Anyway, after a couple more pleasantries — Liz was pretty sure the compliment on her dress wasn't actually creepy coming from a professor, but she was terribly awkward and didn't know what the fuck to say in these moments, so it just seemed like it — Ollivander headed back in toward the party, leaving Liz out in the gardens alone. She wasn't really going in any direction in particular, just wandering, whenever an intersection in the random curling walkpaths came up taking the one that took her further away from the nearest minds. A couple turns brought her down to the next tier, and then the next, wandering deeper and deeper into the garden.

Like in the Entrance Hall, there were fairies out here, but whoever had set this up hadn't bothered with palings to keep them away. They mostly stayed huddled up in the bushes and up in the trees, like glittery glowing Christmas tree ornaments — Liz recalled that fairies didn't like the cold — but she could see a few flittering around here and there. One fluttered over Liz's head, poking at her borrowed hairpin and twittering away in their musical nonsense babble, hung around for a handful of seconds before flying off again.

It was pretty out here, but Liz was also... Well, as much as the drugs stopped her from losing her shite from all the everything pummelling her over the head, it didn't actually make it go away. It must have been weighing on her more than she'd realised — the much less dense environment of the gardens, absolutely nobody paying attention to her at all, was kind of relaxing. Also, she hadn't really noticed she had a headache until she suddenly didn't anymore...

Yeah, good thing she'd decided to take a break, because it kind of seemed like she could have used one.

There were other people out here, taking a casual stroll, having quieter, more private conversations than the Great Hall would allow, or just taking a break from the noise and the crowd. Liz noticed a few people hidden in dark corners snogging — no big surprise there, teenagers and hormones and all that. Liz tried to give everyone a wide berth, but there was only so much space out here, she did bump into people now and then, mostly passing each other in silence, a couple muttered pleasantries now and then.

She noticed Severus and Vector more than once, the Slytherin professors apparently scouring the gardens for couples getting a little too involved for a public setting. At one point, she overheard Vector jinxing one couple to get their attention, a bit of lecturing, fifteen points from Hufflepuff — Liz bit her lip to keep herself from sniggering.

Liz noticed a group of older Gryffindors ahead, took a turn to go around them. The Gryffindors had never liked her much, but ever since her name had come out of that bloody Goblet it'd only gotten worse. Not that she thought anything bad would happen, bumping into them alone in the dark, she just didn't want to deal with it right now. While looping around, she felt someone she really hadn't expected to see tonight. Her step hitching in place, she felt around the person — not actually intruding, just confirming who it was and getting a feeling for her position. When the next turn came up, she went in that direction, trying to find her...

This way, she found an intense, whispered conversation going on between Karkaroff and Vebjørn — they cut off as she approached, pretended everything was normal, obviously didn't want to be overheard. Of course, they had no reason to suspect that there was someone sitting hidden in the bushes. While Vebjørn was saying something about the dance, Liz frowned, glancing in the direction of the hidden mind.

That was a terrible idea. Was Rita trying to get caught?

While passing by Karkaroff and Vebjørn, Liz shot off a compulsion at Rita. It glanced right off her mind, somewhat to her surprise — Rita's occlumency was surprisingly good, but she wouldn't have seen it coming — but Rita obviously took it as sign that Liz wanted to talk anyway, paralleling her in the bushes. Reaching out for all the minds in the area, Liz headed toward a quiet corner, way off to the side opposite the cliffs. Liz had noticed that people tended to be concentrated toward the cliff side of the gardens, probably thought the view was better...

Liz never actually caught sight of the beetle, too dark out here, but she wasn't the least bit surprised when, once they were sufficiently out of the way, Rita abruptly appeared out of nowhere...though she didn't really look much like Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent at the moment. She still had the same bright red glasses, rhinestones along the rim, but her hair was noticeably frizzier, absent whatever she normally did to force it into its usual curls, held back out of her face in a sloppy ponytail. And if Liz hadn't already known Rita was muggleborn, she definitely would have put it together now — she was wearing fuzzy grey tracksuit bottoms, and a hooded jumper with a logo for Everton, which Liz was almost positive was a football club.

Rita came out scowling, mind sparking with irritation. "What the hell was that for, Potter?"

"Just trying to get your attention." Even if the compulsion worked, it would have only made Rita look in her direction anyway. "Unless you wanted me to ask you to follow me right in front of the Durmstrang judges."

A lurch through her head, Rita grimaced — she didn't like it, but she had to admit (privately) that she didn't have any better ideas. "And just why did you need to talk to me so badly?"

"You realise spying on the Ball is a terrible idea."

Rita gave her a sceptical look, one narrow eyebrow arching upward, not showing a hint of her surprise and uncertainty. "Darling, I've been doing this sort of thing since before you were born. You're going to have a hard time convincing me I don't know what I'm doing."

"You know there are other mind mages at this thing."

"Yes, obviously, but you and Severus are the only ones who have met me before. I've been avoiding Severus — and he hasn't made it easy for me, prowling around like he has — and a new person will just assume I'm someone they can't see on the other side of the bushes. Unless you know something I don't? You are the mind mage of the two of us, after all."

...Well, no, that was a good point, actually. After a second of thought, Liz said, "Veela."

The sceptical, slightly condescending expression abruptly vanished, Rita's face going blank. "What?"

"The veela and lilin here will be able to feel you too, and I have no idea what their range is like. And, while your occlumency might keep some random mind mage from picking up anything incriminating, that doesn't work on veela and lilin — they might be able to tell you're out here eavesdropping, at the very least, even if they can't figure out the animagus thing right away. Have you been avoiding all of them?"

For a couple seconds, Rita's mind clicked away, almost audibly hissing, before she scowled again. "Dammit. Does occlumency really not stop...whatever veela and lilin do?"

"Nope. I think it's some weird soul-resonance thing, it just goes right through occlumency."

Rita sighed. "Well, in that case, you might have a point — I didn't know that. I can count the times I've met a veela on one hand and have fingers left over. As pathologically racist as so many of the pureblood types are, you hardly ever see any of them in this country."

"Yeah, that's true. I don't think I met one at all until the duelling tournament over the summer. I can't remember, do they have any rights in Britain at all?"

"Veela are half-human beings, like wilderfolk, and lilin are dark creatures."

"...Well, that's stupid." The classification for veela at least sort of made sense — the "half-human" qualifier at least meant they were legally allowed to own wands — but the one for lilin was just nonsense. They were the same species, for one thing, so being classified differently at all didn't make any sense (Liz remembered that part of the law, at least), but "dark creature" was for things, like, hags? Things that didn't have the intelligence to keep themselves away from muggles on their own, so needed to be controlled for the sake of Secrecy, but were also a danger to humans, just innately. Even if you thought the lilin dark fire magic was scary, it wasn't really deniable they were people, at least. Ridiculous.

"Welcome to magical Britain, Liz," Rita drawled, smirking a little. "But enough of that, I hadn't expected to see you here at all tonight. And all dolled up while you're at it — I'm guessing you had someone else do the hair and makeup for you."

Liz rolled her eyes — Rita had commented on her seemingly not putting much effort into that sort of thing before, that she didn't really know what she was doing had come up. "Obviously. Severus brought Narcissa over to take care of it." Both of Rita's eyebrows arched up, but she didn't respond otherwise. But then, Rita had an arrangement with Narcissa too, so it probably wasn't as much of a surprise to her as it was to other people. "And no, I didn't expect to come either, I would have told you if my plans changed. I did tell you about Daphne and everything, you know, I'm trying to keep to our deal, this just...happened really fast. I didn't know I was coming either until Severus sprang it on me early this afternoon. He was worried the Goblet might consider the Ball to be part of my obligations."

"Ah... I hadn't thought of that. Severus is a clever young man, isn't he." Rita referring to Severus as a young man continued to be strange, but Liz guessed by magical standards he really wasn't that old. "I would ask, but you're right, I should be leaving before anyone notices me. I may have a memory to send you tomorrow."

Liz nodded, not surprised. "I might not be able to get to it before we leave for Kaunas, but sure. Did you get close enough to Karkaroff and Vebjørn to hear anything?"

"A little. Karkaroff isn't enjoying his return to Britain, haunted by old ghosts, and is perhaps growing a touch paranoid. He's convinced his Mark is growing darker."

"Well, you can't really blame him for not wanting to..." Liz trailed off, frowning to herself — something about that sounded familiar. After the riot at the World Cup, Severus talking to Liz and Hermione about the Dark Mark, right. "You know, Severus noticed the same thing, back in August."

Rita's mind sharpened again, attention intense and prickly on Liz. "Did he? You never mentioned this."

She shrugged. "He wasn't sure it meant anything. He told us he was going to look into a few contacts, I never heard what came of that."

"Do ask him about it for me, please. This isn't the first rumour I've heard, but... Well, certain characters at the edge of polite society can be quite dramatic at times — even with Karkaroff, I wasn't taking it seriously." She was more likely to write an article speculating whether the Headmaster of Durmstrang was slowly losing his mind, she meant. "But if Severus has noticed it too, well, your guardian is a much more sensible sort. This might be worth looking into."

"Don't get yourself killed poking around Death Eaters like an idiot. I need someone managing the papers for me, you know."

Rita grinned, showing a flash of teeth, amusement ringing around them. "Don't worry about me, darling, I have my ways. Unless there was anything else, I'll show myself out."

"No, get out of here."

Once Rita was gone — the beetle was small enough to be invisible in the night, but she could feel her mind moving toward the Forest, making for the wardline — Liz turned back toward the Castle. She'd probably gotten enough of a break to be fine now, but also she needed to pee. It was hard to tell for sure, but she didn't feel quite as lightheaded as before, she suspected the drugs might have worn off — she hadn't been keeping track of the time, maybe still a little early, but she didn't want to stumble into the crowd completely unmedicated. Just in case, she pulled out another of the little crystal things, tucked it under her tongue before stepping inside.

Liz didn't go to the toilet on Helga's Gallery (the same ones connected to the duelling hall), worried it'd be overcrowded, instead going all the way through the Great Hall — on the way asked to dance by Seamus Finnegan, of all people, seemingly without even thinking about it — past the Grand Staircase toward Hufflepuff, the direction Helga's Gallery was supposed to be in. The door out to the greenhouses was right here now, somehow, despite the outside wall of the Castle not being anywhere near here, but oh well. Down a flight of stairs, between the Hufflepuff dorms and the kitchens, was another set of public toilets, which Liz expected to be completely empty.

Somewhat to her surprise, it wasn't. Liz walked through the doors to find a clump of people standing at the sinks — Hermione, Tracey, Millie, and Sally-Anne, all gathered around Hannah. "Woah, what's going on in here?" Actually, now that she was paying attention, Hannah didn't seem quite well, cold lurching feelings pulsing off of her, her eyes all red...

The girls were all quiet for a moment, glancing between Liz and Hannah. Her voice a little delicate, Hermione said, "Um, Hannah and Susan just broke up."

"...Oh." For a long, awkward moment, Liz just stood there and silently stared. She should probably say something, but absolutely nothing was coming to her, she had no idea what to do. So, she just headed for one of the toilets without a word.

While Liz was taking care of her business, she eavesdropped on the other girls, both with her ears and mind magic. Hannah seemed hurt, yes, a sharp ache in her head and occasionally breaking to sniffle, but there was also a fair bit of self-recrimination in her thoughts, blaming herself — mostly unvoiced, the others had already insisted she shouldn't beat herself up about it and she didn't want to argue. She'd known this was coming, she'd just been...kind of in denial about it? If she was being completely honest with herself, she should have known from the beginning that this was the way it would end, but she'd gotten kind of carried away and, well.

The girls were mostly talking about, like, whether their trip to Kaunas was still on — fewer of their friends were planning on going to this one, given the timing, but some still were — and how they should manage things in the dorms and in their study group and all, if Hannah was doing okay, but Liz mostly didn't care about that. Hannah could feel her picking through her memories, trying to figure out what had happened, but she didn't try to stop her, kind of nudged her in the right direction. (She'd rather not talk about it again so soon, catching Liz up this way was just easier.) The break-up had happened in the middle of the dance floor, apparently, a fight sparking off and escalating right there in public, which was sort of humiliating, but Hannah wasn't so worried about that. Not like she was nobility, that sort of thing wasn't her problem.

Apparently, Hannah had idly brought up the fancy events that the nobility threw now and then, kind of casually musing about next time they went to something like this, you know. Susan had, somewhat awkwardly, pointed out that they probably wouldn't be able to go to that sort of thing together — Susan was officially getting into courtship age now, so she'd have other plans. Hannah had been a little taken aback that Susan still planned to do the courtship and proper marriage thing — they had been together for literally a year at this point, which was sort of a big deal, and Susan (like Liz) wasn't attracted to boys at all — which Susan was obviously uncomfortable while also rather exasperated about. Like, Susan had always planned to go through with a marriage and all, she'd never said or done anything to suggest otherwise. Their arrangement with the Goldsteins had been a quieter, more private thing, but now that that had fallen through, well, the nobles' silly courtship game was what was left. She was the last Bones, after all, she sort of had to? Not unless she wanted the family to completely die out and, whatever else she might think about pureblood society, she did care about that. Sure, lesbians could have children with blood alchemy, but that was a serious problem for political reasons, and wasn't a realistic option. Not for one of the Seventeen Founders, and not for their generation, at least — their children's generation, maybe, but not right now.

(Liz thought that was very silly, but she hadn't grown up with this pureblood shite, so. Whatever.)

Hannah had been uncomfortable with the idea of Susan dating her and shopping for husbands at the same time, had asked about how Susan thought that would go; Susan had said something about not really expecting Hannah would be okay with it, but that's life for you. At some point, the conversation turned bad, and they were both shouting at each other — during the Yule Ball, in the middle of the dance floor. It'd ended with an ultimatum from Hannah, that she wasn't going to settle for being Susan's paramour, if Susan was completely serious about going through with it she might as well just break up with her now. So — visibly hurt, her face red and her eyes watering — Susan had. During the Yule Ball, in the middle of the dance floor.

Well. That was a whole fucking mess, wasn't it.

Liz was all caught up by the time she was walking out to the sinks. While washing her hands, she looked over at Hannah's reflection in the mirror. "If it helps, I think that was the right move. I don't think either of you would have dealt well with trying to keep it going while Susan was doing the silly pureblood courtship shite."

"Yeah, I know," Hannah admitted, her voice rather thick and hoarse from crying. "I know I couldn't have... This was going to happen no matter what, but it still hurts." Sally-Anne squeezed her arm tighter, practically folding in against her side. Which seemed kind of backwards for the situation, Liz thought — you'd think Hannah would be snuggling into Sally-Anne, for comfort reasons — but Hannah was significantly taller, so.

"I get it, believe me. I just broke up with Daphne not too long ago, you know. We weren't together nearly as long, but." Liz and Daphne had been dating for...almost five months? she thought? Susan and Hannah had gotten together during Christmas at the Greenwood, so, almost exactly a year, about twice as long. Liz wasn't sure why that should make a difference, but she suspected it did.

"Oh, was that over this stupid noble stuff too?"

"No, that was... Well, it was Liz is broken stuff, I guess — I kind of knew I wasn't ready for a relationship like that, but I was an idiot and did it anyway. Teenagers, hormones, you know how it is."

Hannah's lips tilted in a sort of watery smirk — Daphne was just unfairly pretty sometimes, Hannah would have to be blind to not have noticed — but the immediate response actually came from Milie. She blurted out, "Oh! I didn't know you wer—" before catching herself, her face pinking a little and hunching down under the glances of the other girls. Apparently, Millie had enjoyed the dancing more than Liz had realised — now and then over the hours since, she'd been idly considering making a point of getting closer to Liz, to see if anything ended up happening there. Liz could maybe have been a little more clear that she wasn't interested in anything like that at the moment... "Um, you're not stupid, you shouldn't talk about yourself like that," Millie finished, trying to power through the moment of embarrassment.

Liz just shrugged that off — Millie was hardly the first person to tell her that, after all. "Anyway, that Daphne would end up getting married eventually had come up — she's going to do the whole formal courtship thing, you know, for complicated politics reasons I didn't really follow — but I'm actually fine with that. Er, I would have been fine with it, I mean." Past tense now, obviously.

"Really? I wouldn't have guessed that." All the girls were at least sceptical, Hermione was just the first to get words out. She was rather more sharply surprised too, all but gaping at Liz — she'd fully expected Liz would be the super jealous type, apparently, but Liz wasn't sure how she'd come to that conclusion. Just her impression of her personality and, well, things like hexing the shite out of Lavender, for example, none of the things Hermione was thinking about were really wrong, Liz just didn't know how she was getting from A to B.

"Um, I don't really get normal people most of the time, so correct me if I'm wrong, but my feeling is that for most people jealousy comes from, like...a lack of trust, sort of? Sometimes self-confidence. You know, not really being able to know what the other person is thinking or feeling, so getting a bit paranoid and protective, because you think other people might be a threat to it. But I always know how everyone feels about me, and most of the time how they feel about other people, so, there's really no reason for me to doubt the other person, you know?

"Besides, I'm also aware that Daphne thinks that relationships should ideally have more than two people in them anyway — you know, there's Heli and all, that was definitely an influence. So." Liz shrugged. "I was just going to do adoptions, of like muggleborns or something, to take care of the whole you definitely have to have heirs to continue the super special noble family or whatever the fuck, but, you know, I don't really plan on marrying, and as we get older a lot of the available dating options are increasingly going to start already being married with kids. And that's fine, I don't really care. As long as nobody's asking me to look after the kids, I guess."

There were a few snickers from the other girls at the thought of Liz childminding — nobody here really thought Liz dealing with little kids sounded like a good idea. Liz should maybe theoretically be offended about that, but she really wasn't, she was fully aware she wasn't equipped for that sort of thing. Of course, both Hermione and Sally-Anne noticed the I was just going to adopt muggleborns thing, wondering if she meant her school friends, which... Well, maybe? Primarily she was just thinking Hermione, but there was no reason she couldn't adopt their other muggleborn friends too — the Perkses would be an especially good idea, you know, since Sally-Anne had multiple younger siblings who were also muggleborn, kind of a three-for-one deal. (And also just in case it turned out they needed to get away from their parents, Liz hadn't forgotten about that situation.) But Liz hadn't fully made up her mind yet — she was all but certain she was going to do it at this point, but it was a pretty big deal — and Hermione and Sally-Anne didn't say anything about their suspicions out loud, so.

The conversation pretty quickly went back to Hannah and Susan, asking Hannah what she wanted to do, if she wanted to leave. Which, yeah, kind of — being very publicly broken up with was a bit humiliating, obviously, and she'd rather not go back out there while it was obvious that she'd been crying. Hannah had been planning on going home with Susan after the Ball — neither of their families blinked at that sort of thing, they'd been sleeping together for a while at this point (and it wasn't like they had to worry about an unplanned pregnancy or anything) — and obviously that wasn't happening now, but she didn't really feel like going home either. Her mum wasn't going to be there, off with friends for the holiday, and the other Abbotts would want to ask what was going on, and she didn't want to start this whole conversation all over. (Hermione nearly offered to have her come over, before remembering she still had a date in the Great Hall waiting for her to come back — yeah, seemed like that relationship was off to a great start.) After a bit of babbling back and forth, it was decided that Hannah would be staying with the Bulstrodes until it was time to leave for Kaunas, so, that was settled.

Seemed a little silly to Liz, but, she was aware most people thought it was better to not leave people alone when they were going through a thing. See Nilanse making a point of keeping Liz occupied lately, as an example.

Of course, since Hannah was such a Hufflepuff, she was still worried about Susan — someone should probably check on her? Tracey and Millie had seen her going off toward the gardens, but none of them had seen her since, here with Hannah. "I'll do it," Liz offered after a brief discussion. "I can find her with cheating Seer stuff without too much trouble. And, I'm probably the best person here to talk to her anyway, I'm actually better friends with her than with you. No offence," she added after a second.

Hannah wasn't offended, of course, because Hufflepuff.

After a last couple comments from a couple of the girls about seeing her in Kaunas — which was completely unnecessary, especially given the inconvenient timing, but whatever — Liz finally left the bathroom again. There were more people than she'd expected lingering in the Entrance Hall, moving to leave maybe? She hadn't realised it was that late, but her drugs had worn off multiple times, which meant it had to be after ten in the evening, approaching midnight. Didn't feel like it should be that late. In the dim colourful Great Hall, the dance floor was rather less crowded than the last time she'd been here, more people sitting at the tables — looking over shoulders as she passed by, she noticed people had cakes and puddings and shite. Must be dessert time. Obviously all that stuff would be too sweet for her anyway...though some of the foreign stuff might be edible...

"Oh hey, Liz, I was wondering where you got off to. Pull up a chair for a second?"

"Hey, Katie." Liz came to a stop, leaned at an angle to properly see around the table — because she was a perv sometimes, she was curious what Katie had decided to wear to the Ball. She didn't think she'd ever seen Katie in a skirt before...and she still hadn't, in fact. Katie was wearing a pair of silky smooth trousers in a vivid red, more baggy toward the bottom — showing heels similar to Liz's, her toenails painted red — but clinging close around her thighs and hips. There wasn't a proper corset sort of thing, though over the blouse (black) there was a stiffer...bustier thing, or whatever the fuck the proper term was, one of the more old-fashioned ones that laced up the front — way less finely-decorated than Liz's thing, she assumed Katie's family couldn't afford anything super fancy — the V of the neck on the blouse reaching way down, making her cleavage super obvious. The blouse left her shoulders mostly uncovered, but there were sleeves, loose and fluttery, in the same silky shimmery red as the trousers.

Liz thought it was a pretty odd outfit, honestly. It didn't look bad, of course, but Liz was aware her own taste was also odd. And, well, Katie almost always looked great, no matter what she was wearing — Liz found her annoyingly attractive in a very different way from Daphne, more athletic like. In a similar way to how some people liked Liz, she guessed, except Katie actually had tits. (Not huge, by any means, but at least they existed.) Especially since she was just noticing that the blouse didn't quite meet the waist of her trousers, leaving a narrow strip of her middle visible all the way around, that was distracting...

Somewhat to her surprise, Katie seemed to be sitting alone — there were a few upper-year Ravenclaws at the table, but they were at opposite ends of the little round table, obviously not the same group. That was odd. When she wasn't with duelling club people, she was almost always around the Gryffindor quidditch team, so, maybe they were all busy with their dates at the moment? She was positive Katie had a boyfriend at the moment...though she was blanking on his name. Ravenclaw, he'd been in the duelling club's tournaments a few times, Liz recognised him by sight but she could be terrible at remembering the names of people she didn't actually know.

Frowning, Liz glanced toward the archway out to the gardens. She had a feeling Susan was still out there... It didn't feel urgent, she could probably stall for a few minutes. Yeah, okay. Liz dragged a chair out with a foot, plopping down into it, her lips twitching at the way her skirts flooffed and the corset seemed to tighten around her. (It wasn't actually, it just felt like it sometimes when she moved in certain ways.) "What's that you got there?" she asked, nodding at Katie's plate.

"Baklava. I'm surprised it was even on the menu, it's an eastern thing — never seen it before this summer in Romania. You wouldn't like it, though."

Liz suspected that glisteny stuff was honey, so, good bet. She didn't really recognise it, but— "Oh, that's the layered pastry with the nuts and the honey they had sometimes, I see it now. Looks different. Anyway, no, I probably won't like anything on the menu, that's how it goes for me sometimes."

"Mm, tiramisu might not be too sweet...though there's probably cane sugar in the biscuits..."

"Whatever, it's fine. Severus said there would be coffee with dessert, though, did they switch out the drink menus?"

They had, in fact, switched out the drink menus. Liz didn't recognise a lot of it, by the section headings mostly various kinds of liquor — she didn't recognise many of the names, but she knew after-dinner drinks were often stupid sweet. She was somewhat tempted to ask for some gin — she had really liked the stuff they'd had at the Greenwood last year, even while getting way more drunk than she'd meant to — but she still wasn't sure mixing alcohol with the cannabis she was already on was a great idea. She had gotten very very silly at that one party, she should avoid doing that in public. At home or at house parties and shite, sure, but not here. She quickly found the coffee section, there was one with orange liquor and cloves, which sounded good — she wasn't sure if the elves would hear it if she asked for absolutely no sweeteners at all, but she did it anyway, just in case.

And they must have listened, because the coffee was really good, actually. It was a little sweet, she assumed that was from the orange stuff, but it wasn't overpowering — and it wasn't making her ill or anything, so it must not use cane sugar at all. The spices were more complicated than just cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg...and maybe something else...it was really complicated and pretty great actually. The coffee could have been a bit stronger, she would have steeped it for longer, but, minor quibble, good stuff.

"Shite, that smells like Christmas."

Liz snorted. "Yeah, it tastes like Christmas too. Anyway, what are you doing here by yourself? I thought you were dating, um..."

The air shivering around her with amusement, her lips twitching, Katie drawled, "You forgot his name, didn't you."

"Yeah, sorry. I don't know if I've ever even met him before."

"You might have, not sure. Evan? Tugwood?" she added when Liz just kept staring at her.

"Oh! Right, I remember him now, the quiet blond bloke, got that bracelet with the thing, he did those drawings of the team."

Chewing a bite of her cake (or whatever the proper term was), Katie just nodded. Chasing it with a sip of her drink — some kind of hard liquor, maybe, Liz wasn't sure — it took her a moment to find her voice again. "Yep, that's Evan. The bracelet is a religious thing, sort of like Christians wearing a cross or the like." Yeah, Liz had assumed it might be, she'd seen similar things on various people now and then, but she didn't know the details and she'd never asked. "We broke up, like a couple weeks ago now."

"Well shite, I completely missed that. Sorry."

Katie shrugged. "It's fine. We weren't serious, it's not like I was devastated over it or anything. It was just going long enough that Evan's grandmother said he should start courting me properly, if only for the appearance of the thing, so."

And Katie didn't plan on marrying until she was sure she had the social leverage to stay with her family, right, that made sense. "Okay. That does seem to be going around, doesn't it."

"Yeah, seems like it. I didn't think you'd show up, with you and Greengrass splitting."

"Severus dragged me here, didn't even tell me until he just showed up after lunch — Goblet."

That was all she needed to say for Katie to immediately get what she meant. "Oh right, that makes sense. Didn't think of that..."

"Yeah, doesn't seem like anybody else did either."

"Could have been worse, at least."

Liz blinked. "Huh?"

"I can't say I understand your relationship with Snape at all, he's a bloody nightmare, but I can tell you get along, at least. You were smiling, when you were up there with him. You hardly ever smile."

"...Oh." Liz had absolutely no idea how she was supposed to respond to that. "I've been high this whole time. You know, Seer, big crowd, was worried I wouldn't be able to make it through the dancing, so, drugs."

A lurch of amusement, "That would explain the giggling after you almost fell on your arse."

"Shut up. Anyway, I was actually going out to look for Susan, if you wanted to come with me after you're finished with that." Katie got on with Susan pretty well too — they were all a trio now, they did spend a fair amount of time together these days. And since Katie was just sitting here alone, she might as well come along.

"...Okay? Why?"

"She and Hannah broke up, less than an hour ago."

"Oh shite, really?" Her mind shivering with something Liz wasn't quite reading, Katie noticeably straightened in her seat, frowning to herself. "I would never have seen that coming, those two are... Well, they're kind of sickeningly adorable, honestly." Yeah, no disagreement there, it was kind of baffling to watch them being all couple-y together sometimes. "What the hell happened?"

"Susan is doing the formal noble courtship thing, and Hannah isn't comfortable with that."

Katie grimaced. "Ah, yeah, that would do it. Fuck, it really is going around, isn't it? All three of us in the space of a couple weeks..."

"Mm." Just a coincidence, really, it's not like the same thing had happened to all of them... Well, Susan's and Katie's situations were pretty similar, when she thought about it, but still. "Hannah was being mobbed by some of our friends, but Susan went off into the gardens alone, I volunteered to go check on her. Actually, I was considering having her come stay at my place until it's time to go to Lithuania — you know, her house is all big and empty, she gets lonely there sometimes." When Liz thought about it, she wasn't sure Katie knew that, since it was something she'd picked up from Susan's head. Oops.

"...That's maybe a good idea. You know how Hufflepuffs can be, and the two of them were, well."

"Yeah. You can come too, if you're not doing anything, make a whole girly sleepover thing out of it."

Katie huffed, amused. "Sure, I can do that. I was just going to stay here until we leave anyway."

"Is Christmas not a big holiday at the Dunbars'?"

"No, not really. There's a smaller Yule-themed thing around the Solstice, but." Katie shrugged it off, but there was a crackle of annoyance in her head, an unvoiced thought simmering away. Christmas wasn't a big holiday with her family, but Hallowe'en was — Katie (and also Fae Dunbar in Liz's year) was among the people who were very irritated that they didn't get Hallowe'en off from school. Liz was aware, from talking about it at duelling team practices last year, that there was also a big one in spring she had to miss — similar to the magical holiday that their 'Easter' break was supposed to coincide with, but a few weeks later — but there was nowhere they could put the breaks that would please everyone, so. "Do you have room wherever the hell you're living these days for both of us?"

"Oh yeah, no problem. The Potters are one of those absurd noble families, remember, I have more big fancy houses than I know what to do with."

"Ugh, of course you do." Katie thought that was just obscene, but Liz didn't really disagree, so. "I'm already mostly packed to leave, I'll just need to run up to Gryffindor on the way out."

"I expect Susan will have to go back home to pick up her things, so I was just going to tell you both my floo key and meet you there."

"Right. The fingernails look great, by the way, how did you get that swirl effect?"

In the couple minutes it took for Katie to finish her...baklava, Liz thought the word was, felt odd in her mouth. Anyway, they mostly talked about Narcissa doing her nails and makeup and shite which, yes, was still a very weird thing that happened. Katie wasn't really in the noble gossip network, obviously, so she was more surprised than most of the people she'd told about it tonight, especially that some of the nail polish had actually been muggle-made. She did feel kind of stupid when Liz guessed that Narcissa had probably just used some kind of movement charm to swirl the stuff together, that was obvious in retrospect...

Liz could tell that Katie also liked the dress (if a little rich for her tastes), but she was trying not to make Liz uncomfortable, fully aware that she would be able to feel Katie checking her out. Which was thoughtful of her, she guessed.

Katie finished the thing before too long, ordered a refill of her drink before they got up. It took a moment for her to get her balance right, teetering a little — Liz suspected she was a bit tipsy, she hadn't really seemed like it just sitting talking. Katie wasn't at all sceptical of Liz's ability to find someone in the crowd just because she wanted to — mages had a lot of funny ideas about Seers — just quietly followed along behind her, idly sipping at her drink. Liz got a feel for the general direction Susan was in pretty quickly after leaving the Great Hall, the gardens were kind of a maze but this shouldn't be a problem...

A bit tipsy and without a conversation to distract her, it wasn't very long before Liz felt Katie's eyes crawling over the bare skin along her spine, but that was fine. It tingled.

Liz found Susan halfway down the tiers, sitting on the border wall, looking out over the Lake. Her back was to them, but Liz didn't need to see her face to feel the cold, sharp, heavy misery pulsing off of her. Liz's step hitched, hesitating — partially due to the unpleasant atmosphere around Susan, true, but she also just...didn't really know what she was doing. Liz still wasn't great with even basic social...stuff, this was way outside of her comfort zone. Honestly, she was kind of worried that whatever would come out of her mouth would just make Susan feel worse.

While she was floundering, Katie continued past her, drew her wand. Susan let out a little squeak of surprise as the brick began reforming itself under her, transfigured down and out, and angling up to... A bench, Katie was transfiguring a stretch of the wall into a bench. Once it was done shifting around, a wooden bench now sitting in place of a few metres of brick wall, Katie's wand disappeared back into its holster, she stepped over the back of the bench and plopped down to a seat. "Hey, Susan."

"Katie. Did you want something?" Susan's voice was a little thick, but it was obvious she wasn't actively crying, at least.

"Ooh, cold. I was just checking how you're doing, but if you're going to bite my hand off, maybe I shouldn't bother."

"Why would— Oh, Liz." Liz was having a little harder of a time getting over the bench than Katie — the skirts would make it awkward to just get a leg over the back like Katie had (and also Katie wasn't stupid short). Luckily, the way Katie had transfigured the thing the back of the bench was behind the wall to either side, so Liz could slip through to step up onto the part you were supposed to sit on. Susan must have heard her climbing up, glancing her way. And she kept watching her, as Liz hopped down off of the bench...and then nearly turned an ankle on the grass, damn it... "You know, don't you. About Hannah."

"Yep." Liz dropped down onto the bench next to Susan, letting out a sigh — that took way more effort than she would have liked, bloody shoes. "I got it directly from Hannah, actually."

Susan correctly guessed that Liz had read her mind for it, though she had the context somewhat off. It wasn't really a secret to anyone that Liz got on with Susan better than Hannah, and that she wasn't great with emotional, squishy conversations — she was assuming Liz had read Hannah's mind for it, but hadn't actually talked to her at all. Which, that was fine, Liz suspected telling Susan that she'd volunteered to check on her would just embarrass her. "...Oh."

"Hannah's being mobbed by our friends at the moment, I thought I'd check on you. Katie I just bumped into on the way, and she's a nosey bitch, so."

"Again, rude. Why do I put up with this shite?"

"You're a masochist, mostly."

"Pff."

There was a faint glimmer of amusement working its way through the bleak cloud around Susan, but not enough for her to externally react at all. "You're both very sweet," said with an edge that should be sarcasm, but didn't come through quite right at the moment, "girls, but I think I'd rather be alone right now."

Liz wasn't sure how to say that was supposedly not a great idea without coming off condescending, or just like she didn't know what the fuck she was talking about — which she didn't, honestly — but thankfully Katie got to it before she could fuck it up. "Don't give us the stiff-upper-lip act, because I'm not buying it, and I can't even read your mind like Liz over there. You're allowed to feel like hell."

It was odd, Liz could feel the crack in Susan's head. Like, she'd had a feeling similar to that before, something she was holding together falling apart, but she didn't think she'd ever seen it happening in someone else before. "I'm the one who broke up with her, you know."

There was a flicker of surprise in Katie's head — Liz hadn't mentioned any of the details, so that was new information to her. Of course, since Katie wasn't an idiot, she quickly guessed Hannah had given her an ultimatum over the courtship thing, and Susan had made the only choice she could. "Did you want to?"

"...No," Susan muttered.

"Well, that fucking sucks. Don't you think that fucking sucks? Hey Liz, doesn't that fucking suck?"

"Yeah, fucking sucks. I was the one who broke up with Daphne too, still fucking sucks."

"There you go, we're in agreement, then, it fucking sucks. So, and don't just try to brush me off this time, how are you really doing?"

Susan tried to say something, a couple times, starting and stopping a few syllables in...and then there was another hard crack in her head, and she was crying instead. Woah, so that was what that looked like from the outside, okay then. Liz would have no fucking clue what to do with this — she hardly knew how to handle her own crying, honestly, even with all the practice she'd been getting for months now — but thankfully Katie could take care of that, Susan tucked under her arm and clinging at her side, the angle of the hugging only made slightly awkward by the corset built into Susan's dress. Really a good think she'd bumped into Katie, she guessed, Liz would be so unbelievably awkward trying to handle this by herself. The touching, she still wasn't great with the touching...

Well, maybe easier with the drugs, but that wouldn't help her figure out what to do at all. So it'd still be painfully awkward, she just wouldn't be freaking out like a crazy person...

Or, not for that reason, at least. The tangle of feelings spraying her way from Susan were...starting to get to her. An echo shivering through her, before long beginning to burn low in her throat, it— Liz was completely shitty with her own feelings stuff most of the time, but she wasn't so oblivious to not be aware that she wasn't over her own thing with Daphne, not to mention all the shite connected to it — the reasons she'd broken up with Daphne also extremely fucking sucked, just on their own — and Susan's feelings on her thing with Hannah weren't exactly the same as Liz's, but they were close enough that picking up on them was really not helping. Katie was all hugging Susan and muttering...something over there, but Liz was actually leaning away, focussing on her breathing, trying to push against the tightness building in her chest.

She was kind of irritated with Susan for a second, but that was shitty, it wasn't her fault she felt like crap. And, even just thinking that for a second made Liz feel worse, for reasons she couldn't even quite articulate to herself, tears starting to prickle in her eyes, Liz squeezed them shut, son of a bitch...

It was probably a few minutes — hard to say exactly, the drugs making time smeary and Liz too intensely focussed on not crying — before Susan started to calm down, left sniffling and shivering in Katie's arms. Liz wasn't sure if that was from actually feeling cold, but it was a little chilly out here, right at the edge of the environmental wards, she went ahead and cast a warming charm anyway. Oh, those sharp prickles she got whenever she came in from the cold sparked to life all across her exposed skin as soon as the paling hit, cold might have something to do with it. Liz hadn't even noticed, she had no idea why she was so bad at telling when she was cold...

Susan twitched as the warmth hit, but then relaxed into Katie again. Sniffling, she drew her wrist across her face — Liz wasn't looking, but she picked up a flicker of disgust, because Susan was leaking and just got a smear of it across her hand. "Ugh. Sorry."

"It's okay," Katie said. "It looks like you needed that."

"Yeah." Tentatively, Susan started sitting upright again, mind flickering with little sparks of pain. From sitting in an awkward position, Liz guessed, that hadn't really seemed comfortable from the outside. "Yeah, I wasn't really..." Susan had been blaming herself for it, trying not to feel the hurt — she hadn't been doing a very good job of it, and they'd shocked her out of it pretty easily, it seemed very silly in retrospect. She didn't know how to say that out loud, though, or even if she really wanted to. "Um. I just hate this, is all."

"Break-ups suck."

"Mhmm. I knew this was going to be a problem, and I still— You're lucky you don't have to deal with society stuff, Katie, it's miserable. I'm jealous, sometimes."

Katie opened her mouth to respond, but then immediately cut herself off. She realised Susan was feeling like shite at the moment, and probably hadn't realised that was an extremely insensitive to say. Like, yeah, sure, maybe Katie didn't have to deal with the silly shite the nobles did for whatever incomprehensible reason, but that was because her family was dirt fucking poor — the stupid society nonsense was the price you got to pay for not living in poverty. Like, kind of literally, because even poor people were forced to deal with it if they wanted to get out of poverty...and, since they weren't nobility, they didn't have any power in this stuff, so they had far less ability to choose how they would interact with it. It was a very ignorant and shitty thing to say, basically, but Katie didn't want to make Susan feel worse about herself by pointing that out.

So Liz decided to rescue her this time. Her first thought was saying that she was just going to skip the whole stupid courtship thing by adopting people, but Susan was definitely aware of that possibility and had decided not to take advantage of it, for whatever reason, so that wouldn't be helping. "Do you want to—" Liz felt the hoarseness on her own voice, paused to clear her throat.

A slippery flicker of something surfacing through the harsh mess in Susan's head, she turned to frown at her. "Are... Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, just—" Ugh, son of a bitch, her voice still wasn't coming out right, chest too tight and throat too tense. For some reason, noticing that made it get worse, for no apparently reason, an oddly tingly flush passing over her skin and her eyes prickling again, "Argh, stop it! I'm fine, just, all the miserable break-up feelings being all..." Liz gestured vaguely between the two of them, not really sure how to describe it. Especially since she was very much aware that the way it felt to her wasn't actually what was happening — it felt like Susan had been smacking her over the head with it, the echo ringing through her chest causing the oh shite you're about to cry signs, but of course it was actually Liz failing to keep her mind to herself, and, "...I don't know, it's all trippy and confusing as hell, but that's being a mind mage for you. I'll be okay, it's, just, bleh."

Susan and Katie were both very sceptical.

"Okay fine, I've been trying not to cry this whole time, but I'm not doing it here, okay? I'm bad at crying, it's embarrassing, and the corset will probably make me hurt myself even more than usual, so let's just change the subject, please. I'll cry when we get home."

Susan was feeling kind of guilty now, for her bad feelings pushing at Liz's bad feelings, which was very silly and really not her fault. Katie mostly just seemed bemused. "You're bad...at crying."

"Yes, I pull muscles and shite every time, it's fucking stupid. But I'm not thinking about that right now, we're talking about something else. If you want to get the hell out of here, I was going to ask if you wanted to stay over at my place, until we leave for Kaunas."

It took a second for Susan to realise Liz was talking to her, which was also very silly. "Oh! Um..." Susan had been planning on staying at school until then, but that didn't seem very appealing at the moment. Her thoughts flicked to her house, the manor big and cold and empty — built in a previous generation, when there'd been many more Boneses than there were now. And her mother(/aunt) wouldn't even be around, much, there'd probably just be a Hit Wizard keeping an eye on her... She could visit the commune on their lands (much reduced in scale from the old Mistwalker village of previous generations), or the Greenwood, but... "I... That would be really nice, um, thank you, Liz." For some reason, Liz wasn't sure how the thoughts connected, tears were welling in Susan's eyes, and—

"Ah, fuck!" Liz jumped up to her feet, her heeled shoes unsteady on the grass nearly making her faceplant immediately, not really planning to go anywhere, just— She forced out a long shaky breath, covered her face with her hands, pulling her mind in as much as she could and focussed as hard as she could on not losing her shite like a fucking baby. She was leaking, she could feel the wetness against her fingers, ugh, but she was mostly controlling her breathing, she thought she could hold it together for the moment. "Sorry, I'm okay. I'm, ah, I'm going to go find Severus, and tell him I'm leaving. I'll meet you there."

Her knees a little shaky, the drugs making her head slightly spinny not really improving her balance — her vision being noticeably watery also wasn't helping — she'd just gotten over the bench and back onto the tile when she heard a call of her name from Katie. Liz could feel the edge of concern in her head, but Katie was clearly trying to play along, looking over her shoulder this way with a crooked smirk. "Forgetting something?"

"...What?"

"The floo key?"

And now she felt very stupid, thank you, Katie.

It wasn't until she was all the way back in Helga's Gallery that she remembered she'd left her empty coffee mug sitting on the bench — dammit, she hadn't meant to— Oh well, one of the elves would find it eventually. Just, ugh, she needed to get home.

She found Severus at one of the little round tables scattered around the Great Hall, with Babbling, Vector, Vitale, and...some Ministry person, presumably, Liz didn't recognise him. The angle she was coming at was to Severus's back, Vector saw her coming and nudged him under the table, nodding over his shoulder to Liz — which was completely pointless, since Severus was a bloody mind mage and would feel her coming, but whatever. Liz came to a stop a couple steps behind Severus's chair, before anyone could say anything blurted out, "I'm going home now."

Looking up at her, Severus paused, just for a second. "Very well. If you'll excuse me," he said to his tablemates, and...moved to get up.

...Liz hadn't been asking him to come with her, but okay then. She knew he didn't really enjoy all the formal events he got dragged to all the time, so, if he wanted to use her as an excuse to leave, she guessed that was fine. He extricated himself quickly enough, and without much delay was walking off, Liz following silently after him. Belatedly, she skipped up a step, slipping her hand into place above his elbow, she should probably still be doing that. He led the way along the edge of the dance floor, occasionally looping around a table as convenient — there were still couples dancing, the music rather slower and more...intimate, so, Liz was kind of relieved she'd gotten herself out of the dancing part before this point. They did attract a little attention on the way, but nobody tried to stop them.

On the way, Liz noticed Sophie and Justin dancing, looking very close and cosy, and also Hermione and Neville, rather more stiff about it — amusingly, Liz got the impression Neville wasn't entirely sure what he should be doing with his hands. (She meant, fair, Liz sometimes got kind of self-conscious about that sort of thing with her friends too, just saying.) She recognised a few other couples here and there, nobody really a surprise...except McGonagall and Sinistra, she guessed. Liz was aware that they were shagging, but they were very private about it, to the point that the vast majority of the students had no idea. Liz only knew because she'd incidentally picked it up from Sinistra's head one morning, ages ago now. The way they were dancing wasn't particularly suggestive or anything, could be read as a friend thing, but still.

...When she thought about it, Liz knew more lesbian mages than she'd realised. McGonagall and Sinistra weren't really 'out', though, she didn't think...

The Entrance Hall was emptier than the last time Liz had been out here. The Great Hall was still relatively full, apparently the people who she'd seen leaving before had just been a minority, most people staying for longer. It was getting pretty late, but whatever. It was quiet outside, still gently snowing — going on long enough now that the dusting on the ground and in the trees was far more noticeable — only a few other people going for the carriages at the same time as Liz and Severus. Liz just quick-stepped up to the carriage, Severus hopped up after her, the door clicking closed behind him.

She twitched a little, leaning away, as Severus sat down on the bench next to her, instead of opposite her like he had on the way here. Now that there were fewer people around, it was obvious that there was something going on in there, some kind of cool sticky feeling clinging at her, she hadn't noticed...

At least she didn't have to wonder about it very long — the carriage had barely even lurched into motion before Severus spoke. "Did something happen, Elizabeth?"

"What? No?"

He hesitated for a moment, uncertainty sharp in the air. "You've been crying."

"...Only almost crying. Is it that obvious?" She'd thought she'd mostly managed to control it, she wouldn't have gone walking across the Great Hall otherwise. People made up shite about her no matter what she did, but she'd rather not, just, hand them embarrassing material like that.

"To me? Yes."

Implying it might not be to people who weren't as familiar with her, right, got it. "It's nothing, just— Susan and Hannah broke up, and, she was crying about that — Susan, I mean, though Hannah was earlier I guess, I wasn't there for that — and her feelings about that beating me over the head were...kind of a lot. I might have run away to give myself a break, honestly. Which, shot myself in the foot, maybe, since I did invite them over tonight."

"Who is they?"

"Susan and Katie. Oh, you mean— No, Hannah isn't coming over too, that would be awkward, it's just Susan and Katie. I, um, people seem to think you shouldn't be alone after this sort of thing — Nilanse has been hovering — and Susan's house is big and empty, you know, I figured I might as well. They're collecting their things for the Kaunas trip, we'll leave from my house together."

For whatever reason, the cool feeling from Severus didn't seem to be easing up — explaining what was going on didn't seem to have stopped him from being...concerned, or whatever was going on in there. There was another feeling blooming at that, but it was quiet and hidden enough, didn't know what that was, though... "That is quite thoughtful of you."

"...Yeah." She didn't know what else to say, just, awkwardly staring out the window, the grounds gradually trundling past.

"You needn't run away, as you put it," Severus said after a moment, the pause long enough she was a little startled. "You are allowed to express whatever it is you are feeling."

Liz snorted. "Because you're the expert when it comes to openly expressing your feelings."

"I am not a model to aspire to in this regard." He didn't quite explicitly spell it out, but he meant that he was super fucked up himself, and about as bad with his feelings as Liz was with hers.

Well, at least Severus was aware of his hypocrisy, she guessed. "Yeah, whatever. It's not a— I'm not like bottling all this shite up or whatever it is you're thinking, I'm just... I just didn't want to break down in public. I've already cried over Daphne plenty, trust me. It's fucking annoying, honestly, I still hate crying."

"That is what I was concerned of, yes."

"It's not a problem, then, I'm... Well, okay, I'm not fine, it sucks, but whatever, I'm dealing with it." To a degree, anyway. Liz was aware that she had serious issues, and that they weren't just going to go away on their own, and that Severus probably had a point about, like, talking to an actual professional or whatever being a good idea. She, just, very much didn't want to do that. It wasn't just about Daphne even, necessarily — her issues about Daphne specifically, well, if the next person she tried the dating thing with wasn't such a... Daphne was an unreasonably good person, Liz couldn't imagine that would be a problem next time.

(The next person she tried it with almost certainly wouldn't be an actual murderer, but they weren't likely to be nearly as much of a better person than Liz as Daphne was, so.)

If nothing else, Liz had been slapped in the face, really hard, with the fact that her issues with her body were...really not okay. She'd already known that, of course, but. She hoped the blood alchemy thing would fix it, just by itself, but she had a nasty feeling that fucked-up brain issues didn't work like that.

Not that she had any idea how to fix it. At least without giving up and letting Severus set something up with a muggle therapist or whatever the fuck, but she really didn't want to do that. She probably would, if it came down to it, but only as a last resort.

Maybe if she had any confidence at all that it would actually help, she'd be more willing to consider it before the point of being absolutely desperate, but she couldn't imagine how being made to talk about it would do anything but make her feel even worse. So.

Yeah, she wasn't really dealing with that part of everything, but she didn't feel like telling Severus about that.

She had no idea how much of that tangent Severus was picking up — there was something going on in there, flickering and lurching hot and cold, but Severus was too tightly-contained to tell, really. Liz's mind was fucking loud, she could have been shouting all that right in his face for all she knew...which was embarrassing, when she thought about it, but she wasn't capable of not doing that. But she really didn't want to talk about it. It was something they'd talked about before, yes, but it was always intensely uncomfortable — she didn't think being high at the moment would make it better, really — and in this particular case would involve needing to talk about Daphne-related stuff, and maybe even that night specifically, and she wanted to do that even less.

Before she could really think through what she was doing, she was talking — cannabis did make her babbly, didn't it. "Not like I was really dealing with it that well, I guess. I'm not great with feelings stuff, honestly, and it sucks, it's a work in progress, you know? Nilanse has been keeping me busy, which helps, I think. But, she can't be around all the time, I was actually... Nilanse had to do something back home — at Clyde Rock, I mean — so for a bit there I was just— Oh!" she interrupted herself, as something finally clicked. "You two were scheming, and she came when I called her just fine, she knew you were coming! That's why she didn't have us doing something, didn't want to be interrupted..."

"I hadn't asked her to leave ahead of our arrival, but that seems a reasonable guess," Severus admitted.

"Oh, that sneaky little... I swear, if elves could go to Hogwarts, Nilanse would definitely be a Slytherin."

A flicker of reluctant amusement brushing over her, "I understand that elves are known to be influenced by the character of whatever magic they may be bonded with." The implication being that, since Liz was a devious little shite, it was only expected that Nilanse would increasingly become a devious little shite herself.

Liz rolled her eyes. "Shut up." Didn't think she was particularly sneaky anyway, but whatever. "Anyway, I was all, like... Well, those down moods I get sometimes, which I guess is what depression is supposed to be, but really intense like. Not in the bad way, like that one night a year ago, just, you know, in the feeling really numb and tired and not having the motivation to do much of anything kind of way. I was, just, laying on a sofa and staring up at the ceiling when you and Narcissa showed up. Just kind of waiting for Nilanse to get back and make me do something, I guess.

"What I'm getting at is," she blurted out, quickly enough the words squished together a little, nudged by the lurch in Severus's head, "yeah, it sucks, but I'm doing okay, and, it's not so overwhelmingly bad that I can't do other stuff. Like, I know a lot of people were worried I'd be miserable all night, through the whole Yule Ball thing, since I'm not here with Daphne — I haven't seen Daphne at all, actually, I assume she's at the big holiday thing at the Greenwood? That would make sense, it's not like she has to be here.

"But anyway, the point is, I... I had a good time, actually? Like, it feels a little absurd just saying that out loud, but. I did need to take a break after a bit, it was really mentally busy in the Great Hall, and I am leaving early, and I doubt I would have been able to get through it at all without dosing myself with something. Too many people in one room for me, you know, especially with them looking at me all at once, nope. I had way more fun than I would have expected, so."

Now that she knew it wouldn't have been completely miserable, she did kind of regret she hadn't managed to stick it out with Daphne long enough to go together. Oh well.

"I guess, thanks for— Well, there was the Goblet and everything, so just sitting at home laying on the sofa and staring at the ceiling wasn't an option, but, you know what I mean. I was kind of shocked out of the down mood I was in when you showed up earlier, so, thanks for the kick in the arse, I guess, and bringing Narcissa to help and all, and putting up with—"

it is considered appropriate for a young lady to be escorted at her first formal event by her father. ... Or a suitable male relative, should he not be available.

It ambushed her out of nowhere, an almost physical lurch, disorienting, like missing a step going down the stairs. One moment she was more or less fine, if a bit...uncomfortable — the tension in her chest hadn't quite entirely gone away, from that moment with Susan and Katie, and she really did not want to talk about certain things, trying to deflect Severus away from her own thoughts a second ago — but then she was swept with a rush of warm tingles, the tension abruptly intensifying to clench around her throat, her eyes stinging, and—

"Ah, shite." Covering her face with both hands, she leaned back against the bench, trying to take deep breaths — they didn't come through entirely smooth, her lungs not quite cooperating with her. Her face burning, her breath slowly strangled worse with each second, she could feel the heat building in her eyes, she focussed, trying to control herself, but at this point she already knew it was too fucking late, fuck fuck fuck... "I'm sorry, I don't know what—" She cut herself off before the shiver in her chest could fuck up her voice.

"It's alright, Elizabeth."

"Ugh, stop being n-nice, that's not helping."

Severus was silent for a couple seconds, turning over what he wanted to say, while Liz fought against the stupid urge to cry, ugh, stop it. (It wasn't working, of course, the knot in her throat twisting and burning, he sides were already starting to hurt from resisting it.) Finally, he muttered, "You know we've discussed this before. You have enough for anyone to be getting on with even in ordinary circumstances, and you've been under terrible stress these last months. You can hardly be blamed for becoming overwhelmed now and then — anybody in your position would. You have nothing to apologise for, Elizabeth."

Not. Helping.

The first sob wrenched its way past her throat, grinding and half-strangled, still trying to hold it in, but it wasn't working, she was just hurting herself again. Crying hurt, yes, but she'd completely lost control of it at this point, trying to fight it was just going to make it hurt more, so she, just...stopped. Or, she tried to, stopped trying to force breaths through her uncooperative throat and holding herself stiff and rigid, relaxing just a little, but she couldn't fucking help it — she felt the waver on her own breath, something in her chest shaking, and she reflexively tensed, tried to hold herself still, her sides stinging and her throat burning. Son of a bitch, she tried to relax against the bench, the tension eased in fits and starts, clamping down again with each sign of— Ugh, what the fuck was wrong with her...

(That was a stupid question, she knew — Vernon hated it when she cried, it was just reflex.)

Of course, fighting it half-heartedly she was definitely losing now, the hot rush only growing more intense as Severus's hand (hesitantly, uncomfortable) found her shoulder, his shielded mind smooth and cool and warm against hers, echoes flickering in his shadow, sharp and frigid, like a harsh winter wind, speckling against her skin like a warm summer rain. (Seer shite, she realised after a second, Severus's history and future carried on his touch — she wasn't consciously aware of that, normally, must be the drugs' fault.) The echoes were at least partially unpleasant — Severus had been through some shite, after all (not to mention the occasional murder) — but it still felt like Severus, and he was being all nice and shite, if a bit awkward about it — because they were both terrible at squishy feelings things — which was not helping, another sob wrenched its way out of her, grinding and thick, she—

"Ow!" she gasped at the sudden hot cramp in her side, cringing away from the bench. "Fuck, ow ow..."

Severus's hand lifted from her shoulder, cast some kind of charm, slippery magic brushing down her back — Liz sucked in a gasp as the corset loosened its grip around her, suddenly it was much easier to breathe. The muscles she'd pulled still hurt, but that was better, at least.

Of course, without the corset in the way, it wasn't very long before Liz was curled up leaning against Severus, his arms around her, crying all over his nice robes. So, this was two Christmas breaks in a row she'd ended up crying on Severus, ugh — she hoped this wasn't going to become, like, a thing. Severus wasn't a bastard about it, at least, but it was just kind of embarrassing...

And, at least, when she was busy crying her eyes out like a fucking baby they couldn't have one of those awkward conversations about feelings things, she guessed. So, there was that.

(She hardly even noticed the carriage coming to a stop, Severus just apparated them straight from the step to her house. She hadn't actually stopped crying by that point, so, they ended up on one of the sofas instead, the sobs painstakingly rung out of her over long minutes before she finally calmed the fuck down. Liz was still a mess by the time Katie and Susan caught up with her — she was actually still clinging at Severus's robes when the floo went off, startled her — but at least they were tactful enough not to say anything about it.)

(When Severus stepped out a couple minutes later, leaving the three of them alone, Liz completely failed to even say anything at all — just froze up, her breath caught in her still-aching throat. She knew she wanted to say something, but she had no fucking clue what.)

And that's it. Woo. Took fucking forever, but this is me, nobody is surprised at this point. Not completely happy with it, but these things happen.

The current plan is to spend some time on First Contact, write a scene or two, before coming back to this, so it might be some weeks before this updates again. I've been having trouble writing lately, sleep is hard, we'll see how it goes.