Slytherin

Pansy wandered down the hall toward the dorms. So, Draco had a weakness. An interesting one. The impenetrable prince had a soft spot. And it was Harry Potter. He thought he could maintain his position after a display like that? Sure, it was quiet in the aftermath, but it was a contemplative quiet. Draco wouldn't long be the Prince of Slytherin. And if she had her way, there would be no Prince, only a Princess.

Crabbe and Goyle meandered aimlessly by, heading for the common room. They appeared supremely lost. She laughed to herself, soon, everything she could see would be hers, she had only to upset the weak Draco and take it, before someone else did.

Blaise sprinted by the other direction, stopping to ask her, "Pansy, have you seen Draco?"

She masked concern over her voice to match the false sound of his. "No, why? Is he missing?"

"Yes, no one has seen him since…er…dinner."

"I'm sure he will get here soon enough." So he's hiding from us. He knows. He has lost control and he will not regain it.

Hufflepuff

Justin stepped into the common room. He had been on prefect duty since dinner. He looked around and quickly found Hannah, she knew everything. "Hannah! Hannah Abbott!"

If the Hufflepuff common room was anything, it was loud. Particularly so tonight. Hannah finally turned to him. "Justin!"

"How is she?" He didn't have to specify, Hannah knew.

"She's still crying up in the dorm. I don't think she will ever stop. I wish she had told us about Malfoy, then at least we could have tried to stop her." She hung her head. "I hate to think it, but she brought this on herself. Malfoy is a louse. He could only have been using her."

Up in the girls' dorms, Audrey sobbed, curled up in her bed. She would wail and moan until someone came and told her what a creep Malfoy was and then she'd calm down. But once they stopped telling her, she would relapse and begin all over again, with wrenching cries of "It was a guy! Another guy!"

She would only say one other thing. "Who wrote the note? I want to thank her!" In her hand, she clutched the note she was referring to. For quite some time, she wouldn't let anyone see it, but one of the girls finally ripped it from her.

Audrey, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you aren't Malfoy's only midnight rendezvous. A friend.

A voice sounded in the corner of the room. "I know that handwriting. That's Hermione Granger!"

Around him, Justin heard snippits of the other conversations in the room:

"How could he two-time her? How hard is it to…"

"He had the hottest girl in school." "Maybe he didn't want a girl." "I know…"

"She is the best of the best, the prettiest of the girls here, and we know that Hufflepuffs are pretty to begin with. How could he do that to her? To us?"

"I can't believe that even Malfoy would do that!" "I know, we can't let this happen to her." "But what can we do?" "Well, we could…"

Justin sat down. It was quite possible that Hufflepuff could be expected to, for once in their time, do the unexpected.

Ravenclaw

Eric sat comfortably in the common room, smirking at the fire and listening to the arguments around him. Who had been wronged? Everyone was doing their best to decide.

Had Audrey brought her pain upon herself? Yes, said some, Draco was a known risk. No, said others, he had hurt her far out of proportion to the calculable risk.

Had Draco deserved Eric's response? Yes, said some, his blatant disregard for the basic concepts of fidelity, even to someone he wasn't in a 'relationship' with, had earned him those actions. No, said others, Eric had been twisting the thumbscrews himself; he was known to act out of proportion and to cause unnecessary pain in the past.

Had Eric earned Draco's answer? Yes, said some, he had known about Draco's…connection…to Harry Potter, and he had purposefully pushed him to those actions. No, said others, a kiss in never grounds for an attack.

And in all of this, there were those who argued clearly that they were not in any position to judge either way. Eric continued to watch the fire burn and contemplate how to make best use of ten days with the invisibility cloak. None of these issues would ever be resolved, he knew, and he'd be best off not bothering himself with thoughts of high morals, though at some point he would probably have to produce an argument, but instead with productive use of his new acquisition.

Gryffindor

"Merlin, Seamus, did you know it was going to be…that?" Dean shouted from his bed into the bathroom.

Seamus had a mouth full of toothpaste, but his answer was decidedly negative. He spat. "I thought, you know, he'd be afraid of the dark or something. Nothing that big."

Ron stepped back into the room, toweling his hair dry. He hadn't spoken much since dinner. Hermione had run off after Harry and left him sitting by himself.

Neville, who had been laying out clothes for the next day (his uniform as usual), asked, "Where did Harry go anyway? I mean, well, I suppose he went off somewhere to figure himself out…with all that…you know."

Seamus clamored back into the room, hands over-full with toiletries. "Why don't you ever leave any of those in the toilet again?" Dean asked this question incessantly.

"Because you just use them!" Seamus plopped huffily on his bed and began to put things away.

"I do not." Dean got no response, since the entire company knew he was lying. He changed the conversation back to dinner, "I really just feel bad for Harry, Nalemen kissing him like that. And Malfoy…"

Ron looked a bit out of sorts, perhaps due to his particular vantage point during the evening's events. He was the only one who had been close enough to see that quick moment, that little flash, before Eric kissed Harry. The brightening of his face, just a little, but noticeable. He kicked off his slippers and pulled the curtains around his bed. He was probably imagining it anyway.

Seamus mused aloud, "I don't know, do you think Eric might be a better kisser than Lav?" He and Lavender had run a short and doomed stint the year before. He often suggested her incompetence and inability as a girlfriend while hypocritically holding her up on a pedestal for comparison. They were actually getting used to it.

This comment, however, earned him a pillow from Dean and Neville's most shocked face, an expression he usually saved for a time when Snape would hop out from under his bed and tickle him. "Ewww!"

Dean elaborated. "Yeah, mate, I think Harry may have made the ultimate sacrifice for the dare there. I wouldn't dream of doing that."