The Second Task was, as Liz had expected, dead easy.
Like last time, a couple days before the Task the Champions were moved to the same big house by the sea — someone in the Ministry must be letting the organisers borrow this, or maybe they were just renting it for when they needed it? Whatever. It was still a little silly, but Liz guessed it made sense to keep the Champions safe so someone didn't try to eliminate them (and maybe get punished by the Goblet for their trouble), so she didn't mind playing along. Being stuck in a house with the other five competitors might be kind of a trial, if they weren't all decent enough. None of them were obvious arseholes, or took the opportunity of the rest being stuck with them to just be a jerk or anything, at least. Liz spent most of the time shut up in her room going over her Competency stuff, since it wasn't like she had anything better to do — Cedric and Fleur kept talking at her, trying to draw her out to do social stuff, but it wasn't that bad.
Mid-morning on the day of the Task, after an overly nice breakfast — though Liz just had coffee and a couple bits of sausage — they were rounded up and portkeyed over to the magical district in Edinburgh. A sizeable part of the central square had been cleared for their use, some onlookers hovering toward the edges. Like with the First Task, elves would be following them around filming what they were getting up to, the feed transmitted back to Hogwarts somehow — the spectators were actually all the way back there, the people here in the square were just curious locals. Though, the audience was rather smaller and laid back for this one, since it wasn't a big exciting event like a duelling match, and it was expected to go on at a pretty lazy pace for some hours. She'd been told after that there'd been screens set up in the Great Hall, Entrance Hall, and some of the common rooms on the lower levels, tables with snacks and drinks here and there, everyone allowed to just wander around however they liked. The party(/ies) after the Task were really more like a less restrained continuation of the main event itself, which seemed like a lot of socialising to Liz, but normal people.
The Champions' chosen companions were already there when they arrived, it took a few minutes for everyone to get sorted. Sophie was weirdly excited, practically bouncing on her toes — she'd been very flattered to be asked, so Liz had failed to explain that she'd mostly thought of her because she suspected Sophie might be a Seer. Most of the the group had done a pretty decent job of dressing believably muggleish — if rather colourful and attention-drawing with some of the French girls, but not in a way that'd seem suspicious or anything, just conspicuous in the way young women could be sometimes — though the Durmstrang people looked a little overly formal for teenagers on a day off. Their classmates they'd picked were British nobles — Liz would guess they'd primarily been taught muggle stuff to deal with, like, business stuff, banks and government and the like, probably didn't realise that they kind of came off as kids playing dress-up, or else unbearably posh little shites...but then, they were unbearably posh little shites, so she guessed that was fine. They'd remembered to skip the hats, at least.
(Amusingly, they'd decided to put Ingrid in a suit too — all four of the Durmstrang companion picks being boys might have been a bad idea? Liz wondered if the British boys even knew that'd seem stranger to muggle eyes than it did on the magical side. Liz thought Ingrid looked surprisingly good like this, actually, but she had a feeling a lot of muggles out on the street wouldn't agree.)
Their group were given some last minute instructions, before all being handed a portkey that would bring them to their starting locations. They weren't all being set on the same path, instead given separate puzzles and itineraries of similar difficulty — they might overlap in places, but the separate plans meant that a Champion reaching a clue first wouldn't effectively stop the rest from advancing. (Also, giving the foreign Champions a riddle in a language they didn't even speak didn't seem fair.) Liz, Hermione, and Sophie were teleported to a public toilet, where they found a card sitting propped up on the sinks with their first directions, and they were off.
The organisers had gotten lucky with a relatively nice day. It was cloudy, of course — this was Scotland in November — and a bit on the cool side, but it wasn't that bad, and it didn't rain the whole time they were out. Their first directions were pretty simple, just pointing them at a nearby square, where they would find the second clue — which was maybe a little easier than it should have been, since Liz could feel a faint tingle from the spells hiding it from muggle eyes. That had a riddle, which only took a couple minutes of thought for Hermione to solve, she pulled out the map of the city the companions had been given and quick charted a course along a couple blocks, to the department store where they'd find their next clue, which led them to the next, and the next, and on and on.
It ended up feeling like a casual day out, really. Hermione could be pretty serious about making sure they were always going in the right direction, the obsessive way she could get about things sometimes, but they spent most of the 'Task' just wandering around the city chatting. At points, it was even literally a walk in the park. Through a combination of Liz easily spotting their next clues, Hermione quickly figuring out the riddles, and Sophie being rather more familiar with the city than the two of them — her family was from the north, she did actually visit Edinburgh now and then — made it really no problem at all, they were breezing right through it with hardly any hesitation. There were a couple little moments where Sophie got a feeling they were going the wrong way, or even spotted their next clue before Liz did, that were only making Liz more suspicious that she might be a Seer — though it was possibly just cleverness and chance, hard to say for sure.
They had been given money for transportation, and two of the clues had involved buying specific things without raising suspicion. It seemed like the larger point of the Task was testing them on their ability to get by in the muggle world, which wasn't that weird, when she thought about it — the magical world was different enough that it was a skill people had to consciously learn, so. One clue even told them to get lunch at a sit-down restaurant somewhere, lazing about eating and talking about whatever for, like, at least half an hour and probably more. Just sitting and chatting, like it was any random day...but also kind of a test, spending that much time in public without being suspicious, you know. That part was actually slightly miserable for Liz, but she doubted the organisers had planned it that way — it turned out Liz had been training her sensitivity enough that muggle-raised food could sometimes really suck. After the sandwich she'd started with turned out, just, completely inedible — it was something in the sauce, she thought, but she had no idea what — she'd just ordered some extra chips...which were fine, if with a slightly sour after-'taste' she couldn't identify. The waitress was trying to be nice, asking if there was something wrong with her food and if she wanted a replacement, but Liz had no idea how to answer that, ended up (subtly) compelling her to drop it.
At the end of the meal, their next clue was brought by the waitress with their bill, seemingly none the wiser — that was a neat trick, she wondered how the organisers had managed that. Some kind of compulsion, probably, but Liz didn't feel anything. Huh.
Anyway, yeah, this was supposedly an event in a competition, but it didn't really feel like it. Just, wandering around the city hanging out, which wasn't something Liz normally did, sure, but it was pretty damn casual for what it was supposed to be. Supposedly some of the tasks would be slower than others, but she couldn't imagine any of them could be any slower than this...
As Liz had guessed, she ended up taking the top score in this one — a couple of the judges bumped her down a point, but not enough that her final score didn't round up to a full seven anyway. Cedric also did okay, but his group had had a rather more difficult time finding their way around, getting lost multiple times and had a few awkward moments with locals, enough of a problem that he'd only ended up getting a five. Like the First Task, five was actually the most common score, Artèmi and Fleur both averaging out there too...if for rather different reasons. Personally, Liz thought Fleur's score should be higher, but she suspected bigotry was a significant factor there.
From what she'd heard, Artèmi's time in the 'course' was pretty bland and unremarkable, her group making their way through without too much trouble. Artèmi was smart enough to pick muggleborns for her teammates — like Hogwarts in Britain, Beauxbatons happened to be where the muggleborns in Aquitania (and also France) were sent — though they hadn't been part of the group that'd originally come to Britain, sent along just for this event. (Artèmi was too young to enter, but she was an absurdly good duellist for her age, so had gotten onto the Beauxbatons group anyway; most of her friends, however, were still back in Aquitania.) Most of their problems were down to being unfamiliar with the city, and also the language barrier — Artèmi's English was fine, but her companions didn't really speak it at all. Which ended up being kind of funny, because the people on her team who were comfortable in the muggle world didn't speak the language, so, they would translate the muggle stuff for Artèmi, and she would translate the English for them, constantly going back and forth explaining things to each other. They stumbled enough in the process that they ended up getting a five too, but Liz was told it'd been mostly uneventful.
Fleur's strategy was completely unexpected. Instead of wearing a shielding amulet, as had been suggested after the First Task, she'd picked veela/lilin companions, and actually used their emotion-influencing abilities to make the Task far easier for themselves. They'd hung out for a bit at their starting location, being all pretty and friendly and very French, presumably throwing out enthrallments all over the place, and before long had collected a small group of young men and women, who they basically got to do the Task for them. Liz wasn't sure of the details, apparently they managed to convince the locals that the clues were some game a British friend was playing on them, maybe a bet? The Adjustment people on call had been watching their group closely, but, despite basically constantly using magic the whole time, Fleur's group got through the whole thing without actually raising any red flags. Everybody just had a good time, talking and joking and playing around — their lunch break probably dragged on a bit longer than it needed to, the distractions keeping them from advancing through the itinerary as quickly, but they didn't have any serious difficulties the whole time.
From what Liz had heard of it, she though that Fleur should have scored just as high as Liz, or at least in a clear second place, but enough of the judges had marked her down that she ended up at a five. (Her raw score was higher than Cedric's, but lower than Artèmi's, apparently.) That was, frankly, some horseshite. Judges had made comments about taking unnecessary risks, and letting themselves get distracted from the point of the whole thing, and generally just making a nuisance of themselves and attracting unnecessary attention. And some of the marking down was definitely just because they weren't human — Dumbledore in particular gave her that vibe. She got a few sixes and sevens, with plenty of positive comments — Aritsa in particular praised them for first confirming none of their hangers-on had anything they were supposed to be doing today, and generally keeping their new friends entertained the whole time — but the knocks down by their detractors averaged her score out at a five. Completely unfairly, in Liz's opinion.
(Some of the judges sounded creepily misogynistic about it, actually, but it was possible they were really just racist, and Liz was reading into it.)
Fleur and her friends ended up with several phone numbers and addresses by the time they said goodbye to their new friends, which Liz thought was kind of funny. She'd be surprised if any of the three of them had even ever used a telephone before...
The Durmstrang Champions, on the other hand, did fucking terribly on this one. They'd picked British classmates for their companions, apparently not realising that the posh noble pureblood bastards had very little to do with the muggle side of the country, and didn't really know what they were doing — as Liz had predicted, it'd been a disaster. Not that they'd had a lot of options, Liz guessed, since there weren't any muggleborns at Durmstrang — everyone had to take the entrance exams, and it was sort of hard to do that before you even knew magic existed — but really, they probably should have prioritised people who knew shite about the muggle world above just being British. Both Hogwarts and Beauxbatons teams found all their clues and finished in the time limit, but both Durmstrang Champions failed to do so, for one reason or another.
Viktor had actually been eliminated, due to risking Secrecy. Liz didn't know the details, they'd kind of been making a nuisance of themselves getting on a bus, and one of his companions was annoyed enough at being talked down to by the worthless muggles that they'd been drawn into an argument. It got heated enough that one of them reached for a wand — Adjustment had intervened before he managed to actually do anything, blanketing the area with a pacification charm of some kind, obliviating all the witnesses, and evacuating Viktor and his companions.
A couple people had scored Viktor up for his role in the confrontation — apparently he'd been doing a pretty decent job of trying to deesclate, his companions had just fucked it up for him (the locals being a bit racist at him thanks to the eastern European accent didn't help) — but the disaster had still earned him ones from enough judges that his score ended up at two. Ingrid's team hadn't gotten into a similar disaster, they just got completely lost, and ended up passing the time limit while still less than halfway through their clues — she got a three, which was at least better than Viktor, but still not great.
Liz didn't realise until Zabini was going through their running total scores at the end that Liz killing this Task and Viktor disastrously flopping meant she was actually in first place now. And she wasn't even supposed to be in this thing — oops?
As much as Cedric tried to insist that he'd be happy as long as they got a Hogwarts win, Liz had a feeling that a lot of people were going to be huge bastards about her being in the lead. It'd been bad enough after the First Task, when she'd just had a single point on Cedric, but she'd opened up the gap even further, and was even winning now.
She was sure she'd do much worse in some of the upcoming Tasks — she suspected the healing one was going to be a problem, for example — but still.
Once they were done being given their scores, Liz and Cedric went straight down to join the party again. Liz didn't want to go through the crowded Entrance Hall, instead taking a shortcut down to Hufflepuff, Cedric deciding to come with her so they could show up together. Hufflepuff was kind of packed and very noisy by the time they got there, which wasn't really a surprise — everybody knew they threw the best parties, so, it was just the place to be at times like this.
Like Slytherin, the Hufflepuff dorms were entirely in the underground levels, but they had a very different atmosphere about them. While Slytherin was all hard lines and right angles, like much of the rest of the interior of the castle — the public areas, anyway, the dorm rooms and stuff were all built in circles — Hufflepuff was much more random and curvy. The stone of the walls and floors were mostly covered with rugs and tapestries, where the material of the walls did show mostly taken up by fireplaces, in other spots finely detailed curling carvings poking through, in the same style as the stuff up in Helga's Gallery. (According to legend, both works dated to the Founders' time and were personally carved by one of Helga's nephews — it seemed plausible, but it wasn't mentioned in the few surviving records from the time, so nobody knew for sure.) Everything was in heavy black and soft honey-gold and warm chocolatey brown, occasional accents here and there in white or red. More colourful than Slytherin, but not overwhelmingly colourful like Gryffindor, sort of nice. The relatively low light helped prevent any assault on the eyes, mostly cast by the fires, a glowing ball of spell-light set up floating here or there, very mild and soft and pleasant.
Liz did actually like the Hufflepuff dorms, more than Gryffindor or Ravenclaw, though she wouldn't want to actually live here — Hufflepuffs didn't get their own rooms.
The entrance opened up into the central area of the common room. It was big and open and circular, the floor in the middle dipping down a couple of tiers. She knew from people's memories that this was where they held Hufflepuff house meetings — the House all packed in on the steps, using them as benches, whoever had the floor at the moment standing down in the middle...or sometimes sitting on a cushion, depending on the vibe of the meeting. When a party was going on, there were normally plenty of people standing around here, sometimes they'd put a table with snacks and drinks and stuff in the middle, but it was mostly just a stopover point on the way in, the party more concentrated deeper in the public areas.
Instead of a single big open common room, Hufflepuff's blobbed out into different, semi-isolated areas...though maybe that wasn't that different, when she thought about it? It was sort of like how the public areas of Slytherin, the duelling arena and the library and all the different little sitting rooms, were set branching off throughout the corridors all over the place — in Hufflepuff, they were just obviously all connected, in a weird asymmetrical budding series of blobs. It would narrow a bit between the different areas, but only a little, not nearly enough to be considered a proper doorway, just making it obvious where one sitting area ended and the next began. The twisting kinks were enough it was impossible to see from one end of the public areas to the other. Kind of like a weird unnatural cave system, Liz guessed, the walls curved and uneven, dipping in and then arching out again. The floor was uneven too, some rooms higher and others lower — one sitting room was even on a balcony overlooking the house library, though Liz wasn't sure how you got down there...probably toward the student rooms, but she hadn't gone back that way yet...
Some of the little semi-separated areas were clearly for different purposes — one had padded mats and long pillows and duelling targets, a little casual practice area — but most of it was all seating. The colour scheme changed somewhat from space to space, but the differences were minor enough they mostly weren't worth keeping track of. (Unless you were worried about getting lost, anyway.) When there was a party going on down here, the different areas would often end up with a different vibe. One would always have loud music going, people packed in there dancing, others would be quieter, everyone just sitting around talking — sometimes passing around drugs (both magical and muggle), sometimes not, depending on which one you were looking at — and there was always at least one snogging spot...sometimes progressing to more than snogging, or so the persistent rumours went.
Liz suspected there was some kind of dampening ward in here, sort of like what they'd put on the tables in the Great Hall starting this year — similar, but not the same spell. The environment in any of the blobs could get pretty noisy, mind magic -wise...but not as noisy as she'd expect, for how many people there were in here...and the minds in the other blobs were always much dimmer, could only feel them over there if she consciously reached for them. And somehow, the wards in here affected her Seer shite too — she could still feel people's attention on her, but it was much less intrusive. (The stories said that Helga's son had been an especially powerful Seer, so it might actually be the Founder's original work, to make her family's area of the castle more comfortable for him.) Everyone else packed in here being noisy could still get a bit overwhelming, enough that she sometimes gave up and left pretty quickly, but it was much easier to deal with. Honestly, even if it wasn't common opinion that Hufflepuff threw the best parties, she still might come over here just for the wards.
When Liz and Cedric arrived, there was an unusually large crowd of people packed into the big open meeting room, immediately bursting into cheering as they walked in. (Liz was rather startled, but thankfully no one would hear her squeak over the noise.) Cedric was immediately mobbed by his friends and the other Hufflepuff prefects and whoever else, a pack of Liz's friends waiting for her too. Hermione and Sophie had gotten here well ahead of her — Liz had had to wait in the recovery room for all the other teams to finish — and pretty much everyone else she knew well at all was down here. (Katie had the whole Gryffindor quidditch team with her, but they were a pretty common sight at parties in Hufflepuff.) There was a bit of talk about the Task, congratulations, oh my god you're winning! and so forth.
Liz missed some of it, partially due to the noise (both auditory and mental), but she was also having trouble not getting distracted by Daphne. When she first spotted her, Liz gave her what she knew from the amusement in other people's heads was a very obvious double-take — she was made up in Mistwalker stuff today. Daphne was always distracting when she dressed— Well, she was kind of always distracting to one degree or another — Daphne really was, just, frustratingly pretty sometimes — but also Liz didn't think she'd ever dressed like this at school before. The long strip of cloth stitched with colourful zig-zagging swirly designs — mostly green and white, but with embroidery in yellow and red and violet and black — the beads scattered through the pattern here and there glinting a little in the light. There were kind of a lot of beads, actually, Mistwalkers liked their beads (precious metals and jewels were rarer and hard to get, but glass was more accessible and could be super pretty and colourful), plaited thick through her hair, strings of them around her wrists and her ankles, audibly tinkling when she moved — drawing Liz's attention down, Daphne hadn't bothered with shoes, unsurprisingly. (She was aware Daphne didn't really like wearing shoes.) The way she'd wrapped the thing this time was somewhat more modest, both shoulders covered, the skirt still doing the slanting thing but the high side wasn't that far up her thigh. Of course, stretching the material out like that left a couple gaps, smaller slits strategically placed on her sides over her hips, a bigger sort of diamond-shaped patch at the small of her back which Liz actually wouldn't notice until a couple minutes later. So, yeah, distracting, just...
She was aware Daphne was working up to being more Mistwalker-ish in public, and this...seemed like a step? Not a big step, maybe — some kids showed up at parties wearing some pretty weird shite — but definitely a step. And she could feel Daphne was rather self-conscious about it too, glancing around, idly fiddling with her hair or her clothes, her mind feeling unusually tense and jittery. Getting close enough to read her thoughts through the mess all around, it wasn't just for the party, she'd been dressed like this all day — and some people had been arseholes about it. A little more, um, appreciative attention than she got on an average day, yes, but there'd also been a bit of glaring, and a few people had made rather insulting comments. Among some segments of magical society (including the nobility, who were disproportionately represented at Hogwarts), the Mistwalkers didn't have a great reputation, and people didn't forget that Daphne was from the Greenwood, exactly, but she usually did a pretty good job of acting normal, so. None of it had crossed into, like, outright harassment or anything, it'd just put her somewhat on edge.
Which was very silly, Liz didn't get it. She meant, Daphne looked fucking great, and the nobles weren't really any less weird and eccentric than the Mistwalkers were, so she didn't know what the fuck they were being so snobbish about. Though, maybe that was just a muggle-raised bias, thinking the different magical subcultures were all equally foreign and strange, she was just saying.
Carried away on the wave of excitement and affection and smugness thick on the air around her, Liz unthinkingly shuffled up to give Daphne a hug — she kind of seemed like she could use one, so. And, Liz hadn't meant to, not really sure how it'd happened, but then they were kissing, in front of a huge bloody crowd, whoops. She was startled out of it by the dozens of eyes landing on her — dulled by the wards in here, but still uncomfortable — her head dipping and her face burning under the uptick in noise, teasing applause and whistling and laughing. She blamed the psychic atmosphere in here messing with her head, it was heavy enough it was hard to keep it out, like a smell you couldn't help but breathe in...
(At least Sally-Anne and Dorea's reactions to her little slip worked as pretty good proof that they were getting over the gay thing.)
Anyway, once their little welcome broke up, Liz made for the drinks immediately — the wards in Hufflepuff did help, but a little alcohol would help keep it from getting to her for longer. There were a couple different bottles of gin, Jesus, she didn't know how to tell what would be good. She went ahead and poured some of one that smelled more herby and interesting, quick downed a sizeable gulp (shivering slightly at the stinging burn) before refilling her cup. They ended up delaying here for a little bit as most of the rest of the people in their group got drinks and/or snacks, and— Oh shite, yeah, some food was probably a good idea — she hadn't managed to eat very much at the muggle restaurant, and she was drinking — give her a minute here...
Considering Liz was continuing to show up their precious pretty Cedric Diggory, she'd expected hanging around Hufflepuff to be a little...she didn't know, tense? contentious? That they'd be annoyed with her, or whatever — sure, they'd all be distracted with the party, but she still would have expected some sniping or funny looks here and there. And, there was some of that, but it mostly came from guests from other houses (mostly Gryffindor, some Ravenclaws). Liz and Daphne and everyone took their food and drinks over to one of the other blobs in the commons, laid out their stuff on the floor somewhere out of the way — a lot of the furniture had been shrunk or removed for the party, the seats that were left already full. Sitting on the floor in a dress was a bit awkward, but her skirt was long enough it wasn't really a problem, though it did still make her slightly self-conscious anyway. Especially since random people kept coming by to say hi, congratulating her for winning, commenting on one thing or another about the Task. (People standing over her and talking while she was sitting on the floor was uncomfortable, and doubly so when some of their eyes kept going to her legs.) During this early part of the party was when she was informed about how the other Champions had done — she'd listened to the judges' comments giving the scores, but she hadn't actually seen any of it — which was interesting enough, fine, but she kept getting distracted by how nice the Hufflepuffs were being.
Apparently, they'd had a Hufflepuff House Meeting a bit ago, where they'd decided that they were obviously cheering for Cedric to win, but Liz winning would still be a Hogwarts victory, so was also acceptable. She had heard about that before, she thought, but they were still being rather more openly friendly than after the First Task. She thought picking Sophie as one of her companions might have something to do with it? Not just further populating the Tournament with Hufflepuffs — the House didn't tend to get much recognition in the big flashy stuff, so they tended to like that just on principle — but also maybe reminding them that she had Hufflepuff friends had done some good there? She didn't know, it wasn't like she was reading everyone's minds or anything, but she suspected that had something to do with it.
Liz had picked Sophie entirely out of strategic considerations, but if the Hufflepuffs wanted to think there was more to it than that, well, fine, she guessed. It wasn't like she disliked Hufflepuff, after Slytherin they were probably the house she got on best with...
The party really got going not long after Liz had arrived, the noise ratcheting up as music started playing here and there, voices raising a bit to compensate, bright with laughter. Liz could practically feel the excitement and eagerness thrumming through her, a tingle crawling up her spine and an increasing jitteriness — not really in an unpleasant way, it actually felt rather nice, and energetic, like on one of her especially good days over the summer. There was a little niggling of discomfort, set on edge by the minds pressing in all around her, but once she got enough gin in her — she wasn't super drunk or anything, it didn't take very much — it was much easier to just let the giddiness sweep her away, it wasn't very long before she could feel herself grinning, the energy crackling through her so intense it was hard to sit still.
Some of her friends thought the giggling was a little weird, but she couldn't help it.
(She didn't think she'd ever felt the same excitement and fun and just plain happiness as so many people around right now but, so long as she wasn't having a bad brain day, just being around them could be intoxicating. It could be pretty disorienting and confusing at times, but it felt nice actually having fun and just not thinking about it for once, so. Her friends just got to deal with the out-of-character giggliness.)
After a bit hanging around and talking, their group split up. Most of them were going toward one of the blobs with music, where there was a bunch of dancing going on, but, yeah, no thanks. Riding everyone else's feelings didn't entirely prevent her from getting self-conscious — dancing was one of those things she didn't really quite get, it always made her feel painfully awkward and out of place. (Unless she was drunk enough to not care, anyway.) Her lessons with Sirius had mostly transitioned into the dances the nobles did at their horribly posh formal parties and shite — now that the duelling event was over, the most pressing thing coming up to prepare her for was the Yule Ball — and looked over the book Draco had gotten her for Christmas last year like a dork. There were also lessons being offered for the students on weekends and some evenings, but Liz was skipping those — she'd rather get the awkward clumsy shite out of the way in private, thanks. But, the special fancy dances were very different from what the students did at parties — still weird folk dances and shite, just mostly faster and..."sexier" was the best word for it — so those lessons didn't really help her here. Maybe in a few hours, after she had more alcohol in her, but definitely not right now.
Instead Liz, Daphne, Hermione, Tracey, and Millie went to one of the blobs where people were just hanging out talking — they picked one far enough away from where the dancing was going on that they could actually hear each other without having to shout over the noise. There was some talk about the Tournament here, discussing past events or speculating about future ones, but also, you know, whatever, the shite people talk about all the time. Gossip about other students or their families, the politics stuff still going on out there, some nerdy magic theory and enchanting and alchemy and the like — Hufflepuff had the highest proportion of muggleborns and commoners of the four houses, so more people here actually had to be concerned with their careers after school — and also a surprising amount about, like, religion and philosophy and stuff, which wasn't something she heard people discussing very often. Magical Britain was quite religiously diverse, and some of the divisions could get kind of politically contentious, so, at Hogwarts people generally didn't mention their own stuff and just didn't ask other people about theirs.
Their group, the five of them along with a rotating smattering of other people in the room, actually ended up talking about religion quite a lot. By coincidence, they happened to have David Rhees nearby — second-year Slytherin, Liz mostly knew of him because he was the first muggleborn Slytherin had had since...probably the 60s? (Assuming you didn't count Liz, anyway, but most people didn't.) They had a couple more in first year now, but Rhees had been here first. Mostly a quiet, unassuming kid, Liz knew from gossip she'd overheard that he'd had some pretty serious bullying problems, from Slytherins and some Ravenclaws in his year, but it'd never come up in house meetings and the prefects had never been asked to intervene. Liz had never read his mind to check (they'd never been this close to each other before), but she suspected that he thought his classmates wouldn't respect him if he just got the prefects to force them to play nice, would just be more careful about excluding him where it wouldn't get them in trouble. Which was probably true, so — her own issues in first year had only stopped when she'd terrified the piss out of the people bothering her, which, Rhees wasn't conveniently a Parselmouth, so. She didn't really pay that much attention, but she thought his situation was a little better now? There was a group of Slytherins (sometimes with a couple Ravenclaws) he tended to hang out with in the common room and at meals and stuff — the group included Astoria, which was the only reason Liz had noticed — so, she thought he was getting along okay.
Anyway, obviously references to religion would have come up now and again, but Rhees couldn't ask about it without opening himself up to insults — a party in Hufflepuff was a safer environment, though, so when he overheard people talking about something to do with one cult or another, he just blurted out a question about what the deal with the religion in the magical world was anyway. He was maybe slightly taken aback and intimidated when he ended up in a middle of a conversation on the topic between a bunch of fourth- and fifth- years — including Oz and Eustace Scrimgeour, who were among the more popular students in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw respectively, as well as Liz, who was super famous and everything (but didn't actually talk much, so didn't count as 'popular') — but that could happen sometimes when you asked a complicated question of nobody in particular while in a rather crowded room full of friendly people. They had a pretty mixed group here, so Rhees would be getting a much more thorough explanation than he'd expected — Daphne was a Mistwalker, of course, and Tracey and Millie had both been raised with the silly pseudo-Roman mos maiorum thing (with a somewhat British Celtic flavour in Tracey's case, and a more Anglo–Saxon one in Millie's), Hermione had interviewed several people about this stuff out of curiosity so had broad but shallow knowledge on the subject, and then Oz's family had a really eclectic thing involving gods from various polytheistic traditions all mixed up (which was pretty normal for commoners), and apparently the Scrimgeours were actually Christian, which was news to her. Not a representative sample — as a proportion of the population, the Bagshots' practices were underrepresented, and mos maiorum and the Mistwalkers were both overrepresented — but that was all the big groups, they were basically just missing the Gaels. At least they were, before Alex Ingham — passing through with Adrian, both a little sweaty from dancing — overheard them and stopped to join in.
Some of this Liz knew, at least, but much of the details were still new. It was a little odd to her how...fuzzy and hard to pin down religion on the magical side could be. Like, you had a tradition that had their own pantheon of gods, sure, but the average person didn't worship all of them — they might acknowledge they all existed, might show up in stories now and then, but that wasn't really the same as an active religious practice. In these things, all the individual gods would have their own cults focussed on them, which had their own practices and traditions that might be completely different from the other cults in the same 'religion'...and some of the bigger, more popular and important gods might actually have multiple cults devoted to different interpretations or aspects of them. (As an example, the Gaels' Áine was the goddess of the summer sun — which was different from the winter sun — but also conferred the authority of leadership, historically for kings and these days the heads of all the clans or whatever, but was also a goddess of fertility — specifically of plants and the land, worshipped by farmers and the like, if a couple were trying for a baby they'd pray to Bríd instead — and there were separate cults out there for all three Áines, sometimes even going by different names, very confusing.) And people could participate in multiple different cults, with greater or lesser degrees of dedication, and families sometimes had their own private practices passed down over the generations that might have little to do with any of the more visible cults out there — in fact, families having their own peculiar superstitions or guardian spirits or whatever was pretty much expected. People were often raised in a particular cult (or combination of cults), but then some were associated with specific professions, so they might gravitate to new ones as they got into adulthood, or they might join and leave cults as they felt like it, due to personal feelings or life experiences or even for social reasons, like not getting along with people in an old cult or making friends in a new one. And, of course, the different cults you participated in didn't need to be part of the same religion. They did tend to be, just for cultural and language-barrier reasons, but you could pick and choose whichever you liked, if you felt like it. Mos maiorum was that picking and choosing on a big scale, sort of Roman-themed but the gods and stuff pulled from various cultures, whatever made sense at the time, having gone through so many changes and reinterpretations over generations it could be kind of hard to tell where they'd come from in the first place. Mother Mercy, for example, definitely wasn't Roman, but nobody knew for certain which tradition she came from.
It was a big complicated mess, was what Liz was getting at. Even if you knew what 'religion' someone was from, to be entirely sure what their beliefs and what things they did were, you basically had to ask them.
Of course, they couldn't tell Rhees everything, but they could go off on the different broad 'religions', and the more popular gods with influential cults out there — which were often led by organised priesthoods with some significant cultural and economic power, though not always — and the different practices that were common enough to keep in mind. Like, people could be very serious about keeping your promises to people, and hospitality, that kind of thing, which might just seem like a funny cultural thing on the surface but did actually have a religious basis...and then there was the animal cruelty stuff, and superstitions around the dead and certain plants, all kinds of stuff. They even got a few people volunteering big rants about what they and their families did, which was mostly new information to Liz — she knew some big-picture things, but not really much in the way of details. She didn't really care, exactly, but it was somewhat interesting, at least.
While everyone was hanging out talking, they were also drinking — though Rhees, perhaps wisely, wasn't touching the alcohol — and also passing around fags, for some reason? They were the kind Liz had seen in the magical world before, without the mass-produced super-consistent shape and colour the muggle kind had, more variable, she assumed hand-made by different people. They also smelled completely different from the muggle stuff — Liz had never asked, but she suspected they didn't actually have any tobacco in them, some kind of herbs or whatever instead. (Tobacco was from America, wouldn't have gotten to Europe until pretty close to Secrecy.) She was a little taken aback when Oz casually passed one on to her, she'd never actually smoked anything before...unless the herbs for her spirit-walking thing counted, but she didn't think it did...
Eh, fuck it, what could it hurt? People were still acting mostly normal, so she assumed there wasn't anything in this that was going to really fuck her up or anything — whatever it was must be a pretty light drug, like caffeine or nicotine or whatever, since she'd seen people smoking these at coffeeshops and shite on their lunch break. It wasn't hard to figure out, the tingly smoke drawn into her lungs kind of ticklish, the sharp, tangy, vaguely herbal smell clinging in her nose making her feel like she might sneeze, handed it off to Daphne before she dropped it.
And then she did actually sneeze, drawing laughter and teasing from several people around, because of course. Yes, it was her first time, no reason to laugh at her, jeez...
People kept coming and going from their conversation circle, going off to another part of the party, or just temporarily going to bring back snacks and drinks for people, the talk bouncing around as the hours ticked by. Liz had no idea how long they were sitting here talking, but it was long enough that she started getting hungry again, dipped back over to the table to grab a handful of crisps and some more gin. She was getting a little tipsy, not enough to make her super clumsy or completely lose control of herself or anything, just enough to make her a bit lighter and sillier than usual, getting more carried away by the pleasant feelings all around her, floating on a warm soft tingly sea. It was a little distracting at times, especially when there was a pulse of an especially strong feeling nearby — Liz would sometimes space out a little riding whatever that was for a moment, until someone got her attention again. If these were bad feelings she was being pummelled by, this would probably suck, but she was up enough at the moment and loosened up enough from the alcohol that it didn't bother her, even rather fun. And weirdly relaxing, actually, after what had to be at least a two or three hours hanging out she felt kind of great.
...Actually, she felt weirdly good, all warm and tingly, and a bit light-headed, in a way that was different from the dizziness of having too much alcohol. And also a bit... Her body felt kind of funny, almost like those moods where it felt like a gross alien thing, somewhat removed from herself but just kind of stuck in it...but only kind of like that, because, again, she felt great. Vaguely numb, but also warm and tingly and comfortable and...she didn't know what the feeling was, exactly. Not bad, definitely not bad, just, this wasn't the alcohol, she was pretty sure.
It wasn't until she said — out loud, in public — that she actually got house-elves better than most human people she'd ever met, that it finally clicked that something weird was going on. While everyone stared at her, various shades of bemused by that comment — though with a bit of a darker edge to it from Hermione, Daphne, and Tracey, who'd successfully guessed why — Liz just frowned at nothing, blinking. Was... Was she high?
"I feel funny," she blurted out, hearing the accusation on her own voice. She glanced around, quickly spotting a nearby fag, being passed between Adrian and a boy she didn't know. Pointing, "Hey, what's in that?"
That got more bemused looks, their attention pressing against her skin — though it didn't really bother her at the moment, dimmed by the wards and Liz too up and tipsy and apparently high? — though thankfully it didn't take Adrian very long to answer. Of course, the answer was "Velbarie," which was completely unhelpful.
"Okay, and what the fuck is that?"
"It's Northern, from völvu reykur." Now that Liz was paying attention, Daphne must be a bit high too — her mind felt very smooth and warm, somewhat unfocussed. Not unpleasant, just, different. "I don't know what the muggles call it. I think the native English word is hemp?"
"No," Oz said, frowning. "I'm pretty sure that's only for the fibre? You know, for cloth."
"It is the same plant, I was only—"
Just as Liz was coming to the same realisation, Hermione suddenly let out a long, "Oooohhh!" The sound was a bit more bright and loud than she tended to be — Liz suspected she was also high. "Oh, I get it now, it's cannabis. I did wonder, but it smells different, and it smokes too much."
Liz blinked at her — how the hell did Hermione know what it was supposed to smell like?
"Well, there are other herbs mixed with it, aren't there? I don't know what's in this, exactly, I didn't bring it..."
"Why didn't you say anything? Just passing it around..." Liz got funny looks from multiple people, though, so apparently that was a weird question to ask.
There were a couple seconds of hesitation, people glancing at each other, before Adrian said, "Because it's obvious? What did you think it was?"
"I don't know, tobacco or something like that."
"What's tobacco?"
Biting out a frustrated sigh, Liz flopped over onto her back (the room seeming to continue to tip around her for a second even after she stopped moving), belatedly reminded to brush down her skirt when she felt the eyes on her legs. She was kind of annoyed, but it was hard to hold onto it, tugged this way and that by everyone else's feelings on the air around her pushing their way past the edges of her mind, feeling all warm and floaty and light-headed and tingly and, just, nice. She would have preferred some warning, but fine, whatever, not a big deal.
Despite that she knew she was lying on her back on the very stable floor, she still kind of felt she was moving — in no particular direction, just a vague feeling — all bright and light, giddiness bubbling in her chest, to stop herself from giggling for no reason she focussed on playing with her lip ring. Click-click, against her top teeth, click-click — she could hardly even feel that, weirdly numb...
Rhees asked something about cannabis not being illegal on the magical side, so then they went on a tangent about drugs for a little bit. The Ministry did control some substances and materials, but they were focussed on things that could be used to do powerful and/or dangerous magic — cannabis wasn't on the list. There were various magical drugs out there, in like potion form and stuff, if you were getting it from a guild potioneer you could be pretty sure it was safe, but taking anything sold to you by some random bloke on the street was rolling the dice. Same thing with cannabis, it was sold by herbalists and apothecaries — it did have legitimate potions uses — getting it from official sources you could be sure it was high-quality and hadn't been messed with, but, a lot of people didn't bother, and just grew it in their gardens.
Liz hadn't known this, but cannabis had been in Britain basically forever? Well, not forever, it'd been brought over by the bloody vikings — it had some religious significance, used by their priests in certain rituals and stuff, but it'd also just been used for fun too. Because of the religious association, it tended to go out of fashion whenever Christianity took over somewhere, but some mages had held onto it longer, and it'd come back big time when they went into Secrecy. On the magical side, cannabis use was considered pretty characteristic of the Near East (where the plant was originally from), but by a weird historical fluke also northern Europe, very common in Britain, Daneland, and Saxony. It was probably the most common drug in magical Britain, after alcohol of course.
Though, they didn't normally just smoke it straight — it'd be ritually bound together with other herbs, to tweak the effects, make it last longer, all kinds of things. The stuff Liz had seen people smoking at coffee shops and shite, on their lunch break, would have been altered to have milder effects but to last longer, kind of a low-level thing you could have going for hours at a time without actually interfering with your work at all. (Or not too much, at least.) Sometimes it was also used as the active ingredient in potions, or the big sugar crystal -looking things mages used in place of tablets. Some people (especially in the northern islands) even mixed the shredded leaves into dough, which yes, would get you high, if you ate enough — took kind of a lot, though, Alex didn't recommend trying.
In magical Britain, if you saw someone smoking something, it was probably cannabis. Tobacco wasn't entirely unknown here — though they called it something different, Tracey explained, which was why Adrian hadn't known what Liz was talking about — but it was much more rare, primarily associated with certain families of mixed heritage. So, yeah, that would be why nobody had warned them: it wasn't something they'd thought needed explaining.
Honestly, as funny as this sounded even in her own head, it was probably better that they hadn't warned her? She meant, if they had she might have hesitated to try it — maybe absorbed too much muggle stuff about the illegal drugs being scary, because she'd expected...she didn't know, exactly. She should try it without the alcohol next time, because she expected it'd be better for the not-freaking-out-in-public-because-mind-mage reasons, she felt pretty great, actually...
After a bit Liz sat back up to properly rejoin the conversation (the room continuing to swirl around her for a second after she stopped moving, kind of dizzy), and they were...back to religion. Oh, because cannabis was associated with a particular Norse goddess — Daphne called her simply the Good Lady, but Liz didn't know for sure which that was — they'd tied back in that way, okay. Rhees was confused how all the different gods from different pantheons could get all mixed up, and even with Christianity sometimes, which was actually less complicated than he was making it — he was assuming that people believed that only the gods that they personally worshipped existed, and it didn't work like that. Basically, everyone believed they all existed, or were at least politely agnostic about it, they just only bothered with the ones they personally cared about. Which was a bit odd, from a modern muggle perspective, but that was religion for you.
Of course, Rhees was additionally confused, because, even if some of their magic-raised friends here were (politely) sceptical about specific gods, nobody had any doubts in the existence of some kind of higher power, whether or not they would agree on what that looked like. There were atheists in the magical world, of course, but they were relatively rare — the only atheist they had in their little conversation circle here at the moment was Hermione. Among most magical scholars it wasn't really a question that the magic of the universe itself was conscious to some degree — which was still really trippy to think about — which one might consider a kind of divinity if you wanted, but there tended to be more disagreement whether or not discrete things that one might call gods existed. Some people had a very broad sort of spiritual the universe itself is god sort of thing, even among people who weren't religious that was pretty common — outright atheists who didn't believe in anything were actually extremely rare.
It was the consciousness of magic point that had convinced Liz, personally. She meant, it'd be kind of hard not to come to that conclusion after finding out about Hogwarts — the wards had gradually developed consciousness after operating for centuries, but the magic of the universe was much bigger, and had been around a lot longer. Like Hogwarts was completely alien to them, it would be odd to expect this big universal thing to be conscious in a way that they recognised, but she kind of felt insisting it couldn't possibly be there was...silly. Like, emergent magical consciousness was a thing that all scholars on the subject acknowledged was a thing, that was just how magic worked? Trippy as hell, but not really a question anymore, was the thing.
(The fucking planet was alive, and could even do accidental magic, it was so fucking cool. She loved magic sometimes.)
(She might have unthinkingly blurted out something about the world being alive and that being the coolest fucking thing ever, because apparently being high made her babbly.)
At points Liz was only half paying attention to the conversation, leaning into Daphne's mind — she was all soft and smooth and warm and comfortable, it was nice. Without realising what she was doing she ended up leaning into Daphne physically too, and one of Daphne's hands had found its way around, fingers gently dragging down her hair, the touch barely noticeable over her shoulder before following her hair down her back. And, that felt really nice, actually, warm and tingly, slowly forming a knot low in her throat — not a trying-not-to-cry knot, it... She didn't know what that feeling was, actually, just feeling warm and thick and...kind of, just, good, really. Weirdly good, she didn't know what was up with that...
It did occur to her, distantly, that they were in public, but she didn't really care at the moment, shifted the cushion she was sitting on around so she could curl up with her head in Daphne's lap. There was a pulse of warmth and affection from Daphne's mind, clinging through Liz's chest and crackling down her spine (kind of tickled), and she was still participating in the conversation — Daphne was the only Mistwalker around, and also knew Scandinavian stuff better than anyone here, thanks to her father's side of the family, so she was talking kind of lot — but kept idly...petting Liz, she guessed was the word, fingers carding through her hair, brushing over her cheek or her neck, Liz feeling all warm and soft and good, trying not to squirm in place and completely failing. Not in a sexy way, just, it felt nice was all...
She could feel people's eyes on her — she was acting really out of character at the moment, but her friends mostly just thought she was being kind of adorable, so — but it... This was probably the drugs fucking with her brain, but it actually didn't feel bad at all? Like, warm pressure pushing in against her, not so different from how it usually felt, but for some reason it wasn't pushing her into bad-brain-times — felt more like a tight dress hugging around her, in fact, more pleasant than anything. The combination of the floatiness from the drink and the smoke (the floor seeming to slowly spin beneath her), warm and comfortable, Daphne warm and soft against her and her hand playing with her hair, her mind smooth and pleasant, just, Liz felt really good at the moment, it was weird.
I take it you like prophet-smoke, Daphne thought, her mind warm with pleasure and amusement and affection.
It took Liz a second to realise that must be the literal translation of what she'd called it earlier. She didn't really know what to say, so she just let out a long, low hum, settled her head deeper into Daphne's lap, and left it at that.
Hermione and Rhees were both a little sceptical about the some kind of higher power definitely did exist thing, they were going in circles about that a little. Apparently this stuff made Hermione babbly too — her constantly going on tangents following whatever random thought she had wasn't helping the conversation go in a straight line. Liz got where she was coming from, she'd kind of assumed all the religion stuff she'd been around growing up was nonsense too...of course, she'd also thought magic was fictional before she'd started doing it. See, they had different information now? Sometimes you had to just keep up and not worry about it too much.
"I'm pretty sure I have one of the Deathly Hallows."
There was an odd little shiver in the magic around her — surprise, sharp and intense, coming from the magic-raised people in the room. Daphne's hand had even frozen in place, what was... Oh right, mages could be superstitious about this stuff, she forgot...
"You mean like from the story?" Hermione asked, nose scrunching up in an adorable little confused frown. Wait no, bad Liz, no perverted thoughts about your friends, stop that...
While she was trying to shake that distraction off — she still didn't entirely get why Hermione was so hard on her own looks, Liz thought she was pretty — Alex took up the thread. "Yes, like from the story, though the version meant for children is heavily fictionalised. They're said to be Artefacts of Death, collected by the House of Peverell nearly a millennium ago. There are three: the Elder Wand, the Stone of Resurrection, and the Cloak of Invisibility. Most scholars accept that they exist, or once existed, but none of them have been seen for centuries now."
That got on a tangent about what exactly Artefacts were, Hermione (as well as a couple other people around) dubious about the idea of things literally made by gods...or maybe some of them had their doubts about the Deathly Hallows specifically, hard to tell. Eventually, once they went along on that idea for a bit, Rhees asked, "So, which one of them do you have, then?"
"Don't ask that in public," Oz said, a little too intoxicated for the chastising tone to come through clearly. "People have killed each other over these things, you know."
"It's fine, people already hate me anyway." There were flickers in people's heads, too much and too varied for Liz to even try to read, just let it flutter against her skin like a puff of feathers before passing on. "I've got an invisibility cloak, and I'm pretty sure it's the Cloak. Like, the invisibility spells are perfect, none of the fuzziness in normal ones, and the thing is ancient — the elves say it belonged to Viol-, um, V-something Peverell had it like seven hundred years ago, normal ones don't last that long. And, you know, Peverell. And and, it doesn't just turn you invisible, hides you from everything, I walked right through the trip line around the Restricted Section without setting it off." Liz blinked. "Oh shite, forget I said that."
Liz didn't think she had to worry about anyone saying anything — the people in earshot mostly just thought Liz using Death's actual Cloak of Invisibility to break into a library was kind of funny. And, mages could be superstitious about Artefacts, there was a vaguely intimidated, almost awed tone on the air, yeah, it was fine. Hermione just wanted to know what she'd been looking up in there, because Hermione would never stop being Hermione.
Thankfully, Liz managed not to just blurt out that she'd looked up a sterility curse so she wouldn't have to have periods anymore. She suspected her friends might be rather less likely to just keep that to themselves — they wouldn't tell Severus to intentionally fuck with her, you know, just concerned and trying to help, but she had enough uncomfortable talks about her body with Severus, thanks, she was good.
The conversation went down on multiple random tangents, Liz couldn't really follow the jumps sometimes, someone saying something seemingly random now and then changing the subject again and again — everyone (except Rhees) being a combination of drunk and high probably had something to do with that. There were still fags being passed around, and Liz went ahead and had some every time it was passed her way, because why the fuck not, turned out this shite was great. She did ask to make sure she wasn't going to make herself really ill or something first, but supposedly that took a lot, she should be fine.
She was starting to feel really light-headed, but in a giddy pleasant sort of way, so. Also kind of hungry, but Daphne was comfortable...
At some point, Alex and Adrian left, to go dancing some more — or maybe have sex, Liz wasn't sure. (They were being very touchy.) More people were coming and going, and when they were talking about something to do with alchemically-manufactured gemstones — she had no idea how they got here — Hermione was randomly asked if she wanted to dance by, um...Liz wasn't sure who that was. A fifth-year Ravenclaw, she was pretty sure — which wasn't weird or anything, Hermione had only missed the cut-off from being in his year by a couple weeks. (She was probably closer to his age than Liz's.) Because Hermione was still inexplicably certain that nobody liked her, she was very surprised, the feeling shivering through Liz from the opposite end of their little circle, her face going very red and stammering meaninglessly at him for a few seconds. But after hesitating for a bit she stood up and walked off with him. Tracey was actually giggling, so tickled by Hermione's little moment there that she could barely breathe.
(Now she got how everyone else felt seeing Liz act all giggly, that was kind of surreal to watch.)
Watching Hermione walk away, Liz pushed herself upright, waited a second for the floor to stop tilting. "Hey," she said, poking at Daphne's thigh, "let's go too." Daphne was a little surprised that Liz was suggesting they go dancing — they'd done it before, of course, but Daphne normally had to talk her into it — but after a second her mind went all warm and glowy, breaking into a toothy smile. They both stood up, with a little effort (mostly on Liz's part, this stuff didn't seem to make Daphne as dizzy as it did Liz), and left their little group, Liz leading her by the hand, amusement from their friends' minds bubbling warm behind them. There were a few different blobs in here where dancing was going on, Liz went past the first one she found, too loud and crowded, but the second one, this would do...
Liz still didn't really know what she was doing, with this stuff. The more formal dances had very specific rules you were supposed to follow, which could be kind of tedious and awkward, but at least she was never uncertain about what she was supposed to be doing at any given moment. (At least not in the controlled environment of her practice with Sirius, anyway.) The stuff people did at parties was a whole lot less...regimented. There were patterns things went in, depending on the kind of song it was — there were songs with different metres, and went through sections in different orders — but the patterns were, like, the general structure you were supposed to fill in with details on your own. Like, the formal dances were a uniform, with exactly what you were supposed to do arranged ahead of time, but this stuff was more like the social conventions about how you were supposed to dress in public, the exact kinds of things and the colours and everything left up to you, if that made sense.
There was a lot of messing around, basically, the steps more or less complicated depending on who you were looking at, some people being really showy for fun — and, since they were all hormone-addled teenagers, a lot of couples were dancing very close, even getting pretty suggestive. There wasn't a way to do it wrong, Liz didn't think, but the uncertainty was the sort of the thing that still made her feel really awkward and self-conscious. And being weird about her body didn't exactly help.
But, if she was a bit tipsy she could just plough right through that awkwardness, and apparently cannabis was just as good. She was the one pulling Daphne out this time, but, she didn't know how the songs and the patterns and stuff worked, and she didn't really need to — her mind sinking into Daphne's, she could follow along without too much trouble, and it wasn't like it was hard to pick up after a few times through it. Of course, copying what she was doing out of Daphne's head came with problems, because she didn't have the muscle memory, making her a little clumsy, but she was too intoxicated to feel awkward about that, just tried not to stumble into anyone other than Daphne.
And, relying on Daphne's knowledge of how the dances worked meant she basically had to stay in physical contact with her the entire time — but that wasn't a downside, was it.
The dancing was a giddy, swirly blur, she wouldn't remember much of the details afterward. It helped that it actually went very smoothly this time, it wasn't difficult at all for Liz to just sink into it, letting the energy of all the people around them carry her along. Smoking was definitely better for this than drinking, because despite how kind of dizzy she was it actually made her way less clumsy, so she was pulled out of it by her body not cooperating far less frequently. And, alcohol deadened the Sight relatively well — she understood now why Trelawney was practically always at least a little tipsy — so she mostly ended up not feeling people's attention on her at all. She hadn't had enough this time to cut it off completely, but it wasn't really bothering her? People weren't paying that much attention to her, but when they did the pressure was like a warm soft blanket wrapping around her, comfortable, the thrill of excitement on the air making her all tingly. It was actually kind of pleasant, which was a new one for her, usually she hated it when people kept staring at her...
Or, she didn't remember much of the dancing itself, anyway. She remembered Daphne's hand warm and soft in hers, the weight of Daphne's hand on her hip, the way Daphne's wrap dress thing shifted against her as she swayed to the beat, the smell of her hair, the warmth of Daphne's neck against her face, breath tickling her ear... Yeah, the dancing part of the night was mostly a blur of that kind of thing.
(She thought she might have spotted Hermione kissing the boy she'd gone with at some point, but he never came up again, so she might be remembering that wrong.)
All too warm and light, a bit numb but in a weirdly comfortable way, the giddy energy crackling through her veins and her head spinning, randomly breaking into giggles when she had the breath to spare for it, Daphne bright and grinning and pleasant, they did get rather more touchy the longer they were at it. Of course, Daphne was completely shameless about this stuff — that was Mistwalker ethics for you — and Liz was carried too far away at this point to care anymore. Daphne started it, at one point in a song her hands settling rather more firmly on Liz's hips, her breath catching and her heart throbbing in her throat (it always set her off a little when Daphne grabbed her like that), as the song ended Liz unthinkingly tightening her grip around Daphne's shoulders to pull herself up into a kiss, squirming as arms cinched around her waist and attention warmed her skin, they broke apart as the next song started, Liz giddy and light-headed, pulling her close, which made the actual dancing part kind of difficult...
Little touches snuck here and there all the time, the uncovered patch of Daphne's back (slightly damp from sweat) almost burning under her hand, Liz's skin practically crawling, pausing to kiss between every song — sometimes coming in too fast, jewellery clicking against teeth, for some reason Liz could never stop herself from giggling whenever that happened. And Daphne was being mean, catching her lip with her teeth or letting her fingers trail along her waist or down over her bum, ugh, occasionally sending over one of her very detailed mental images. It didn't take very long before Liz was almost unbearably hot and tense, her heart pounding and she could barely breathe properly, trying to get closer...
Eventually one of Liz's hands had managed to find its way through the slit at Daphne's hip, jewellery pressing against her arm as she slipped under, wrapping around Daphne's waist, pulling her in, as the song ended they were kissing again. Liz's feet had practically left the ground, her own grip and Daphne pulling her up taking enough of her weight, and oh, when had her knee gotten up there, Daphne's hand high on the back of her thigh. The music was starting up again, but Liz didn't want to stop, so keyed up she felt twitchy and unsteady, not sure she'd be able to follow along anyway, and Daphne felt too good, dammit.
Fuck it. Liz freed one hand enough to push against Daphne's shoulder a little, loosening her grip. Whispering against her lips, "Come on," Liz tipped back down from her toes and started walking away — letting her fingernails catch on Daphne's skin as she pulled her arm out from under her dress, the little shivers in Daphne's mind making her lips twitch. Liz caught her hand, pulling her along, feelings carried through the contact simmering with curiosity and excitement, the dozens of minds around buoying her along, out of their blob and through the main room. Liz paused at the food table to grab a bread roll (the dancing had only made her more hungry), munching at it as she walked, leading Daphne out of Hufflepuff. She took an immediate turn into a back hall, a hiss of Parseltongue leading them into a quiet, plain, dim corridor. Liz opened a door, a flick of her fingers filling the little slant-ceilinged room beyond with blue-green light, pulling Daphne in after her.
The little space was virtually unchanged since she'd first gotten her spirit-walking thing to work, going back to witness the raising of Hogwarts' wards. She drew her wand quick to chase away the tiny bit of dust that'd accumulated since, but it was still empty, untouched. Only the elves went back here, and you needed Parseltongue to get through the human way, so nobody would stumble across them here.
Daphne was curious about the wards, I can show you in the pensieve sometime. Not sure how much you'll like it — how do Mistwalkers feel about human sacrifice?
The sharp, cool, unpleasant shivering in Daphne's head was answer enough. (She wasn't, like, super morally offended about it or anything — that kind of magic had simply been more commonplace back then — but she didn't want to see it.) But she quickly brushed the thought off, gently tugged at the sleeve of Liz's dress. "Was there something here you wanted to show me?"
Despite the faint tingle of nervousness at the suggestion, Liz felt herself grinning, turned back around and leaned up into a kiss. Her arms around Daphne's shoulders (uncomfortably pinning her hair for a second), after a little bit she shivered as Daphne's grip around her waist shifted, hands on her bum instead — at least in part to help hold her up at a less awkward snogging angle, but Liz could tell from the sharp crackling excitement in Daphne's head that that was really just a side-benefit. Practically shivering, Liz broke for a breath, Daphne catching her bottom lip with her teeth for a second, before letting go all the way tonguing her lip ring, oh hey, Liz completely forgot to properly close her mouth, breathing too hard, before Daphne came in again, hot and slow and ugh...
She stumbled a little, off balance, Daphne pushing into her, through the haze in her head Liz got where she was going. As she felt her hair start being pressed in by the wall at her back, she drew her wand with a flick of her wrist, cast a featherweight charm on herself — silently, since her mouth wasn't really available at the moment. She was tiny, but there was no reason to work harder than they had to. Daphne dipped down a little to hook the back of Liz's thighs (her skin crawling and her breath catching in her throat), and easily lifted Liz off her feet, quickly enough Liz was a little startled, the room seeming to tilt around her again, scrambling to cling at Daphne's shoulders and breathlessly giggling. Hiking her up a little to a more convenient angle with a jolt — Liz's eye-level was actually slightly over Daphne's now — her back meeting the wall, Daphne leaning in as she met her lips again, sandwiched between the stone cool and hard and Daphne warm and soft, her weight pressing in like a heavy blanket. Liz hooked her ankles together behind Daphne's bum, hair scratching at her arms, pulling her closer in.
It was odd, how this stuff was making her feel kind of numb and distant, like a step removed from the world, yet at the same time everything still feeling here. She wasn't sure how to explain it, it felt like the feelings should be contradictory, but instead it was just... Like, the weird tingly numbness that apparently came with being high — though that might just be a her thing, she hadn't checked how everyone else was feeling that closely (possessing people was kind of obvious...she assumed, never really tried) — was just kind of a baseline thing, comfortable and warm, like she was wrapped up in a blanket in bed, on the edge of falling asleep, how she could kind of go a little numb before drifting off proper. Sort of, anyway. As much as she assumed other people might be weirded out by feeling a little disconnected from their her own body, she didn't mind, it was relaxing.
But she wasn't actually falling asleep, so she could still feel what was going on. Daphne's mouth on hers, and being very enthusiastic about it — the tongues being involved thing was still very new, for them, and Liz had no fucking clue what she was doing, but she was far too comfortable at the moment to be too neurotic about it, nipping at a lip when the opportunity presented itself, the thrill in Daphne's head each time would make her grin if there wasn't anything in the way at the moment. Pressed against the wall, Daphne wasn't pushing that hard, not enough to hurt, just enough to hold her much-reduced weight in place, the warmth bearing down on her nice and comfortable, like wrapping a thick soft blanket really really tight, she could feel Daphne's breasts against her through their clothes, shifting and smooshing with each little movement. Her hands were still at Liz's thighs, fingernails tracing over her skin, her heart pounding in her throat and her fingertips and between her legs, she could barely breathe (not that she had a lot of space to at the moment anyway), making her even more dizzy and light-headed than the alcohol and the cannabis already had, her legs clamping tighter around her, she could feel the edge of Daphne's hip bones, hands directionlessly scrabbling over Daphne's shoulders, a few little light flickers of pain as her fingernails caught, she was probably messing up Daphne's dress, just, not really paying attention to that...
And, of course, she was extremely turned on, all hot and wound up tight enough she could barely breathe even in the few seconds she got when her mouth wasn't occupied, her heartbeat so intense she could practically hear it and her chest burning and... It was a lot, that was all, it was getting very hard to think straight. And she could feel Daphne's razor-focussed excitement too, hot and crackling and sweltering thick around her, bouncing back and forth between them, so thick she thought she could see the magic on the air even with her eyes closed...even while knowing there technically wasn't any magic there, not really — at least not on Daphne's end, Liz wouldn't be surprised if her own aura was extremely noisy at the moment — but it felt like she should be able to.
Oh, her aura was extremely noisy, Daphne could feel it — not the emotions on it, like Liz would, but just the magic itself, bearing down on her crackling like lightning and cool and smooth like standing out in a spring rain. Kind of a lot of magic, actually, Liz would be pretty damn intimidated in her place, but Daphne just found it intoxicating, heart pounding and her hair standing on end, sort of like Liz being overwhelmed by Daphne's desire mixing up with hers, just egging her on further. She adjusted her grip a little, Liz jolted in place, and her face was dipping away, dropping kisses along her jaw and down her neck, intense hot shivers trailing down Liz's spine, she let out some kind of noise before she could stop it, gripping tighter at whatever she could reach, her toes curling enough she could feel her socks scrunched up between them, down to the join with her shoulder and those were teeth now, agh, fuck fuck fuck...
Completely carried away, she'd lost track of where the edges between their minds were by this point, and apparently Daphne had noticed the random thoughts about possession, was curious what Liz meant by that. (The word was used pretty inconsistently by laymen.) Liz didn't pause to consider what she was doing — which was probably for the best, if she were thinking too hard she might have just fucked it up — grabbed Daphne's mind and, kind of, pulled it into Liz. Not the whole thing, just, the bits that did the feeling, her senses, she tugged those away and connected them to Liz's instead — kind of like possession, but instead of putting herself between someone else's body and mind, she kind of plugged it into Liz's.
(Liz hadn't been thinking about it at the time, but later it'd occurred to her that that was a really weird thing to do. Even watching it in a pensieve later, she wouldn't be able to tell exactly how the fuck she'd done that. It turned out, she could do some really trippy shite with mind magic while she was semi-delirious from drugs.)
Daphne broke away from Liz's neck with a gasp, staggering, as she was suddenly slapped in the face with everything Liz was feeling at the moment...also her own senses had probably just turned completely off on her, oops. Her grip loosened enough that, even with her reduced weight, Liz still started to droop off her, she let go — both with her legs and with her mind, skin scraping against the wall a little before she managed to catch herself on her own two feet, Daphne's attention sling-shotting back to her own body. Sorry sorry sorry, I wasn't thinking, I'm sorry...
"Eh– Itsokay." Daphne's face was close enough that her quick, thick breaths were fluttering Liz's hair, her arm against the wall nearby, her forehead leaning against the back of her wrist. She'd settled against Liz again, at somewhat more of an awkward angle this time with Liz actually standing, face smooshed near her collarbone. (Not very hard, at least.) Liz hadn't tried to speak aloud for a reason, and not just because she was gasping for breath herself. "Is it..." Daphne gave up on speaking aloud too, she could still feel Liz there, so just focussed on the question instead. Does it always feel like that for you?
...Oh, so she wasn't annoyed with Liz for fiddling with her mind — Liz hadn't actually hurt her at all, and it'd gone right back to normal (though maybe some warning next time would be better) — she was just, a bit, overwhelmed. By the physical stuff, yes, but...did the mind magic and Seer shite get through too?
Daphne was absolutely positive that it had.
Oh. Well. Oops? Um, Not really, this is...more than usual. Drugs, I think. Than when we're alone together, anyway. She caught Daphne wondering what it felt like when Liz was in public, just on an ordinary day, but You don't want to feel that. It fucking sucks, and I'd rather not give you a headache or a bloody anxiety attack.
...
Maybe next time we're dancing I can try, that was pretty fun.
Her mind shivering with amusement, Glad you enjoyed yourself. Liz was certain there was a pun in there, but she didn't quite get it. Daphne had a thought, leaned away, dipping down to kiss her, practically inviting Liz to...
It wasn't the same as what she'd done a second ago, since Liz could still feel her own body and all her magic shite. But, feeling through Daphne's senses was...a lot less. The physical stuff was maybe a bit sharper and more present, but without all the magic, it... Being Daphne felt kind of...cold, honestly. And no, she wasn't entirely sure what she meant by that.
But, this angle was really uncomfortable for her neck. She hesitated for a second, but Daphne hadn't been angry with that previous trick she did, and she could always apologise afterward — she extended her influence deeper into Daphne, magic burning at the base of her neck and sizzling like copper on her tongue, and smoothly took control of Daphne's body. It felt weird, pins and needles, and clumsy...and also kissing herself was kind of awkward. Liz-as-Daphne took a step back, reflexively straightening her dress — it had gotten a bit mussed up at some point, and Liz could be more self-conscious about that sort of thing than Daphne — giving Liz-as-herself more room to move.
She could feel Daphne's heart thundering in her chest, her hair standing on end and her breath catching in her throat, her mind sizzling and jumping with...well, Liz wasn't sure what to call that feeling, exactly. (Even so deeply sunk into Daphne's body, she was still reading her feelings through mind magic, and she sucked at identifying feelings.) Sort of like that funny not-afraid excitement she got sometimes when she was more conscious of Liz's magic around her, but way more intense — it sort of felt like fear to Liz, even though she could tell Daphne didn't register it as a bad thing. Maybe it would be different if Daphne thought Liz would use it to hurt her (I won't ever, I promise, never never never), but being so thoroughly overpowered, made completely helpless, feeling Liz's magic crackling through her head to toe, definitely made her feel something, even if Liz didn't know how to put a word to it.
But the not-fear was unpleasant to Liz, so she let go again after only a couple seconds. Daphne was left gasping for breath, weak-kneed and dizzy, slumped down to the floor before she could catch herself. Liz threw an overpowered cushioning charm at the floor before her bum actually hit the stone — she'd intended to do that anyway, but Daphne falling over put a rush on it.
...Actually, Liz hadn't even drawn her wand yet, hadn't thought about it, just done it. Hadn't realised she could do that wandlessly, but okay...
For a couple seconds, Daphne just sat there, breathing heavily, her face and neck flushed red, staring wide-eyed up at Liz. Worried if that had been, um, too much, Liz hadn't quite figured out what to say before Daphne found her voice first. "That... What was that? Have you done that before?"
"Possession." Or, a kind of it, anyway, possession was actually a sort of broad category. Theoretically, she could also make someone's mind hers too, but she didn't think she was big enough for that — she'd left Daphne's mind untouched, just slipped her own mind between Daphne's mind and body, then pulled the magic of her body closer to Liz's (sort of like preparing to do a quick-step) until it'd resonated more with Liz than with Daphne, basically stealing control of it. That was the easy version of possession, basically. Liz could maybe steal control of someone's mind (maybe), but she definitely couldn't do both at the same time. "Um...are you okay?"
"...Yes, I'm well." It'd been really disorienting coming out of it, but Daphne felt the same as she had before, Liz hadn't broken anything. Daphne was practically shivering, but, ah, that wasn't why. In fact, her thoughts had gone in a very weird sexy direction, wondering what it would be like for Liz to do that while— Okay, then, that was pretty explicit. Daphne had noticed Liz noticing that thought, and maybe for the first time ever when it came to this kind of stuff, was actually a little embarrassed about it — the thought had literally never occurred to her until just now, but it was fascinating, she was trying not to become preoccupied.
(She wouldn't have expected Daphne to be such a pervert about it, but she probably shouldn't be surprised. Daphne was shockingly perverted in the privacy of her own head, none of their friends had any idea.)
Feeling the heat on her face, trying not to awkwardly shuffle in place, "Um, no, I don't think I could do that. It's, ah..." It takes attention, I'd drop it as soon as...I get distracted.
For whatever reason, Daphne found that very funny. Smirking up at her, she lifted a hand up to Liz. "Get over here."
Liz smiled back at her (relieved she hadn't put her off with her weird mind magic shite). Anyway, she'd been meaning to do this in the first place — a flick of her fingers loosened her zipper (muggle-made dress today, appropriate to be out in muggle London), she yanked the scarf away from her neck, and started pulling the dress over her head. Unsteady from the drugs, she teetered a bit and nearly fell over, but managed to get the bloody thing off. Feeling Daphne's eyes on her warm and tingly, surprise and anticipation crackling in her head — she'd actually taken her dress off because she was feeling uncomfortably warm, but this was nice too — Liz stepped closer, the softened stone floor noticeably giving under her feet. Taking Daphne's hand, she came down to her knees, shuffling closer.
When she got close enough, Daphne's other hand came up to her face, fingers trailing along her cheek, tips hooking at the back of her neck to pull her down for a kiss. (Liz was still on her knees, and Daphne was sitting down, so she was higher at the moment.) Her free hand landing on Daphne's thigh — mostly just for balance, honestly — Daphne let go of the other, a second later Liz twitched at a touch on her hip, Daphne's fingers immediately working around and slipping under her vest, cool on her back, she shivered, leaning closer into Daphne. Her hands fisting in Daphne's dress, the hand working up her back, following her spine, making her skin crawl, Daphne's wrist tugging at the cloth, Liz felt the hem of her vest dragging up her stomach, but it wasn't too high, she just ignored it. Daphne's nails on her back making her twitch, their teeth clinking together, oops — the thrill pulsing through her too overwhelming, light-headed and silly, Liz had to break away from the kiss to giggle, her voice sounding high and breathless to her own ears.
Pressing her face into Daphne's shoulder, trying to breath through the giggles, she jumped and let out an actual squeak as Daphne suddenly grabbed her hips with both hands — her whole body jerking in a deep throb and her skin crawling, she didn't know why this always did that — Daphne yanked her forward into her lap, one of Liz's knees getting caught behind her thigh for a second before she fixed it. That was just making Liz giggle some more, for some inexplicable reason, so Daphne attacked her neck instead, Liz was pretty sure she made a noise again, gasping against the shivers running through her, Daphne's mind burning hot and ecstatic, both hands under her vest now, fingernails drawing lines along her back, Liz felt herself rock against Daphne without really meaning to, the unconscious need to move—
Liz got her breath back enough, tugging at Daphne's hair just a little to pull her away from her neck so she could kiss her, Daphne's hands working back down to Liz's waist, nails digging in along the edge of her shorts, and ugh, that was distracting. She pushed at Daphne's shoulders, flopping down onto her back (the room swaying around her again, ignored it), as they moved her hands slipping up Liz's sides, fuck fuck fuck, Liz broke away again to let out a sharp breath. Since her face was against Daphne's shoulder anyway, she went ahead and kissed that, skin warm and smooth on her lips, trailing along her clavicle and down... Well, Daphne's dress didn't have a collar, technically, but where her neckline should be, anyway, Daphne letting out a heavy shaky breath, her hand in Liz's hair...
She belatedly noticed that Liz had messed up Daphne's dress enough the bits on her shoulders had been shoved away, drooping down her chest, enough that her right breast was completely uncovered. For a couple seconds, she paused, staring — she'd seen Daphne's tits in pensieve memories before, but never in person... Well, that wasn't technically true, little glimpses here and there when changing or walking in on her in the dorm bathroom — Daphne wasn't as cautious about being fully dressed where she might be seen as the other Slytherin girls — but that didn't really count. So. That was a thing that was happening now.
Brushing that off, Liz continued trailing kisses down Daphne's sternum, her hand dragging running down her side pulling her dress further down, below her ribs curving in toward her hip, hot and smooth and soft and ugh, she could feel Daphne squirming in place under her, breath harsh in her throat, her back arching up to meet her. Her throat itching, Liz was hesitating, not sure what to do at this point — Liz, you know, didn't have tits herself, so she didn't really know what she was doing — but Daphne kind of rescued her from having to figure it out, her knees suddenly bending up pushing Liz forward. Her right hand had been at Daphne's hip, slipping through the gap in her dress there, kind of got caught underneath (yanking Daphne's dress even more out of order), she flailed and barely managed to catch herself with her left hand before she ended up smashing into Daphne's face forehead-first or something. The hand on her head pulling her down, Liz barely stopped their teeth from clacking together again, Daphne's mind practically sizzling against hers, Liz felt the hard edge of her tongue piercing, oh hey, they were both breathing heavily but didn't bother pulling away from each other, air passing hot and thick, burying her hands in Daphne's hair, unconsciously shifting against her, the motion a little twitchy with tension, impossible to sit still...
She noticed Daphne noticing that, a thrill running through her, her hands running down Liz's sides — Liz twitched a little at fingers directly on her skin, around her lower ribs, hadn't noticed her vest had ridden up that far. Daphne's hands kept slipping down, fingernails on her skin making Liz shiver, biting Daphne's lip (revenge) drawing a little short indrawn breath, one hand settled on her hip, but the other worked around her waist toward the front, Liz gasping at the fingernails low on her stomach, feeling herself tense, squeezed her eyes shut at the shivering knots twisting her up, she—
It occurred to her, for the first time, what might actually happen in this little room.
Liz disentangled her hand from Daphne's hair, reached down to grab her forearm, manoeuvring Daphne's hand out from between them. She shuffled a little down Daphne's body, turned to rest her head on Daphne's shoulder. And she tried to force herself to relax, settling into Daphne and taking deep, measured breaths.
She hadn't needed to say anything, or even think directly at her, Daphne figured out what was going on on her own. As tangled up as her mind was with Daphne's at the moment, it would be impossible to miss the brief flicker of disappointment/frustration, but it was quickly overshadowed by confusion and concern and a whole mix of warm-cool squishy-sticky stuff Liz didn't know how to sort out. Her arm settling around Liz's waist, her other hand came back up to Liz's hair, slowly carding through it, from the top of her head down past her shoulders before starting over again — despite how frustratingly big and messy Liz's hair was, it didn't really tangle much, so Daphne's fingers didn't actually get caught anywhere, running through smoothly enough. There had been a slight hesitation, but Daphne figured if Liz was having a bad brain moment and didn't want to be touched at the moment she would have gotten off her.
"I'm fine, just..." She trailed off, not sure how to put it into words. She hadn't been entirely conscious of her thinking, just, had a feeling it wasn't a good idea. "Um, I know I'm not thinking straight. Heh, straight."
Daphne was slightly bemused by the pun, but Liz was literally on drugs at the moment, okay, she couldn't help her brain being fucking weird.
"Just, I know where your thoughts were going, and I know where my thoughts were going, and...maybe this isn't a decision to make when I'm high? I, um." ...Yeah, Liz was pretty sure Daphne would know what she meant. "I don't want to regret it tomorrow, you know."
There was a cool shuddering in Daphne's head Liz didn't quite know how to read — surprise or realisation or something like that, maybe, with some emotion attached, ugh, feelings were hard. "You may be right. It hadn't occurred to me, but..." Daphne was still a little out of breath, paused for a moment, Liz could feel there were still words coming. "I wasn't thinking. I apologise, Liz, I may have been...being a little forceful."
"I didn't mind." She was thinking explicitly about the times Daphne would grab her hips or her bum and yank her around — which practically stole her breath away every time, because Liz could be a little embarrassing like that — intentionally making the thought loud enough for Daphne to hear it. There was a fluttering of something warm and soft in her head, Daphne letting out a slanted sort of chuckle. "You don't have to apologise, I was— Well, coming here was my idea in the first place, remember? It's fine, I'm not, like, freaking out or anything, I just think it's better if we stop now."
There was a slight flicker of hesitation, Daphne wondering if that meant she should stop petting her hair too, before she decided that Liz would have said so. Not that that made Liz any less extremely turned on (she was trying to just not think about that). It did feel really good, if not really in a sexy way, just... She didn't know.
After a moment, Liz resettled on Daphne a little, finding a more comfortable spot where her hip wasn't awkwardly digging into her. (Daphne hadn't said anything, but Liz could feel her discomfort.) She hesitated for a second, before deciding, fuck it, and using one of Daphne's tits as a pillow. It was nice and poofy and comfortable, so, that just...kind of seemed like the thing to do? Daphne didn't mind at least, so. She had to adjust her angle a little, when the piercing poked at her ear — because Daphne had metal stuck through her all over the place, of course. The way her head was turned, she could actually see the other one from here, polished silvery metal capped with dark green beads, run through the...
Still feeling weird and floaty from the smoke, Liz completely failed to stop herself. Giving Daphne's breast a slow, stubborn poke, the soft squishy stuff forming a divot around her finger, "Boop."
Daphne, of course, just laughed at her.
Neither of them said anything for...Liz didn't know, a little while. The tension died down eventually (at least a little bit), and it was just relaxing, Daphne warm and comfortable, and, she didn't know. Daphne's fingers kept combing through her hair, her other hand drawing random little circles on her back — Liz hadn't bothered pulling her vest back down yet — which was honestly a little ticklish, but not really in a bad way? The touching felt nice, the warm soft tingles settling into her making her feel, she didn't know, really. Which was still a bit confusing — Liz could be fucking neurotic at the best of times, not to mention what she realised were seriously unhealthy issues she had with her body, she wasn't used to things like this feeling... Like, they were basically snuggling right now, and the petting, and it felt really good, which Liz was not used to, at all.
Her eyes blinking open, she frowned to herself. "Is this what it's like for normal people?"
Surprise flickering in Daphne's head, her hand paused in Liz's hair for a second. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know. I don't really get touchy stuff, but this feels really nice, so I just thought, I don't know."
"...Touch doesn't normally feel nice?"
...This was probably a bad thing to admit to your girlfriend. "Not really? I mean, it's only bad if I'm having a brain moment, mostly it's just...kind of awkward. I'm pretty sure whatever weird happy brain chemicals other people get with the hugging and whatever just...doesn't work for me. You know, Liz is broken, blah blah."
Under the normal warm sunniness, there was something dark and cold lurching in Daphne's head, the circuit her hands were on slowing. "Liz, you don't need to tolerate something you don't enjoy on my account."
"What? No, that's not what I—" She'd kind of half-worried Daphne would be offended or something, she hadn't expected concern — honestly, this girl was just too fucking nice sometimes. Scrambling for how the hell to explain what she meant with actual English words, Liz bought herself some time by tipping up to drop a soft, slow kiss on Daphne's lips. (That felt weirdly nice too, which continued to be weird.) "It isn't... It's not that I dislike it, most of the time, unless I'm having a bad brain day, but. Touch makes your mind a lot louder, and that part I like — your mind feels really nice, I don't know why, just one of those things. But the actual physical part, that just...doesn't really do anything for me. Positive or negative, just." Still not sure how to explain, Liz just shrugged. "If it were a problem, I would say something, honest. Okay?"
Liz could tell Daphne didn't entirely understand where Liz was coming from — which was fair enough, Liz didn't understand normal people's squishy feelings either — but she did get that Liz wasn't, like, forcing herself to go along with touchy stuff for Daphne's benefit, or something. That she did get something out of it, even if it wasn't the same thing Daphne did. And she thought the kiss was sweet, and was a little flattered that Liz liked the feel of her mind — which, most other people might think that was creepy, but to Daphne it didn't register any differently from someone saying they liked how she looked. After all, Liz's primary sense wasn't actually her sight. (Which was interesting, Liz hadn't really thought of magic as her most important sense, but she guessed it kind of was...) The cold stuff mostly softening away, Daphne echoed, "Okay."
Right, good then. Liz settled back down again, squirming back into place against Daphne, pressing her face into her chest — mmmm, she was warm...
Daphne's hand was in her hair again, and ugh, why was that so nice, she didn't understand. Her thoughts clearly still on the same thing, Daphne said, "So, it feels different today."
"Yeah, I... I think, maybe, the drugs are messing with my brain in just the right way that it...works normal? I mean, not completely normal, you might have noticed I've been being weirdly babbly, and came right out an admitted I have Death's Cloak earlier, that probably wasn't very smart..."
A flicker of amusement, warm and pleasant. "Perhaps not."
"Yeah, oops." She shrugged. It probably wasn't a big deal — some people (particularly Susan) had already guessed she had it anyway, and she was already stupid famous and everything, she doubted it'd make much of a difference. "But I dunno. If this is what people feel like all the time, I, I get it now. This is nice. Not something I can do all the time, it makes me act so silly, but."
"I'm glad you're enjoying yourself." That was mostly just the sort of thing people said, but Liz could feel she actually meant it, the glow from her mind warming her like lying out in the sun. "I hope you won't feel too embarrassed tomorrow for being so silly — I think it adorable."
"You're biassed."
"Maybe a bit."
"Mm." Didn't seem like there was anything more to say at the moment, so Liz just relaxed, mentally following Daphne's hand in her hair and on her back — that still felt really good, ugh, she got it now, yep. All the normal people touchy stuff was completely alien to her sometimes, and she was such a neurotic bitch, but apparently all she'd needed to get it was drugs. Noted. Her head bouncing between topics with practically no conscious input from her, she muttered, "Sorry."
"Hmm?"
"I don't—" Forcing out a sigh, Liz moved up so she could look Daphne in the eye, chin resting on her arms folded across Daphne's chest right under her collarbones. Maybe a slightly awkward position, but. "I know I can be difficult to deal with, I get it from other people's heads all the time. It's hard enough just being friends with me, but. I know it must be frustrating, I'm frustrated with myself, that I can't, just, get over it and be a normal person for five fucking minutes. Heh, fucking. You're too bloody nice, and never make a big deal about it, but... Well. You know, just, thanks for being unreasonably patient with me."
There was some more affectionate amusement washing over her, though there was something else, an edge of something cooler she wasn't quite catching. Whatever it was, it wasn't important enough for Daphne to focus on it, just smiling warmly up at her. "As I've said before, you needn't apologise for that. I was aware of your struggles to some degree when you asked me, I knew there might be difficulties to our relationship at the time. This is a small thing, Liz, truly. And the way things are going," Daphne whispered, eyes flicking away, following her fingers playing with Liz's hair, "I don't imagine it will be much longer. Do you?"
"...No. Probably not." Unless Liz completely freaked out, and they had to take a step back for a bit. Which, that wasn't even unlikely — Liz expected taking her clothes off with Daphne was going to be...hard. But yeah, at this rate, she didn't think it'd be very much longer until they tried, at least. Which was kind of an intimidating thought, honestly, but she did want to, sometimes kind of distracting badly, so.
"And even if it will be months longer, that is no matter. There is no terrible rush, there will be plenty time enough for lovemaking when you're ready — I can wait."
...This wasn't the first time Daphne had said something like that, but at some level it was still a surprise every time. Liz still wasn't used to people being understanding about...pretty much anything, she guessed. Which was silly, it'd been years now, but whatever, brains were stupid. Instead of trying to voice any of that, she said, "Lovemaking, you know, you sound so old-fashioned sometimes."
A slanted, smug sort of feeling shooting through her head, Daphne's smile tilted more toward a smirk. "The word is appropriate — I have little interest in fucking you."
"Oh. Um." Liz had absolutely no idea what the fuck she was supposed to say to that — for some reason she was abruptly feeling really weird. Like, she couldn't think straight, all scrambled up, feeling all warm and uncomfortably squirmy, she was pretty sure she was blushing, and, just, argh. Slipping down to press her face against Daphne's chest again, folding her hands over the back of her head, she forced out a groan. "Is this a normal person feeling too? Because I hate it."
Daphne, of course — her mind surrounding Liz's warm and affectionate and clingy and soft, like a comfortable dress laced tight against her skin — just laughed at her.
Remember kids, drugs are bad, and you definitely shouldn't do them. Turns out all fun is actually evil? Sorry, I don't make the rules.
Funnily enough, I've tried marijuana once in my life, and hated it, but that's completely beside the point.
I only expected this chapter to be 10-12k, but the Liz/Daphne stuff took way longer than I thought it would — I'm bad at anticipating the wordcount of squishy stuff especially, just one of those things. Oh well, shit happens, wordy bitch, whatever. Next chapter officially starts the prelude to the Yule Ball, which (unless anything drastically changes) should be the sixth scene from now...actually I might fuse two of them, we'll see. The Yule Ball chapter itself is going to be super long, I might need to split it into two (or less likely three) parts to accommodate my self-imposed 20k word limit — if that happens, I'll write the whole thing before posting it in pieces, to make sure it all works, so that update might take a little bit longer.
Yeah, you know what, changing my mind, I'm cutting the Dorea POV scene and putting the important bits in the dialog of one of Liz's. Yule Ball is actually the fifth scene from now.
And I've gone on too long, bluh. If you missed it, there's a Discord now — way more people showed up than I expected, holy shit. Link is on my AO3 account, same name as here. Bye now.