I walk quickly back to the Fat Lady's portrait, shout the password, and storm across the common room to the stairs leading to the boys dormitories. The common room is eerily quiet and I can feel the eyes on me as I cross the room. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Phillip has joined Fred and Roger, so I know my mates aren't in our room.

Bloody good thing too. If any one of them spoke to me right now, I'm not sure I would be able to keep myself from doing something rash. The purple bruise on Fred's stomach comes to mind. Yeah… something like that.

I take the stairs two at a time and bowl over a few first years on the way. I pull open the door violently and slam the door closed behind me.

"Bloody hell!"

I didn't account for all my roommates, unfortunately. As I slammed the door, Reid Williams jumps and ends up falling out of his four-poster in surprise. Roger, Phillip, Fred, and I hardly ever see him, so it didn't even cross my mind that he would be up here. He's usually in the library. He also wakes up before us and only shows up to sleep halfway through the night. I have no idea when he sleeps, actually.

It pays off, though. He is brilliant. He doesn't look like a nerd like Uncle Percy, though, which catches everyone off-guard.

"Sorry, Williams," I say through gritted teeth. I stomp over to my bed, kick my trunk for good measure and flop down on the mattress.

I start replaying my last words to Meredith, simultaneous becoming angrier at Corner and feeling guilty for shouting at Mer. I rub my face with both hands and let out a loud, frustrated groan.

"Potter?"

I sit up quickly, alarmed, and look around. Who just said…

"Potter, is everything alright?" Williams is talking to me. I completely forgot he was there.

"Yeah," I say hotly, falling back on my pillow. "Everything is bloody fantastic."

"Okay… you just seem in a sort of a strop."

"Do I?" I ask sarcastically.

"Yes," he answers, shuffling a few pages as he searches through some notes. "Is something going on?"

I turn my head on my pillow to look over at him. "Uh… why aren't you in class of some sort?" I ask, trying to change the subject. "Didn't think you had free periods."

"I don't," he replies simply, making a mark on the parchment he had on his lap.

"What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here?" is his response.

Bloody hell. I really don't feel like thinking this hard right now. "I… umm… I'm just trying to avoid the human race right now."

"Oh. Okay." Williams returns to shuffling his notes. "If you were wondering, History of Magic is a bloody bore and I just do better when I'm studying on my own for it." I raise my eyebrows at that. If that's how he felt about classes, I think I could get along with him pretty well. I expected him to be a lot like Rose: never missing a class and always take notes over everything.

I turn my head and stare back up at the canopy. Meredith's face as I walked away from here is probably going to torment me for a long time. I start replaying the whole row in my head, but stop as I realize, suddenly, we were in the middle of a corridor the entire time. Anybody could have been listening to us… the common room could probably hear the raised voices through the wall. I honestly would not be surprised if they heard the slap Meredith gave me.

I rub my cheek tenderly. It's pretty sore, and probably red. No wonder Williams asked if I was okay. I probably look like I ran into a wall or something.

Corner really has done some work on Mer since they've been together.

Bloody wanker! Son of a disgorged hippogriff. I start calling Corner every possible name in my vocabulary! Mum and Dad probably don't realize that I picked most of those up from them.

I can hear Williams's quill scratching on his parchment in the quiet of the dorm. My brain is going a million miles a minute.

What does Mer even see in that git?

How am I going to fix this?

I'm still pissed that she called me a liar.

It's him I'm really pissed at.

How is Quidditch going to work out?

Is Mer even going to talk to me?

I'm not going to get my homework done tonight.

I wonder what's for dinner.

Is Meredith going to sit with us?

Do I try to talk to her about Corner again?

The stream… well, more of a waterfall, of thought is getting me nowhere. My stomach growls loudly.

"Dinner starts in ten minutes," Williams offers from his bed.

I don't respond.

Ugh. I need some advice. Who can I ask? Dad? This isn't something that I can explain in a letter. Fred? He doesn't have any experience with girls. At least... not until recently it would seem. Roger? Phillip? I would have to tell them about Mer. I don't think involving anyone else on the team would be a good idea right now. Neville?

I snort out loud as his name crosses my mind.

Williams's quill stops for a moment. The complete silence is very uncomfortable. The scratching continues.

Williams is really smart. Like, really smart. Even if he doesn't have experience dealing with anything like my situation, I wonder if he would be able to deduce the best way to deal with it.

Will it be awkward to ask him? Probably. But really, at this point, what do I have to lose?

"Hey, Williams?"

"Potter?"

"Uh… do you think you could help me with something?"

"Maybe."

"I just need some advice from an outside source."

"Okay..." I hear him shift in his bed and face me. "What's up?"

"Well," I pause and take a breath. "There's this girl." Pause. "And I really fancy her quite a bit." Pause. "But she's currently seeing someone else."

I stop. This really is awkward. It would likely be worse if I just stop talking. "Go on," Williams prompts.

"Except, this guy is a git!"

"As you would probably be inclined to think if he's dating the girl you fancy."

I lift my head slightly and look at him. "No. I mean he's about the absolute bloody last person in the world that she should be dating because he's a bully and manipulative and literally the epitome of the kind of guy that every girl is warned to keep away from."

"Understood," Williams accepts.

"He doesn't deserve her," I say, allowing my head to fall back down.

"Do you?" I close my eyes.

"Probably not." Silence. "No."

"So what's going on?"

"Earlier, I saw..." I should rephrase. "I think I saw evidence that her boyfriend is cheating on her."

"Oh… wow."

"I don't know for sure, but I believe that it's what I saw. I thought he was with… this girl, but I ended up seeing her somewhere completely different almost immediately after.

"I ended up doing… something to her boyfriend and… she wasn't very happy about it. She sought me out and screamed at me called me a liar. I just got so angry, I yelled right back at her and walked away."

"Hmm."

"Now I don't know what to do. I'm going to have to be around her because he have-" I can't say Quidditch, that would give it away. "-activities together that require communication. Do I try to approach her about it again? Should I act like everything is normal? I don't think I can do either of those things. What do I do?"

There is a long pause as I finish speaking. I suddenly feel embarrassed that I just told something so personal to someone I don't even know and my face starts to grow warm as a blush creeps up my neck.

Williams finally breaks the silence. "I take it that you really like this girl." I nod and he continues. "Well… As you probably know, I don't have any experience with this kind of thing. My dating experience has been pretty minimal, to say the least."

I look over at him sitting on his bed. I personally think the only reason that is a fact is because he's just not interested. I sometimes forget about him, but I heard plenty of girls who hung around Julia talk about how attractive Williams is.

I don't see it. His hair is too straight.

"Anyway," he continues, "I think the best solution for you is to just wait it out and leave it alone. There's not much else you can do to try to convince Meredith that Corner's cheating on her." I stop pacing and look over to him, taken aback.

He reminds me a whole hell of a lot of Lily and Rose. Merlin, why am I cursed with such intuitive people around me?

It's not too much of a curse, I guess. I don't think I would have thought to leave the subject alone if Williams hadn't said anything (even though that is very obviously the best solution). Williams smirks at my expression then grabs his book off the bed and walks down to the common room, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

That's a very dangerous thing, now-a-days.