?"

"Oh, they're still outside, probs," she said, her eyes twinkling mysteriously as if she was more than clear where they were.

Jane shook her head as she dried a fork with her towel. "I assume you won the snowball fight?"

"Handily," Roxy replied with a wicked grin. "Dumped about three feet of snow I pilfered from the top of the Rockies on 'em. They should be digging themselves out-"

The rugs covering the door were thrown open as Dave stomped inside. "Right now, you mean?! And it was more like six feet of fucking snow, you ass."

John tromped in shortly thereafter, mumbling disconsolately, "I got snow in places I didn't know snow could go."

Both of them looked bedraggled, Dave's hair hand gone completely flat while John's was a twisted wreck. Their clothes were rumpled and clotted with snow that had begun to melt. Both were shivering badly. Jane immediately made them sit down and take off their wet things, handing out more sweaters and socks as she guided them to sit by the fire. Mugs of hot cocoa were stuffed in their hands unceremoniously. Roxy told Hermione that she could use her magic if she'd like, as it wouldn't register thanks to her 'sleeper' power. So she carefully cast a drying and a warming charm on their clothes. It was the first time she'd used her own magic in front of them and was embarrassed by how impressed they were.

"Wow, your powers can do really useful stuff," John complimented, sipping his hot cocoa loudly. "Wish our powers were that versatile. I mean, making tornadoes is cool and all, but it'd be nice to have it do simple stuff - not just junk for fighting monsters."

"Oh, it wasn't anything special," Hermione spluttered, her cheeks flushing. "A simple spell I learned in my first year."

"Bullshit. You dried my kicks. I owe you a fucking life debt," Dave insisted, fishing out a marshmallow with a spoon messily and eating it. His feet wiggled a bit in his shoes, which were now quite dry and comfortable.

Shortly thereafter, cake was handed out. It was as delicious as everything else had been. Hermione thought she might be imagining it, but she felt warmer and more at peace after having eaten it; as if healed from the inside. All the stress and upset she'd been feeling just melted away. There was only a little melancholia leftover - knowing that eventually she'd have to say goodbye to all these wonderful people... no, wonderful friends. And she wouldn't even see them again for a full four years. So she drank the scene in. John and Dave were laughing uproariously at some strange in-joke only understood by the two of them. Roxy chattering companionably, her hands fluttering excitedly while Jane listened with a small smile on her face. They both turned to her, including her in on the conversation. It was a completely silly discussion on the different kinds of things one could use in lieu of a makeup sponge.

"You wouldn't be able to use a hardboiled egg that way. The shell is weakened by the warmth of the water and it'd just start peeling off and getting mixed up in the foundation, and end up all over your face. You would in the most literal way possible have egg on your face," Jane pointed out acidly. "Don't try and debate me on this, Roxy."

"Okay, okay! Oh, Queen of Cooking," Roxy replied, waving her hands in a placatory fashion. "So what about a raw egg?"

"A raw egg wouldn't be much better. It's not really pliable enough to work properly," Hermione sighed. "And heaven forbid it breaks. It'd make a right mess then."

"Okay, then what if you took the shell OFF the hardboiled egg?" Roxy asked, her lips tipped up mischievously. "Like, use the egg meats underneath to sponge the makeup on."

Jane and Hermione made twin exclamations of disgust while Roxy cackled - pleased that this hypothetical discussion had born the fruit she'd been growing the entire time. The rest of the afternoon played out in the same fashion. Most of the conversations were silly and occasionally ridiculous. At one point, Roxy had dragged out her phone to reveal that it didn't just take still pictures. It had a video function and well. They spent several minutes viewing Roxy's favorite cat videos. She had laughed more in that short time than she had in weeks. But all too quickly the day came to an end. Saying goodbye was as hard as she'd imagined. There were a lot of tears on all sides. But the promise of seeing them again, even if it was in four years, buoyed her a bit.

"How will we be going back?" she asked, her voice congested with tears.

"I'll be taking you," Dave stated with a nod. "Me and Roxy ran into a bit of a problem couple days back."

"Pretty sure we're suspected," Roxy confessed, her nose wrinkling. "Good Mr. Potter noticed us the last time we spoke. We both thought it'd be better if we delivered ya back a bit sooner than normal."

"He confronted me before I came here," Hermione admitted. "Wanted to know who you were."

"Good thing we'll be getting you back around eleven. Hopefully you have a good excuse ready," Dave said, one shoulder lifting up laconically.

"I'll be going first. Gonna send Dave a text when I'm sure the coast is clear, okay?"

Where Roxy once stood there was a shadow which stood there for one a moment before disappearing into the dark, swirling void. There were several long minutes while they waited. Jane was trying to hold back tears as she said goodbye, giving Hermione one of several dozen hugs. John stood next to her, patting her back comfortingly with a perplexed look on his face. He also gave her an awkward hug, promising her that he couldn't wait to meet her for the first time in four years. He made a strange comment about being just like someone named Karkat because he was trolling her backwards.

"Don't worry," he said jovially. "My future-past self is gonna tell your future self what that means so you get the joke. Or I guess your future self could just ask Karkat's future-past self, which would be pretty hilarious. Anyway, you'll have to let me know then how funny you think it is."

And then Dave's phone chimed. With a grim nod, she walked over to him, waving at her friends one last time. Then there was that sensation of falling dizzily off a cliff and the monastery disappeared. Seconds later they were on the Astronomy Tower several hours before their party had even ended. Above all else, this final departure was what she had been dreading. Both she and Roxy had a hard time keeping tears from coming. In the end, they both just let them come and did nothing to wipe them away.

"I got your bookbag," Roxy sniffled, holding it up a bit unnecessarily. "All your homework's been checked and doubled checked. Left you a bunch of notes... probably be good for the next couple months, I hope. I also gave you my second favorite pen. Writes real good and since I made it with weird game shit it won't get fucked up by magic."

"Thank you," Hermione whispered, wiping her face with her palm. She was quiet for a long moment. "What I am going to do without you... both of you?" She looked from Roxy to Dave, her lips trembling.

Roxy smiled and it was very brittle. "You managed just fine without us 14 years..."

"T-that wuh-w-was befuh-f-fore," Hermione stammered. As if by some secret signal, they both embraced each other. "I duh-d-don't want you to guh-g-go."

Roxy released her, gently cupping her friend's face. "I don't wanna go either. But I gotta. Y-you know how important what we're doing is. Can't fuck it up like I did with telling you all that dumb shit I didn't tell ya." She embraced her a second time and gave her cheek a little peck. "As your official big sister, cus don't think we ain't adopting your ass, be careful, okay?" Roxy didn't let go of her arms until she received a nod in the affirmative. "Good. Gonna miss the fuck outta you."

It was Dave's turn next. He sloped over in the same lackadaisical fashion as when she'd first met him, a person with all the time in the world but unfortunately other places he had to be. "So, time to go," he enunciated carefully, his entire mien was adorably awkward. "I ain't one for long goodbyes. Soooo study hard, I guess, and all that other after school special shit. Just... just give 'em hell."

"Give who hell?" Because there was no way she'd let him get away with that being the last thing he said to her for four whole years.

"Everyone all the time, that's who." She lifted her eyebrows at him expectantly. There was more in him, she knew. He toed the ground nervously. "Seriously though, you're cool as hell. I know it's rough for you right now, but you'll get through it. Cus you're a fucking badass. I ain't gonna be time buddies with any old dipshit who can't throw down. And clearly you ain't no dipshit and you got a mean right hook," he said this with a conspiratorial wink that was baffling as it was amusing. "But seriously, you're one of the smartest women I know, and I know a lot of smart ladies." At this Hermione smiled wanly as she continued her futile attempt to brush back her tears. "So, you go fuck some shit up. Make some boys cry. I know you got it in you." This got a laugh out of her as they fist bumped. "It's been real though."

He hugged her tightly and pressed a kiss to her temple. She blushed a deep beetroot red as he pulled away, ruffling her hair affectionately. When she looked at him she saw that he wasn't as unaffected by their parting as it seemed. He didn't cry like Roxy, but his mouth was thin and his entire face was tight as he valiantly attempted to control his emotions. No one mentioned it when he lifted his aviators to scrub at the area around his eyes.

With all their final goodbyes said, it was time to go. He grabbed Roxy's hand, knowing he didn't really need to. But dramatic effect was always a plus in these moments, he'd found. The gears turned, a chime sounded and he and Roxy were pulled back through time, leaving her alone on the Astronomy Tower.

Hermione stood there for a long time, staring out into the bleak winter sky with her arms wrapped around her middle. She didn't even bother batting away the tears as they froze on her cheeks. Eventually she composed herself enough to leave. She visited a bathroom on the way back to Gryffindor Tower so she could pull herself into a better semblance of normalcy. Thinking about it, she supposed it wouldn't be all that strange that she'd looked like she'd been crying. After all, she had been doing it quite a bit. But it was a point of pride that she did not appear to be visibly upset. Harry would not doubt have gone off halfcocked looking for her. If she were to have some sort of confrontation with him, she'd need to have her wits about her. Appearing weak and weepy right now would not solve any of those problems.

Thankfully, the walk back to the tower was uneventful. A few people she knew waved and said hello to her. She waved back with a less enthusiastic smile than she was trying for. It was strange to think that there was another version of her right now that was in that monastery, with all its extraordinary revelations and warm memories. She bottled those happy memories and kept them close as she entered the Tower, looking warily into the common room.

It wasn't yet noon and because it wasn't exactly nice out it was full of people. Harry was there at the chess table with Ron. His chair was the one that faced the entrance, no doubt so he could tell when she came back. Heart thudding in her chest, she tried to walk in casually. His eyes snapped up the minute the portrait door closed. As their gazes met, he stood up suddenly. He looked like he was going to storm over and start asking more questions. Ron gave him a strange look and said something she couldn't hear over the din. Then he looked over to see what Harry was staring at. He scowled and turned away, smacking Harry's arm as if admonishing him for acknowledging her existence. Harry hadn't noticed and took a step forward instead. Hermione wouldn't give him a chance to take another.

She hurried towards the girl's dormitory, taking the stairs up two at a time until she reached the door. Once it was closed, she pressed her back against it gratefully. Numbly, she collapsed on her bed. It took every bit of energy left in her to take off her coat and boots. She sat there for a bit, having dug Roxy's pen out of her bag. It was bright pink with a funny little cat logo on it. She held it to her heart before setting it gently on her bed table. Blessedly, Crookshanks was waiting for her. He leapt up onto her bed, looking at her with his large yellow eyes. Padding over to her pillow, he lay next to it, blinking at her slowly in invitation. Pulling the curtains on her four-poster, she lay down. The cat rearranged himself so that his back was flush against her stomach. He started to purr, giving her the best comfort a cat could give. With a sigh, she fell asleep for the better part of the day.

Sorry I haven't updated in awhile! I hope I haven't disappointed anyone. Anyway, the next update is coming in April, which is awhile away. I'm sorry for that. But I wanted to end Act I on 4/13. To be clear, this will not mark the end of the story. Just the first act.