The tournament in Kaunas was rather more hectic than the one in Jassy, the slapdash organisation, stages and amenities spread over multiple locations, requiring the contestants do rather more scrambling around to get everywhere on time. The people managing this whole mess were trying to make it easy on them, giving them long hours at a stretch that they were doing only the team event or only singles or trios, but that couldn't always be arranged — at least not in a way that would allow them to comfortably fit all the matches they would need in the time they had. From looking over the Book, the timetable for the first couple days, doing some quick head maths, Liz was pretty sure they'd be able to fit everything, but it did mean a few very busy days. And rather busier for Liz personally, it turned out.

These ICW student tournaments came in two phases — the opening brackets everyone was put in eliminated all the participants except the one victor in each bracket, who then went on to compete in a second round of matches to narrow down to winners. (There were multiple 'winners' in each event, of course, narrowing down to single victors in each one would just be too tedious.) Liz's first time at one of these over the summer, she'd been knocked out of singles only a few matches in, and in the team event they hadn't quite cleared the first bracket, eliminated right at the end. Her trio had cleared the first bracket, and made it all the way to the semifinal, where they'd been unlucky enough to face Artèmi's trio — as good as Liz and Katie and Cynfelyn had been, there was simply no way they were getting past that. A couple people in her team had gotten into the championship bracket for singles — Cynfelyn had even won, the only person in her team to bring back a trophy from that event — but Liz's schedule had quickly gotten much more open as the week went on.

But this time? Not so much. To get more free hours in her timetable, she'd have to lose more often. Or at all.

፠

Liz glanced up at the snow, swirling overhead, falling rather heavier than it'd been yesterday, the cloud-cover entirely blotting out the early morning sun — but, as their guide had promised, it was kept completely off the platform, still warm and dry. A quick flick of her wand to clean away the snow from her head and shoulders, Liz turned to face the boy across from her. From some Spanish school, she thought, she didn't recognise it, but the boy's name certainly sounded Spanish. He looked like he could be in her year at Hogwarts, but it was hard to guess that precisely.

While the announcer rattled off introducing them quick — same script as in Jassy, sounded like — Liz gave the boy a wave with her free hand. "Hello. Come here often?"

Confusion sparking in his head, his lips twitched. "Ah, no. This is my first tournament." There was a bit of an accent on his French, sounding obviously Spanish to Valérie's instincts. "I have never been this far east before. Or north."

"Yeah, I don't get out much either." She was pretty sure Jassy was slightly further east than Kaunas, but she didn't know for certain, and Hogwarts was also further north...a little. She thought. "Have fun in the team event, I guess, because I'm about to eliminate you from singles."

The boy smiled. "We'll see about that."

When the announcer said so, they quick bowed to each other. The Spanish boy settled into a proper stance, one foot back and wand extended at an angle to move right into any number of hexes or shields; Liz hardly moved, just waited on the balls of her feet. The countdown started, three, two, one—

The instant the announcer called a start to the duel, the Spaniard threw off a hex — vaguely pinkish, she didn't recognise it by sight but it felt like a stunning spell of some kind. Liz leaned to the side, letting her knees bend, ducking under the hex; even as it sailed over her shoulder, an underhand swish of her wand cast a stripping hex at the boy. It nailed him straight-on before he could react, the force sending him stumbling back a couple steps, his wand sent flipping out of his hand to clatter against the ceramic tile. He hadn't even quite caught his balance yet when her follow-up stunning spell hit him, the boy falling limp to the floor.

...

Well, that was easy.

፠

The tournament over the summer had been early enough into the break that she'd only had about a month of occasional lessons with Sirius — enough to pick up quick-step, but they hadn't had time to practise much besides that. When he was over and she wasn't busy with something else, they'd crammed in more duelling practice, at least playing around a couple times whenever he was around. She'd been a little surprised Sirius had been willing to spend so much of the limited time he had with her duelling, honestly. Sure, he was probably just trying to play along with what she wanted to do, to make her more willing to put up with him — having an actual wartime Auror to practise with was worth tolerating the more irritating aspects of Sirius just existing in the same place and time as her, most of the time, so that had probably been a smart move on his part — but after a month or so of getting to know him, she suspected that he just liked duelling about as much as she did. Which wasn't really a surprise, when she thought about it, he was a rather intense sort of bloke...

And when school started again, the changes at Hogwarts meant that Flitwick had more free time — so he had more energy to contribute to the duelling club, meaning he'd given everyone on the teams far more individual attention than they'd gotten last year. Flitwick had been a professional duellist for over a decade, he knew everything, and was a devious little bastard too. It'd definitely made a difference, and not just for her, Liz had noticed the rest of the team improving too.

She'd heard commentators talk about how the Hogwarts team had been crippled by the civil war in their country — in which the segments of society who sent their children to Hogwarts had been disproportionately affected — but she thought there was also something to be said for the mismanagement of the school not allowing the team a proper bloody coach. That problem, at least, was fixed now.

፠

The instant the starting bell went off, Liz quick-stepped ahead, the hexes from the Italians slowing to glowing blobs crawling across the air, the magic bleeding off them shivering and itching. The world streaking around her, she flew right through the corona of one of the hexes — the glow around a hex actually extended past the envelope, sort of like a person flaring their aura projected a glow past their skin, you could get surprisingly close to a hex without setting it off — slipped between a couple Italians before coming to a wrenching halt, her boots skidding a little on the dirt. "Verveikt! Rḗtte! Lisifoni!"

The dark stunning charm swept over the girl only a few steps away from Liz before she could do anything about it, the lightning curse hit the two boys to the left of the Italians' group, but Liz couldn't stick around to watch the results, magic rushing in at her from multiple sides. Two spells rung off of her advanced shield charm (one Sirius taught her), and the third shattered it, Liz was shoved off her feet by the released energy, the breath driven from her lungs, skidding across the dirt to land on her back...

...right between two Italians. One was holding up a shield against the rest of her team, a silent scorching hex blasted over him while he was distracted. She flicked her wand toward the other, "Cumfulmine lacera!" the curse burst against his shield, fingers of lightning clawing at the air, Liz groaned as some of them reached her, flares of white-hot pain and sharp twitches. She shook it off, tried to scramble to her feet, the Italian dropped his shield, she rolled, a white hex narrowly missing her, tossing clumps of dirt into the air. She pushed herself up to her knees and—

The Italian was struck by a hex from the back, stumbling forward, a second spell slashing across his side — Liz spotted a thin spray of blood in the instant before he was teleported away. There was a deep low bong, reverberating through the floor, signalling the end of the match. Liz let out a thin sigh, letting her bum settle on her heels. Grimacing, she rubbed at the hot ache in her thigh — she should know better than to use that curse at such short range, idiot...

"You all right down there?" Katie asked, holding out a hand to help her up. She seemed perfectly untouched, her hair a little more tousled than it'd been a minute ago but otherwise fine.

Liz took her hand, let herself be pulled up — gritting her teeth at the pain shooting through her, fucking electrical burns... "Yeah, I'm fine, but I should drop by the healers' quick. Nicked myself with my own curse at the end there. How'd the rest go?"

"Distraction worked like a charm, they all went down easy. Come on, let's get you downstairs, we have another match in a half hour..."

፠

Also, as much as a lot of that shite sucked, Liz's name coming out of the Goblet had its up sides. She wasn't really expected to be in class anymore — she did still go, some classes more than others, but none of the professors were going to make a big deal about it if she failed to show up, assumed she was working on Tournament stuff instead. (Or that she just needed a mental health day, in Severus's case.) That meant she had way more free time this year to work on whatever the fuck she wanted, which was often academic stuff, especially going over the Continental curriculum so she could take the Competency exams next year, but a fair amount of it was focussed on intensive duelling practice with Sirius.

Well, learning how to dance had eaten up a good chunk of that, but she'd still gotten plenty of duelling work in. And Sirius had been being taught to fight since his age had been in single digits — turned out the Blacks had been exactly as insane as everyone said — and had literally been in a war, so he knew some shite. Sirius claimed that she was much more dangerous than she'd been even just this summer, and had joked that none of the kids she'd be facing would have a chance in hell.

She hadn't really given his guess much credit, honestly. She might be good, but she was still only fourteen — and the other competitors might just be around her age too, but they were also big duelling nerd types, she'd thought that the suggestion that she'd easily flatten whoever she came across was a bit optimistic.

So far, it seemed like Sirius hadn't been that far off.

፠

Liz quick-stepped the instant the bell rang, ignoring the hexes slipping by her, appeared close in with the Czech trio. Two were turning their wands on her (a hex from Susan splashing against an angular shield), but they were too slow — Liz reached out, interposed herself between their minds and their bodies (sinking down and pulling them up, meeting in the middle, very close to outright possession), and gave their senses a solid twist.

All three Czechs lurched, a hex aimed at Liz went terribly wide. In a blink, two of them were dropped by a pair of stunning charms; Liz, disoriented by two of the minds she'd still been connected to abruptly going unconscious, was a couple seconds behind, the final remaining Czech duellist managed to get up a shield. A second later, the shield was shattered by a shield-breaker, swiftly followed by another stunning charm, and the girl was down.

Waltzing up next to her, Susan grinned. "I'd call that a successful experiment." Katie snorted, dry amusement pulsing off her mind.

"Start with binding spells next time — I was close enough to their minds the stunning spells made me dizzy, couldn't get this one down fast enough," she said, nodding at the girl. She cast a quick reviving charm at her, since their match was over anyway.

"Yeah, 'cause it took us a whole five seconds to win this time," Katie drawled. "That means there's still room for improvement."

Susan giggled.

፠

In Liz's defence, she really had very little feel for the pace other people improved at this sort of thing...or anything else, for that matter. The rate her classmates picked new things up at varied far too much to really give her any reliable impression of how quickly people could be expected to learn things — it didn't help that some of her classmates were already familiar with the material for one reason or another, or were bloody geniuses like Hermione or Padma. She generally had a bad grasp for what people knew and how well they understood things to begin with. There was the mind mage stuff, of course — Liz suspected she'd been unconsciously absorbing information from the adults around her ever since her mind-control superpowers kicked in — but it was also hard to say how much Liz was learning things the normal way and how much of it was cheating instinctive Seer shite.

Sirius had said that could happen, Seers leaning on the collective understanding of humanity in general to pick up things way more quickly than they reasonably should. It didn't feel like she was doing that, it certainly seemed like she mostly learned things by reading and practising like anyone else. But, that it was unconscious was kind of the point — supposedly, a fair number of Seers were completely unaware of it, only showing itself in sparks of intuition, knowing things they couldn't reasonably be expected to. It didn't feel like that's what was happening to her, but she'd admit soul magic and the Sight were all weird trippy shite, who the fuck knew.

Also, most of the other contestants didn't have the time to put into it that she did. They had classes and stuff to worry about, what training they did get limited to club meetings, their time with whatever coaches or instructors they had shared with their team. Liz's classroom attendance had been pretty spotty ever since Hallowe'en, and she had an unemployed former Auror for a godfather, who also happened to be from one of the old noble families which had still held on to the weird martial tradition going back to feudal times (so had been trained in both magical and muggle combat since childhood), and who had nothing better to do than meet up with her whenever she wanted to teach her to fight. Even very motivated to do so, since they were pretty sure someone out there was trying to kill her — and even if there wasn't a specific plot this time, the ridiculous Girl Who Lived nonsense meant someone somewhere would pretty much always hate her and want her dead, so being prepared to protect herself if necessary was just smart.

Not to mention, Sirius was a dramatic, flamboyant bastard, so also just thought the showmanship of professional duelling was fun. Teaching her impractical but super impressive shite like hex deflection had been his idea, and having an appreciation for the form meant he was familiar with the rules and how fights within the rules normally went, so had a pretty good feel for which curses would be worth the time spent on them. Flitwick was a good resource for that sort of thing too, of course, but Liz had to share him with her teammates, while Sirius she had completely to herself.

When he wasn't out partying, anyway — Dorea's dad slept around a shocking amount...or, really not that surprising, when she thought about it, that was why Dorea existed in the first place...

፠

By the time the bell rang Liz was already moving, the stands and the snow-dusted forest reduced to a washed-out blur as time slowed, she snapped to a stop behind the Russian trio, she reached out to—

A hot snarl of incoming magic, a curse aimed not at her, but the floor a short distance from her feet. Liz let the mind magic fizzle away, "gemmeam," instead cast a curved, glittery orange barrier, condensing the normally hemispherical shield into a small panel waist-high. The curse hit the ground, and exploded into a rush of blue-black flame, rapidly crawling forward, crashing hard against the shield, most of it held back but some tossed upward, rising in an arch over her head, Liz reflexively ducked, but it was missing her.

Another of the Russians snapped off a hex at her, a basic binding spell, she deflected it away, retaliated with a stripping hex, but by then the black fire was fizzling away, the boy who'd cast it advancing, a surprisingly powerful dark curse flying at her, quickly followed by a light lashing hex — Liz was impressed he'd managed to switch from dark to light so quickly, that would give her whiplash — she skipped out of the way of the curse, blocked the light hex with a hiss of, "Aigída," the yellow-orange band splashing against shimmering silver. The one who'd taken that opportunistic shot was distracted by Brendan, Liz danced around another dark curse from the fire-tossing bloke — she shouldn't be surprised people were paying attention and were learning to counter her quick-stepping trick, but it was still annoying — retaliated with a hard bludgeoning charm and a dark stunning hex, hopped out of the way of an unfamiliar light hex, a slash of her wand casting a slicing hex, immediately followed by a shield breaker, but the Russian dropped the shield he'd caught the slicing hex with before it could land, cast a blasting curse immediately followed with a roaring stream of blue-white fire — calōre vindicāns, she recognised that one — Liz grit her teeth, caught the fire with another "gemmeam," the orange-yellow barrier shivering under the assault, she felt the wavering snarl of a shield-breaker, dropped it before it could hit, the fire dropping toward her, "Steðjinn detti!" The burst of wind tossed the fire away from her, whipped away and dissolving into wisps, the force sending her stumbling back, her uniform jacket audibly snapping—

She could hear Brendan and Oz's duels somewhere nearby, flashes of light as spells burst, but there was little she could do about that, the Russian pressing her throwing out big elemental spells and blasting and slicing curses — trying to keep her away from the other duels, she realised, hoping to pick off Brendan and Oz so they could team up against her.

It was somewhat gratifying that other teams thought Liz was dangerous enough to take the time to plan around her, she couldn't help smirking to herself a little.

Tossing a burst of fire aside with another wind charm, Liz dug in her heels, "Cumfulmine lacera!" the curse exploding against the Russian's shield, temporarily dazzling him, "Adure, irritati," Liz sucked in a breath through her nose, concentrating, "pruinae." The light magic burning through her chest and down her arm, white ice crawled across the floor toward the Russian, the temperature sharply dropping, pinching at her skin and turning her breath to fog. "Scintillate." The instant after casting the spell, Liz quick-stepped.

She landed behind the Russian, even as he dispersed the cold with a fire spell of some kind — which released the water drawn by the spell as steam, which then interacted explosively with Liz's static charm, a shout of pain rising above the storm of sizzling. Liz tossed off a stunning charm, but the Russian — his uniform visibly steaming, limping a little — managed to lurch out of the way, throwing off a bludgeoning hex, Liz sidled to the side. A slash of a slicing hex, immediately twisting into a shield charm, catching a blasting curse, "privetur, verveikt," an unfamiliar greenish-yellow fire spell was rushing in at her, "aquilonia procella," a harsh roar of wind and a hissing of flash-boiling water, steam and fire thrown right back at the Russian, "haldist, arresta, stupe—" She cut off the stunning charm to skip out of the way of a hex of some kind — damn, this kid wasn't bad, he'd dealt with turning his fire spell back at him like that far quicker than she'd expected...

He was definitely slowing down, though, his uniform nicked and scorched, teeth grit and glaring back at her. They traded a quick series of hexes, spellglows lancing back and forth, dodged to zip past their shoulders or splashing against shields — fast enough Liz wasn't even bothering with the incantations for half of them. Dodging another dark curse, she saw Oz was nearby, shielding a hail of curses from his opponent. Oz was seriously good with defensive spells, chances were he'd be able to hold up to the assault for a while, but it looked like the hits were coming in heavy and quick enough he wasn't able to get many spells of his own off.

Well, Liz would just have to do something about that, wouldn't she?

Liz waited a couple exchanges, spellglows jumping back and forth before her Russian cast a hex she could use — a basic piercing hex, she knew this one, no problem. She tossed off a quick bludgeoning hex, catching the piercing hex with a swirl of her wand, deflecting it up over her head, turning on her heel, "Adure!" her wand swishing back to throw the scorching hex at Oz's opponent, she continued her turn, a hex from her bloke passing within inches of her back, "Incide!" the long slash, from her shoulder to her hip, the slicing curse wide, her spin going into it easily opening the upper register, the hex powerful enough she could see it as a blue-white arc smearing across the air. (The mind of Oz's opponent dimmed into unconsciousness, Liz setting his clothes on fire distracting him enough for Oz to tag him.) It was too wide for the Russian to dodge, he threw up a shield, but the overpowered spell instantly shattered it, the force knocking him on his arse, he pushed into a roll over his shoulder, narrowly avoiding Liz's follow-up stunner. He managed to cast a stripping hex while still rolling, Liz didn't see it coming — the hex radiated out across her body from the origin at her hip in a crackly pinching wave, wrenching her wand out of her hand, clattering against the ceramic tile.

The Russian boy snapped off a desperate stunning hex, but Liz quick-stepped out of the way, a wandless summoning charm later and the handle slapped against her palm — Sirius insisted that learning to summon your own wand back to yourself was an absolutely necessary skill, and she had to agree, if there was one spell you should learn to cast wandlessly it was that one. "Rḗtte!" He hadn't expected her to recover her wand so quickly, but he still managed to get up a light shield charm, blocking the elemental spell, another torrent of blue-white fire rushing in at her a blink later.

But, just as she was quick-stepping around the flames, she felt the second Russian drop.

"Cumfulmine lacera! Verveikt!" The boy got up a dark shield charm, catching the blasting curse with something that also blocked her dark stunning hex — the light binding hex from Brendan a second later, though, sailed right through the shield without resistance. The flickers of lightning and the reddish shield dissipated, revealing the Russian lying on the floor, wrapped up in yellow-orange bands of light, his wand still in hand, struggling to aim at his bonds. A final "verveikt," and he went still.

"Ha ha!" Oz shouted from nearby, just as the bong marking the end of the match went off — she glanced that way to see him grinning, practically bouncing on his toes. "I don't believe it! Brendan! Liz! We made it to the championship round! For teams and trios!"

Brendan waltzed closer, gave Oz a sort of rueful smile. He seemed a little worse for wear, worn out from so many matches packed into a couple days, his uniform scorched on one side, hair half burned away. His Russian must have given him some trouble too. "Yeah, we did. In case you hadn't noticed, we're kicking arse this week."

"Yeah, no shite. I didn't make singles, but I know Gladwin did," Oz said, turning for the stairs off the platform, practically skipping. "How about you two?"

Brendan shook his head. "I was knocked out in the final, just a couple hours ago. Liz?"

"I still have two singles matches left before dinner." Her timetable was kind of pushing it this time, but they did have a crazy amount of duels to schedule, so. "I know Katie made it, and last I checked Chelsea was still in. My trio with Katie and Susan made it to the second bracket too."

Oz whistled. "Damn. Look out, bastards, Hogwarts is back."

Liz rolled her eyes, Brendan letting out a snort. "You're absurd, Bagshot. Come on, I want to drop by the healer before Liz's matches. How long until you're up?"

"Twenty-five minutes or so — you should have time if they're quick about it..."

፠

Last time, in Jassy, Liz's trio had cleared their bracket, and Cynfelyn, Katie, and Cass had made it in singles — only Cynfelyn had ended up taking home a win. The senior team had done about the same, more or less. Over the last decade or so, that was a typical performance for Hogwarts, though it was frankly pathetic compared to the how they used to do before the war.

By the afternoon of New Year's Eve, they were done with the first round in all the events. The junior and senior teams were both advancing to the championship round; one of the senior team's trios and all three of Liz's team's trios (two of which Liz was in) had made it; five of the seven members of the senior team (including Cedric) were advancing, and in the junior team Liz, Gladwin, Katie, and Chelsea had also made it. That afternoon, as they gathered back in the rooms they'd been given and they started getting a clear picture of how it'd all turned out, the mood had turned outright celebratory, a lot of shouting and jumping around, some of the teammates hugging — Adrian and Alex got in a very enthusiastic snog, naturally. Liz was less noisy about it, but she still felt herself grinning, tolerated the ecstatic bouncing hugging from Katie and Susan with little more than a perfunctory huff.

That was more like it — Liz did enjoy winning at things.

In Jassy, they'd scattered the participants' free day through the week — though most people ended up having multiple free days as they were eliminated from events, but everyone got one scheduled off day — but this time the organisers had decided to give everyone New Year's Day off. They'd gotten a talk about that a few days ago now, apparently there'd be a lot of holiday stuff going on in town? Some religious festival thing — by the sound of it, Liz suspected it'd originally been a tradition associated with the solstice which had migrated to the New Year at some point, for whatever reason. (Holidays did tend to do shite like that.) There'd be a lot of bonfires and food and people in weird costumes, especially overnight, but continuing for a few days afterward. They were allowed to hang around, the more the merrier and all that, just, you know, don't be disruptive bastards about it.

Not that Liz actually would be joining in with the locals' weird holiday stuff. She and Susan had plans to go and hang out with their friends who'd made it this time, though she wasn't entirely sure what they'd be doing. Sirius was acting as adult chaperone again — he'd spent Christmas with Dorea and her family, so Liz guessed it was her turn with him — and she thought he'd said something about going to hang out in the muggle world? To avoid getting in the way at a foreign holiday thing, since they wouldn't know what was going on well enough to participate properly. Also, a lot of the restaurants and stuff on the magical side would be closed, so. Of course, New Year's Day was also a public holiday on the muggle side, but, they'd figure something out. She was pretty sure everything wouldn't be completely closed down, like one of those official holidays where government buildings and stuff were closed but most other things were still running...and according to Tamsyn a lot of the formerly Soviet countries were still a mess...but she guessed they'd see.

Some of the people in the Hogwarts teams had gone out to join in the parties going on in the streets in the more populated areas of the magical district, but Liz hadn't bothered. It was cold out — sure, that wasn't so much of a problem with warming spells, not to mention the bonfires and shite all over the place, but she didn't want to deal with it. And she was a bit tired and sore from all the matches she'd done — singles, teams, and two trios added up to a lot of duelling, she'd completely lost count of how many matches she'd been in over the last few days — so she'd rather not have to wander around outside, and stand the whole time, that just didn't sound pleasant at the moment.

But that didn't mean she necessarily wanted to stay in and go to bed early, so when Oz passed along an invitation he'd gotten to a big party going on, Liz decided to take him up on it. A slew of people from a couple of Saxon and Scandinavian teams had transformed an entire floor of the apartments they'd been given into a party space, dozens of people scattered around here and there through the big common rooms, the attached smaller common rooms, and even lingering in the hallway or on the stairs, each of the big rooms with a somewhat different vibe to them. Some of them were way noisier than others — two of them had a lot of dancing going on to music that was far too loud for Liz to be comfortable, not to mention the tight press of minds squeezing in from all directions. Maybe once she was sufficiently intoxicated that would be tolerable, but starting off, no, just no. The other rooms were a bit quieter, though, still with music going on in the background, but lazier, people sitting around chatting or playing card games and shite.

Naturally, Katie, Oz, and Chelsea went straight for one of the dancing rooms, leaving Liz alone — Susan had wanted to check out the locals' festival, and nobody else in their teams had come, for whatever reason. She hadn't realised Oz hadn't even told most of them about it until Adrian asked what party she meant, though it didn't take her very long to figure out why not. After a moment of directionless dithering, Liz picked a room, looked around until she found a card game to join in on. Some of them were wagering — not with money, but with dares and things, which seemed harmless but rather embarrassing — but before too long she found one that was just for fun, and everyone...well, almost everyone spoke French more or less well, so, yes, this one would do.

Not that Liz knew the exact game they were playing. The game wasn't really the focus anyway, it was mostly just something to do while talking about whatever, so it didn't matter that she didn't really know what she was doing. It was one of those games mages played using a tarot deck — they had originally been playing cards, they'd just gone out of fashion on the muggle side at some point — but there were a bunch of different kinds, and the rules could be surprisingly different in different countries. It was a Saxon game, apparently. It wasn't that complicated, though, Liz should be able to figure it out before too long.

Of course, part of the reason Liz had picked this room was because of the cannabis smoke on the air, and part of why she'd picked this specific table was because she noticed they were passing some around. Nobody was paying her particular attention at the moment, but the noisy minds all around would start to drag on her eventually, the drugs would fix that problem. There were plenty of other drugs and potions and stuff being passed around too, of course, but Liz would stick with the cannabis, thank you — a lot of the more hallucinatory shite would probably make her have Seer visions or whatever, and that didn't sound like a fun thing to happen in public. Oh, well, she could take some mead, she guessed...

(It turned out, Lithuanian mead was shockingly good, she honestly might have to look into ordering the stuff from home.)

It didn't take very long at the table she'd picked for Liz to figure out why Oz had invited some of their team, but not everybody: this was a communalist party. She meant, most everybody here were either from families with some involvement in neocommunalist politics in their country — mostly Saxony, Daneland, and Germany, a few speckled here and there from Austria or even France, the Hogwarts kids well outnumbered by Irish kids with ties to the nationalist movement over there. (Saoirse Ghaelach weren't even properly communalist, but most proper communalists did support Gaelic independence, so Liz guessed that was close enough.) The father of one of the girls at her table was even in the Saxon government, it was a whole thing. Hogwarts mostly pulled from noble families, or the wealthy non-noble families (like Adrian's), between both teams Katie, Oz, and the sole muggleborn Chelsea were the only exceptions. The Boneses' politics leaned that way, but Susan wanted to check out the local scene, so.

Apparently the assumption that she was a neocommunalist — or at least was developing into a class traitor with communalist sympathies, so a potential ally if not fully one of them — was getting around so thoroughly that she was getting invited to their parties now...though, Oz had technically been the one to invite her. She was pretty sure she shouldn't count? She meant, she was only fourteen, she'd been reading a bit but she still wasn't sure what she really thought about it all. As fucked as the situation in the magical world could be (especially in conservative countries like Britain), Liz did like the thought of never needing to worry about money. But, she was pretty sure that didn't actually require a lot of the noble privilege shite and for so many people to live in misery, so.

Could they do a version of it where they got a proper democratic government, everybody got all the shite they needed, but Liz still wouldn't ever need to get a real job? Was that an option?

So, Liz did feel kind of ambivalent about being lumped in with the communalists, but it wasn't like she was super offended or anything, and the party seemed pretty nice and chill so far — no reason to make a scene about it, she just kept her thoughts to herself. Besides, when they realised who she was her table immediately started shit-talking Dumbledore, which was very funny.

(That the Danish kids' first reaction to finding out they were sitting next to the super special Girl Who Lived was to openly insult Dumbledore was another sign that Durmstrang might be a good choice.)

The table she was at was super casual, she just hung around for...probably a couple hours — Liz didn't have a great sense of time in normal situations, and when she was high or a little tipsy (or both) it was even harder to guess how much time was passing, just, slipping by in a warm pleasant blur. It wasn't very long before Liz was feeling very warm and tingly-numb and, just, generally good (if rather light-headed). People's random thoughts and feelings washing through her, she was kind of easily distracted, but apparently acting a little spacy and weird was perfectly normal for Seers, when her turn came around someone would nudge her to get her attention back on the game without comment.

Incidentally, even if Britain did go full communalist, apparently she wouldn't ever need to get a real job anyway? Turned out most neocommunalist countries considered the Sight to be...basically a disability, for which people who had it bad enough were entitled to at least the basics. (Exactly what that looked like varied a lot country to country, it was complicated.) Liz felt kind of odd about that — though with how floaty and giddy she was at the moment, it was hard to put her finger on what exactly that was — but it was an interesting idea, at least. Magical Britain definitely didn't have any kind of official support for people with disabilities whatsoever, which most of the kids at her table found kind of horrifying (if not super surprising). Um, Liz didn't know, they probably had to depend on their families, or just get fucked, she guessed...

(In some cases, possibly literally — Liz was learning from Rita that the sex trade in magical Britain was kind of messed up.)

There was a bit of talk about politics, a lot of which went way over her head. It mostly wasn't, like, political theory, but about news and politicians and stuff in their home countries, none of which Liz was familiar with. And there was a lot of babble about, you know, professional duelling, and music, and random academic things, the kind of thing that was pretty typical for teenagers who were also big duelling nerds to talk about. Some of it Liz just sat quietly through — she didn't pay as much attention to the news as she probably should, and she didn't know shite about music on the magical side (or the muggle, for that matter) — but the duelling and nerdy shite were at least things she could talk about. She got kind of babbly at points, but it was hard not to, too floaty and giddy, at least she wasn't annoying anybody — it was pretty hard to keep people's feelings away at the moment, so if she were annoying people she would know.

It turned out mages who were into that sort of thing mostly went to muggle culinary school. Also, she'd have better luck finding more in-depth explanations of how magical textiles worked from Continental bookstores, since the same proprietary, apprenticeships-and-guilds system didn't really exist in neocommunalist countries anymore. Good to know.

(Liz got the feeling that most of the other kids at the table thought her interests were rather eclectic, but nobody said anything about it, so.)

She'd been sitting around playing cards and chatting (or just spacing out) for a while before one of the boys at the table asked if she wanted to go to one of the other rooms with the music and dancing and stuff, and she was feeling pleasant and giddy enough that she immediately agreed without really thinking about it. After a second, she belatedly remembered to make it clear that she was very gay, and it'd just be for fun and not, you know, anything else. He was a little disappointed, but she only knew because she was a cheater mind mage, they still left the table anyway.

On the way to the other room, she couldn't help giving him a few glances, picking at his head — retreating again when he noticed her there, oops, sorry. It was still kind of baffling when people actually liked her. Like, she wasn't even trying tonight, After cleaning up, the shower very necessary after a day full of duelling, she'd pulled on a random dress, one of the ones she'd wear around the house, her hair charmed into a plait just to keep it out of the way. She hadn't really gone to any special effort to hide the fact that she didn't have tits at all — the lopsidedness wasn't super obvious, but Liz could tell in the mirror there was something wrong with her — and she hadn't bothered with any, you know, cosmetic charms or anything. She didn't get it.

Of course, Liz was aware that her persistent disgust with herself was more a reflection of her issues than an objective evaluation of her own attractiveness, but that was, like, a rational thing, and not something that immediately occurred to her on a feelings level. That this boy — Stanij, which was supposedly Lusatian, a Slavic minority in Saxony (but one of the major groups in tiny Silesia) — had asked her to dance out of, you know, interest was weird. It hadn't really clicked right away, why it'd taken her a second to think to clarify the whole gay thing, and, she didn't know, it was weird.

(You'd think her whole relationship with Daphne would have helped her get over this sort of thing, but apparently not. Daphne was just too nice, was the thing. And no, she wasn't sure what she meant by that.)

The music was very loud, and fast, with a constant heavy bass beat (Liz occasionally heard a buzz of objects in the room rattling) and a lot of weird grindy squelchy electronic noises? Like, definitely didn't sound like something mages would have made. Turned out, that was because mages hadn't made it, it was some kind of very modern muggle club music that someone had re-recorded onto a disc that could be played on a magical turntable. Okay, then. Liz could feel the bass vibrating in her chest, the noise making the air feel thicker and heavier than it should — mixing in with the feelings of all the people crammed in the room to form a thick, crackling, smothering, giggly soup — making her feel oddly dizzy and...bouncy. It wasn't bad, just, kind of hard to think through it, honestly.

Thankfully, dancing didn't really require much thought, when you got down to it.

Much less properly thinking, Liz was hardly even conscious through most of it, or at least not directly, of what she was doing. She was far too floaty, and numb, the weird distance that often came with being high — like her body and all the hard physical stuff that came with it was a half-step away, everything all vague and soft and fuzzy — the overly loud music thrumming through her, sort of reminding her of some of her more intense Seer moments — like her spirit-walking experiments or stepping onto the graveyard at Godric's Hollow or the seconds before the panic hit at the World Cup — the force seeming to pound the psychic environment into her, like kneading herbs into dough, ecstatic, eagerness and light giggly giddiness and lust and here and there a twinge of awkwardness and pleasure and excitement—

Liz was, just, floating on it, carried along on the tide...but in a more intense sort of way. Most previous parties she'd been at were a lot more low-key than this — parties in Slytherin never got this loud, stuffy noble kids too dignified for that — when she let the vibe carry her away it was a lot more spacey and slow and relaxed, but this felt more sharp. She was hardly aware of what she was doing, just let everyone else's thoughts and feelings and the deep pulse of the music sweep her along...which was probably for the best, honestly — it's not like they were waltzing or some shite out here, if she had to do it consciously Liz would probably have no idea what to do with herself. The energy in the rooms was way more intense than she usually let herself coast on, filling her up to bursting all giddy and bright and eager, her head spinning and her chest practically sizzling, which, she was aware of the fact that losing control like this would seriously freak her the fuck out if she were sober at the moment, but right now it was, just, fun, she didn't even try to hold on to herself, occasionally dragged back at someone nudging her or the feel of eyes on her skin, but mostly just...

It was probably kind of fucked that the only time she ever felt properly happy was when she was borrowing the feeling from other people, but at the moment she was way too into it to give a damn.

(Stanij thought she was pretty when she smiled. Noted.)

After...at least a few songs (impossible to tell how long), Stanij wanted to go find someone else to dance with — he didn't want to abandon the Seer in the middle of an unfamiliar, chaotic crowd, but also he was kind of looking to get laid tonight. (Or at least get some snogging in, you know, teenager shite.) Giggling, Liz gave him a shove away from her, go on, then, good luck with that. Oh! Seer moment, the girl he was looking for was about this high, short blonde hair, um, white and blue beaded bracelet on one wrist (Liz was Seeing them snogging, her hand was in view), she's here somewhere. Stanij grinned, gave her a sarcastic salute, before disappearing off into the crowd.

It wasn't until after he was gone that Liz realised she had no idea when the scene she'd caught a glimpse of would happen. She wasn't great at this Seer shite, she just got flashes now and then, which only sometimes made sense — it was possible she was seeing a future girlfriend or wife or something, and nothing would actually happen tonight. She was certain the girl was in the room though — in, um, that direction, she thought — and hey, maybe them meeting tonight, even if nothing happened, would be important for their relationship later, so. Gonna stop thinking about it, though, because she didn't need more flashes of them — it wasn't her business, and also spying on people's sexy memories always made her feel like a perv...even if this particular thing hadn't even happened yet.

Passing that whole thing off, Liz let herself be carried away again. She didn't really need someone to dance with, it wasn't that kind of dancing — a lot of people around her weren't with any particular person, sometimes getting closer to one person or another, moving against someone here and someone there, but never really lingering — and Liz didn't need to be directly with someone to let other people's minds lead her through it. (Most of the how of the dancing she was just copying out of people's heads, way easier than the complicated formal dances for fancy noble events.) She was occasionally nudged by someone, which just meant that specific person's mind got much louder, brought to the forefront of the noise all around her, and since everyone was having a good time that didn't really bother her so much. It could be a little dizzying at times, alien thoughts and memories flickering behind her eyes, but she just let them slip through her fingers, brushing over her but not lingering, letting the bright sharp giddy excitement buoy her along.

She did need to shove away some bloke who came up behind her, trying to slink an arm around her waist, an edge of nervousness slipping through the good vibes — he tripped and nearly fell, she burst into breathless giggles, and she quickly lost sight of him in the crowd, the dark moment slipping away again in a blink.

Liz didn't stay alone the whole time, though. She found herself dancing with one person or another now and then, but none of them left much of an impression, here and gone, just passing through. Except for one. Her attention drawn by a touch near her elbow, a mind pressing against her warm and tingly, Liz glanced that direction — a girl, taller than her, with bright red-orange hair, short, ear-length wisps scattered at random, some darkened and plastered against her skin with sweat. (It was pretty hot in here, Liz was a little sweaty herself.) There were freckles speckled thin across her face and arms, eyes a bright blue, trousers clinging close around her hips, she was familiar, Liz was sure she'd seen her before somewhere. As she slipped closer, her other hand finding Liz's, reaching into her mind and— Ah, Liz had seen her before, she was in one of the Irish school's senior division teams, right then.

...No, that wasn't it. There was something else.

The music thrumming deep around her, enticing her on, leaning into the girl (didn't know her name), her breath thick and hot in her throat and her head spinning, arms smooth under Liz's fingers, heart jumping at the hand on her waist, she... There was something, a spark of intuition, she was familiar. But not because Liz knew her, no, she was reminding her of someone else...

A brief flash of a familiar (but unrecognisable) face, smirking back at her, a light shove on her shoulder, lips moving, saying— She didn't know, the glimpse was gone.

Liz had no idea who that woman was, she was pretty sure they hadn't met yet. A future girlfriend, she was pretty sure. Not the girl she was dancing with now — leaning into her, moving together, close and tingly, blood hot on her face — they just looked somewhat similar. No, not just that, they were related somehow, maybe cousins. It was a weird feeling, sparks of feelings and images flickering at the edge of her attention, half-smothered in the thick storm of the party, confusing.

Definitely a future girlfriend, though, the surge of not-remembered future feelings was kind of a lot, it was suddenly rather hard to breathe.

For a second, the booming of the bass sounded like the bursting of blasting curses, the smell of dust and blood and shite and the oily-sharp tang of dangerous dark magic, a battle, Liz felt the cool smooth fabric of the Cloak against her skin, deadly curses spat from her wand—

(Liz felt herself casting the Green Death on a person — an echo, thin and surreal from distance — but that probably didn't mean much. She was aware the rules often changed in wartime, and the flash was obviously from a battle of some kind.)

The girl was leaning close over her, Liz could smell the herbal tang of some kind of perfume, her breath in Liz's hair, Liz could feel the shape of her body against her, her breath tight and thick, her heart pounding in her throat and her fingertips—

—hot on her neck, one hand on her waist drifting lower, Liz's skin crawling and her breath catching, a quick glance at the minds around, nobody was paying them any particular attention, the club loud and crowded and chaotic, pulling herself up to find her lips, liquor on her breath and—

Disoriented, Liz leaned back a little, shaking her head, as though she could toss the vision off — that kiss was someone else, somewhere else and somewhen else, as real as it'd felt for a second it wasn't. This was starting to get extremely confusing, she was having fun, yes, and this Irish girl was attractive and close and being all...touchy. Which wasn't bad, exactly — apparently Liz was high and unmoored thoroughly enough the normal frustrating brain stuff wasn't kicking in — but randomly switching into the head of her future self with a similar-looking girl she was obviously already in a significant relationship with was really throwing her off...

The girl hesitated for a second, worried she'd pushed too hard, Liz's hand — settled on her waist, not sure when that got there — clutched onto her vest before she could properly pull away. Reaching into her mind without thought (not like Liz would be able to make herself understood over the music), she was fine, it was just a Seer moment, she was still having fun it was just a lot. (Didn't want to explain about the visions of a future girlfriend who was probably a relative of some kind just now, that'd be weird and complicated.) The girl was a little startled by Liz just dropping a thought in her head, but she was aware Liz was a mind mage, rolled with it after a second, stepping close again. She knew Liz was younger than her — Liz didn't know her, but of course she recognised the Girl Who Lived by sight — so, trying not to be creepy here, just tell her to fuck off at any moment.

—not that it mattered, Liz planned on living forever anyway, so five years one way or the other hardly made a difference. Except, no, this girl was definitely not older than her by that much — probably just two years, maybe three — that was future-Liz again, ugh...

(By the feel of that moment of intuition, it seemed like Liz would figure out the phylactery thing at some point, but that wasn't really a surprise. Naturally, living forever had already been the plan.)

Liz wasn't really sure when the transition happened, there was a song change, and the girl was behind her, Liz's back against her, breath trickling through her hair down the side of her head. The music still thrumming insistently through her, the girl's head loud and soft and eager against hers, moving with her, her skin crawling, the arm around her waist almost seeming to burn, her face and her chest practically on fire, her heart pounding through—

—slipped up behind her, hands slinking around her hips and face slipping into her hair, a tickle of lips against her ear, steadied herself with a knee against the stove, I'm in the middle of something here, you know, but she just hummed, head tipping down toward her neck, fingers playing with the belt of her gown—

Her head spinning, Liz could hardly breathe, moving to the bone-shivering beat with the body against her — not the same person as in those flashes, she reminded herself — everything feeling intense and muddied and sharp and smooth, surreal and hyperreal, almost dreamlike. Her hand had come up, fingers in the girl's hair, pulling her in, breath hot and ticklish against her ear, her skin crawling and hot tingles sizzling down her spine, the arm around her waist moving, the girl's hand shifted to settle low on Liz's stomach, between her hips, practically shivering with eager tension, leaning harder into the girl — not sure her knees would properly hold her weight anyway — the throbbing bass echoing through her chest, breath shaken out with a gasp, her head leaning against the girl's shoulder, turning to—

—the sheets cool and smooth against her cheek, pleasure thrumming through her in dizzying waves, flailing for something to hold onto, one hand fisting in her hair, a faint twinge of pain in the mind against hers vastly overshadowed by curling clingy affection and crackling amusement—

Liz staggered, wrenching herself away from the hands on her, she nearly overbalanced, bumping into one of the other dancers. Far too hot, sweating, she couldn't breathe, her skin crawling with tingles and her heart pounding, she tried to catch her breath, her head spinning, leaning over with her hands on her knees for balance, squeezing her eyes shut, trying to push the flash away, to ignore the—

She lurched out of the way of a hand on her shoulder, bumped into someone again. It was the girl, worried something was wrong, but— It was just too hot in here, too crowded, she needed to get out.

So she fled.

Liz soon found herself on a balcony, attached to one of the common rooms on the second floor, past one of the quieter parties. She'd gone through the hall and the quiet party, but she hadn't lingered, still too many people around — at least in part because being super turned on in public was extremely embarrassing. Somewhat to her surprise, there wasn't anyone outside, she'd thought there would be someone, at least. She guessed it was rather cold out here — there were environmental wards covering the balcony, so it wasn't literally freezing, but it was still much cooler than it was indoors — the winter night breeze on her sweaty skin immediately setting her to shivering. But she was feeling very very hot right now, so she didn't really mind. Leaning against both hands on the railing, she took a few shaky breaths, trying to calm down.

Fuck, that had been a hell of a thing. Gotta be more careful about Seer shite at parties, apparently — in particular, dancing with a girl who reminded her of someone she hadn't met yet was clearly a terrible idea...

After a moment of standing against the railing trying to breathe, Liz laid down on the floor instead, her hands up next to her head. Leaning over like that was kind of squeezing her chest anyway, laying flat made it a little easier to breathe — and the cold hard tile against her back felt weirdly good. Also, the building blocked most of the wind this way, the chill wasn't as bad down here. The cold pressing in against her, hugging close to her skin like a physical weight, Liz stared blankly up at the sky — she couldn't see any stars, a cloudy night again, faintly glowing in the electric light from the muggle side of the city — the twitchy, giddy tension gradually dribbling out of her.

Of course, even after she'd mostly calmed down, she was still intoxicated — she knew, rationally, that she was lying perfectly still, but it felt like the floor was moving under her. A gentle rocking, slowly rotating, vaguely reminding her of that moment when she sank into spirit-walking, like a falling leaf fluttering to the ground. She was a little dizzy, but in a pleasant sort of way, floaty and comfortable despite the hard tile against her back and the cold winter night.

...

She wondered who that woman in those future-flashes was. Some of those glimpses she got, she suspected they'd been — they would be — living together, for at least a while, which was...a strange thought, but kind of reassuring? In the sense that it was a sign Liz wouldn't be hopelessly fucked up when it came to this stuff forever, even if it was hard to see how she would get from A to B.

In fact, the realisation was making her feel kind of...not happy, exactly, she wasn't sure what to call that feeling, loose and warm and...

Relieved, maybe.

As much as she might be used to it by now, she didn't like being this way. It was nice to know she would get better, eventually. Or, better enough that having a long-term girlfriend would be possible, at least. Yes, that was a nice thought. As much as that whole business back on the dance floor had been very overwhelming and confusing and embarrassing, she didn't regret that it'd happened.

(Liz did want to know who she was, curious, but she guessed she'd find out, in the proper time.)

She was left alone for a little while — long enough that she'd calmed down again, and wasn't so uncomfortably warm. The wards on the building were thick enough that she couldn't feel the party on the other side at all, when a mind appeared nearby it was sudden enough that Liz jumped. But she immediately relaxed, the mind very familiar. "Hey, thought I saw you coming this way. You okay down there?"

"Yeah, just..." Liz waved vaguely with one hand, not sure what to say. "Needed a break."

Katie let out a sympathetic little hum. It sounded pleasant enough, but Liz was a cheating mind reader, didn't miss the edge of worry. She didn't draw attention to it, though, just casually walked closer — actually stepping over Liz, because why not, sank down to a seat not far from Liz's side. Liz could tell by the clumsy teetering way she moved that Katie was quite drunk at the moment. "Kind a lot in there, innit?"

"You love it." Katie was a lot more sociable and stuff than Liz was, she went to the raucous bloody parties in Gryffindor and Hufflepuff all the time.

"I do, but I can see why you wouldn't."

"Mm. The drugs help, but..." Liz frowned, glaring up at the featureless black sky, thoughts she'd only been half-conscious of clicking away to a conclusion. "I think... Like, cannabis makes the mind mage and Seer shite way less overwhelming, stops me from freaking out like a crazy person, but...I think it actually makes me more sensitive? I mean, I'm not fully aware of it all the time — at least, that's what Severus thinks — but it seems like there's...more, when I'm high. It just doesn't bother me as much. If that makes sense."

She heard a faint rustle from Katie's direction, a shrug. "Yeah, that's how it goes."

Liz blinked. "What?"

"...That's what cannabis does for Seers? It was part of a ritual for trances and everything — the plant got to Britain in the first place because that's what Northern priests used it for. Didn't you know that?"

Well, now that Katie mentioned it, she had heard of that before. It was even used in a couple of the spirit-walking methods in Echoes of the Past, she'd just passed over those ones because the author claimed they were less reliable. (That is, harder to aim, the user left open to whatever psychic noise was in the area, which wasn't what she'd been looking for.) And she thought she'd heard it mentioned by...someone. Maybe Miss Eva? Hard to say for sure, her head was really fuzzy at the moment. "Yeah, I guess, it was just never really a problem before. When I'm high or drunk is pretty much the only time I like dancing, but getting random flashes of shite from the future makes it really really confusing."

Katie snorted, amusement warm on the air, holding off the chill. "I can see that. What kind of visions do you get on a dance floor anyway? They should be related to your mood, right?"

"Or the people around, yeah. I, well, there was this girl, and I was getting kind of into it, and, um. I needed to cool off."

"That so," Katie drawled.

"Yeah. You try to keep on like normal while also flashing forward like a decade to someone eating you out, I barely even managed to stay on my feet that time." Liz was aware she got babbly when she was high, and she was comfortable and relaxed enough, she didn't realise exactly what she'd just said until Katie let out a sharp, surprised laugh, the air around her head ringing. "Oh, oops, didn't mean to say that. But yeah, that's why I needed to cool off, it was too much."

"Pff, I see." Mind pulsing warm and amused, Katie laid down, Liz moved that hand down out of the way. Leaning on an elbow, looming above Liz to her right, Katie smirked down at her. "Is this future woman of yours good, at least?"

Liz rolled her eyes. "Why do you think I went straight outside and laid down on the stone floor," nudging the heel of her boot against the tile, "in December? Being super turned on the middle of a crowd is extremely embarrassing, just so you know. Hey wait, is it January now? I haven't checked the time."

Katie shrugged. "No idea. I think it's after midnight by now, but I didn't check."

"Right, well. It was just a lot, that's all. I think I'm done dancing for the night."

"Yeah, I get it. I'm thinking I'm done too — sore from all the duelling, you know, can only do so much before I'm just hurting myself. Was thinking to join one of the card games for another hour or two before going back to our rooms."

Liz let out a long hum — Katie didn't come out and ask if she was coming back in, but the unvoiced question was obvious in her head. "I think I'll stay out here a few more minutes, until I start getting too cold, before going back in for a bit. This is weirdly comfortable for some reason."

"It is a quiet night, we're far enough away from the muggle city it's not too bad. I can still tell it's there — the wards around the magical side don't keep out the smell — but it's nice out here. Almost like home."

...She hadn't noticed, honestly, wasn't even sure what smell Katie was talking about. But, Liz had grown up in a muggle suburb, and spent a fair amount of time in London, if it was a muggle thing it was possible she was just accustomed to it. "The Dunbar lands are in the north, right?"

"Mhmm. Along the hills of Lothian, not far from Gifford. Ah, that's a muggle village, east of Edinburgh."

"Right." Liz was aware Katie spoke Cambrian, if she'd grown up in that area of Scotland it was probably her native language...or maybe Scots instead? There were some mages up there who spoke Scots — mostly commoners, in rural farming communities and stuff — but it was only some of them, she wasn't really sure. It was pretty subtle, but Katie did have a hint of the same vaguely Celtic-sounding accent a lot of the pureblood mages did, though with a bit more of a drawl to it than the noble kids...which, actually, it kind of reminded her of the Cambrian she'd heard in Edinburgh, different dialect than the stuff they learned in class. That made a lot of sense now. "Kind of in the middle of nowhere, then? Don't know if I'd want to live out too far, I like to be able to walk over to the market if I need something."

Faintly amused, Katie said, "We don't hardly ever buy nothing — we grow or raise our food ourselves." Oh, right, Katie was from a super traditional farming village, forgot. "And it's only in the middle of nowhere if you don't count all the other people around. The area isn't nearly so dense as the Refuge, sure, but it's hardly empty either. It's only a short walk to the Milnes and the Greys and the Lairds, and the Scrimgeours and the Greens aren't so much further."

"Is that the noble Greys? My secretary is a vassal of the Greys."

"Mhmm, one of the Diggles, right? One of my friends when I was little is a Diggle. I think she's also my cousin through the Peakeses, distant enough it makes no difference. Near enough all the mages in Lothian away from the city are related somehow, if you go back far enough."

Liz rolled her eyes. "I'm pretty sure all the purebloods are related somehow. You people like fucking your own cousins too much."

"It passes the time." Said super flat and casual, Liz completely failed to hold in a giggle, Katie's mind simmering with amusement, and...something else, warm and clingy, the feelings brushing over her skin making Liz squirm against the tile a little. "You should come by sometime, over the summer maybe. Have you visited any of your family's lands?"

"Not yet," Liz admitted with an awkward shrug. "I was gonna look at that stuff more when I'm older, you know."

"Mm. Your vassals will be living more like home than somewhere like the Greenwood. It's similar, sort of, in how things get done and how people get on with each other, but it looks different. Though, I think your lands will have meiri, the Dunbars dismissed all of ours a few general– pff, a long time ago now. We could visit the Greys or the Greens or the Scrimgeours, they still have them."

Liz didn't know what meiri meant — it was recognisably Cambrian, but she couldn't place it. Something about Katie's head as she said it gave Liz the feeling she thought they were a bad thing, but beyond that she had no idea. "Maybe. I'm going to be really busy this summer? There's the duelling tournament, but after that I'm getting some blood alchemy work done."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah. You've seen my scars, right." Between this duelling tournament and the last one, Katie had walked in on her changing a couple times now. She was normally really good about dismissing herself immediately and not making a thing about it after, so it wasn't so bad, and Liz was too high at the moment to be awkward about it anyway. "I'm getting all the ruined shite cut off and proper tits grown in. And there's a couple other things I might get done while I'm at it, like fix my hair."

"You can do that this young? I thought you'd have to wait longer, that's good." They'd never directly talked about it, but Katie was observant enough to realise she was very, er, sensitive about the scars on her chest — she understood how big of a deal that was, kind of obviously happy for her. Or, not externally obvious, anyway, the vague crooked smile on her face hadn't changed much since she'd shown up, but Liz was a cheating mind-reader, so. There was something else to it, though, Liz wasn't sure how to read that... "I think I'll miss the hair, honestly, I like your hair."

"Yeah, well, you don't have to live with it. This shite's a huge fucking pain to deal with, I hate it."

"I guess. Cute, though."

Liz blinked, frowning up at Katie. "Cute?"

"Sure," she drawled, one shoulder shifting with a shrug. "It's got this whole..." Abruptly lapsing into northern-accented Cambrian, seemingly without realising it, "I dunno if I can say it. Like most of the time you're all still and quiet on the outside, calm-looking. As long as you're looking with your eyes, your aura is really noisy. And, you dress rather plain, most of the time, don't do any of the poncy fancy charms and potions and shite most nobles girls do, but then your hair's all... I don't know. Like you just came in from an autumn storm or something — with your aura being all noisy, the storm coming from you, magic-like. Does that make sense at all, or am I just very drunk?"

It took a moment for Liz to find her voice, just staring at Katie. She'd had no idea Katie had given Liz's hair that much thought. "I'd say drunk. You know you just slipped into Cambrian."

"Oh shite, sorry," she said, in English now. "I was just saying, um..."

"It's fine, I understood most of it, I think." Liz was cheating, a little, looking in her head to get the general idea — Katie's Cambrian was weird and northern and slangy. "Um. I'm still getting rid of it, my hair is magic, but it's a stupid magic that makes it impossible to manage and I hate it. But I don't, er. I had no idea you paid that much attention to my hair."

Katie gave her a funny look, a cool slant in her head Liz didn't know how to read. "We spend a lot of time together lately, and, what, you think I'm blind or something?"

"That's not what I meant." There was a difference between generally noting what someone looked like, and describing them as carrying around autumn storms or some shite.

...Also, was it just her imagination, or was Katie leaning over her somewhat more closely than she'd been a minute ago?

"You do seem a lot... Though, I heard you're missing a lot of classes lately, I'm guessing that's bad Seer days? You do seem to be getting more sensitive, I hear that can happen."

Confused, staring up at Katie — something going on in her head, but it was too swirly and unfocussed for Liz to quite make sense of (didn't help that Liz was also intoxicated at the moment) — it took her a few seconds to find her voice. "Um, no. I mean, yeah, also that, but, I've been skipping class a lot. Champions aren't really espe– expected to be in class all the time, so. Been sneaking out a lot, to have lessons with Sirius."

"Right, you said something about that. I was just thinking, I remember, playing quidditch back in third year, and y heldrinoedd with the Chamber of Secrets and all, you used to be more, I don't know, quiet, and... I dunno. I was wondering, how all that with Snape was like, he doesn't really seem the type, but I guess he's been good for you?"

...Liz had absolutely no idea what they were talking about anymore. "Yeah? Kind of a nosey bastard, but... What are you getting at?"

"Nothing, really, just, you've changed a lot. I don't know how obvious that is from your side, I know from other people it can be hard to tell when you're in it."

"No, I can tell." She wasn't even close to the same person she'd been before she'd started at Hogwarts — and third year was when it'd really kicked in hard, first and second year were slower, just figuring out how to do friends for the first time ever and getting used to not being alone all the time. In retrospect, that was probably important foundational stuff going on back then, it just hadn't felt like much was happening at the time. At least third year had felt busy. "It's... I was really not okay. It didn't so much feel like it, at the time, but looking back it's obvious. I'm still a mess, honestly, but it takes time, you know."

The weird warm stuff swirling in Katie's head was temporarily interrupted with a sick chill, the night seeming a little bit colder than it had a second ago. Liz had noticed before that her friends could have pretty intense feelings about how much her childhood had sucked which, you know, fair enough. Actually giving a damn about people could suck like that. It didn't last very long, though, lurching back into something softer and brighter, Katie was definitely closer than she'd been before, um. "That's good. That things are better, I mean. I can tell, just being around you, you know? Used to be all quiet and flat, but you get so enthusiastic about the most random things, cooking and enchanting and Finnish fiction and bloody textiles, of all things..."

Liz rolled her eyes. "Yeah yeah, I know, shut up."

"I'm not making fun, I think... I don't know the word. Dymunol? Bendigedig? Something."

"...Oh." She didn't get what Katie meant by the latter — Liz was pretty sure that was, like, blessed, or sacred, things like that. They were probably stumbling on some weird cultural thing that made sense to a native speaker from Katie's area of the country, but just sounded weird to Liz. (That happened sometimes with Daphne's Cambrian, her dialect was more conservative than Katie's but there was still the occasional weird Mistwalker-ish or religious thing that got in there.) Dymunol just meant desirable, though, she knew that one. She knew what the word meant, anyway, not sure what Katie was getting at.

Leaning even closer over her, blocking out half the sky, her mind crackling with warm amusement and clingy-soft affection, Katie drawled, "So, yes, I noticed your hair."

...Okay, then.

Because Liz could be terribly oblivious and slow sometimes, it wasn't until Katie's hand had reached over to her other side, leaning close over her, her leg pressing against Liz's, mind suddenly pressing much closer and louder against hers — warm and soft and smooth, unfocussed from alcohol (and who knew what else) but still sizzling with eager energy — that she belatedly realised that Katie was about to kiss her. She...probably should have seen that coming, honestly, this weird digression they'd been on the past couple minutes suddenly made much more sense.

Feeling very warm despite the winter night, tingles running over her skin and an odd lurch in her stomach, Liz considered it.

She brought one hand up to Katie's face, on her cheek — and she (gently) pushed her away, Katie's face turned to the side. It had really not been a very hard shove, but Katie just kept rolling, flopping limp onto her back a short distance to Liz's left. Sounding slightly dazed, and also switching to Cambrian for some reason, Katie said, "Oh shite, um, I'm sorry. I'm drunk, I didn't mean to..."

No, she'd meant to. Liz thought, yeah, if she were sober right now she probably wouldn't have done that, but she wasn't super surprised it'd happened. Like, she found it really weird and confusing when people actually liked her, sure, but Katie was super weird, and she did make the occasional flirty comment. As a joke, mostly, Katie was just like that sometimes...though Liz had caught Katie checking her out now and then, but she hadn't really thought much of it — Liz regularly caught herself looking rather more closely at her girl friends than she probably should, it'd be very hypocritical of her to take it personally. Katie might have had the self-control to keep it to herself if she weren't drunk, but that didn't mean it didn't mean anything.

(Because Liz was a cheating Seer, she abruptly felt inexplicably certain that she and Katie would be getting together at some point, just not tonight. Like with Mystery Future Girlfriend, it would happen when it happened, in the proper time.)

Which didn't exactly make it easier for Liz to figure out what the fuck she was supposed to do now.

"It's okay. I'm not freaking out or anything. And I'm..." No, it was probably a bad idea to admit she'd been rather tempted for a second there, for mixed signal reasons. Liz did like Katie, if she was being honest, she mostly just tried not to think about it — they had the duelling team and everything, she didn't want to make it weird. "It's just... I'm not in a way I can do that right now, you know."

There was a flicker in Katie's head, of...kind of kicking herself, Liz guessed? "Right, I knew that. With the Triwizard and everything, and Greengrass wasn't— I didn't— I wasn't thinking, sorry."

"I wasn't thinking about that, actually." Though she had the feeling that Severus would probably agree that trying to date again so soon after Daphne wasn't a great idea, and it was probably better to focus on the Tournament and studying the Competency programme. That was all true, just not what had occurred to her first. "I'm not... I'm fucked up, you know. I am better than I used to be, yeah, but that doesn't mean I don't still...have issues, that make things hard. I really shouldn't have tried dating Daphne so soon, looking back at it it was a terrible idea from the off. I don't... If nothing else, trying to do it once, I've figured out I'm so not ready for that kind of thing yet, and I have no idea how long that's going to be." Realistically, the blood alchemy thing was going to make all kinds of things much easier, but that wasn't going to magically make her brain not broken anymore, so, who knew. "If I'm being super honest here, I'm still trying to figure out how friends work — not to mention whatever the fuck is going on with Severus, and also Sirius now — so it's probably safest to, you know, not."

"Yeah, I get it. I am sorry, I didn't mean to make it..."

"...make it weird, yeah, I know. It's fine." Groaning a little, stiff from laying down on the cold tile for who knows how long, Liz pushed herself up to sitting. Her head wasn't spinning quite as much as she expected — she had the feeling the cannabis had mostly worn off by this point, but she was still a little drunk. "I think I'm turning in for the night, though." It took a second to get her feet under her, clumsy, and when she tried to stand she nearly fell right over again, teetering over to hitch up against the railing. "Ugh, bloody stupid..."

She could feel Katie watching her, a nervous crackling on the air. "Are we okay?"

With a little sigh, Liz turned to look at her. Entirely because she knew it would make her point sink in better — she might not entirely get normal people things sometimes, but she didn't need to get it to play along. "It's fine, I'm not freaking out and running away or anything. I'm just tired is all. And also cold, now that I'm paying attention, shower's probably a good idea."

"Right, okay. Cast a weak sticking charm on the floor first, showers get slippery."

"Oh, clever, thanks. See you tomorrow, Katie." Leaning a little over the railing, Liz squinted through the darkness of the green space squared off by their rooms, slashed here and there with light from windows, spotting a convenient walkpath nearby. Bending her knees a little, digging in her feet—

"Hey wait, what are you—"

Liz didn't catch the rest of the question — she'd already quick-stepped away. Of course, hitting the ground immediately had her teetering, she staggered a couple steps before falling, her knee hitting the stone path and her shoulder slamming into the grass, hard. "Ugh, fuck, bad idea..." Gritting her teeth against the dull pounding of pain in her knee, Liz haltingly stood up again. At least most of her weight had fallen into the grass, that could have hurt a lot worse. She was limping a little the first few steps, wincing at the weight on her knee, but she hadn't hurt herself that bad, it smoothed out before too long. It only took a second of glancing around to find the British flag, Liz started that way, not even bothering to stay on the paths, cutting across the grass when it was convenient.

Despite the fact that it'd just been a bloody party, it felt like a lot had happened, her thoughts bouncing from one thing to another. Mostly Katie and Mystery Future Girlfriend, if she was being honest — you'd think she'd have more important things to think about, with how messed up her life was these days, but, well, teenagers, hormones. Just, she was unexpectedly mentally exhausted from just a party, but also her brain kept going in circles about girls, because of course it did.

And now that she was alone, dark and cold and quiet, Liz was suddenly very sleepy — bed sounded like a great idea right about now...

Well, looks like Liz is having a good time! :D

Progress continuing to be slow lately, in part due to the words just not coming as easily, and also trying to put more work into First Contact. Gonna write another scene in that before doing the next one for this fic, and maybe even two if I'm feeling it, so I can't really guess how long it'll be. This time was three weeks, which feels like it might be reasonable.

Bye, then.