"Were you just snogging Wood?"

My best mate was in the hospital wing.

"Are you daft? Of course not."

Thankfully, I was not the only casualty at that dreadful party last night.

"Oh so you just tripped and, in a desperate attempt to stop yourself from falling, latched onto him with your mouth?"

Liam was cajoled in his drunken, vulnerable state that if he held his breath long enough, he would turn into a merman. He made a rather foolish bet with a friend that he would manage it before they could finish their drink.

"Hey… want to make five Sickles?"

All right, it was me.

"Mum?" Finally awake after an awful period of heavy snoring, Liam shifted in his bed, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. "Wh-what 'appened?"

"Remember when the Cannons finally broke their 150-game losing streak this summer and after drinking a trough of mulled mead straight from an ice sculpture you said you were never going to drink again?"

"Fondly," He answered dreamily, still not fully out of his comatose state.

"Well. You broke your promise." I stifled a giggle.

Liam pulled a face and rubbed the back of his head. "I vaguely remember a certain leggy blonde promising me a nautical adventure with the giant squid if I made myself go catatonic."

I considered this for a moment. "She was rather fit, yes."

He mustered up the strength to hit my arm with his pillow. Always knowing exactly which buttons to press at precisely the right moment, he followed with, "Potter certainly seemed to think so about your sister. Is that why you kissed Wood? Oh don't look at me like that, Kenzie, of course I remember."

"I plead the fifth."

Liam Galloway was the only bloke who could get away with mentioning that traitorous act and still keep all his limbs intact. A Quidditch player who, thanks to their comradery on and off the field, knew about James' affinity for one night stands all too well, Liam was very sought after among the girls at Hogwarts himself. Being best mates with the star Gryffindor Seeker meant that I had to dodge the obvious "are they or aren't they" questions daily. No, we were not dating. No, I did not know what he looked like naked. No, I will not talk to him for you, Keira, get a bloody grip.

It was no secret that my baby sister (can I still consider her that after last night's public display?) had a bit of a crush on my best mate. And by bit of a crush I meant that she was haplessly in love. Which was hysterical – not that I wished Keira pain in any way, but because Liam, acting all too typical, had no clue despite how obvious she was. He treated her as much of a sister as he treated me, but with less attention; rather, like she was still the nine year old he had met over Christmas holiday during our first year at Hogwarts. In footed pajamas. Had Keira not just lost her virginity to the man of my dreams, I may not have reveled in that particular fact as much.

"So," Liam started slowly, aware that the subject needed to be changed for the well-being of everyone in the room, "did I lose all the points I won for Gryffindor in last week's match for drunken disorderly conduct? Lay it on me, Kenz. How much shite am I in with McGonagall?"

"None!" I replied proudly to a bewildered Liam. "I managed to convince Pomfrey that you weren't passed out because you were drunk. You are still dealing with the head injury you sustained from Malfoy sending a bludger straight to your head, and I brought you here for some sleeping draught to calm all the migraines you've been getting." Alluding to the first Quidditch match of the season where the Slytherins engaged in their normal round of playing dirty, I ended the last statement with a wink before Liam could mess up the façade and inquire about the headaches he was most certainly not getting.

Handsome, athletic, and rather book smart, Liam unfortunately did not have much common sense – I suppose you couldn't have everything.

"Pomfrey insisted that you stay overnight so she could monitor your sleeping patterns," I continued. "Obviously, you're fine, just dealing with a terrible hangover I'm sure. When I came to check on you fifteen minutes ago she told me you're free to leave whenever you felt comfortable, and I've been sitting here waiting for you to wake up from your wet dream ever since."

With a sigh of relief and a wince at overexerting his body so much, Liam said, "Kenzie Holland, you are a saint."

"Never mind that my drunken arse is the reason you passed out and hit your head in the first place."

"I'll let that slide since you saved my drunken arse in return."

"Isn't that what best mates are for?"

"Oh so now you're, like, what? Not speaking with me?"

"Keira," I bemoaned for what must have been the fourth time since I entered the library. "Why would I speak to you when I'm having a thrilling time reading Hogwarts a History for a paper that is two weeks overdue and one parchment roll short? Anyway, this is a lib-"

Madam Pince shushed me.

"See?" I whispered, shooing her away with my hand. Keira slammed the book she wasn't reading shut, grumbled something in an agitated voice that I didn't quite catch, and stormed out into the corridor.

While the library was understandably everyone's first choice location for swapping shagging stories with their sister – followed closely by a room where your parents are in eavesdropping distance and the seventh circle of Hell – I was, surprisingly, not in the mood for circle time. I would obviously love to hear all about how my fifteen year old sister had sex before I got the chance to make it past kissing a boy, but I'm… busy. And I'm clearly not jealous that I'm a seventeen year old virgin while my baby sister spent the evening tapping the boy I had fancied since I was eleven.

Have I mentioned I'm fine?

Snapping out of my bitter reflection, I glanced at my watch and cursed. Half past Pluto meant I was already late to Herbology, and Professor Longbottom had this adorable habit of starting his lectures five minutes early. Gathering up my sorry excuse for an essay, I made way to the greenhouses, clutching my quill, ink, parchment, and textbooks in an awkward cradling position.

I had almost made it to the entrance hall doors without dropping anything. Almost.

My quill hit the floor, the soft clatter reverberating in the emptiness of the corridor. As I bent down to pick up my only writing implement, the door to the Great Hall creaked open loudly and a pair of muddy Quidditch boots came into view.

I panicked. Frozen, comically hunched over despite the fact that my fingers were tightened around the quill, I could only stare at the boots. The boots had stopped in their tracks as well, though I was sure the owner did not look like a hag with a hunchback in the process. Sensing that this was getting neither of us anywhere both metaphorically and physically, I shot up, felt a sharp shooting pain erupt in my lower back, and dropped my damn quill again.

Wood bent over to pick up the slippery implement. I took in his perfectly kept blue and silver Quidditch robes, windswept sandy brown hair, scruffy facial hair, and dirty footwear. He was sporting the rugged Ravenclaw Seeker image he had been expertly maintaining ever since he snagged the position his third year, and despite the fact that the Ravenclaws practiced three hours ago (try being friends with Liam and not memorize every house's practice schedule) he was still parading around in his bleeding uniform.

And he looked damn good in –

Shit, shit, shit.

"I picked up your quill for you," he stated dumbly, visibly wincing at his own opening line. I reckoned even the most self-aggrandizing of blokes behaved awkwardly during their first run-in with the girl they sloppily kissed the night before.

"Thanks. That's… important," I replied meekly, making no move to actually take the quill he was trying to offer back to me.

"So hung over from last night you forgot how to move your arms?" He was apparently more adept at collecting the pieces of his shattered dignity than I was. Saving face, I snatched the quill out of his calloused hand while maintaining my best scowl.

"No, I was just so blown away by your charm." I made sure every syllable was drenched in sarcasm.

"Holland, about last night–"

It was time to nope the hell out of here.

"Love to stay and chat, but I'm currently twenty minutes late to what I'm sure is a rousing lecture on pruning some sort of plant I'll never come across in my daily life. Can't miss it. Cheers!" I said all of this very fast before I rushed through the heavy doors leading to freedom, cutting any sense of responsibility over talking about our choices last night short.

Selfishly getting my best mate sent to the hospital wing, ignoring my sister who trusted me above anyone else with her account of such a life-changing event, and eschewing a chance to have a mature conversation with my enemy for a lecture that I was only going to sleep through anyway?

My mother would be so proud.