The Good War

by inwardtransience

Despite her best efforts, Elizabeth Potter is repeatedly drawn into situations she wants absolutely nothing to do with. People just refuse to leave her the hell alone. (fem!Harry, dark!independent!Harry, mentor!Snape, F/F, playing with tropes for fun and profit)

86. Fourth Year — XXVIII

It's less than 20k on google docs, I swear.

There's some pretty explicit sexual stuff in this one. I like to think I avoided being creepy about it, but some people aren't comfortable reading shit with minors, which is fair enough. If you don't want to read that, whenever it starts getting too much for you, ctrl-f to [the tension was starting to hurt].

Let's get this overly wordy show on the road, then.

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Like in the previous tournaments thrown by the duelling club, there was a break of about a half hour between the OWL- and NEWT-levels, giving the healers time to finish patching up the injured, let people grab a snack in the Great Hall or use the toilet. While everyone was else started moving to the main exit, Liz and the team — they'd been watching the tournament together, clumped up toward the front of the stands — left through a side door toward Helga's Gallery, and into the public common room they'd stashed their things in before the event started. Gladwin had Liz paint a sign on the wall next to the door with her favourite light charm — Katie had to conjure a step-stool for her so she could comfortably reach up to the proper height, because she continued to be so fucking short — while he retrieved a couple pieces of paper from his bag, scrawled out a quick note before folding them up into aeroplanes and charming them to fly off. Supposedly that was some kind of tracking charm, seeking out the user's impression of the person the message was for, but Liz didn't know it — it wasn't the sort of thing people learned out of books, passed along student to student for who knew how long, Liz often missed those things. The set-up done, they went back inside, settled in to wait.

Since she had nothing better to do anyway, Liz asked Katie to teach her the charm they used on the paper aeroplanes. It wasn't complicated, only took her a couple minutes — her practice message (the paper conjured by Katie) nearly hit Oz in the face before he whapped it out of the air, crumpled it up and threw it back at Katie. (He hadn't been paying attention to what they were doing over here, and Liz couldn't really conjure yet, so that Katie was responsible was a reasonable guess.) Katie quick duplicated one of the pillows on the sofa and threw it back at him, Oz ducked under it — the pillow sailed on to whap itself against the wall before sliding down to the floor — picked up one of his own sofa's pillows and threw it back at her, Chelsea started casting duplication charms on the remaining one, Katie happened to be in the process of standing up at the time, the pillow bouncing off of her shoulder, she caught it on the rebound, duplicated it twice, ending up with four pillows, started chucking them back at Oz and Chelsea. Liz siddled over to help, since Susan was joining in and that just seemed unfair.

Apparently Liz using wandless magic to banish the pillow Oz had thrown at her straight back at him was cheating.

They were still in the middle of the pillow fight when there was a clatter of boots against tile near the door, Liz felt a familiar mind come into her range — Artaimís had gotten here first. She'd topped out the third years without too much trouble, thankfully beating out Grey. James Grey was one of those people born after that Hallowe'en and had been named after Liz or her parents, and could be very weird about it. He was pretty good with a wand, sure, but having to deal with him all the time would have been seriously awkward. So, she guessed she owed Artaimís one for that.

Or, she owed Artaimís two, she guessed. She and Susan had actually had a little bet on the outcome of their duel, Liz was pretty sure Susan had just been messing with her because she didn't like Grey — she should know better than to bet against a Seer, after all. After losing their bet, Susan had agreed to get her a cannabis-based potion that should help her get through the Yule Ball, so, yeah, that had turned out well for Liz, got job Artaimís.

The Muircheartaigh triplets were tiny, as purebloods tended to be — though they might not actually be pureblood, they were bastards and nobody was sure who their father was — with sharp-eyed, pointy-nosed faces that kind of reminded her of people closely related to the Blacks (Dorea, Draco, Tracey, Liz herself somewhat less so), if not quite so terribly pale as most black-haired noble kids, a bit more pink in their cheeks and with the occasional freckles here and there. (Liz had noticed they tended to come and go, sometimes really obvious but check back in in a few months and they might be completely gone, was that normal?) Their hair was also very red, darker than the orangish colour "red" hair normally got but far too vivid a red to be called auburn — pretty similar to the pictures Liz had seen of her mother, actually, she assumed it was a product of blood alchemy.

The most interesting thing about the triplets (to Liz, anyway), was that they were still bonded. Liz wasn't sure how this worked, exactly, but when mages had multiple births, the minds and magic of the kids got all mixed up while growing together, ending up in some kind of weird soul resonance. The activity of their individual brains produced a mind as usual, yes, but an echo of the rest of the set was carried through their magic, bridging their minds together — from Liz's perspective, multiple births felt like a single over-large mind spread across multiple bodies. Of course, their minds were still being produced by their brains independently, so, as they grew up and their bodies had different experiences, their brains would slowly grow in different ways, until the minds produced were different enough that the soul resonance broke, and they were just normal people from then on. (Sometimes with an occasional flash of insight about their sibling(s), but for the most part.) It was also possible for a single event to break their bond all in one go, but that tended to be rather traumatic, the kids left reeling trying to figure out who exactly they were now that they were multiple people all of a sudden — forcing bonded siblings to split up was usually considered unethical for that reason, no matter how creepy normal people tended to find them.

The soul resonance could be kind of fragile, sometimes, most often breaking in childhood, but it wasn't unheard of for it to be retained much later in life, in rare cases all the way into old age. The Patils' bond had broken shortly after starting at Hogwarts — Liz remembered Padma being really quiet and out of sorts for the first few months of first year, she assumed that was why — but the Weasleys were sixteen now, and theirs was still going strong. (If anything, the death of their sister a year and a half ago now had only had them drawn closer together, even more in sync than they'd been before, what slow drift apart there'd been reversed.) Bonds between twins tended to last longer, but larger sets introduced more variables, so triplets and quadruplets and so on hardly ever made it to puberty without breaking apart.

But the Muircheartaigh triplets were still bonded, and it didn't look like that would be changing any time soon. The Sorting Hat had split them up, Peirsifiné (usually called Miné, Liz wasn't sure why) was the one in Slytherin, Seléne was in Hufflepuff, and Artaimís was in Gryffindor. Liz had no idea how that decision had been made, honestly, but it also didn't really matter. Despite being split up, their soul bond thing had stayed firm as ever the last couple years — in fact, it was widely believed that, say, the girl called Artaimís wasn't actually the same physical person all the time, that the triplets didn't bother keeping track of which one was 'supposed' to be which.

And as of this autumn, they knew that was definitely, actually the case: "Artaimís" had lost most of her hair in a potions accident back in May, but then when they came back from summer break "Peirsifiné" had the shortest hair of the three. The triplets did behave somewhat differently, Liz had heard, but she suspected that was just an artefact of hanging around the friends they had in different houses — like how normal people acted a little different depending on who they were talking to, same thing. Liz was pretty sure which name you used was completely irrelevant, that they were all the same person.

The first one of these bonds she'd come across had been the Weasleys, on the train to school at the beginning of first year, and she still thought it was really neat. If you get one of them on their own — like Artaimís at club meetings, for example — she seemed like a normal person if Liz wasn't really paying attention, but if she looked closer... The web of associations that made up people's minds was there, same as always, but there were threads leading through Artaimís's aura, sort of curling up and stretching out of sight. (One of those weird magical, inside-out, multidimensional things, it was hard to describe it in plain English.) And the threads came in, too, sometimes carrying in thoughts or feelings or memories completely unrelated to what Artaimís was thinking at the time, seemingly random, interacting with Artaimís's own consciousness in a weird back-and-forth exchange Liz couldn't really follow most of the time. Liz was mostly only ever around Artaimís — she'd never even spoken to Miné or Seléne (not that it really mattered) — but she had seen all three of them together, and if they were close enough for their auras to touch they weren't really distinguishable as separate people at all anymore, just, one big mind that happened to have three bodies attached to it. One big complex mind, with three different strings of consciousness going on at once (since they still had three brains, after all), but all mixed up in a tangle that seemed confusing to Liz, the webs of memories and feelings and shite raised by one sort of intersecting with the others, only partially separate in a way that felt like it should be jarring...but it didn't seem to be to the triplets. But then, she guessed it was their mind, being three people who were technically one big person was just normal for them...

She thought it was neat, honestly. She kind of wanted to go exploring, try to figure out better how it worked, but she had the feeling it would be rude to ask.

Liz was distracted by Artaimís showing up, enough that she didn't see the pillow coming before it whapped her over the head. Taken by surprise, Liz stumbled, flailing for balance, the back of her legs bumped against the sofa and she teetered over and flopped down to a seat. Oops. Chelsea, presumably the one who'd thrown the pillow, burst into giggles, struggling to stutter out a breathless apology (because Hufflepuff).

Artaimís's face was a little red, leaning on one hand against the door frame, gasping for breath — apparently she'd run straight here as soon as she got the message. "Hi! Sorry. Am I in?"

"Yeah, kid, you're in," Gladwin said, sounding a little exasperated. (More with the pillow fight than with Artaimís unnecessarily rushing here, Liz thought.) "Go ahead and sit down, we're still waiting for Malfoy."

Draco turned up a few minutes later, waltzing in much more casually than Artaimís — he did offer an apology for how long it took him, he'd been in the middle of a conversation with adults when the message had caught up with him and he'd needed to politely extricate himself — and they could get the meeting started. Gladwin explained rather more thoroughly than he would have before, when telling people earlier that they were being considered for recruitment (Cynfelyn hadn't bothered warning people at all), that Oz and Brendan were quitting after the upcoming tournament to focus on revising for their OWLs; Draco and Artaimís were being invited to join the team in their place, if they were interested. They both swiftly agreed, and that was that, they had new team members. They should all go around and introduce themselves, just in case, and Gladwin had some—

"Are we concerned about any accusations of nepotism?" Draco asked. "I only thought I would ask, just in case it comes up."

Gladwin turned to frown at Draco, blinking. "What?"

Before Draco could get to it, Liz said, "They're both my cousins, through the Blacks. It's fine, don't worry about it."

Or, she would rather they just ignore that topic and move on — it's not like Liz had known any of her magical relatives growing up anyway — but she felt the confusion filling the room, multiple people turning to stare at Artaimís. After a couple seconds, Oz said, "I didn't think the Moriartys had anything to do with the Blacks, don't seem the type, you know." They were random Gaelic commoners, he meant.

Chelsea gave Oz a double-take. "Wait, what? Moriarty?"

Artaimís rolled her eyes. "It's Uí Muircheartaigh — the English can't pronounce 'n Ghaeilge for shite." The triplets had a rather strong Gaelic accent themselves, but it wasn't as bad as it'd been when Liz had first met Artaimís in duelling club last year. Now that Oz had pointed it out, it did sound sort of like Moriarty, Liz assumed the name must have originally been Gaelic. "My grandfather was Alphard Black, but he was kicked out of the family before he married below his station," an edge of sarcasm on her voice, "so there weren't a big scandal made at the time. I thought everyone had figured that out by now."

Well, kids from noble families generally knew, because they could be weirdly obsessive about how everyone was related to everyone else like that — that was how Liz had heard, it'd even come up that Dorea's great-aunt had arranged their attendance at Hogwarts as one of her final acts as Lady Black, it was a whole thing. And she wouldn't be surprised if the story had gotten all around the triplets' year, but Oz was a fifth-year, and his family were pretty ordinary commoners (if relatively wealthy and well-connected), so, it wouldn't be a big shock if he hadn't heard about it. Or any of the other upper-years, for that matter, they didn't tend to spend a lot of time gossipping about the little kids...

But anyway, of course they weren't worried about accusations of nepotism. Everyone was related to everyone, after all — it would take conscious effort to avoid having blood relatives on the team together, and that just didn't seem worth it. (Honestly, Draco, that was a very silly question to ask, when you thought about it.) Gladwin continued on, talking about some basic rules stuff, handing out bundles of paperwork to Draco and Artaimís, get those filled out and get them back to Flitwick some time in the spring. You might notice that you needed to have a healer's exam to make sure you were healthy enough to participate — that was part of why they were doing this now, before the break, try to get that taken care of while school was off. Gladwin hesitated for a second, before telling Artaimís that she could just have Pomfrey do it, like Chelsea, but Artaimís gave him an exasperated look — she was (correctly) assuming that he'd assumed her family might not have the money to go to a healer on a whim — it was fine, she could just go to...

Now that she was thinking about it, the ICW authorities might not recognise the people her family usually went to as qualified healers. (They were religious practitioners, these things could be complicated.) Oh well, she'd ask around and figure it out, don't worry about it.

She did have a different, funny question though. "None of this paperwork is any kind of magical contract, is it?"

A flare of confusion running through the room, Gladwin frowned at Artaimís for a couple seconds before saying, "I don't think so. I haven't noticed anything of the like, at least."

"Sure. So it won't make no difference which one of us is Artaimís for the day."

That sparked even more confusion — as well as creeping discomfort from the people who had figured out what she meant — so Liz went ahead and answered the question, just so they could get this over with more quickly. "For the paperwork and stuff, no, it doesn't matter. You might want to stick with the same body regularly anyway — building up endurance and muscle memory and stuff doesn't do you any good if you suddenly switch around and don't have it anymore."

Artaimís opened her mouth to respond, but then stopped herself, shooting the rest of the room an awkward glance. Making sure that one body didn't end up significantly more in shape than the others was kind of the point — concentrating the duelling experiences in one body might make the bond more likely to break, which they wanted to avoid. (Especially since the end result of that would probably be one of them breaking off but the other two remaining together, which sounded miserable for one-third of them.) But, they were well aware of how creepy people tended to find the bonded triplets thing, and directly admitting that they were trying to keep it going for as long as possible would be kind of embarrassing. Though Artaimís herself was thinking of it as sort of, like, childish? You know, refusing to grow up, like — these soul bonds did tend to break when they were still pretty young, so. That wasn't it, really, the triplets just thought they would be really lonely after, not to mention the transition would probably be pretty traumatic, they just thought it would have that sort of vibe for other people. Things their relatives had said about it, apparently.

Personally, Liz was wondering how the hell they planned to manage dating, but that wasn't really her business. "Oh, right, I guess that makes sense. I'm pretty sure it shouldn't make a difference, then. It might take you a little longer to train up properly, but, if you're willing to work on it, I think it's fine?" She ended with a glance at Gladwin, but he just grimaced, rolled his shoulders in an uncomfortable shrug — yeah, he definitely thought the bonded triplets thing was creepy as hell, but it also wasn't his business, so.

Artaimís blinked at Liz. "Did you...read my mind just now? I thought we were really confusing for mind mages."

"It's not that bad. The soul bond stuff at the edges is kind of trippy, but."

"Yeah, get used to that," Brendan said to Artaimís, mind shivering with exasperation. "Liz has no concept of personal space whatsoever, and she's a sneaky little thing, you won't notice her there most of the time. Especially in group or trio practice, she doesn't even bother pretending she's not in all of our heads the whole time."

"It's easier to keep track of what's going on and where I'm needed most if I'm paying attention." Since Liz was the only one who could quick-step worth a damn, their strategy tended to rely on her skipping all over the place — she couldn't do that very well if she didn't know where to go, and they didn't have time in the middle of a fight to use whispering charms or something.

"I'm not saying it's a bad thing—" He did think Liz was a little creepy, but he understood the tactical usefulness of it. "—just that she should get accustomed to the idea."

Artaimís actually had no problem with it whatsoever — in fact, she was surprisingly comfortable with the idea of not having any privacy around Liz, which was weird, but okay. She was just surprised Liz could make sense of her mind at all, apparently she'd come across other mind mages who had trouble with it? It didn't seem that bad to Liz, but maybe being a Seer helped...?

Anyway, the meeting wrapped up pretty quickly from there, Gladwin getting a promise from both their new members to send a copy of their timetables to him over break so he could make adjustments to the practice schedule if necessary. (Liz didn't think it would be, having more professors and no quidditch this year had simplified the process considerably.) Once they were let out, Liz turned right back around to the duelling hall, quickly found her friends in the stands. The meeting had gone on long enough that the NEWT-level tournament had already started, they were almost done with the first round of seventh-years. Liz was interrogated a little bit about the team's new recruits, but they were quickly interrupted by the next match starting up.

Liz still didn't entirely get watching quidditch — it could be entertaining sometimes, especially at the professional level, but the school matches tended to be kind of boring — but duelling was always at least mildly interesting. Some of the less skilled third- or fourth-years could be pretty plain and boring, but when you started getting into people who knew what they were doing, that was a different thing. The NEWT-level matched were almost always really active and loud and colourful, people every once in a while pulling out a wild trick, it was fun to watch.

Professional matches would be even better, she knew, but she couldn't exactly go out and catch those while at school, and at least the last two summers there'd always been reasons why she couldn't. Like, last year, there'd been the stuff with Sirius, she wasn't supposed to go anywhere on her own, and then this summer she'd just been super busy for most of it, and then people were freaking out about the World Cup and everything, so she wasn't supposed to go anywhere on her own again. (And at that point, she'd kind of wanted a couple weeks to just stay at home and relax anyway.) But now that she knew how easy international travel was on the magical side, she might make a point of doing that sometime. Though, she wasn't sure how you'd even figure out where and when things were going on, the IDL must have a calendar or something...

After the NEWT-level tournament, her friends wanted to hang around in the Great Hall some more (the snacks set out on the tables hadn't gone away yet), but it was starting to get late. Not that Liz was going to bed straight away, but she wouldn't be able to get to sleep for a couple hours after having a shower — which she did need to do, they'd had a team practice before the tournament. There was a little bit of discussion, Daphne and Tracey and Susan and Hannah and Millie all decided they'd be in the Slytherin library when she got out, which was completely unnecessary, but whatever. It was the end of term, they only had a couple days of exams left before classes were over, and it wasn't like they had anything better to do, so, fine, she guessed.

By the time Liz caught up with them, they were gathered in a little circle in a corner of the library, with a couple bottles of mead Susan had gotten from somewhere. Draco (plus bookends) and Pansy where even here when she showed up, though they left pretty quickly — Liz and Draco might be playing nice, for various reasons, but he had history with both Tracey and Susan, they didn't get along. And Pansy was still kind of scared of Liz, from all the way back to the snake incident (which continued to be funny), so yeah, they didn't stick around.

Liz wasn't sure who'd thought the alcohol was a good idea, since they did still have exams tomorrow. Of course, Liz didn't actually need to take the exams — the Champions are excused from academic stuff for the duration of the Tournament thing applied to these as well — but she figured she might as well, since it wasn't like they took that much time anyway. (And she'd be in the school until they left for Kaunas anyway, so at least it was something to do.) Even though she didn't tend to get very bad hangovers, it didn't seem like having too much was a good idea, but she went ahead and took a cup anyway. The mead was from the Boneses' lands, turned out, it was very good.

The conversation going on around her was mostly politics, which wasn't getting any less complicated. Of course, the national question was still burning away, that hadn't settled down at all — and, annoyingly enough, hadn't even laid off of Liz. It had gotten out that Severus was dating Síomha (there'd been an article in Witch Weekly, filled with silly gossip about both of them and plenty of wild speculation), which, a later opinion piece in the Prophet had pointed out, now tied Liz rather closely to Saoirse Ghaelach by association. Liz didn't entirely get the logic, like why that had anything to do with her, but mages were fucking stupid about this shite sometimes, whatever. There'd been another riot in Glasgow (because of course), and some feud between a couple families in Scotland had blown up, a few people getting killed before the authorities had broken it up.

As relatively small as that last incident had been, it'd still ended up being talked about in the Wizengamot for bloody days. Like, one of the basic functions of the Ministry, a big part of why the various families had ceded to their authority in the first place, was to act as mediators for disputes so they didn't blow up into messy blood feuds — if the Ministry couldn't prevent this shite from happening, well, that was pretty seriously failing at their job, wasn't it? Of course, the only thing stopping someone from going out and getting revenge instead of calling the DLE and going through proper channels was their trust in the Ministry's legitimacy and fairness, and if that started to falter, there was really nothing the Ministry could do about it. (There were Seers working for the Ministry, but they were focussed on detecting threats to Secrecy before they happened, and couldn't be used to keep an eye on things like this.) Which was the conclusion the Wizengamot had come to in the end, actually, multiple people were working on proposing multiple different solutions to the problem, it was a whole thing.

(The feud had started because a Gaelic girl had been raped by a British man, and the Ministry had briefly looked into the complaint before dropping the case, so the girl's uncle had taken the matter into his own hands and murdered the rapist bastard, his family then retaliating in turn, devolving into a little mini-war by the time the Ministry caught up. Liz thought the incident was a massive red flag — the people in charge were freaking out, but she didn't think they were panicking as much as they should be.)

On top of all that shite, normal politics were also still ongoing. The big educational reform package Liz had heard so much about was being polished, the final negotiations should be finishing up pretty soon — the final vote would be coming up in the spring, most likely in March or early April. That wouldn't be early enough to really affect anything for the next school year, especially since it'd almost certainly involve opening up entirely new schools (and obviously that would take time), but they should start seeing results by sixth-year, at least. Liz wouldn't even be here by then, but whatever. It was still up in the air whether the package would include allowing wilderfolk and nymphs to go to school — allowing all beings in general had already been strongly rejected — but Sylvia had told her not to get her hopes up. They might — might — be able to sneak in a clause letting in wilderfolk, so long as they were a member of a recognised House, but nymphs were almost certainly not going to be included.

Wilderfolk were a somewhat easy sell, since a lot of them who participated in magical society at all had a human parent anyway. Also, wilderfolk could often pass for human pretty easily — it was generally thought that there were a fair number of wilderfolk posing as normal human mages, and just never told anyone outside of their family. If the bit about being a member of a recognised House got through, it would kind of back-door recognition of some wilderfolk as full citizens, which was a...step in the right direction, Liz guessed. Despite the fact that they could also learn human magic no problem, allowing nymphs to attend school alongside human children was a red line for a lot of Light nobles (as well as the racist side of the Dark). Also, nymphs had no legal rights whatsoever, were all bound by 'corporal indenture' (that is, slavery) by default, as 'necessary' to preserve Secrecy. Which was horseshite, obviously, but so long as that law stood, Sylvia was pretty sure that, even if the education package allowed for the acceptance of nymphs in state schools, they still wouldn't be able to go.

You see, you had to be a person to go to school, and nymphs technically didn't legally count as people. Liz was oversimplifying somewhat, but that was basically the problem. It was still fucking absurd to her that magical Britain had legally-mandated racial slavery, of multiple races, and, like, it wasn't something that was talked about at all? Just, you'd think that would be the sort of thing that would come up...

In other news, there'd been a breach of Secrecy somewhere in eastern Europe, they'd had a hell of a time covering it up — most of the muggle governments over there still being kind of a shambles from the dissolution of the Soviet Union wasn't helping matters. That was a big scandal, and Grindelwald had just made it even worse by sending a column into a number of sympathetic papers, talking about how the end of Secrecy was pretty much inevitable, and they should probably make plans for that, maybe? Which wasn't exactly an unpopular opinion — that Secrecy had an expiration date was taken for granted by a lot of people, actually, the major points of disagreement being how much time they had and what they should do about it — but some people didn't want to be seen on the same side as literally Gellert Grindelwald, and the people who'd been against making high-level plans for the end of Secrecy were now even more stubborn about it, the ICW Senate was... Well, it was a complicated mess, that was all.

There was also plenty of gossip about the Ball, of course. That shite was very boring, but at least it was less stressful.

Liz didn't participate much, just listening — and honestly she wasn't listening very closely either. While waiting for her to catch up, Daphne had saved a spot next to her on a sofa, and Liz had pretty quickly ended up snuggled against her. Liz could still be somewhat neurotic about these things at times, but the library was relatively empty — there were people revising for their remaining exams, mostly NEWT students, but they weren't paying their corner much mind — and it was only her friends around, obviously they knew about Liz and Daphne already. She could feel the eyes on her skin, and that was irritating, but it wasn't especially intrusive, she did her best to not let it bother her. A couple people passing by did give her pretty intense looks, Liz did her best to block them off, leaning further into Daphne, resting her head on her shoulder — and when they were gone, she didn't bother sitting up again.

Daphne was comfortable, after all, all warm and soft and... Well, just nice. She kept smelling Liz's hair between comments, apparently not caring that their friends were sitting right there. It was a bit embarrassing, but they mostly seemed to think Liz and Daphne were just being adorable, so, she guessed that was fine...

The hand settled on her hip, the other occasionally coming up to brush her hair aside or run light down her arm, and the curves of Daphne's body against her were all rather distracting. Also, she smelled nice. Liz was trying not to be a perv in front of their friends, but ugh...

They were talking around in circles for...a couple hours, probably, she wasn't really keeping track. It was starting to get pretty late, Susan and Hannah got up to leave — Susan asked if Liz wanted to take any of the mead before stoppering the bottles and stashing them back in Hannah's bag — heading for the exit hand in hand. (All close and touchy, their minds warm and sharp, preoccupied, Liz was pretty sure they were going to go have sex. Good luck finding privacy in the Hufflepuff dorms, she guessed.) Tracey and Millie had stood up, but hadn't made to leave yet, were talking about something to do with the Ball, getting prettied up and shite the day of. (They were going together, actually, but just to keep each other company, Liz was all but certain they were both straight. Well, Tracey was, she was less sure about Millie.) Daphne and Liz hadn't moved yet, if anything Liz only turning her face further into Daphne's robes — she was warm and comfortable, Liz didn't want to move.

Daphne's free hand came around, finding Liz's, fingertips light dragging along the back of her hand before slipping between her fingers. Nosing through her hair, Daphne dipped closer, her breath against Liz's ear making her shiver. Low, quiet enough Tracey and Millie definitely wouldn't hear, she hissed, "Stay with me."

Go to bed with her, she meant — Liz was far too deeply wormed into her mind to miss that. She felt herself tense, a little, an odd hot thrill flashing through her, didn't know what that was, exactly...

Her hand tightening a little around the back of Liz's, her arm squeezing in around her waist, Daphne was obviously picking up on her nerves, her mind pulsing soft and warm and bright, as close as they were at the moment Liz was momentarily dazzled. Daphne wasn't suggesting they, you know, do anything, necessarily. (Though she wouldn't turn Liz down if she were up for it, of course.) She was thinking they could sleep together — as in, literally. Out of the same warm comfortable feelings that made Liz not really feel like getting up, she didn't want to say goodnight, go their separate ways, she wanted Liz to stay. To feel the warmth of Liz's body and inhale her scent and listen to her breathe and, just, sleep. That was all.

Oh, that was all, was it...

Watching Daphne think about it was making Liz a little uncomfortable, had to resist the urge to squirm in place — and failed, actually, thought it wasn't as though Daphne really minded feeling Liz move against her. It was... Well, it was really fucking romantic, wasn't it? The sentiment of it. Liz couldn't put words to what feeling this was, exactly, all squirmy and... She didn't know, feelings were hard.

...She wasn't sure she could do that, though. Actually sleep properly, she meant. Liz was needlessly neurotic about all kinds of things, and sleep in particular could be a problem sometimes. (Which she was certain didn't have anything to do with needing to keep on her toes back at Privet Drive, that would be silly.) She had shared a bed with someone, once, at their little end-of-the-year hang out thing back in June, with Hermione — and that had required dosing herself with calming potion first. And she hadn't been dating Hermione, of course, she had a feeling that'd make it difficult...for different reasons, but still.

Daphne remembered that too — especially how Liz had woken up all snuggled up with Hermione, as though she'd sought out the nearest source of warmth in her sleep. That was definitely a factor in it seeming like such a good idea to Daphne in the first place. Okay, then.

Liz didn't know if she'd be able to fall asleep with someone else there without the calming potion, but she...wasn't sure that was a good idea. As long as she'd been taking the stuff, she had more than enough proof that it fucked with her decision making, and also her impulse control — she often acted without really thinking about it while under the effects, because that there might be consequences for doing things, just, didn't quite occur to her in the moment. How bad the effect was varied depending on how much she'd taken, sure, but she'd need it to last long enough to actually fall asleep, so, yeah. Liz didn't want to, um, do something without thinking about it, and waking up the next morning to...

Well, not regret, if they did sleep together figuratively she didn't think she'd regret it the next morning, necessarily. But she would wonder if it would have happened if she hadn't been high on calming potion, and that didn't seem like a fun thought to have. And, as ridiculously neurotic as she could be about touching and shite, she really didn't want to end up in a place where she needed her potion to do sex-type stuff — she had the feeling that she should try to be completely sober the first time, if only to avoid setting a bad precedent. Kind of like not overusing dreamless sleep potions, you know, didn't want to make herself dependent on it. (Severus would probably be pleased that she was trying to be careful with her own mental health, even if she would probably never actually find the nerve to tell him about this.) If she were high on potion, it seemed very possible that she would do something without thinking — more to the point, do Daphne without thinking — which, yeah, didn't seem like a good idea, but she didn't know if she'd be able to sleep without it. Hence her dilemma.

It did sound nice, though. (Daphne was warm and comfortable, after all.) And she did want to be able to...you know, do normal couple-y things. This seemed like the reasonable next step, actually, so far as gradually getting over her stupid shite went. Like, she thought just sleeping would actually be easier than, you know — at least to sleep she didn't need to take her clothes off. Normally, sleeping by herself, she stayed in her vest and her pants, and, she thought she'd be able to do that, with Daphne around. Maybe. Undressing further than that was going to be a problem, for frustrating Liz is broken reasons, which she knew were irrational — Daphne had seen her in the pensieve, after all, and hadn't reacted super negatively or anything (Liz was still rather blindsided by it not really changing anything, honestly) — but brains were stupid, hers especially so, and it couldn't really be helped. It seemed like sleeping together (literally) was actually a smaller step, so.

...They could try, she guessed.

Picking up on the thought, there was a flare of heat and excitement from Daphne's mind against hers, bright and happy. Rather than try to push her way through it to make herself understood, Liz said aloud, "I might need to leave. If I just can't get to sleep, you know. But, we can try."

Daphne was perfectly happy with trying. Her hand loosened from around Liz's, came up to nudge at Liz's chin — Liz saw what she was going for, so it wasn't really necessary, but Daphne just liked touching her. Brushing her hair out of the way, Daphne dipped down, Liz tilting her head back to meet her — which required bending her neck at a somewhat uncomfortable angle, because she was just so frustratingly short — Daphne found her lips, soft and lingering, an odd warm-cool thrill crawling over her skin, Daphne's affection and excitement rushing through her, making Liz a little dizzy. Pulling back a hair, enough her lips still tickled at Liz's, Daphne whispered in Cambrian, "So then, let's go to bed, nghariad."

(People tended to drop the pronoun, that was fy nghariad — my love. Liz never knew what to do when Daphne called her that.)

Untangling themselves and standing up took rather more effort than it probably should have — especially since Daphne didn't want to let go of her. Which was fine, Daphne's mind was warm and comfortable, her excitement kind of tingly, Liz kept a hold on her hand just because. The walk down to the fourth-years' circle seemed to last both too long and too short, Liz feeling twitchy and shivery, making her steps a little unsteady, her skin crawling and her heart pounding in her throat, stomach twisting and swooping with nerves and that rush the second before Daphne kissed her at the same time, her skin tingling with anticipation. This was either going to be a disaster or really nice, and she really couldn't tell which, the anxiety and excitement all twisted up in a confusing mess, the constant bright warmth from Daphne's mind at least helping smooth it out a little. Liz could feel herself almost shaking, which was silly, she tried to just keep breathing normally, pushing stubbornly past the hot knot in her throat, and not lose her mind like a fucking crazy person, for once.

They did have to split up when they reached the fourth-years' circle, since Daphne had her before-bed stuff to do and Liz needed to use the toilet. Liz took care of that, left Daphne at the sinks and detoured to her own room. She quick did the charm she used in place of properly brushing her teeth, poured out some water from the pitcher the elves left on her desk to wash out the dryness left behind. She considered bringing her bag, but it was probably better to, just, not have a calming potion with her at all, so she wouldn't be tempted to take it. Quick emptying out her pockets, Liz dropped her necklace back in Lily's jewellery box, swapped out the dangly pair of Lily's earrings she was wearing today for the Mistwalker-style ones she'd started out with (less likely to get caught in her hair overnight), dumped her beaded bracelets onto her desk. Her anti-tracking ring could stay on, she pulled one of Hermione's hair ties around her wrist just in case, and...she thought that was it. She hadn't bothered putting shoes back on after her shower — people gave her funny looks for walking around Slytherin barefoot, but she didn't really care — so yeah, she wasn't thinking of anything else.

Liz beat Daphne to her door, waited outside leaning against the wall — she wouldn't be able to get through the wards without Daphne. She spent the whole time fidgeting, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, and just tried to keep breathing normal, her heart pounding in her throat. Luckily everybody else was already in bed already, or at least there was nobody out here right now, that would be embarrassing...

Thankfully, she only had to wait a couple minutes before Daphne was coming back out of the bathroom, her hair tied back in a long plait. Liz knew a lot of the pureblood girls did that as a matter of habit, to stop it from getting everywhere and tangling up in their sleep — Liz's hair might be weirdly resistant to hairstyling and colour-change charms, but it was also weirdly resistant to tangles, so that was never really a problem for her. Daphne shot her a bright smile, mind soft and giggly. She opened her bedroom door, took Liz's hand, and pulled her across the wardline, the magic dragging over Liz cool and sharp and clingy.

Everyone's rooms started out the year identical — same black carpet, walls and curtains in Slytherin green edged with silver, the wood of the desk and bed frame and nightstands and drawers varnished a warm dark red — but it didn't take very long before the girls had all left their own touches on them. Minor things, usually, since they had to be temporary, but even without seeing in them very often Liz could still tell whose room was whose at a glance. Daphne, as should be a surprise to absolutely nobody, had decorated her room with plants — she must come to school with the pots hidden away in her trunk, Liz wasn't sure how she pulled that off. There were a row of little fist-sized pots lined up at the back of her desk, various herbs and little flowers, the largest a more rectangular shape longer than her forearm (which must have been very hard to get here) set on the floor against a wall, packed full of strawberry plants. (The smaller, more spherical breed they had at the Greenwood, didn't quite look the same but they were definitely strawberries.) That one had yellow-white flowers and little berries at various stages of ripeness, she actually got fruit from it pretty regularly, sometimes she would casually offer one to Liz getting up in the morning. The other girls didn't like them much, but Liz thought they were fine — they were a bit more tart than the muggle kind, and not overly sweet, not her favourite but they were edible.

(The other girls thought it was silly that Daphne was growing berries in her dorm room, but Liz was more curious about how. The sunlight was relatively easy to handle with magic, she guessed, but, she didn't know, were strawberries self-pollinating?)

The most obvious difference in Daphne's room was probably the bed. She'd taken down the curtains, pots set up on top of the posts, vines teased out to crawl along the frame — not a whole lot of coverage, just twining along the beams or down the posts and hanging down a couple feet, little three-pointed leaves all along the length. They started small, mostly contained in the pots, Daphne gradually coaxing them out over the course of the school year, by the time summer came around the square made by the beams the curtains would be almost completely hidden, tendrils three, four feet long stretching down toward the floor. Liz didn't know what Daphne did with it all when it was finally time to take it down — she did do something, Liz had caught her in here meticulously plaiting the clipped-off vines together, but she'd never asked, and she didn't know enough about Mistwalker stuff to guess.

It smelled all green and herby in here, which also shouldn't be any surprise. Liz thought it was nice, personally, but she realised her own taste was kind of odd too.

Daphne gently pulled the door closed, paused to smile at Liz for a second. "Go ahead and settle in, if you like. I'll just be a minute." She dipped down to give Liz a quick kiss — Liz could physically feel the excitement crackling in her veins, electric — before letting go of her hand and stepping further into the room, heading toward her desk.

Liz's eyes flicked toward the bed, hesitated for a moment, taking in and out a long, shaky breath. Right. She could do this, not a big deal. She was fine. Okay.

She lurched into motion, her legs feeling unusually stiff for the first couple steps as she got going. The nightstand on the near side was empty, the opposite scattered with some Mistwalker-style beaded jewellery and hair ties and the like, so Liz assumed this would be her side, then. The students' beds weren't super wide or anything, but still enough that there were two pillows — she knew from trying to share hers with Hermione that you couldn't really fit two people without touching each other at least a little, cramped, so, that was going to be distracting. Forcing out a puff of breath, she picked at her forearm, shaky fingers scrabbling a little at the straps of her wand holster, taking longer than it really should to get the bloody thing loose.

The bed wasn't quite made properly, Daphne clearly not having bothered after getting up this morning, Liz nudged the blanket down a bit so it'd be easier to slip in — the sheets felt different, softer and a little fuzzier, must be a different fabric for some reason. (Maybe the default ones broke the Mistwalkers' weird rules somehow?) Liz pulled out her wand, glanced over her shoulder — Daphne was standing in front of her desk, quill scritching at a notebook — a charm yanked down the zipper of her dress. Setting her wand back down on the nightstand, she pulled her dress over her head (this one wouldn't fit over her hips), and... Daphne's room didn't have the hooks on the wall by the closet that Liz's did. Oh well, she just let her dress fall onto the carpet — this one wasn't super fancy or anything, it's not like it really mattered.

She quick checked Daphne was still busy with whatever she was writing over there, before undoing the knot on her shorts. For a moment she hesitated, drawing in a couple slow deep breaths, her fingers stiff and unsteady, her noticeably warm skin crawling, feeling oddly sharp and bright. Once she'd worked up the nerve, she pulled the shorts down over her hips and just let them fall to the floor — and then practically leapt into the bed, nearly banging her elbow on the post. Liz sat reclined back against the headboard, the pillow pushing against the small of her back, and pulled the sheet up to her waist, completely hiding her bare legs and the deep blue cotton of her pants.

Forcing out a long breath, practically shivering in place, her heart throbbing in her ears, her hands fisting in the sheet, she glared down at her knees, trying to calm down. After a couple seconds, she reached for the blanket, pulled that up to — she was pretty sure the shivering wasn't from cold, but it couldn't hurt.

By that point, Daphne was still scritching away — idly pulling at the laces of her robe with her free hand, but mostly focussed on her writing. Liz was feeling oddly rattled, twitchy with nerves, so, yeah, the silence wasn't really working for her. "What's that?"

"Notes for the day." Daphne finished scrawling something out, before setting the quill aside and flipping the notebook closed. Starting away from the desk, toward her side of the bed, Daphne shot Liz another warm smile. "Every night before bed, I write down whatever may be on my mind at the time, so I don't forget by morning. It's a habit I got into quite young, to keep track of what of my work I had finished and what still needed to be done." Liz knew Daphne had helped out in the fields and stuff a lot growing up, and there'd be gardens around her house like everyone else;s, and there was also how everyone on the Greenwood preferred to make their own things, so yeah, that made sense.

Daphne finished loosening the laces of her robes, the neck opening up enough that she could just step out of them. Leaving her in the loose shift Liz knew she normally wore under her robes in the colder months — tannish-greyish undyed linen, only held up by a single strap, looping up over her shoulder to button closed at her collar. The fabric was thin enough that it didn't do much to hide her figure, draping against her skin, very distracting. (Liz could feel the heat on her own face, her heart pounding in her teeth and her fingertips, she couldn't look away.) Daphne picked up her robes, teased a narrow loop of cloth out of the collar, which she then hung off of a hook on the bedpost. Oh, um, there might have been one on the other post too, that Liz could have hung her dress from, she hadn't looked. Whatever, it's not like it really made any difference, she would—

Liz jumped, a hard thrum jolting through her, staring wide-eyed — Daphne had undone the buttons at her collar, let the shift fall off her to the floor...leaving her standing there, completely naked. She sidled over to her nightstand, pulling the bracelets off her wrists, casual, seeming completely unconcerned. The vaguely yellowish-orangish tone of the magical light in the room warm on her skin, glinting off of the piercings scattered here and there, Liz, just, watched her, couldn't tear her eyes away, feeling hot and tense, she was barely even breathing, just...

Daphne was really fucking pretty, was all.

She thought Daphne might have been saying something — she hadn't heard it, sound echoing meaninglessly in her ears for a bit there — after some seconds Liz realised Daphne was looking back at her, frowning. There was an edge to her mind, Liz wasn't sure what that was, but it helped shake her out of it, eyes jumping back up to Daphne's face. "Huh? Sorry, what?"

Something cooler shifting through Daphne's normally warm mind (like a cloud passing in front of the sun), she was about to repeat whatever Liz had missed — but then her eyes flicked down to Liz's vest, flaring with sudden understanding. "Oh! I apologise, it didn't occur to me you might be..." She trailed off, eyes lifting from Liz to frown over at her closet. "I could try to wear something, I suppose." Didn't sound particularly enthusiastic about the idea, wasn't sure she...

She wasn't sure she'd be able to sleep comfortably, worried the feeling of clothes clinging to her would be distracting. Because Daphne was accustomed to sleeping naked, had been doing so ever since she was old enough for messes to not be a concern anymore.

...Liz had known that, when she thought about it. (She'd incidentally picked it up from her head, at some point.) It, just, hadn't occurred to her, in the moment. It probably should have, since she was very certain Daphne being naked was just going to make her even more distracting, that would have been a relevant thing to keep in mind while deciding whether this was doable, but, Liz could be stupid sometimes. Yeah, oops.

But, really, she didn't know how much of a difference it would make? She meant, even if Daphne were wearing a nightgown or something, it wasn't like Liz's imagination wouldn't have gotten away from her anyway. Especially since she was fully aware that Daphne hardly ever wore knickers. Daphne not wearing anything might make it slightly more immediate, but it wasn't like Liz would be able to see her once the lights were off anyway, so she'd just be left with her (sometimes overactive) imagination, so. Yeah, she wasn't sure if it actually made a difference or not.

Liz had seen Daphne completely naked in her pensieve, in Daphne's own memories, but she thought this was actually the first time she had in person. It was very, very difficult not to stare.

Realising the silence had dragged on for a little bit, Liz forcefully wrenched her eyes away and up to the ceiling — Liz had always charmed off her own pubic hair before it could get nearly that long, Daphne's looked weirdly fluffy — swallowed to clear her throat. "Um. Don't bother, I— It's fine."

She felt a tingle of amusement from Daphne, warm and giggly with affection and the same sly feeling she got when they traded sexy thoughts. Apparently, she thought Liz's awkwardness was cute — Daphne continued to have weird taste, but Liz guessed she wasn't complaining. "Noctēscat." The lights winked out, plunging the room into darkness...though, it took a couple seconds, but as her eyes adjusted Liz could see it wasn't completely black. There were little pinpricks of light scattered across the ceiling, mostly white but some faintly tinted, not nearly bright enough to actually illuminate the room at all but obviously there. They seemed random, it wasn't until Liz spotted Cygnus that she realised they were actually stars.

"How did you do that?" The environmental enchantments in Slytherin were pretty versatile, but she had no idea how you could possibly get this effect from the keys Liz was aware of.

"They're projected by a device on my desk — I can show you in the morning." Oh, so she hadn't done it with the dorm's enchantments, then, never mind. There was a rustling of cloth, the sheet shifting against her legs, Liz unconsciously fisted her hands in the blanket. "I can see the stars over my bed at home, I think I would miss them." Daphne had switched to Cambrian, seemingly without thinking — it was her native language — but Liz understood it just fine, more or less.

Daphne was settling in next to her, the bed shifting, her aura pressing up close against hers, something warm and soft brushed against Liz's leg. She took a long, deep breath — she was being ridiculous, nothing was happening, just act normal for once in her life — Liz started sliding down, slipping deeper under the covers. The motions starting out tense and stiff, unreasonably awkward, trying not to think too much about what she was doing, the body so close next to her...

Daphne kept talking, at least in part in an attempt to distract her from her own thoughts. Which was nice of her, Liz guessed. "I never did like common architecture much." That word was a new one for Liz, but it was easy enough to piece together what it meant from the roots. "I don't believe you ever saw my room at home?"

"...No, I didn't." Pulling her hair out of the way, Liz finally settled her head on the pillow, properly laying down now. Not that she was relaxing at all, of course, practically vibrating with tension, but that was progress, at least. She forced out a huff of breath. "Um. Your family live over by the old sanctuary, I know, but I never went that way." Her Cambrian was slightly slow and awkward, but she was pretty sure she'd gotten that out right.

"Mm, in that area, I suppose, but— Oh! I'm sorry," abruptly switching languages again, "we can keep in English, if you prefer."

"It doesn't trouble me," Liz said, pointedly doing it in Cambrian. "The practice is good. And English is your second language, isn't it, it's only fair."

Another bright surge from Daphne's mind, Liz could almost feel her grinning. "I suppose so. As I was saying, my room at home is open. Ah, when I was young, I would— I only have a vague understanding of how it is done outside, but on the Greenwood, children stay with their parents for the first few years." There was a short pause, Liz twitched at an unexpected touch on her arm — worming her way between Liz's elbow and her side, Daphne found her hand, slipped her fingers between Liz's, her mind loud and insistent but soft and pleasant. "As it neared the time to move to my own bed, I would slip way in the night. They'd find me in the morning, sleeping in the garden."

Daphne focussed on making a mental image for a couple seconds, a little kid with messy blonde hair, maybe four or five, curled up with a quilt, laying on the dirt (only partially hidden by creeping groundcover), surrounded by curling rows of greenery. Then the image shifted, rain pouring from the sky, the kid and her quilt soaked through, muddy and miserable — Liz coughed out a laugh.

An edge to her voice, a sort of self-directed exasperation in her head, Daphne said, "Yes, my parents were quite worried I might make myself ill. When it came time to have my own room, they decided to make it open. My bedroom at home is not a proper room as most would call it, seeming more an extension of the gardens. And there is no roof, the sun let in during the day — there are wards, it is kept warm, and the rain is turned aside. And at night, I can see the stars from my bed."

The words came with another mental image, obviously meant to be Daphne's room at home. And it didn't look like it was properly indoors, honestly — there wasn't even a real floor, a carpet of flowering clover broken here and there with walkpaths made out of the colourful paving-stones used in the Greenwood. (Daphne wasn't paying close enough attention to that part for the details to come through, but Liz could tell that's what they were.) Two of the walls were definitely solid, but the opposite ones weren't quite, looking more like tall wooden trellises that had been so thoroughly grown over that you could hardly see past the greenery anymore. And there were other plants scattered here and there through the room, Daphne's attention particularly focussed on a cherry tree in the corner — she'd planted it herself the day she 'officially' moved out of her parents' bedroom, sped up to an eager little foot-high seedling with a brief ritual (involving a sacrifice of her blood, repeated annually to keep the tree healthy), in the years since growing to proper tree-size, stretching way higher than a roof should be. The mental image shifted somewhat, the leaves gone and the tree instead taken over with hundreds and hundreds of little white flowers, the absence of the leaves revealing a hammock-looking thing hanging in the branches overhead — that was Daphne's favourite reading spot, looking out over the nearby gardens and homes, the wind gently rocking the swing. Because there wasn't a roof, wooden netting stretching across in a couple places, more plants hanging from them, but in most places left open to the sky.

There was another flash of imagination, Daphne lying in her bed at home — she included the feel of a warm body next to her that was supposed to be Liz herself — the mattress low to the ground, her surroundings dim and colours muted in the darkness, plants rustling in the breeze, the distant chirping of insects and noises of various animals, looking up at the stars overhead. The mental image loosened, fading back to the here and now, holding on Daphne looking up at the ceiling — the same stars, in the same places, making the point — before she stopped focussing on pushing images at Liz, relaxing back to normal.

"I found it difficult to sleep here, at first. Too quiet, and sterile." Liz didn't know that word, but thoughts didn't have language, she was close enough to Daphne's mind that she understood what she meant anyway. "Having growing things in here helped, and Pápi found a way to bring the stars to me, even so far underground. It seems a little childish, I suppose. I can be as particular as you in my own way."

"No, it's nice. I am..." Liz trailed off, not sure how to say what she was thinking — it didn't help that they were speaking in Cambrian, but the feeling was hard to put into words at all. It was something she'd noticed, and they'd briefly talked about it before, but she hadn't done a very thorough job of explaining it. "I like the Greenwood, my room there, the plants and the like. I don't know why, ah. It feels, I can feel it, but it is hard to say. Speaking about it, I think I'm a Seer, it feels like one of those things. That is, I'm that– it may have— It may be because I'm a Seer. I speak Cambrian, I promise."

Daphne let out a little giggle, her mind fluttering, her hand tightening around Liz's. "It may be. There is a colour that, ah—" Realising Liz wouldn't be familiar with the language they used to speak of magic on the Greenwood, Daphne switched to English. "In drawing in and manipulating ambient magic to power themselves, wards and enchantments alter the character of an environment. The effect is subtle, most people will not notice, but it is sometimes detectable to Seers — often on a level that they themselves are not fully aware of. I'm told the air may feel...rigid, dead, almost mechanical. The presence of living things may interrupt the structure somewhat, make it feel less suffocating. If I am making any sense," again reverting to Cambrian as she finished off.

"...That may be it." Actually, that made a lot of sense, when Liz thought about it, it felt right. Not that she could logically explain why, with words, but Daphne's use of rigid was the vibe she was looking for — their rooms at the Greenwood had felt more open, despite still being fully enclosed, unconfined in a way she wasn't conscious of feeling confined in the first place. The effect was pretty subtle, but yeah, she thought that was it. "I may do some things in my home, like that. I won't go so far as your bedroom—" Liz was pretty sure the way she'd said it was literal, like a distance, but Daphne knew what she meant. "—but it may be good to have a little bit. But I don't know how to grow plants indoors like that — maybe I can hire Greenwood people to do some work for me?"

"I'm sure we can." Liz twitched, her hair practically standing on end, as she felt a light touch on the back of her hand, fingertips gently whispering back and forth, from her knuckles to her wrist and back again. Fuck, she was trying to occupy herself with thoughts other than her very attractive girlfriend lying completely naked right next to her, but Daphne touching her really wasn't making it easy... "We may need to go to the Hartwrights for some of the materials, but I don't see why not. I can ask, if you like, and we can begin planning to do it over the summer."

It took a moment for Liz to find her voice, struggling against her heart insistently pounding in her throat, her chest tense. "Um." She swallowed. "Not this summer, no. I don't... I'm rarely at home, I want to wait until I will be there more." Something in the grammar there was wrong, but she was too busy trying to not get distracted and she couldn't think of it.

(Not that she was doing a very good job of it — her face burning and her skin crawling, her breath thin and unsteady, her heart pounding in her teeth and her fingertips and between her legs — but she was trying not to pay attention to that.)

If Liz wanted to wait until she'd be at her home in Ireland regularly, she'd probably have to wait until after NEWTs, at least — whatever she decided to do after that probably wouldn't require her to live anywhere else. It occurred to Daphne that they almost certainly would have broken up by then. Partially, she was just thinking that that made arranging helping her with the plants slightly more difficult — they might not be able to just write it off as a favour, but would have to make a proper contract and everything — but also, the thought kind of made her a little sad, the light from her mind dimming somewhat.

Which was bloody weird, honestly, it'd be a fucking miracle if they lasted anywhere near that long. Sometimes Liz was amazed she hadn't already fucked it up. But Daphne could be silly and sentimental like that, Liz guessed.

After a brief pause, her fingers still idly wandering over the back of Liz's hand, the circles expanding a little up her forearm, she asked, "What do you think you'll do after graduation? I can't remember if I've ever asked. I imagine you may get into duelling, professionally."

"Um, maybe." The fingers trailing gently over Liz's skin were really distracting, she let out a shaky breath, trying to lie still. "Um. That won't... That only takes so much time, I will..." Back to English with a sigh, "How do you say 'Mastery', like the qualification?"

"Meistraeth."

Oh, duh, that should have been obvious, Liz was an idiot sometimes... "Right. I will study for a Mastery, most likely, but I don't know which certainly." Liz paused for a second — something about how she'd said that felt wrong — but passed it off after a moment with a shrug. Of course, the bed was really small, the shrug had her shoulder brushing against Daphne's, because she was right there, dammit, don't think about that... "Um, Potions or Enchanting? It will be just for fun, I don't need to work. It's good to do something with your time, you know."

"Mm." Daphne hadn't given much thought to studying after NEWTs — maybe she would like to, if something caught her fancy, but she wasn't sure she'd be able to. She was to be the next Lady Greengrass, and the political obligations on her were somewhat more pressing than they'd been on her mother at her age — Daphne making a point these last few months of being somewhat more Mistwalker-ish in public actually made it more important, though Liz didn't quite follow why — so she'd be expected to do the whole noble arranged marriage...thing. Which she had mixed feelings about, though not really along the lines Liz might have expected. If she wanted to learn things, she could learn from masters of all kinds of things across the different Mistwalker communes, that wasn't a problem, and it wasn't as though she'd ever expected (or would want) to have a career outside of the commune — even if she weren't next in line, she probably would have decided to stay at the Greenwood anyway. Daphne did like boys too, so that part wasn't a problem for her either.

Just, she would be doing the whole formal courtship thing — she'd turned fifteen just last month, which was normally when people started, but they'd decided before Daphne even started at Hogwarts to put it off until after OWLs — and she wasn't really looking forward to that. The whole tradition seemed weird and strained and artificial to her, she really didn't like it. Of course, there were ways around that, but it would take some careful sounding out of potential partners, which would be a somewhat limited pool for political reasons (and a lot of the rest of the nobility not liking the Mistwalkers much), it was going to be a pain. And Daphne would definitely be wanting more than just the one husband — it was possible her parents (a category which, privately in her head, included Heli) had had an influence on her feelings about how families were supposed to work — so that would be another thing that might limit potential husbands, and then there'd be legal concerns, to do with the 'legitimacy' of any children — Daphne found the very concept of 'illegitimate' children to be deeply offensive, but she didn't make the rules — which, at least her parents had figured out the solution to that problem for her (if much later in their lives than they might have preferred), but still, it was going to be a pain.

Daphne didn't have a problem with the get married and have a bunch of kids thing in principle — in fact, she was kind of looking forward to being a mum, eventually. (Because, as unusual as Daphne could be in some ways, in others she was actually very normal.) It's just all the complications that would come with it that she was leery of. Not to mention all the horseshite to do with ultimately taking over as Lady Greengrass, that she didn't want to do at all, but she kind of had to. If she didn't, it would fall to Astoria, and Daphne felt she'd have a rather harder time handling it — Daphne might not like it, but Astoria would be completely miserable. She definitely could just refuse the job if she wanted, but Liz could see that it didn't even really register to her as a realistic possibility, because Daphne was ridiculously nice like that sometimes.

Yeah, that all semed like...a lot. Liz had never before appreciated having no fucking clue what she was going to do with her life, but honestly she thought she had the better deal.

Daphne caught that thought, a little tickle of amusement on the air. There was a slight sound of rustling, the mattress shifting a little under her, she twitched at a touch against her leg, a pressure settling in near her head. She glanced that way, too dark in here to see a thing, but she didn't really need to — she could feel the weight on her pillow, feel her breath. Daphne's face was only inches from her head — smelling her hair, Liz knew — laying on her side, her knees pressing against the side of Liz's leg.

Okay, maybe pulling up the blanket had been a bad idea, she was starting to get very warm...

"Duelling may be a good idea," Daphne whispered, her breath tickling at Liz's neck. "I think you may enjoy travelling. There are always tournaments ongoing somewhere, you could spend a decade following events all around the world and likely never get bored." Daphne was a bit envious about the travel all over the world for fun part, if not the duelling part. As should be a surprise to absolutely no one, Daphne didn't much enjoy duelling herself.

"...True. I may do that." And it would get her out of the country a lot — things were a mess in magical Britain, and she didn't expect it to get better any time soon. As long as she was home enough for keeping the plants to be reasonable...

"And if you are not so certain you wish to study for a Mastery, you can learn a craft instead. I think you might enjoy culinary school."

It took a second for Liz to figure out what she meant, picking up the meaning more from her head than from the word. "Do mages have those?" She'd never heard of anything like that, anyway...but then, she didn't pay that much attention...

"I know of a couple on the Continent." So, not in Britain, then, got it. "And there is no reason you can't go to a muggle one."

...That's true. "I never thought about it. It's something I do for fun...and also just because I need to eat, I guess. But, I guess the Mastery is just for fun anyway. I don't know, I'll think about it."

"Mm." Daphne inched a little closer, burying her face further into Liz's hair. Close enough that Liz felt something soft and warm press against her arm, which she was very certain was one of Daphne's tits.

A flare of warmth lurching through her, Liz bit out a slightly shaky sigh. "You know, it's..." Fuck it, back to English. "You know, you being all touchy isn't going to make it any easier for me to relax. I'm never going to get to sleep at this rate."

"Mm, I'm sorry." That was a lie, she wasn't sorry at all — Liz could feel her smiling. "You're distracting."

"I'm distracting? You're the one getting all snuggly over there." And also being naked, it was fucking impossible for Liz to forget about that for two seconds, constantly sizzling at the back of her attention, very distracting.

"You smell nice."

"...I had a shower. That's just my shampoo."

"Mhmm. It's nice." That, and Daphne just associated the smell of it with Liz by now. "I can try to behave, though. If you do want to try to get to sleep." Implying that they didn't have to go to sleep right away, if Liz wanted to do something else — but Daphne also didn't want to make Liz uncomfortable, so she wasn't going to put Liz on the spot by directly suggesting they could be snogging right now. Or, you know, other things.

...

Which, Liz didn't want to go to sleep right now, of course — that was kind of the problem? She was, um, preoccupied, but she wasn't sure if actually acting on the sexy thoughts she was trying to avoid having was a good idea. If they started, Liz wasn't sure if they'd be able to stop, if it got too much Liz would probably just have to go back to her own room.

...But that wasn't the end of the world, was it? Daphne would be disappointed, sure, but she'd deal with it, she always did. (She was too unreasonably nice like that.) That she might have to call it off wasn't any reason to not try.

The tension building even tighter, she was practically shivering (despite the heat), Liz drew in a long, slow, shaking breath — was she actually considering doing this? Well, yes, obviously she was, it just...seemed a little surreal. This whole thing with Daphne seemed fucking surreal pretty often, honestly...

Taking another calming breath (it wasn't helping much), Liz sidled a little away from Daphne — as much as the bed would allow her, which wasn't very much, she'd practically been on the edge already — so she could turn partway onto her side. She knew approximately where Daphne's head was, reached up with her free hand, groping blindly, found hair, and then the curve of Daphne's neck, right, she had the idea now. Liz repositioned herself a little, slipping down an inch or two, leaning in — she still missed, a little, successfully found Daphne's lips on the second try, the back of her neck tingling, Daphne let out a little hum. One kiss, slow and soft, Daphne leaned into the next one a little more, Liz's ring pushed back against her teeth, Daphne's cool against her lip — cooler than it should be, she suspected light magic was involved — Daphne's hand tightening on hers, the other trailing fingernails over her arm, Liz skin crawling with little tingles...

Leaning away an inch, her forehead pressing against Daphne's, she whispered, "No, I don't want to try to sleep."

Daphne giggled low in the back of her throat, mind glowing bright, delighted. Her free hand came up to Liz's face, tilting her head at a more convenient angle. Another quick soft kiss, and then she was coming in harder than Liz had expected, taking her by surprise, a warm-cool flash through her chest with a lurch almost like missing a step — she must have been holding it back as much as Liz had been trying to. (It was still kind of baffling that Daphne actually liked her, but this wasn't the time to be wondering about that.) Insistently pressing in, Liz's head pushed back along the pillow a little before she caught up, met her without really thinking about it, heavy and lingering, Daphne pulled back a whisper for breath, but Liz's fingers tightened on her neck, nipping at her lip, Daphne's mind lurched against hers, she let out a little gasp, and then she was back, a click of some bit of jewellery against teeth (Liz wasn't sure whose it was), breath hot and thick, her heart pounding in her throat...

Since Liz didn't need her hand (Daphne still had a grip on the other) to keep track of where Daphne's face was anymore, Liz let it fall away, down to her shoulder, hot smooth skin sliding against her fingers, Daphne's hand was still in her hair, arm in the way, forcing Liz's hand down, over her chest. Her skin crawling, her hair practically standing on end, she could feel Daphne's breath catch in her throat — she couldn't tell for sure if she physically felt it or if that was mind magic — her hand trailing over Daphne's breast, divoting noticeably around her fingers. She felt a brush of cool metal against her palm first, brought her thumb around, lightly tracing over the little nobbly bits, the bar rigid through the softer point, Daphne sucking in a shaky breath. Daphne finally let go of Liz's hand, shifting in place, her nose nearly poking Liz in the eye, Liz leaned up a little as she saw what Daphne was thinking, folding her arm up under the pillow out of the way, her elbow about under Liz's head. Her other hand coming up to find Liz's face, the tip of her tongue hot on Liz's lip for a second, nudging the ring, before Liz let her in, heavy and slow, Liz's neck and chest thick with tingles, her skin crawling and her breath knotted in her throat, Daphne leaning against her hand, smooshing between her fingers, colourful sparks flickering in her mind as Liz noticed some denser layer in there — Liz wasn't sure what that was, didn't know how tits worked, didn't have any of this stuff herself, you see, but she was pretty sure the sparks meant it felt nice...

Excitement sizzling in her veins, burning in her chest, needed to get closer — she honestly wasn't sure if that was her feeling or Daphne's, too deep in her mind, but at this point it hardly mattered — worming her fingers under Daphne's waist, lifted by her hips against the mattress enough that her weight on Liz's arm wasn't too uncomfortable (though the angle wasn't great, too bloody short, at least it was out of the way), her other hand slipping over and along Daphne's side — she could feel Daphne twitch, her breath catching — around to her back over her hip, using the leverage to help pull herself in. Also using her legs, Daphne's kind of got in the way, they fumbled around a little, until Liz jumped, enough she accidentally pinched one of Daphne's lips against their teeth a little, as Daphne's knee slipped between hers, the other on top, her ankle hooking around one of Liz's, pulling her in. Another odd lurch dropping through her chest, her heard throbbing in her throat and her head and fingertips and between her legs, she pulled herself in further, slightly cool skin slipping between her thighs, itching just a little (Daphne didn't do anything with her body hair, as keyed up as Liz was she could feel the thin fuzz on the insides of her thighs), Daphne's chest pressing against hers, smooshing up a bit, Liz felt soft hair against the top of the thigh Daphne had captured, and then damp heat, a hard thrum lurching through her as she realised what that was, her hand clutched tighter at Daphne, trying to pull in, feeling the clingy wet cloth of her knickers shift against her as she moved, but the angle was off, too bloody short...

Daphne's mind had narrowed in on a razor focus, making it impossible to think about anything else, hot and sharp and insistent, the hand in her hair moved down, quickly finding Liz's side, dragged the hem of her vest up, Liz jumped at the fingernails on her back, metal clicking against teeth, she clutched tighter at Daphne's back, she could tell by the little flashes of pain that her fingernails must be digging in, tweaking one of her piercings a little, but Daphne didn't seem to mind, a shudder running through her Liz could feel inside and out, lust only burning brighter. Her shoulder shifting against Liz's, Daphne reached lower, Liz squirmed as her hand shifted over her hip, down, her heart pounding and her skin crawling, she gasped at the sudden pressure, Daphne pulling in (Liz could easily count the fingers pressing into her bum), Daphne rocking against her, hot and wet on her thigh, Liz gasped, trying to press herself in closer, Daphne's skin hot and soft against hers, Liz couldn't string a thought together, her head spinning and her body twisted up tense and throbbing. And she couldn't breathe, pressure building in her chest and throat, turned her face away from Daphne's, tried to get it under control.

Because of course she did, Daphne took the opportunity to attack her neck, the arm under Liz's pillow reaching around to pull her hair out of the way, starting near her jaw slow wet kisses trailing down, fingernails finding Liz's spine at the small of her back, she felt more than heard a little noise slip past her throat, Daphne humming against her neck in response, the hand at her back tightening, holding her in place as Daphne rocked against her again, in time with a hot shudder, echoing through Liz, her face burning and her skin crawling and her body throbbing, she could do little more than hold on, she could feel her hands shaking, gripping tight at Daphne's back, her face pressed against the pillow, squeezing her prickling eyes shut — hot intense excited euphoric feelings all mixed up too much, the tension in her throat building — teeth sharp and hard on her neck, thick tension dribbling down her spine, Daphne moved against her, another sympathetic shudder echoing through her, a muffled groan against the pillow...

Head fuzzy, unfocussed, hard to think, it belatedly occurred to Liz that she was feeling Daphne feeling rubbing herself against Liz's thigh — the pleasure wasn't the same as if Liz were doing it, the feeling a different kind of pleasant, and more generalised, seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere, but that's definitely what it was. She had the feeling actually trying to have sex proper was going to be...interesting.

No wonder Severus supposedly ended up crying, your own feelings and the other person's seemed like it would be a lot. They'd barely started, and Liz could already feel tears prickling at her eyes...

She felt Daphne relax a little, her hand loosening on Liz's back, fingers lightly wandering over her skin. The top leg shifted, her foot finding Liz's, her thigh slowly moving against her, the motion very distracting. Liz was still wound up, her hands unconsciously clutching at Daphne's back (despite the increasingly uncomfortable pressure on the one underneath), her scalp crawling and her breath thick and her whole body throbbing with her heartbeat — Daphne still working at her neck probably had something to do with that. Drawing in, the pressure intense, teeth held hard, it did hurt, but Liz's skin was tingling sharp and insistent, her toes curling, she didn't know what the hell was up with that, but it was nice. There was a funny little popping noise as Daphne let off on the pressure — that was going to be a mark tomorrow, Liz was sure — but she didn't back off, a soft little kiss against the dull throb left behind, followed by light nibbles, Liz twitching with each gentle press of teeth, little hard thrums shooting through her. She felt herself gasping and groaning into the pillow, but she couldn't help it, couldn't even think straight, just, mm.

Daphne's fingers lightly wandering forward to Liz's hip, the little nibbles coming up, kissing her cheek now. She pulled back a little, the air of the room cold against Liz's flushed skin, Daphne's knuckles following low around her waist, a nudge of her shoulder tipping Liz's face up, she saw what Daphne was trying to do, played along, a slow, sunny kiss, Liz warm and tingling, floating on the desire and affection and happiness glowing bright from Daphne. A shiver running through her, her middle twisted up tight and hot, Daphne's knuckles drifting to the front, low under Liz's navel, tracing along the band of her knickers with another slow kiss, her skin crawling so hard it almost hurt, her breath catching, freezing, nerves.

Breath soft against Liz's lips, a whisper heavy with warm soft giddy lust (probably imagined, picked up from her mind), "I want you."

...Yeah, no shite, Liz could kind of tell, you know. But it was more a question than it was a statement, Liz was far too deep in her mind not to get that. Nerves crackling through her, tensing up, she hesitated.

(The lines on her back and her bum flared, hot and sharp, she grimaced, concentrated on Daphne's hand and her breath, tried to ignore it, it would go away if she ignored it.)

But what was she scared of? It was only Daphne, and, fuuuck, she was really— All hot and tense, so wound up the tension almost hurt, practically shivering with it. She wasn't sure how much of the intense want, so thick it was hard to even think, was picked up from Daphne and how much of it was just her, but the way her skin tingled warm and cool and crawled in anticipation of every touch, her heart pounding in her throat and her head and her teeth, the insistent impatient heat between her legs intense enough it all but ached, yeah, that wasn't Daphne. She was nervous, yes, crackling away at the back of her mind, but she definitely wanted to, very badly. And, as distracted as she was right now, it was really hard to come up with any reasons why she shouldn't.

The problem was, "I don't know, what..." Her voice came out breathless, shaky, but it didn't really matter, she didn't know where she was going with this sentence. She didn't know what she was doing, it— It was kind of embarrassing, people had only been having sex for longer than people had been people, but she, just, she was an awkward bitch sometimes, okay...

But apparently Daphne just thought she was being cute again, affection and amusement giggling warm and sweet in her head. Another soft, slow kiss, knuckles still wandering aimlessly low under her waist (distractingly close), she whispered, "What do you do? When you're alone."

...She wanted to ease Liz into it with something familiar, right, she got it. Kind of fucking awkward to admit this, but, it was only Daphne, honestly, it was fine. "Um, I use a pillow? Like this," pushing a mental image at Daphne. Not a specific memory, or anything, and in very little detail, just the basic geometry of it, she guessed.

"Mmm..." Excitement crackling in Daphne's head, the eagerness intoxicating, she kissed her again. Her hand moving, trailing over the side of her hip, her fingers following the edge of Liz's knickers, "Do you want these on or off?"

"...On. To start." She could get off through the thin layer of cotton, she'd done it before — the way it got all clingy when it was wet helped — and she could be ridiculously neurotic about being undressed, so. She might get rid of them later, if she was just too into it for her stupid brain shite to get in the way, but, for now, no.

Daphne was slightly disappointed, wanted to feel her, but it was only a brief flicker, disappearing under all the rest in a blink. "Are your eyes closed?" After a second of confusion, she realised Daphne wanted to turn the lights on, so they could see what they were doing — Liz would rather she didn't, personally, but it wasn't a big deal. She didn't bother speaking, just sent a wordless positive feeling back at her. "Luceat." Liz could see the light through her eyelids, turned her face against the pillow. "Alterētur lucernās, quā dīminuat candōrem ad octantem." The glow immediately dimmed, not really noticeable with her eyes closed anymore. "Alterētur lucernās, qua sanguicolōrēs sint. There we are. I'll borrow this," Daphne said, tugging at the pillow under Liz's head.

So Liz sat up partway, clumsily disentangling her legs from Daphne's, the blanket drooping down from where it'd ended up halfway up her side. The lights were dim, a deep muddy reddish — the "blood" red coded on the wards was a darker colour than the "fire" red Liz normally used, like after drying, the little hard blobs that bubbled out of scratches Liz had missed. They cast the room in a murky half-light (or eighth-light, she guessed), enough to see where everything was, the general features of the room, but not much in the way of detail. The effect on Daphne was interesting, her skin almost seeming to gain a pinkish glow, the piercings glinting just enough to draw the eye, blonde hair given a pale reddish tint.

...Actually, Liz might have to copy this, to set her lights to overnight. So she didn't trip over anything trying to move around, it was enough to see by but it wouldn't prevent her from falling asleep. One-eighth, blood-colour, she'd try to remember that.

Daphne was stacking the pillows against the headboard behind her, to prop herself up a little bit — doing the geometry in her head, hoping the angle would let Daphne kiss her while they were at it, because Liz was so annoyingly short. She settled in, sort of reclining halfway back, shifting a little to make sure her spot was stable and comfortable...the motion doing interesting things to her tits, bobbing in place, Liz didn't bother trying to stop herself from staring. Then Daphne smiled up at her and reached out to grab her hand, mind bright and warm and eager against hers. "Come here, nghariad."

Right, um, they were doing a thing. Taking in and out a shaky breath, Liz tugged at the blankets with her free hand, trying to... You know what, never mind. Normally the enchantments just used general seasonal vocabulary — if she wanted it to be warmer, she just told her room to be summer — but if she wanted to be precise, um, "Alterētur proprietātem, qua accumulet calōrem ad...trīs gradūs?" Liz waited a couple seconds, until she started to feel the tingle on the air, noticeably warming up — ha, her Latin hadn't failed her, good then. It would take a little bit to finish, since warming a whole room full of air was an actual physical change, but an extra three degrees — in Celsius, mages didn't always use it when, like, talking about the weather, but enchanters had copied the system from the muggle world nearly a century ago now — should hopefully be enough that she wouldn't really need the blanket to be comfortable. "Cold, sorry."

"Of course, I didn't think of that." Daphne was aware Liz got cold really easily, and her room was warmer than the default to begin with (since she spent so much time in it naked), but it hadn't occurred to her that it would still be uncomfortable for Liz. "Come," tugging on her hand a little.

Pulling the blanket further down, slipping to about Daphne's knees, her heart pounding in her throat, fingers twitching a little. Feeling a bit giddy, the joke appeared in her head, and Liz couldn't help herself. "That is kind of the idea, isn't it?"

About as giddy as she was (if in a much less nervous sort of way), Daphne giggled, delighted. Well, at least someone thought she was funny.

Taking another long shaky breath, Liz turned up onto her knees, started shuffling over, Daphne gently tugging her closer. Watching her, Liz could feel her attention, a warm tingly pressure, like those time she caught people staring at her arse, but sharper and more...imminent, Daphne's desire and excitement and anticipation thick and crackling on the air, Liz could practically taste it, blood and basil and the wind ahead of a summer thunderstorm. (She could feel that Daphne wanted her, which at some level was still completely incomprehensible, but she guessed there was no accounting for taste.) Her face practically burning, tense with nerves but skin tingling with excitement at the same time, using Daphne's hand for leverage, she lifted one knee over one of hers. Daphne found her other hand, tugging her forward, down.

Daphne could kiss her from here, but Liz thought the angle was maybe a little awkward on her neck — which was only fair, she guessed, Liz had to twist herself at awkward angles to kiss Daphne all the time. For a long moment, Liz didn't move, just sat there, still, hyper-aware of Daphne's leg (soft and and smooth and slightly cool) against the insides of her thighs (Liz's weight against her femur very very noticeable, pressing up between her legs as it was), her skin crawling and her breath stuck hard and hot in her throat, practically vibrating with tension too thick to move. Daphne had let go of her hands, instead come up to her shoulders, kisses slow and sweet and soft, her mind warm and bright and inviting. Her hands turned back, lightly slipping down her sides, Liz's vest thin and tight enough that she could feel Daphne's fingers roll over her ribs, another heavy warm-cool lurch thudding through her, her heart pounding in her throat and her teeth and her fingertips and between her legs, and Liz felt herself twitch, the rigidness in her limbs cracking, the motion stiff and shaky—

Her breath caught at the feel of her knickers shifting against her, but that wasn't quite right, she scooted her bum back a little, leaning more forward, and tried again, pressing herself down and in and— Theeere it was, a hot slippery shiver crawling up her spine, the knot low in her middle twisting tighter. Her breath snuck out in a sigh, which was kind of awkward with Daphne's lips against hers, but fuck it, she moved again, her heart pounding and her skin crawling, almost dizzy, shaking as Daphne's hands moved further down her sides, she couldn't—

That wasn't quite right either, Liz pushed her knees out more — one pressing against Daphne's other thigh, her leg bent in response, heel planted against the bed — Liz leaned more forward, turning her face against Daphne's shoulder, reached down past her stomach, tugging at her knickers. The damp fabric pulled flush against sensitive skin, a hot lurch low through her stomach, Liz grit her teeth, she sank harder against Daphne, pressing herself down, wiggling side to side a little to properly open herself up, her shoulders and the back of her neck crawling, bright little sparks shooting up her spine, she rolled her hips forward, there we go, and back, her breath rasping in her throat and her body throbbing hot and—

Daphne's hands came to her hips, fingers digging in and pulling, Liz's heart jumping up her throat and her hair standing on end, she rolled against Daphne again, the sharp knot low in her middle tightening, some kind of noise escaping from her throat, sparks crackling up her spine and dancing behind her eyes, Daphne's mind warm and inviting, all but pulling her in, sinking deeper into her, her head spinning and her nerves on fire, she moved against her again, and again...

Hands scrabbling randomly for leverage, finding a shoulder and a hip, fingernails making Daphne gasp, everything else dropping away, breath coloured by the taste of Daphne's skin (some kind of soap?) and sweat and an increasing note of fluids (Liz too distracted at the moment to find it gross), the pressure between her legs overwhelming, intensely aware of the friction of each movement, burning into her sharp and bright, Daphne's hands on her hips making her shiver, turning the motion stuttering and jerking, Liz gasping against Daphne's shoulder with each surge of sensation, she couldn't get enough air, chest aching and desperate and her head spinning. Daphne pulling at her, she was trying to move with her, back arching up as though trying to reach, squirming. She could feel Liz through her knickers, her breath hot against her neck, and apparently she was losing control of her magic more than normal, thick on the air around her — sharp and cool and heavy, like an autumn storm — intoxicating, turning her face more into Liz's hair, breathing her in, but it wasn't enough, she needed to— One hand left Liz's hips, jumping between her own legs—

Liz's breath was ground out in a groan as she felt Daphne begin to rub herself, glittery hot sparks shooting through her mind, undifferentiated pleasure beating back at Liz, thick and heavy, making her shiver. Daphne noticed immediately, confusion clouding over for a second before erupting with bright giddy glee — she thought Liz being able to feel Daphne's pleasure too was very romantic, weirdly enough, Liz wasn't sure how that logic followed. But it was just a passing thought, not important just now, flickering through her attention for a second before slipping away again, razor-focussed on Daphne's breath in her ear, the warm tingly sympathetic echoes shivering through her, the feel of Daphne's thigh against her as she moved, the tension and heat building, sharp slippery tines of heat sent digging under her skin with each movement, almost painful but not really (physical feelings were as weird as feelings feelings sometimes), egging her on, Liz pushing in lower and harder, throbbing and dizzy, more.

She was distantly aware of herself moaning muffled against Daphne's shoulder — more from feeling Daphne listening to her, her own attention elsewhere — but she was too far gone to be embarrassed about that, tension winding tighter and tighter, hot and throbbing and heavy, she could barely breathe, she heard Daphne slip fingers into herself, her body tensing and her mind flaring, which, Liz didn't like doing that, much (she didn't like touching that stuff, gross and slimy, and even with her clean-hands charm, it just wasn't as nice), but hearing Daphne do it was wild, the sound practically stabbing into her brain, she shivered, Daphne's fingernails bright and sharp along her spine—

Whispered near her ear, "Liz, is something wrong?" an edge of concern managing to surface through the...all the everything else. Dazed, it took Liz a moment to realise one of the noises she was completely failing to choke back had come out more a sob, her eyes leaking, her chest tight and her throat burning — it was a lot, her own shite and Daphne's overflowing, she hadn't noticed but she wasn't exactly surprised. She shook her head, shoving at Daphne not a thought so much as a tangled mess of feelings, sending her reeling for a second, gasping, but then she came back hard, burying her face in Liz's hair, trying to find something, anything, her hand tightening on Liz's bum, she jerked harder against Daphne, a hard throb dropping through her, her arm wrapping around Daphne's shoulders, pulling her closer, more.

Liz lost all track of time, focus narrowed on Daphne's skin against her, the hot tingly throbbing knot twisting tighter and tighter with each motion, the little mewling gasping breaths from Daphne, loud against her — Daphne had managed to find the shell of her ear through her hair at some point, sharp teeth making her skin crawl, every little noise that slipped out deafening. She could feel Daphne's mind narrowing, almost painfully sharp against hers, smell and taste overwhelmed by Liz's magic on her tongue, crackling in her ears almost louder than Liz's voice, the reflected pleasure from her fingers inside and the edge of her palm against her clit seemingly unconsciously matching Liz's rhythm against her, scattering Liz's mind and pounding through her body head to toe, fuck fuck fuck, too much, she was dimly aware that what Daphne was hearing were sex noises and crying noises all mixed up, but not enough at the same time, more, she pushed herself against Daphne harder, faster, mind sinking deeper into hers.

Between moans and gasps, she could hear Daphne whispering, but she could barely hear the words. She honestly wasn't sure what language it was in, her brain was, just, not working at the moment.

The tension was starting to hurt, Liz could feel the ache in her stomach and her hips, but she couldn't stop, her whole body hot and throbbing and sparks dancing through her eyes (or maybe those were Daphne's), practically shivering. Daphne's breath hot and thick in her ear, her fingernails sharp on her back, pulling her in, the need only keyed up more and more, single-minded, Liz's magic cold and bright and sharp and her body hot and soft and hard, and mine, and more, and closer, so close, more—

Desire burning intense in her mind, Daphne's hand slipped, lower, fingers worming under the waistband, and—

—there was a yank, and her pants were being pulled down—

Her breath stolen away in a frigid blast, like a cruel winter wind, the lines on her back throbbing, sharp like burning her hand on the edge of a hot pan—

—snap—

—her stomach lurching, Ellie pushed away, bleach in her nose and the lines on her back burning, the cupboard door rattling—

—that hot twitchy thing had somehow gotten hotter and twitchier than ever, and she jerked, arms snapping straight to push her up, which was impossible bent over the armrest like she was, and she was yelling some kind of protest, she wasn't sure what, she hardly understood the words herself, her heart so high and thick in her throat it was hard to talk at all—

And Uncle Vernon's hand was back, between her shoulders, shoving her down again, her nose squished against the sofa, and he was growling something, but she didn't understand it, she could hardly hear it, his eyes like wasps crawling over her skin, pinching and stinging and burning—

Her vision swimming, she couldn't breathe, Ellie had ended up on the floor somehow, her head pounding, Vernon's voice ringing in her ears and the lines in her back stabbing (snap), she grit her teeth, pressing the palms of her hands against her eyes, splotches in the blackness, she tried to breathe, but her chest was too tight, she couldn't move (hand at her back holding her down, the fabric of the sofa scratching at her chest), she couldn't—

"Liz, nghariad, don't—"

"—argue with me, girl, just—"

"Take off your dress."

Snap—

She felt something low on her back, warmer and softer than the belt—

—hand was back, between her shoulders, shoving her down again, her nose squished against the sofa, and he was growling something, but she didn't understand it, she could hardly hear it, his eyes like wasps crawling over her skin, pinching and stinging and burning, buzzing so loud in her ears she could hardly hear anything, her pants sliding down to hook over her heels somehow louder than anything else—

Snap — biting down on her finger, hard, he hated it when Ellie cried, she squeezed her eyes shut, it would be over—

—hand on her back, the cloth scritching at her chest (snap), holding her down, she couldn't move—

(She hated feeling trapped.)

Ellie fled.

Scrabbling at the door handle, it took her multiple tries to get it open, hardly seeing her surroundings, she found her room by instinct, slamming the door closed behind her, staggering, dizzy—

—she went rather light-headed for a second, her knees shaking almost too badly to stand—

—snap—

Her hands shivering, glass clinking, she found the bottle, the lights off and her head swimming, she couldn't see it but she recognised the cool tingly feel of the potion through the glass, the cap was still sealed, fingers uselessly twitching, she couldn't—

—lay down on her side, hugging her blanket around her, not caring that it scraped raw against her back, not caring that she was already hot, a few minutes and she was sweating, but she didn't care, once it was tucked firm burying her face in her pillow, one arm around it holding it tight, because she was still shivering and shaking, and her chest and her stomach were hot and tight, but the door to her cupboard was thin, and Uncle Vernon hated it when she cried—

—sliding down against the foot of her bed, she couldn't breathe, everything hurt, her chest burning and the lines on her back stinging and stabbing, Ellie couldn't get the fucking potion open she—

—snap — snap — snap—

"Get up, girl,"

—the cloth cold and somehow sharp against her skin, and she could feel Uncle Vernon's eyes on her like wasps, and she was all too hot and shaky, she got her pants caught around one of her knees for a second—

"Nilanse!" There was a brief pause before the familiar pop (snap), she started to speak but before she could hardly get a syllable out, Ellie gasped, "Open," holding out the bottle. There was a flicker of magic, Ellie threw it back, banging her head against the bedframe, and—

And she was far away from here.

For a moment that seemed to last forever, the world fell away, and she was drifting, gone, gone. She couldn't feel a thing, too far away, carried off on a wave of cool, soft nothingness. She couldn't think, even so much as to note the passage of time, for a blissful moment she floated, gone.

Until, gradually, she trickled back, the world firming back into place around her. The lights were on — she didn't remember doing that — Liz laying on her side on the floor, her limbs splayed out limp. She felt heavy, numb, slow and soft and warm, couldn't move if she wanted to. Her thoughts unfocussed, bumbling, it took her a moment to identify the touch on her head through the numbness. There was a mind there, smooth and hard and glittery, like polished glass, an elf — a familiar elf, Nilanse. Thin overlong fingers, noticeably warm (elves ran hotter than humans), were slipping through Liz's hair, smooth and gentle, the slightest pressure against Liz's skull. It was weirdly nice, actually, relaxing, but that might just be the calming potion.

She hurt. In an oddly distant way, a half-step removed, but she could still feel it, in her limbs and her chest and her throat, harsh dull hot pain, lowly throbbing with her heartbeat. But that wasn't really a surprise, she guessed — crying hurt, and panic attacks really weren't any better.

"Are you being back now?"

It took a moment to find her voice, numb and slow, her chest tight and sore. "Yeah."

"What happened?"

"...I fucked up," she ground out, her voice thick and croaking. Even through the potion interposing a protective distance, Liz floating a half-step away, she could feel it. Like a dark cloud looming over her, a cold pressure against her chest, she— "I think I fucked up really bad."

Nilanse was quiet a moment, silently stroking her hair, mind colourfully tinkling. "Were you being with Daphne?" Elven thoughts were usually hard to read, but maybe Liz was just high enough to not think about it too hard right now, because she could tell Nilanse had guessed they'd been in bed (she could smell it, apparently), and...she didn't really know, from that point, but it'd obviously gone badly.

Liz was far too out of it to be embarrassed about Nilanse figuring that out right away. Or that she was still lying here in her knickers for that matter. "Yeah, I... Yeah."

She shouldn't have done that, she was too bloody neurotic to even be comfortable naked alone in the shower, obviously it would be a problem, but she wasn't— She hadn't been thinking, teenagers, hormones, bluh. Or, maybe it would have been fine, if she'd just... Looking back at it, the thing that must have set her off was Daphne's fingers hooking the band of her knickers, pulling... She hadn't been about to remove them, Liz didn't think, she wouldn't do that without asking — just, reminding Liz they were still there like, suggesting, not doing.

But, for one awful moment, it'd been too familiar.

(Her stomach churning even through the calming potion, Liz stopped thinking about that.)

She should have guessed that might happen — that she'd react badly, if not have a full-on panic attack, complete with flashbacks and everything — she...she should have warned Daphne not to do that, or something. Daphne had asked if she wanted her pants to stay on, but Liz hadn't said why, that... She should have said something.

It was too late now, though. She'd fucked up.

Even through the calming potion, thinking about how badly she might have just fucked everything had something crawling up her throat, so she stopped thinking about it. She was super floaty at the moment, so that was far easier than it'd normally be, just, dropped the thought, let it fall away, Liz floating on, out of reach...

She didn't want to stay here. There were still a couple days of term left, but, she didn't... Daphne would be out there. She very well might be standing outside of Liz's door right now, trying to think of what to do. In fact, Liz felt weirdly sure about that — she might be having a Seer moment, she was too numb from the calming potion to be sure. And, maybe this was shitty, but she really didn't want to see Daphne right now, or tomorrow, or...

She suspected that she would remember, the next time she saw Daphne, she'd hear Vernon yelling at her or Petunia hissing about freaks or feel Vernon's hand on her shoulder, and, that sounded...bad. She couldn't tell what feeling that was through the calming potion, too vague and unfocussed, but she didn't like it.

(She'd fucked it up, she'd fucked it up so badly, she— She shouldn't have done that. It was a mistake, she, why did she always have to ruin everything...)

She thought Nilanse had asked her a question, bright energetic sparkly mind flickering with concern, Liz hadn't heard it, half-step removed, floating away. Nilanse didn't know what to do, she didn't know how to help — she was considering going to get Cediny, in fact. "No, I... Can you take me home?" Liz pushed herself up to a seat — it took more effort than it should, numb, her arms weak and shaky — looked around for... Oh shite, she'd left her wand in Daphne's room...

Nilanse hesitated. She didn't know what was wrong, she'd probably go ask Cediny for advice no matter what — Liz belatedly remembered that Nilanse was a good six months younger than her, and almost certainly had even less experience in this sort of thing than Liz did — but getting her home probably wasn't a bad idea. She was aware that there were a couple days of term left, but Liz was exempt from exams and stuff, because she was a Champion and all (a fact Nilanse acknowledged with irritation that crackled like lightning). First thing in the morning she'd tell Severus about it, she decided, he could handle any questions that came up for her. "Yes, if that's being what you want."

"I want to go home." More to the point, she didn't want to see Daphne until she was...better. However long that was going to take. "Um. Can you get my things from Daphne, later? I left my wand in her room. And my clothes. You don't have to do it now, I...I think I'm just going straight to bed anyway. I'm tired." She didn't need her wand anyway, she'd be safe behind her wards, she, just, she didn't want to be here anymore.

There was a bright ringing in Nilanse's head, didn't know what that was. "I will." Liz wasn't sure why Nilanse did it, exactly — elven minds were hard to read. Maybe Liz just seemed extra pathetic at the moment, sitting slouching over on the carpet in her underwear, her vest and her hair dishevelled, her eyes bloodshot, obviously having been crying, streaks down her face and her nose running. (Liz had no idea how she could possibly know about the eyes, hadn't even noticed the leaking, must have picked it up from Nilanse somehow.) Whatever the reason, Nilanse stepped closer, leaning down a little, arms wrapping around her, and...

Apparently Nilanse thought she could use a hug.

Dazed, something clawing at her throat, one of Liz's hands wavered on up to settle on Nilanse's back, the cloth of the funny patchwork dresses the Potter elves wore warm and soft and fuzzy against her hand. Mostly just because she didn't know what else to do with herself, honestly — this was weird, and, Liz was far too high on calming potion to process it properly. She'd thought elves had some cultural thing about touching people...not that Liz really knew anything about it, she should probably ask at some point...

A few seconds later — or what felt like a few seconds, anyway, Liz was really floaty — Nilanse pulled back. Catching both of Liz's hands in hers (soft and smooth and overly warm), she gave Liz a weak sort of smile, big red eyes shining. "Okay. Let's go home. Ready?"

Liz nodded. The crushing blackness of house-elf apparation slammed down a blink later, carrying her away.

---

Oooooops!

I'm gonna pull a Liz and flee. Bye.