7th year, August 31st

Cassie walked into the bedroom she shared with her sisters and flopped down on Mia's bed with a loud sigh.

Mia looked at her sister, lying all over the clothes she was attempting to pack into her trunk, with only fourteen hours until the train to Hogwarts left.

"Having problems?" she asked mildly. She attempted to pull one of the uniform shirts out from under Cassie's knee.

Cassie frowned and played with a blonde curl. She looked up at her big sister. "Is Patrick going to break up with me?" she asked quietly.

Kate perked up from where she was reading on her bed. "What are you talking about?" she asked, dumbfounded. "The boy's completely in love with you."

Cassie pouted slightly. "But I'm a fifth year. And he's graduating."

"So?" Kate asked again, closing her book and setting it down next to her pillow. She climbed down the ladder from the bunk bed and sat down next to Cassie on Mia's bed.

Mia nearly groaned. Kate had just sat down on all of her bras. She hated when they got crushed, something her sister's tiny ass was doing very nicely.

Mia glanced around the room, wondering if she could use something to push her sisters off the bed. Nothing, but they really needed to pick up the clothes and makeup and everything else under the sun that was scattered on the floor. She wondered if her parents would make them clean it up before they left.

Or she'd just clean it up so they didn't find anything incriminating, though they'd probably know about whatever they'd find.

"Cass, he's not going to break up with you," Mia said. She shoved Cassie onto her side to pull clothing out from under her. She ignored Cassie's cry of "Ow!"

"But how do you know?"

"Are you whining or asking?" Mia rolled her eyes.

She looked up in time to see Kate mouthing, "Be nice."

Of course Kate could say that; Cassie may have been the sweetest, but she was also quiet. Kate was the one everyone loved. And when Mia said everyone, she meant everyone. The entire school, entire family, hell, the entire world loved her.

Mia could see why, too; she loved her baby sister. Kate was funny, generally a happy person, smart, and she was passionate. It was always entertaining to see her fight with someone; she could wipe the floor with them in a matter of seconds, but they always deserved it. She was like the perfect person; except for the fact that she sometimes went a little too far with everything she did. But that could be overlooked.

Mia saw Cassie's pout: the signal of her refusal to answer the question.

"Come on, Cass, you know I don't mean it like that." Mia took a breath and folded her clothes into her trunk. It was going to be her last year at Hogwarts, she was going to graduate and move out and be completely done with school. Packing her trunk like this felt surreal.

"Patrick's not going to break up with you," Kate added, reaching for a magazine on the stack Mia was attempting to pack.

Mia willed her patience not to break. She turned to Cassie. "Kate's right, as much as it pains me to admit. Patrick's so in love with you, I die a little inside from over-sugary-ness every time he looks at you."

"That's not a word," Cassie said.

"Does it really matter?"

"I guess not."

"Look, Cassie," Mia sat down on the bed and pulled her sister's head into her lap, stroking her hair, something Cassie had always liked as a little girl and something that continued to calm her down. "Patrick is not going to break up with you just because he's graduating. He loves you way too much for that. He cares too much about you. He'd wait the two years it took for you to graduate, Cass."

"Seriously, Cassie," Kate added, "if anyone is as in love with you as Seamus is, it'd be like Alex is with Mia."

That was another problem with Kate, Mia thought: she was far too observant. But Mia was going to deny that if ever asked.

Instead of commenting, Mia just rolled her eyes again, and turned the subject of conversation away from Patrick. "Kate, did you and Marissa ever make up?"

Kate's face turned to a glower. "No," she tossed her hair over one shoulder as she gave a haughty pout. "She kissed Cameron when I was going out with him. Not okay."

"Oh, sweetie, I'm so sorry," Cassie patted Kate's shoulder gently. "Maybe Cameron's just not worth it."

"I know he's not worth it. But she was supposed to be my best friend and instead she just goes and kisses my boyfriend behind my back."

"Did Marissa actually kiss him back or anything?" Mia asked. "I mean, people get kissed all the time and are just too surprised to do anything and don't mean to kiss them. Or maybe he thought it was you kissing him."

Kate raised her eyebrows. "Yes, ginger, freckled me and Marissa with brown hair and three inches on me. We seem so alike."

Cassie smoothed her hand over Kate's hair. "I'm sorry, sweetie. Look for someone else to move on to. Cameron obviously isn't worth the trouble."

Kate huffed out a breath and a curl flew up around her face from the air she let out. Her fingers scrunched on the blanket and Mia could see the ring their parents had given her for her twelfth birthday on her finger. They'd each gotten a ring on their twelfth birthday, their birthstones. Kate's was a ruby red for July. Mia it was symbolic for the amount of fire Kate brought into her arguments.

"What about Grant?" Mia asked.

Kate's face twisted into a scowl. "Merlin, he's obnoxious," she said automatically. Then she paused and turned to her older sister. "What about Grant?"

"You two just seem to click," Cassie said.

"We're always arguing. I don't know what world you live in, but in mine, that's not clicking. That's anti-clicking."

Mia smiled to herself. She'd already bet Alex and Patrick ten sickles that Kate and Mike Grant would get together before Kate's fourth year. They had too much passion in their arguments. They'd probably get together then, and maybe even stay together.

"Anyways," Kate said, defecting to Cassie, "Patrick will not break up with you because he's graduating. I promise."

"I promise, too," Mia said. "And I'm the best friend who he confides in. I know."

"Whom," Cassie corrected her.

Mia rolled her eyes and escaped the room before the discussion could continue. She didn't really want to go back to school. She wasn't sure how to deal with Alex, anymore. Not after the last time she'd seen him.

He'd come over, like usual, to stay for awhile during the summer. Patrick hadn't been able to come this summer, though Mia wondered if her dad had said something so that his daughter's boyfriend couldn't stay under the same roof as his girlfriend. Highly hypocritical, but Mia wasn't going to comment unless she wanted to be banned from leaving her room the entire vacation.

He'd told her he loved her.

Mia slumped against the wall and slid to the floor, curling up on the carpeted hallway, just outside her bedroom door.

They'd been fooling around, so she didn't really believe Alex had meant it. She kept feeling guilty for it. They weren't actually going out, but he was still her best friend. She just liked to kiss him. A lot.

How was that going to change, now? It was Alex, so Mia could never think of him as that guy who'd just hook up with her because she was easy. He had enough integrity that he'd never do that to her. Maybe to someone else, but never her.

And she kept getting a fluttery feeling in her stomach whenever she thought of her best friend. Not a sort of lustful fluttering; it was like butterflies, an antsy anticipation of seeing him again, of being near him, of touching him. She was beginning to wonder if she liked him a little more than she should if she thought of him only as her best friend.

But she wasn't going to chance any of that. She couldn't like him. It'd be weird. At the same time...it was she and Alex. Mia Malfoy and Alex Carmichael, the daring duo since nappies. What could be more right than that?

Sorry for the horrendously late update! I will be better in updating more often, really! Please review!