The walk back took some time and snow began to fall, slowing them down even more. Hyacinth kept her arm linked with Winston's and since Boris was holding the other hand, that meant Roger was now on the other side of Boris with the four of them taking up the entire width of the road.

"I say, that tea was rather good," Winston offered up against the gusts of flakes whirling around them.

"That tea was mediocre, but the potion in it seems to be pretty potent," Hyacinth replied. "You do realize you've been bedazzled, right?"

"Have not!" came the protest. "I'd know it if I was!"

"Yes, exactly!" Boris broke in. "You tell her, sweet badger!"

"Sweet-" splutters of giggles escaped Hyacinth and she shot a look towards the three boys with her. Roger shook his head, and his return gaze looked more worried than amused.

They trudged on, and by the time they reached the front of Hogwarts, darkness had settled in, making the welcoming candle glow all the more bright against the snow. Roger gently pried Winston and Boris' fingers apart while Hyacinth tugged her fellow Hufflepuff towards the main doors. "Time to go, Winston; you're freezing."

"Hadn't noticed," came his absent reply as he looked towards Roger and Boris. "My hand was warm."

Hyacinth noted that Roger was having an equally difficult time getting Boris to go with him as well. The tall Slytherin was staring wistfully at Winston, twisting the end of his House scarf as Roger bumped his shoulder to get his attention.

"Come on, Vronsky, let's go. I can't feel my toes anymore and what's more, you'll see Winston tomorrow, all right?"

"So long," Boris murmured sadly. "So very long that is."

"No it's not," Hyacinth groused, and tugged hard on Winston's arms, pulling him up the steps. "Come on, come on . . . ."

It took a while to steer through the hallways, and they received a few odd looks, but once they'd reached the common room, she made him sit in the squashiest chair and looked him over. "All right, how do you feel? Should we go see Madam Pomfrey?"

"What? No, no, I'm fine," Winston told her with truculence, "given that you dragged me off from a lovely tea and even lovelier company."

"You were making calf's eyes at Boris Vronsky, which is not exactly normal," Hyacinth pointed out.

Winston blushed. "No I wasn't!"

"Yes you were," Hyacinth countered, keeping her voice low. "Winston, you held hands with him all the way back from Hogsmeade, so I'd say you got a good dose of whatever Madam Puddifoot puts in the tea. It can't be too long-lasting though, or she'd get into trouble, so I suspect it should wear off after a good night's sleep. I just want to be sure you're all right, all right?"

He looked troubled, and one long curl dangled down along the side of his face as he met Hyacinth's gaze. "Love potion," he murmured uncertainly. "That's what it is?"

Hyacinth brushed the curl back, feeling a pang of compassion for Winston's lost expression. "I'm pretty sure," she told him, suddenly not sure at all. "Anyway, get some sleep and things will all work out in the morning. In the meantime, I'm sending an owl to Uncle with what we've figured out."

She left Winston curled up in the chair watching the fire, hoping he'd drop off soon. At her desk, she scribbled a note on a section of parchment and looked around for her owl, Nigel. He was up on the shelf in his cat bed and peered down at her when Hyacinth whistled for him. "All right, you. I need this taken to Uncle's tonight. If you're back in twenty minutes you'll have chopped liver."

He preened his sooty feathers and held a leg out as she tied the note on it; the moment Hyacinth opened the window he was out like a shadow, his dark form almost bat-like. She left sash up, wondering if she'd get a reply or not.

Before falling asleep later, Hyacinth also wondered how Boris was doing after his dose of tea.

-oo00oo—

Roger fretted. What he knew of love potions was limited, and although there were lots of stories and unsubstantiated general information, he wasn't sure he could separate truth from fiction. Boris wasn't grinning like a loon or attempting to escape the Slytherin dormitory room; he wasn't penning a long poem about his true love's face, but . . .

He wasn't himself, either.

Generally Boris Vronsky was confident and funny, quick with a joke and fun to be around. He wasn't always the first one talking but usually ended up with the last word, generally at Renata's expense.

But at the moment, he was lying on his bed, still dressed, staring up at the canopy and looking like some carved stone effigy. Walking over, Roger reached over and rapped his knuckles on Boris' shoe. "Hey! What's so fascinating about the ceiling?"

"Nothing," Boris responded after a few long seconds. "But you know we are under thousands of liters of dark, soulless water, da? A crushing weight with no joy or light, De Malinbois."

Alarmed, Roger glanced up at the vaulted ceiling. Magic reinforced the stone, he knew, but something in Boris' tone was unnerving. "Cheery thought, that. Any reason why you're thinking this? Especially before we go to bed?"

"We need light to survive," Boris replied slowly, as if each word were being dragged out of him. "All of us, yes? Without it, we die."

Definitely disturbing now. Roger dropped himself into the bedside chair and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. "Er, yes. We do. And we have it, even down here you know. Candles everywhere and the fireplace . . ."

Boris waved a hand. "Not those. I'm speaking of the other sort of light. Tell me, how does music make you feel, Roger? Deep inside, around your soul?"

This was getting beyond alarming, but Roger drew in a deep breath. "I love it, of course. It's what I think about and work with and build my life on."

Boris turned his head and gave him a ghost of a smile. "You are a lucky person, then. You not only know what brings you light, but you also get to be a part of it every day. Some of us do not get that. And some of us only see the light after it is . . . gone."

Roger hesitated, aware that his friend was being deliberately obscure, and further, that obscurity probably had a great deal to do with the last few hours. "Boris, um . . . light comes in a lot of different ways. For me it was quick and early on, like lighting a candle; dark one moment, bright the next. I was lucky. But I've seen fireplaces you know. Dark and stuffed full of tinder. And you put a spark on it, or a spell, and for a few moments it looks like nothing's happening. That it's all a mistake. But if you wait . . . then you see a little flicker start. A glow, sometimes. And in some cases it seems to take bloody forever for things to catch. Especially when you're in the dark."

Neither of them spoke for a moment, and Roger wondered if his analogy made any sense, but gradually Boris gave a sigh and a faint smile. "And sometimes it smolders out."

"Then you try again," Roger blurted before thinking. "Nobody wants to stay in the dark."

A low rumble rose up from Boris, and his smile widened for a moment. "It's familiar, the darkness. But you are right. Having seen light, I prefer it to where I have been. Thank you, Roger."

Roger rose, not sure if he'd actually helped matters or not, but Boris was looking more at ease, and it was getting late, so he slipped away to his own bed, wondering about the next day.

The following days could best be described as bemusing. With the holidays only a few weeks off, the professors at Hogwarts were doubling down on instruction and homework to the dismay of the students. Added to that, the wet, thick snow that had begun over the weekend kept falling, bringing an added chill and misery to anyone who had business outside. Every owl arriving was a sodden disgruntled mess, and everyone's mail had wet feathers stuck to it.

Roger managed to find a chance to sit with Hyacinth for breakfast and asked discreetly how Winston was doing. Looking up from the Daily Prophet, Hyacinth winced.

"He's a bit tetchy when I ask. I don't get it, Rog—we're all friends. We're allowed to be embarrassed around each other, yeah?"

Making a non-committal sound, Roger glanced over his shoulder before speaking. "We are, and we are, but this . . . may be a bit more, I think." He helped himself to hot buttered toast.

Hyacinth gave a sigh. "I was afraid of that. Not because . . . you know, but because they're both good mates and I don't want to lose either of them if it goes all pear-shaped."

"If it goes at all," Roger pointed out. "We've got years before any of us really know who we are."

Hyacinth toyed with the kipper on her plate, cutting it into thirds. "And it doesn't make any difference. Not to me, anyway."

Roger nodded, and for a few moments they each worked on breakfast in companionable quiet as other students arrived and left around them. Since the Battle, several changes had taken place at Hogwarts, and among them was a lessening of House rivalries. Students were now permitted to sit at any table for breakfast and lunch, with formal affiliation seating reserved for dinner and holidays.

The thought of the holidays made him sigh inwardly, and he wished he could stay over at the school, the way a few other students did. At the moment Roger knew his mother was probably planning on having his cousins visit, and that with them, Aunt Donna, and Uncle Mark in residence, getting any practice time or privacy would be impossible. They would be noisy and nosey, and by Christmas Eve, after port and sherry, the little digs everyone had been making at everyone else would break into a major row or two if tradition held firm.

He was getting a headache just thinking of it, frankly.

"You all right?" Hyacinth asked quietly. Roger looked up to find her looking at him, and her expression—caring and kind—made him manage a twisted smile.

"Yes. Just . . . still not looking forward to the hols," he admitted.

"I think you ought to ask Flitwick for a special project so you have to stay," she replied. "Have him take you on a tour of all the famous musician's homes, or assign you to visit an instrument maker, you know? Something that sounds supremely important but might be fun."

Roger blinked. "What? I couldn't do that!"

"Why not?" Hyacinth spoke around a mouthful of smoked fish. "He'd do it for you in a heartbeat, Rog, probably give you loads of extra credit for it."

"But he's probably got his own family to think about, and anyone I'd want to see is going to be off for the holidays-" He argued, wishing he wasn't as coldly pragmatic as he was. Part of it was being a De Malinbois, and part of it was being a Slytherin he supposed.

Hyacinth waved her fork. "Professor Flitwick lives here, and there's time to make arrangements you know. Eleanor Greenhorse told me that her sister's friend stayed over to help Madam Pomfrey do a complete inventory in the infirmary a few years ago, and because of it, St. Mungo's took her for their Potions department before she'd even left Hogwarts. You can make your own opportunities, Roger. I know you can."

Dizzying visions flashed in his head, and Roger took a deep breath, trying to keep the thrill of possibility under enough control to finish his toast. "You say that now," he shot back to Hyacinth, but he grinned. "Think I should try?"

"Yes," came her simple reply. "Trying's what gets us ahead in life, eh?"

-oo00oo—

Hyacinth noted with wry amusement that Winston had made it a point to devise new routes to each class, and further, that those routes involved a degree of skulking, which he did so self-consciously that she had to hide her giggles as she walked next to him.

"You look very suspicious," Hyacinth murmured as Winston dropped his chin into the coils of scarf around his neck.

"I don't," he countered mulishly, "and I'll thank you to keep your voice down."

"Winston, this is ridiculous. You can't avoid Boris forever; we've all got Astronomy tonight you know."

"Maybe I'll develop a head cold before then."

"Don't you dare," Hyacinth warned him as they winnowed through an oncoming crowd of Third Years coming out of a classroom. "If you duck out of class tonight, I'll . . . I'll . . ." She tried to think of something suitably horrific, and finished, "I'll never make another marshmallow meringue for your hot chocolate again."

Winston stopped, stricken, and was promptly knocked down by the buffeting swarm. Hyacinth gasped and reached for him, but before she could, a large figure reached him first, smoothly hauling Winston to his feet again. The crowds shifted around them in response to Boris' height, and Hyacinth moved closer herself, caught between saying something and staying quiet.

"Th-thank you," Winston mumbled, not meeting anyone's gaze. "Much appreciate it, but . . . go."

"What?" Hyacinth couldn't help asking. Neither lad looked at her.

"All right," Boris rumbled, "but not far."

Winston finally glanced up at Boris, sighing but at that moment, an impatient voice cut through noise of the hall. "Move it, Vronsky! You're blocking the way!"

A broad-shouldered Fourth Year sporting a shaggy head of blonde hair sauntered up, deliberately ramming his shoulder against Boris before turning and offering an insincere 'sorry' as he stepped back.

Hyacinth frowned. Alec Stowe was Seeker for Gryffindor and a well-known pain in the ass for anyone not in his House. He treated everyone with condescension, reserving his special malice for those who were Quidditch opponents. He'd gotten into fights with the Ravenclaw Beaters during matches and had a reputation as someone to be avoided off the pitch as well.

"Shove off," Hyacinth muttered.

Alec cupped an ear. "What was that? Shove him again?"

"No!" Exasperated, Hyacinth tried to block Boris, planting herself in front of Alec. "You're a total prat, Stowe."

"Pfff," he waved a dismissive hand, "Vronsky here doesn't need the likes of you to defend him. Go back to making your grainy fudge."

"Grainy!" Hyacinth huffed, truly angry now. "GRAINY?" She spun, hoping to get some defense from her friends, only to find them gone and the hall mostly empty. Behind her, Alec laughed.

"He's gone, along with that little troll doll of his. Oh, and I didn't mean grainy. I meant gravelly. Better luck, Pufflehuff." With that, Alec lumbered off, leaving Hyacinth to fume as she scurried to her next class. She dodged around corners and ran, her fury giving her speed, only to skitter into Potions during a pause in Professor Slughorn's comments, making everyone turn and look at her.

"S-sorry, sir," she mumbled, and slunk over to the double desk next to Roger.

"Yes, well better late than never I suppose, although it shouldn't become a habit, Miss Moffett. All right, class, if you will please take a careful look at the tools on your desks . . ."

"What happened?" Roger asked under his breath, his focus on the three knives before them.

"Ran into Stowe," came her reply. "Just when Win and Boris looked like they might talk."

Roger murmured an oath and shot her a sidelong glance. "Was he there? Back at Puddifoot's?"

Hyacinth tried to remember. "I honestly don't know. Too focused on the chocolate at the time, I guess. Know what that berk said to me? He said my fudge was grainy!"

"He's a git and a toerag," Roger countered, lifting one knife up. Everyone else in the class did the same as Slughorn talked about the importance of an iron blade over stone one when cutting magical ingredients. "Your fudge is better than your uncle's and everyone knows it. Stowe's just being an ass because of Boris."

"You're probably right, but it didn't help," Hyacinth fretted. "And I'm still a bit worried about . . ."

"Winston and Boris? Or your fudge?" Roger teased.

"All of them."