A/N: This chapter happened much quicker than I anticipated, probably because I've been putting off a major assignment in my psychology classes (less than 24 hours to write a 10 paper left… :/ Haven't written a word yet!). Anyway, here it is. Hope you appreciate it, because I will probably get a C in psychology now.

-J

"To the heart and mind ignorance is kind, and there's no comfort in the truth. Pain is all you'll find."

-Seether or Wham! (Your preference), Careless Whisper

Lily was in a rage. This wasn't just any Lily Evans rage. This was a Lily-Evans-had-a-skirt-chucked-at-her-in-the-middle-of-the-Great-Hall-for-spite rage, otherwise known as Lily wanting to murder Cherry Clark. It was one of those once in a lifetime rages. Or at least, I was hoping it only happened once. As entertaining as it had been, I didn't think I could handle more of it.

At the time of the event in question, Lily's face could have matched a turnip, and I was sure steam was coming out of her ears. Maybe it makes me a bad friend, but I couldn't say I never wanted to see someone put Lily in her place. Merlin knows Lily always gets what she wants, and that just doesn't seem healthy. Still, I hadn't wanted it to be by someone who looks so spectacular skirtless, and especially someone skirtless standing so close to my boyfriend.

I honestly think every male jaw in the Hall had dropped, and probably a few female jaws. It was understandable. She was a pretty girl, she had incredible legs, and the heels hadn't hurt anything. Still, even through the vial of Calming Draught I had consumed prior to breakfast, I felt a twinge of jealousy at the way Sirius, Remus, and Peter had ogled at Cherry. I mean, they were male, and they obviously hadn't seen it coming. I couldn't hold that against Sirius, as even Remus had stared. But still.

Perhaps the part that bothered me most was that the second Lily ordered Cherry to "take off" her skirt, I knew exactly what was about to happen. Considering my lack of ability to read tea leaves, the only logical explanation was that I had spent enough time around Cherry to begin to not only tolerate her, but to understand her enough to anticipate some of her actions. The thought was unnerving.

But fast forward a bit. Lily, Marline, and I were supposed to be spending our free period practicing Defense in an empty classroom. Instead, Marlene and I took turns Stunning each other while Lily paced and vented her verbal frustration at my partner-in-crime (Cherry), glaring at the wall with such ferocity that you would have thought it had thrown clothing at her that morning as well.

"And that stupid hair!" Lily shrieked.

"Bloody hell, will you just shut up about Cherry's hair already?"

Silence.

Blinking.

Had I actually said that out loud?

"Excuse me?"

Apparently I had. That was a bit awkward.

"What Ali means–" Marlene began, but I cut her off.

"I mean that I'm sick of your self-righteous rants about someone who hasn't even done anything to you! I mean really, do you shriek like this about me when I'm not around?"

"Did you not see her behavior this morning?" Lily said, clearly as shocked as I was by my newfound boldness.

"What Ali's trying to say–"

"Even if I hadn't, I've only had to listen to you harper on about it for the last hour. She wasn't bothering anyone until you started shrieking at her in front of the entire school!"

Marlene's eyes were wide and Lily once again resembled a turnip. That probably should have been a big clue to shut my mouth and apologize, but I was too numb to care. My inhibitions were gone. I wasn't sleepy anymore, I felt great.

"What Ali is–"

"Ali can speak for herself, thanks! I'm right here, Marlene," I said, just feeling a hint of annoyance through my numbness. "I'm not a child. I can say what I mean." I picked up my things and paused at the doorway. "While I'm at it," I said to Lily, "could you please just snog James already? It would make life so much easier for all of us."

Maybe I had gone too far. But nobody ever told Lily what she didn't want to hear unless they wanted detention, and that really didn't seem fair. People told me what I didn't want to hear all the time. It was how I got into the miss, and Lily had been one of those people.

Suddenly, I felt enlightened. I had spent my whole life in a box. I thought it had been comfortable, because I had never been outside the box, but now that I knew the world outside wasn't all bad, I was stretching out and living and it felt so much better, so much more logical.

Or maybe that was the numbness talking. It did that, sometimes. At least, that's what I attributed it to, since I had no other explanation and it didn't seem fair to blame N.E.W.T.s. N.E.W.T.s were getting such a bad rap these days, what with all the seventh years needing excuses for things.

To make my day even more eventful, I ended up sitting next to James in the library that day before dinner. If that sounds odd to you, that's because the entire premise of James being in the library was odd. I was researching Animagi when he sat down beside me.

"Marlene tells me you and Evans had an interesting conversation of sorts today," he muttered, grabbing a book from the stack in front of me and pretending to read it. I would have been reminded of my conversation with Remus, had James not been holding his book upside down.

"Maybe," I responded, trying to find a point behind the existential crap in the book I was reading.

"Care to talk about it?"

I raised my eyebrows and regarded him over my book.

"Since when do we 'talk', Potter?"

He grinned and replied, "Since Marlene says you told Lily Evans to snog me."

"Did she?"

"Snog me? Nope, but thanks for the vote of confidence."

"Sure," I muttered, turning back to my book, too numb to argue with him. "Was there something you needed, Potter?"

"You know, you don't need to play the ice queen with me, Marren," he said brightly. "I'm not trying to get into your knickers."

I was too numb to care what he meant by that.

"Okay," I said. "Was there something you needed?"

"Are you feeling okay?" he asked, his smirk fading and a flicker of worry in his hazel eyes. To my memory, I had never seen James Potter worried about something, except when Lily was around, and then it was probably just worrying when to duck. He was another one of those people who had way too many good breaks in life, far more than a person actually deserved, especially one who was as much of an arrogant toerag as James was. After all, I hadn't been immune to the stringing-people-up-by-their-ankles-for-amusement phase. In fact, James had always thought I made a hilarious victim. Come to think of it, he never had apologized for that. But I was too numb to care.

"Just a bit tired," I muttered.

And numb.

"You know," I said, "Lily would date you if you acted responsible. She's got a thing for the powerful types. If Dumbledore was about a hundred years younger, she'd probably think he was sexy."

He blinked at me, probably trying to remove the mental image of Lily snogging Dumbledore.

"So you actually want me and Evans together?" he said eagerly, with his silly grin.

"No," I said honestly. "I'm just sick of feeling like my love life is all about you two."

If I hadn't been so numb, I might have noticed him growing paler as he said, "What do you mean?"

"Sirius bugs me about how we should have double dates, you harass me about Lily, Lily rants at me about you, and she can never be happy with me being with Sirius, because Sirius is only slightly less obnoxious than you."

"Wait," he said indignantly, slamming the book down on the table. "How is Sirius less obnoxious than me?"

I marked my book, gathered all the books I checked out, threw them in my bag, and slung it over my shoulder before saying, "Because Sirius doesn't follow her around like a lovesick puppy and behave exactly the opposite of how a girl like Lily would want an admirer to behave. Good night, Potter."

I didn't even have to try to fall asleep that night, as life with the Calming Draught felt like living in a dream, anyway. It was waking up that was trouble, dealing with the nerves and anxiety before I had the potion. The morning that followed the skirt-incident was one of the worst.

"Do you know if Ali's around?"

"She's still asleep, Emily. What's on your mind?"

"Did you guys hear the rumor about Ella?"

"Wait, Ella Davis, as in our roommate?"

"That's the one. Rumor has it she and Sirius Black had a midnight rendezvous on the Astronomy Tower last night."

I could feel myself shaking. No. These were more rumors. There was no proof. This was Camilla West all over again.

"Ella wouldn't do that to Ali–"

"Oh, grow up, Grace. We all know Ella fancied him long before Ali had ever even thought he was attractive. That's definitely breaking some kind of roommate code. I mean, she wasn't even interested in him. She should have turned him down when he asked her to Hogsmeade, on principle. If you ask me, Ali's getting what she deserves."

"You would, wouldn't you, Emily? Leave Grace out of this and go exchange rumors with the rest of the hate-mongering fan girls. I'm sure West would love to hear you talk down Ali Marren, but that kind of thing isn't welcome here. Where's your House loyalty, Johnson? Don't forget everything Ali's done for us. You and I both know she's the reason you didn't fail your Charms O.W.L."

I could hear Emily storm out of the dormitory.

"I wish she hadn't dated him," Grace whispered. "That's when all this in-fighting started."

"Ali can do whatever she wants, Grace. It's not our place to judge," Ashley said. "This can't be easy for her, with all the rumors. She needs us on her side, regardless of what should or shouldn't have been done."

"But Ashley, what if the rumors are true? What if he really is cheating on her?"

There was a pause and I held my breath. It had been the very question I had been asking myself since Cherry and I started our partnership: What if? What would I do? What would I say? How would I act?

"If it's true," Ashley said softly, "then she'll need us on her side all the more, and Sirius Black will wish he had never messed with the Hufflepuffs."

The determination in her voice gave me a surge of House pride as I uncorked my daily vial with a shaky hand. Cheers to that, I thought, downing the potion in one, and suddenly I wondered very much what a fight between Cherry Clark and Ashley Thompson would look like. For the what-if that hung on the air would mean Cherry would also incur the wrath of my Housemates, or at least of Ashley and Grace. Maybe Cherry would have a different view of Hufflepuffs if she had seen Ashley calmly hex a fifth-year Slytherin into incoherent fear for picking on Ella when we were twelve. Ashley was sweet, but when provoked she was a force to be reckoned with.

And of course, she never got into trouble, because honestly, what professor was going to believe sweet little Ashley Thompson actually attacked someone? None of them, that's who.

I stretched and pulled open my bed hangings, and then I saw Ashley and Grace silently curling their hair in the corner of the room.

"Good morning, Ali," Grace said sweetly, smiling as if she hadn't effectively blamed me for Emily being the biggest bitch in the universe, but I was already much too numb to care enough to call her out on it. "Did you sleep well?"

"Fine, thanks," I said truthfully. That was one of the best things about the Draught: I was sleeping more peacefully than ever, which boded well for my N.E.W.T.s.

"That's good," Grace twittered. "Remus said you seemed unusually tired lately."

It took a moment for the strangeness of what she had said to sink through the numb. Remus was talking to Grace – strange. Remus was talking to Grace about me – strange. Remus was talking to Grace about my behavior in a seemingly concerned manner – strange.

"Since when do you talk to Remus?" I asked, rummaging around for a pair of socks. I hate socks.

"We were talking in Ancient Runes about Clark's big scene at breakfast and how her behavior's been stranger than usual. Then he mentioned you'd seemed tired and asked if you'd been sleeping okay."

Remus was more than onto us, but I couldn't really bring myself to care through the numb. Still, the weird quality of events didn't escape me. Remus was meddling in my life, and even through the numb, I knew I wanted him to stop. I made a mental note to have words with him later as I pulled on my socks.

Ugh, socks, disrupting my numb. Somehow, the socks were Remus's fault, though I couldn't quite reason how. The numb didn't let me.

Wait, what?

Anyway, Grace said, "I told him I wasn't sure, but I thought maybe it was just N.E.W.T. stress."

"Yeah," I said, "N.E.W.T. stress. That's what it is."

Blame it on the N.E.W.T.s. Except the socks. Those were all Remus, even though I still wasn't sure why.