The Good War

by inwardtransience

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

126. Fourth Year — XLVI

On the final full day at Hogwarts of fourth year, Liz woke up late — though she didn't think she'd actually slept that much. Between being bloody kidnapped by the Dark Lord, and the healing, and being interviewed by the Aurors, and talking to Severus and playing with the pensieve with Nilanse, it'd been terribly late by the time she got to bed. She had, wisely, delayed her alarm to eleven in the morning. The first thing she had to do today wasn't until noon, when she was meeting with the duelling team over lunch, and she'd already had a bath last night, so there was no reason she had to get up any earlier than that. It'd been stupid late by the time she'd gotten to bed, but squeezing out a few more hours was obviously still the better thing to do.

She still woke up tired, clumsily flailing for her alarm before she managed to turn it off, blearily blinking against the lights, set to switch on automatically to prevent her from just going back to sleep. Even the abbreviated night of sleep had been enough for her hair to grow back again, of fucking course...

After a few moments trying to force her eyes to focus properly, she managed to stumble out of bed. A quick trip to the bathroom — pulling on a pair of pants and her dressing gown before leaving her room, obviously — and she set about getting ready for the day. She wasn't entirely sure how long the duelling team meeting was going to go, but the wrap-up ceremony for the Tournament was going to be early — it didn't actually start until six, which wasn't that early for big dinners at Hogwarts, but she was supposed to be there by five, so. The organisers hadn't really explained what the closing thing was going to be like (she guessed that's why they had to be there early), but she assumed there were going to be a lot of people there, a big special event and shite, and there were going to be cameras. So, she should probably actually look nice, and she didn't know if there would be an opportunity to come back here after the team meeting, so she should just go ahead and get ready now.

She should wear something that was at least reasonably nice, but because mages were silly about this sort of thing, she shouldn't pick something that she'd already worn at a previous Tournament-related thing. That excluded, like, over half of her actual nice stuff — or at least anything that wasn't so bad psychometrically that she felt like bothering with it at the moment. She waffled around a bit, and finally picked one of her muggle dresses. This one she'd gotten in France, she thought, last summer, a deep vivid red that she thought looked good against her super black hair and too-damn-pale skin. It was a little small, sleeveless and the skirt a shade above knee-length on her (meaning it was meant to be even shorter on a normal-height person), to the point that it'd been about on the edge of what she'd been comfortable with wearing in public when she'd gotten it, but her desensitisation stuff had taken care of that problem, so. Still a bit skimpy by magical standards, but she didn't actually give a damn what they thought, she thought it was pretty, so there. She'd tie her hair back with this one of her fashion scarf things, and she'd wear her duelling gloves and, um...these shoes — a pair of muggle heels she'd gotten somewhat recently, nothing fancy, but they were just held on with straps, so the false toenails she was going to put on would show.

Once she dragged a chair over in front of her mirror to sit down and do the cosmetic shite, she gave her clothing choice a second thought — she'd kind of forgotten she was still a little messed up from last night. The bruise on her face looked fucking nasty, a big yellowish-purplish blotch outside one eye stretching from her forehead down across her cheek, around one wrist from halfway up her hand to about the middle of her forearm. Poking at it, the one on her face didn't feel that tender, but yeah, her wrist did feel a little stiff and sore, she wasn't surprised it looked bad. The one on her wrist would be hidden by her gloves (as would the bad cut on her other wrist), but pretty much nothing would hide the one on her face. And the big obvious bruises weren't the only problem — there were little nicks and discoloured blobs scattered all over her arms and legs too. The healers hadn't bothered with the really minor things, Liz remembered healing them over herself before getting into the bath...but they'd still left marks, little thin scars that would probably fade to nothing given time, but were still visible for now. She didn't look nearly as bad as she had last night, but it was still obvious that she'd gotten beaten up.

...

Eh, fuck it. Everybody who'd be there would have seen the Task, and she didn't mind looking a little fucked up, honestly. If she did, she'd probably try to find some way to get out of those stupid little press things they did at the ICW duelling tournaments. Besides, there was literally nothing she could do about the bruise on her face — even if she could convincingly cover something this size and colour with a glamour, it wouldn't hold for as long as she needed it to — so, at that point, putting much effort into hiding everything else seemed kind of silly.

Since she had a big damn bruise, she decided not to bother much with stuff on her face, either with actual physical make-up or glamours. Before the event started, she might slap on that one glamour to smooth her skin tone a little — assuming it didn't end up making the bruising look weird — but there didn't seem to be much point in doing more than that. She did colour her lips (red to coordinate with the dress), tucked the stick in her bag in case she had to touch it up later, but that was it.

Fixing her nails went relatively quick, since she'd practised doing it a few times now and could make everything go faster with magic. A couple of carefully-aimed charms each to remove the old ones that were still stubbornly hanging on, and then to clean off any adhesive left behind, another to smooth the surface off. She picked a fresh set — a pretty blueish-green with a little bit of sparkle to them — a little dollop of the adhesive potion, smoothing it out over her nail with a charm, line up the false one before pressing it down, speed up the process of the adhesive setting with a warming and then a drying charm, and there, good. Just had to do all that nineteen more times...

Doing her nails was definitely the longest part of the whole process of getting ready, but she liked how it looked, so whatever.

A somewhat too-tight vest to flatten down her lopsidedness, and then a slip made out of Seer-friendly linen, and then she pulled on the dress. It felt noticeably close around her middle, but it was supposed to be, and also she rather liked that feeling, so. She folded the scarf once over her head, looping down over the back of her neck before tying around her hair to keep it in place. That looked a little sloppy, she guessed, but she didn't really care — a quick sticking charm to keep the top in place just over her forehead, and there, that would do. Lily's necklace, plus the matching dangly earrings, her duelling gloves and to top it off she pulled on a bunch of Greenwood-style beaded bracelets — over her gloves, which was maybe a little odd but whatever — and anklets, and then slipped on the shoes, and there, she was done.

Walking back to the mirror to give herself a once over — the glass beads audibly jangled, she felt her lips twitching. She didn't know why she liked the noise these things made so much, she just did.

...Maybe a little odd by magical standards? The dress was a little, you know, not enough, and of course the beads were a Mistwalker thing, and she was a bit bruised up, and... She didn't know, the feeling she had was that normal mages would think she looked a bit odd. Not that she actually cared that much? She liked it — though she was noticing just now that how close this dress hugged to her made her hips kind of obvious, but that wasn't really a bad thing, when it came down to it — so, she guessed everyone who had a problem with the Girl Who Lived dressing all weird and muggleish (and/or Mistwalkerish) could just fuck off.

Right, okay, done then. She quick checked everything she might need for the day was in her bag — especially making sure her drugs were in here — before pulling on her invisibility cloak and walking out the door.

It was possible she was being a bit overcautious, with the invisibility cloak, but she had just won the Triwizard Tournament, and been kidnapped and everything. People could be fucking annoying about her to begin with, and it was always worse when some big flashy thing involving her had just happened — or Hallowe'en was coming up, or someone had started some stupid rumour about her, or who the fuck even knows, honestly. She fully expected people to be unhappy, angry at her for winning the Tournament despite 'cheating' to get in in the first place (there were still people who refused to believe she'd been entered against her will), and people who didn't hate her a little freaked out from the kidnapping, she wouldn't be surprised if practically every person she passed in the hallways tried to talk to her. Or, you know, just glare at her, and too much unpleasant attention could make her very uncomfortable — with the award ceremony and the dinner and shite tonight, it would be better to avoid getting thrown into a bad mood ahead of time if at all possible. So, invisibility cloak.

...She suspected some of the Slytherin girls — she felt Daphne, Tracey, Millie, and Dorea — had been planning on ambushing her as she left. The door into Dorea's room was hanging open, making enough of a hole in the wards to feel through, chatter coming from inside — she could even see Tracey, sitting in a chair placed in view of the door. Tracey must have heard her door open and close, looking out into the circle with a frown. And there were other people around too, she could feel Blaise and Draco and Greg lurking in the hallway leading over to the boys' rooms, a smattering of minds she didn't recognise toward the stairs — mostly younger students, she thought, though it was hard to say for sure. The invisibility cloak had definitely been a good decision, by the look of it.

Liz was just about to step into the tunnel leading toward the fifth-year girls' rooms, where she could find a secret passage that would lead her out, when she froze, glancing back toward Dorea's room. She'd meant to warn Millie, about the Dark Lord camping out at the Bulstrodes'. Oh well, she'd get to it later — if she showed herself now, the other girls would want to talk about what happened last night, and she'd immediately have the vultures swooping in as soon as she appeared, it'd be impossible to draw Millie away in private. She just made a mental note to talk to her before bed, and continued on.

The team was meeting in their usual sitting room, just off the duelling hall — as soon as she was around the corner from the Entrance Hall, Liz whipped off her invisibility cloak and tucked it away into her bag, walked the rest of the way out in the open. Not that there was anyone around at the moment, she bet most people were at lunch, or hanging out somewhere outside or doing whatever, no one else had any reason to be around here. She was still some metres away from the door when Adrian's head leaned out into the hallway. "Ah, it is Liz! I heard the beads, thought it was you. We didn't know if we'd be seeing you today."

She sighed, rolling her eyes. "I told Flitwick I was coming."

"He said as much, just— Well." Adrian didn't say out loud that they'd been sceptical whether she actually would, what with the kidnapping and all — he wasn't even bothering to try to hide the thought either. After three years on the quidditch team together, he was used to her enough to realise that she probably knew exactly what he was thinking anyway, giving her a little rueful smirk. "Anyway, come on in, we were just about to call the elves about sending us lunch here — I'm guessing you'll want to talk to them yourself..."

Liz had arrived early, but she was hardly the first person to show up. All the captains were here — both Gladwin and Alex, who'd still be captains through the tournament over the summer, and Liz and Cedric, who were taking over in September — and of course Professor Flitwick, and Draco, Chelsea, Cynfelyn, and Lettie Prewett had also beaten her here. Severus was also present, which was only a slight surprise — he was going to be one of their chaperones on the trip to Syracuse, and this year he'd been helping with some of the organisational stuff, especially around the paperwork, so.

You'd think Severus would have more free time, since there were junior professors now, but he'd immediately restarted the alchemy club and had then started helping out with the duelling club too — he seemed, just, constitutionally incapable of taking a fucking break. Honestly, Liz hoped Síomha had managed to get the stubborn bastard into bed last night, because he definitely didn't sleep enough.

Of course, whatever conversation had been going on in here had immediately been taken over by asking if she was okay, had to assure everyone multiple times that yes, she was fine, fucking tedious...

The conversation about lunch was much easier, at least — she just confirmed that someone was already working on a special Seer-friendly lunch for her, and coffee would be great, thanks. (The elf was giving her kind of a funny look, but she wasn't sure if that was because of the big damn bruise on her face, or because she was actually using her pleases and thank yous, nobody minded their fucking manners with house-elves.) After the elf was gone, more team members started showing up in a steady trickle, first Camilla, and then Susan, and then Roger...

Practically every time someone new came in, they had to start making a fuss about last night again, but at least it never took too long to brush it off? The team was generally used to Liz being Liz about things — she caught from multiple minds that they didn't really believe that she was okay, which was annoying, but could tell she didn't want to talk about it just now, so, fine, whatever. It took somewhat longer for Katie and Susan to drop it, but they were better friends than most of the rest of the team, so. Really, she just wished everyone would stop bothering her about it, she was fine.

Also, even when people weren't bothering her by asking about the kidnapping, they kept looking at her, attention brushing over her again and again, tense and prickling and sticky. She realised they were worried about her, and it would be unreasonable to demand people not look at her, but it was still annoying. Though, not all the looks were worried, others pressing on her warm and soft and almost tactile — she didn't need the few comments about her being all prettied up for a duelling team meeting to know what those were about. Not that all the attention she got related to how she looked right now was positive-feeling — especially from more traditionally-minded people, like Gladwin and Draco and Lettie — but she didn't miss how some people's eyes...lingered. Katie and Susan, and Adrian (feeling very weird about it, too used to thinking of her as a little kid), and Cynfelyn, and Cedric, a couple times in passing...

...and Draco, amusingly. The amusing part was mostly that he did not think highly of, you know, the muggleish and Mistwalkerish aesthetics, and also she was his cousin, but his eyes kept finding her legs without thinking about it, catching himself, looking away, feeling very very uncomfortable. It was difficult to stop herself from laughing at him.

The attention was kind of a lot, pretty quickly making her skin feel all crawly and her stomach tight — enough that she took one of her tablets, which made it much better. She was going to go ahead and call today's outfit a success anyway.

(After taking her drugs, Katie checking her out kind of tickled. Liz didn't notice she was smiling until Susan pointed it out.)

They were still missing a couple people when lunch was popped up, but they went ahead and got started right away anyway. Liz's lunch was sent up obviously separate from everyone else's, a platter with a bowl of soup and a bread roll, along with a carafe of coffee and an empty cup. There was also a sliced-up apple, because the elves continued to try to get her to eat her fruits and vegetables — the vegetable part was in the soup, plenty of carrots in with the barley and bacon and whatever else was in there. The tray was obviously hers not just because everything else had been sent up in larger shared dishes, that people were supposed to serve themselves from, but also there was a little phial coloured the familiar purplish-green of her nutrient potion, so.

Liz grabbed her tray and went back to her chair, transfigured the arm up and out into a little side table. She'd fixed up her coffee and taken her nutrient potion (cleaning away the taste with a bite of her roll) by the time other people started trickling back to their seats — and around then there last couple people showed up. Good, they could get started now.

Except they didn't get started right away, the conversation over lunch mostly had nothing to do with team business at all. Just, you know, chatting and gossip, or school-related things, or shite about their families or friends, or some musician or professional quidditch stuff, the kinds of things friends talked about when they had nothing better to do. And they were mostly friends in here, or at least friend-ly — that was just what happened when you spent time together at least once a week, and were on a team and everything. They didn't always all get along, but at least they tried to, for the sake of the team and all.

Almost immediately, Liz noticed the harsh snapping still on the air between Katie and Lettie — not out loud, they were playing too nice to be obviously fighting or anything, but she could feel the hostility between them. She didn't know exactly what had happened there? They'd been kind-of-not-really dating for a while, but they'd had some kind of fight toward the beginning of the month, she didn't know the details. The one time she'd heard Katie comment on it — to Chelsea, Liz hadn't asked herself — she'd just seemed extremely exasperated, so, the impression she got was that Lettie had broken it off, for what Katie thought were stupid reasons? From the way she'd talked about it before, Lettie had only been using her to annoy her fiancé's family in the first place, so Liz wasn't sure why she'd take whatever had happened personally, but she guessed that wasn't her business.

...

Except, she realised, maybe it kind of was her business — but not in the way that she actually gave a damn about whatever had happened with Lettie. Maybe now was a good time.

Liz was high enough that the nerves weren't that bad, but the thought still had the back of her neck prickling and her stomach fluttering.

Distracted thinking about things, she didn't realise they were moving on to the serious conversation until Susan leaned over to poke her in the shoulder. Not that there was that much to talk about — or at least not that much new, most of this was review, especially for people who'd done one of these tournaments before. They were to go to the London keyport, in Old Town, on the morning of the Thirtieth of July. There was some new information about that Alex had for them, now that they were getting closer to the date and the specifics were being arranged: their portkey was leaving at seven fifteen in the morning. That was a good hour earlier than the portkeys Liz had taken previously, for some reason...and Flitwick reminded them that they should aim to arrive at least fifteen minutes ahead of time in case they were delayed at any point, and preferably earlier. And Liz would be coming with Severus, and the chaperones were supposed to be there even earlier, so she'd have to get up stupid early that day, that was going to suck.

There was a lot of complaining about the early time, of course, but Artaimís had the most serious one. She lived in a pretty rural community, way in the southwest of Ireland — which was about as far away as you could be from London by floo and still be in the same country — and since her family lived so in the middle of nowhere (they were farmers), it took a good fifteen, twenty minute walk to even get to the nearest floo. Gladwin suggested she come the night before and stay in a hotel or something, Artaimís somewhat awkwardly saying that she guessed she could try to ask someone. Probably worried about the expense — her family were also poor, the only reason the triplets could afford to go to Hogwarts in the first place was because the Blacks were paying their way. (Their grandfather was Sirius's favourite uncle, he'd been kicked out of the family, Cassiopeia had tracked them down and offered to send them to Hogwarts like a week before she'd up and vanished.) They could probably figure it out, if nothing else she could just ask Dorea for a favour, but it was uncomfortable...especially since the Blacks were already paying for the other two triplets and their mother and a couple cousins to travel to Syracuse to catch the event, Liz would guess.

On a whim, she said they could just stay somewhere together. If that was okay with Severus? She knew the previous times she'd spent the night at his house and then gone to the keyport early with him, but this was going to be terribly early, she did not want to bother. It'd be a lot easier to just get a hotel room in Old Town and walk over when it was time. Severus agreed that was fine — right, okay, Artaimís could come with her, then. No problem, just floo to her house the day before, yeah...

And then there was some talk about what the tournament would actually look like, blah blah. Some of this was more complicated than the previous tournaments Liz had been to, since the events would be held in an entirely separate city from where the participants were being put up, but with magical transportation that wasn't really a big deal. Flitwick had some informational pamphlets for them, to give to family and friends or whoever — it included the general schedule of the tournament (there might be last-minute changes), maps to help find the arena, lists of hotels and various other venues that were setting up to accommodate international travellers for the occasion, some customs and legal stuff, that sort of thing. It was nice of the locals to put together something like this, Liz didn't remember the hosts of the previous tournaments having this stuff all in one place for them.

Though, Flitwick had some additional talking to do when it came to the legal end. Sicily was one of the least British-friendly countries in the ICW — they had one of the oldest communalist-adjacent governments, predating the Revolution by generations, and they were direct competitors with Britain in the markets for various agricultural, alchemical, and finished products, so they had a history of intermittently getting into trade wars with each other. In fact, there was a lengthy list of import/export restrictions between the two countries right now. The backdoor the competitors had had at previous tournaments would apply at this one too, though any of their friends and family coming to watch the tournament would need to go through customs like everyone else, both entering Sicily and re-entering Britain. Flitwick had here a list of all the specific things that were restricted at the moment. Most of them weren't things people were likely to travel with, but some of them were things that you might buy as souvenirs to take back. Very few of these would actually be confiscated, but you might be fined, so, plan for that.

Speaking of money plans, Severus suggested changing their money ahead of time — goblin currency didn't spend very well in Sicily to begin with, but the trade sanctions between their two countries applied to the money too. Gringotts would give you pretty much whatever you asked for, so he recommended any of the currencies belonging to Sicily's closer allies — like Daneland, or Greece, or Saxony, or even Tunisia or Syria or Egypt — though muggle currencies, British pounds or Italian lira, would also be fine. And Sicilian (or Tunisian) currency was one of those things that would be seized on re-entry, so, change your money back before leaving for home.

Oh, and Liz shouldn't expect the diplomatic immunity she got within the ICW for technically being part of the government to hold up if she actually did something fucked up — apparently the Sicilian authorities had very reasonable opinions when it came to the concept of noble privilege. Not like she planned on doing crimes while they were in Sicily, but good to know, she guessed.

Once all that talk was done, they moved on to some final preparation stuff. Alex and Gladwin both double-checked that they were cool with their trios (it was a little late to make changes there now), but the important thing was the final medical exam — the summer tournament started long enough after the end of the school term that they had to do the final confirmation that they were healthy enough to compete on their own, somewhere else. Of course, they'd already talked about that, they were just double-checking with everyone to make sure there weren't any issues, and that everyone still had the paperwork they needed for that. Katie, Chelsea, and Artaimís would have issues arranging(/affording) that kind of thing, so yeah, they were still planning on going to Aquitania to take care of that, Liz covering the expenses.

She already had appointments set up for all five of them — those three and herself, plus Susan, who'd volunteered to accompany them just because — at a teaching hospital in Bordeaux. The plan was to meet up on the afternoon of the Ninth, travel over to Bordeaux and find a hotel and stuff, and stay overnight. Then they'd have their appointments around midday on the Tenth, probably lasting a bit into the afternoon. Severus had suggested the teaching hospital, and it was probably a good call — since they had a bunch of trainee healers and stuff, they were willing to see their whole group at once, which was way more efficient then getting them all separate appointments. It was going to be a little chaotic, probably, and it might take a little while to get through the whole thing, but it should work out. It should be over soon enough for all of them to get back home before dinnertime, but if it went late and they had to stay another night, that was fine, whatever.

It was a little silly to do the exam just a couple days before her blood alchemy thing, especially since the work they were doing there would make some parts of the exam obsolete, but there wasn't really anything they could do about that. By the time she'd be recovered enough from the procedures to do that kind of exam, it'd be too late to see a healer in time for the report to get to the ICW people. She expected she might get comments from the healers at the event about the stuff on file being out of date, but whatever.

There were a few more questions, about chaperones and meeting up with friends and family coming to watch, but they finished up with the tournament discussion pretty quickly from there. And then they went straight into some stuff for the club next year. Cedric and Liz would be the senior and junior captains starting in September — not news, everyone knew that already — and the senior team for the winter competition was already filled out. Adrian, Alex, and Roger were all finishing their seventh year, so they'd needed three new people to replace them: Katie was moving straight from the junior to the senior team, Oz was coming back after taking a semester off to focus on his OWLs and, interestingly, Eustace Scrimgeour had accepted the final spot on the team. (Gladwin had been offered it, but he'd said he'd be too busy — a combination of NEWT study and silly society courtship stuff, Liz guessed.) Last year, Scrimgeour had been offered a spot on the junior team, but had turned it down, and hadn't really seemed to express any interest in joining at any point before or since. She had no idea what had changed, but it must have been something.

The junior team would still be missing a couple people, though. They were also losing three people (Katie, Gladwin, and Chelsea), so needed to pick up three replacements — unfortunately, they'd only managed to settle on one, though they hadn't actually told Tracey about that yet. (Liz had been surprised by how much Tracey had improved over the last year, honestly.) The plan was to invite all three at once, so they needed to pick the other two first, which was more of a problem. They did not want to pick another fourth-year, because they'd be fifth-years next year, which meant the next team captain would already be saddled with trying to fill four spots next autumn. But the problem with that was that they weren't as familiar with the talents of the third-years, thanks to the participation of the foreign students this time around, and there was a similar issue with the second-years, though amplified by there being so bloody many of them. And there were going to be even more second-years next year, fuck, the first-year class was enormous...

The plan Cedric and Liz had already discussed with Flitwick was to hold a few informal tournaments over the first few weeks of the term, especially focussing on the new third-years, to see if two promising candidates rose above the others. Third-years were ideal, since their team was going to be heavy on fifth-years they could balance out the new kids with more experienced duellists, and by the time Liz handed off the captainship to Artaimís (who would be the most senior team member by then) they could hopefully be a more solid base to build her team around, one of them in a position to take the captain spot the year after. Given how many bloody third-years there were, Liz and Flitwick were confident they could find someone, it just might be a little bit of a scramble to identify them and integrate them into the team before the tournament in December...not to mention it was kind of difficult to plan these games to find their candidates ahead of time, since they didn't know what the class schedule would look like, just work out the general idea...

Of course, there was the additional problem of the population of the duelling club drastically increasing — assuming they continued to see similar participation as a fraction of each class, the club was going to be larger than the entire student population back when Liz started at Hogwarts. Flitwick was looking into recruiting more professors to help keep an eye on things, but the sheer numbers they were looking at was going to start presenting serious logistical issues. After talking about it a little, Severus suggested splitting the club into two sections, one for students in second- through fourth-year, and the other for fifth-years and above. There were some practical issues with that, especially for the junior team members, who should probably participate in both sections. Also, the year break Severus suggested made sense for focussing on people to recruit into the junior team, but had the disadvantage of arranging the end-of-term tournaments becoming somewhat awkward, but that wasn't that big of a deal, they could figure that out. Of course, even second, third, and fourth year was a lot of people put together, but recruit some additional professors to help out, some of the senior team members or, say, prefects or advanced students in the older section, they could figure it out, surely? It'd be a hassle, but.

Throughout this part of the conversation, Liz couldn't help grimacing a little. It was starting to look like being the junior team captain was going to be much more of a pain than she'd originally thought. Good thing she'd already been considering not continuing with the quidditch, when it started up again next year, because she kind of doubted she'd have time to prepare for her Competencies, run the junior team and the larger half of the club, and practise quidditch...especially if she wanted to make sure to leave the team and the club in a solid position for Artaimís to take over after her, and not, just, screw them over once it wasn't her problem anymore...

And she was still planning on asking Flitwick for a letter of recommendation later, when it came time to start applying to schools, so she really should do the best she could. Oh well, she guessed she could just skip classes if it came down to it — they didn't even get final scores in exam years, and it's not like she would need to take the OWLs anyway.

Adrian warned her to be prepared for especially the younger years in the club being inflated, and a bit excitable. She was the Girl-Who-Lived, and she'd just very publicly won the Triwizard Tournament — obviously Liz being the new team captain wouldn't be a secret, so, they should expect her admirers to flock into the club just for that reason, if only for the first few meetings. Ugh, she hadn't even thought of that, for fuck's sake...

(She was tempted to ask if it was too late to have, say, Susan be captain instead, but it was fine, whatever, she'd deal with it. She could always kick people out if they were being annoying about it.)

They spent some time brainstorming ideas for how to manage the growing club, and figure out the junior team for next year, for what felt like some time, an hour, maybe more? She didn't know, there wasn't a visible clock in the room. There was a lot to get to, so it wasn't really a surprise it took so long. They would have to make further reforms to the club in the years to come, as the class size was going to keep growing for a few more years — the current count had it peaking with the incoming class of '97...at two hundred seventeen, which was right around the size of the whole school when Liz had started. The class size would start declining again, their current estimates said it'd level off within about a decade somewhere between 120 and 150...or, maybe more than that, actually? Those were the old estimates, which hadn't taken into account the recent educational reforms, which had made adjustments to how the maximum class size was calculated (which wouldn't come into effect for a few more years yet), and also it sometimes took time for muggleborns to be recognised, added into the total late...which then opened up more spots, since the maximum class size was proportional to the number of muggleborns. Liz remembered the estimate of the '97 class being a shade under 200 only a year or so ago, but they'd since updated the count for a more recent, more accurate survey of incoming muggleborns. So, who the hell knows, the average class size could still end up being well larger than 150.

Liz was stuck dealing with the initial bump, yeah, but she did not envy Artaimís and the next few captains after her. They probably wouldn't even be able to meet in the duelling hall for very much longer, it simply wasn't big enough — and she didn't know where else they'd go, it's not like they had a lot of available options. She had an idea of splitting the club up, having one for more casual members and a separate group of people who were actually interested in joining the team, which Flitwick agreed was a good idea, just for logistical reasons.

That could be her contribution, she guessed. They could figure out the rest after she was gone.

It was well into the afternoon by the time they decided to wrap it up. Out of curiosity, she cast a quick time charm — she could have put off getting ready for the closing ceremony shite until after the meeting, though she didn't have that much wiggle-room. And besides, having gotten it out of the way early meant she had time to do something else.

The group quickly breaking up, she started following Katie toward the door — with Artaimís and Cynfelyn and Roger — when she was waylaid by Cedric and Flitwick. More logistical stuff: since they were splitting the club up, Cedric had pointed out that it made sense for himself and Liz to manage the upper- and lower-year clubs respectively, on their own. Couldn't have brought this up during the meeting? Whatever. That'd mean some extra work for Liz, since, yeah, the junior captain would help out, but it was normally the senior captain who was in charge, and handled planning meetings and making sure everything went smoothly and all. And she'd get a really steep learning curve, since they were planning on holding competitions and stuff to find a couple more people for the team, right at the beginning of term. There was a handbook previous captains had put together which worked as kind of a guide, Flitwick would send her a copy over the summer, and Cedric would try to be around to help out, if the scheduling allowed it. Yes, yes, that all makes sense, they'll figure it out...

By the time they were done, the room was practically empty already, most of the teams having left. Liz dashed out into the hallway, looked both ways — she didn't see Katie, she had to be a few minutes ahead of her at this point.

Dammit! This was the last time she'd likely see Katie before the summer too, and she'd just psyched herself up and everything...

She paused for a moment, thinking. They were going up to their dorms, she was pretty sure. Katie and Artaimís had left with Cynfelyn and Roger — assuming they meant to walk and talk, they'd want to stay on a path that was optimal for both Gryffindors and Ravenclaws, which meant the Grand Staircase. That was the most direct path up to the seventh floor, but there were quicker ways, if you used shortcuts. Some of the best shortcuts in the school were sealed with keys in parseltongue, so only Liz could use them, she'd been searching them out ever since second year to avoid people being annoying about whatever thing was going on in the Castle at the moment. She knew multiple different paths up to the seventh floor, some more circuitous than others, but...

She was a few minutes behind, but she thought she could get to Gryffindor first. Maybe.

A flick of her fingers undid the buckles on her heels, she bent over to pick them up (Cedric and Alex nearby giving her funny looks). And then she started running.

She went toward the back of the Castle, quickly reaching Helga's Gallery, dashed all the way down the corridor, the detailed stone carving of branches speckled with various animals whipping by in her peripheral vision, reached a narrow spiral staircase — which she took down, toward Hufflepuff. Going back the direction she'd come, skipping between a few Hufflepuffs in the hallway — including Chelsea, asking what was wrong, Liz just ignored her — took a left at the corner, soon reached a corridor with paintings of old-fashioned domestic scenes on both sides. Not far past the fruit bowl that marked the entrance to the kitchens, she came to a painting of a chicken coop on some farm or whatever the fuck, an old tower in the near distance, a snake half-hidden in the mess of straw toward the bottom, unnoticed by the peasants collecting eggs — she spit at it to «OPEN!» as she neared, the painting swinging off the wall, she dipped through the gap and started climbing the spiralling staircase just inside. She passed little balconies with a few chairs, like private boxes in a theatre or something, overlooking the Great Hall, the Entrance Hall, the drive in front of the Castle, a sunny open corridor she knew was on the first floor — all of them invisible from the outside, she'd checked — the balconies becoming more intermittent after the first few, one and another and another facing the grounds, from a higher and higher angle as she ascended.

She reached the top before too long, slipping out from behind a painting of the Valley on the fifth floor. (The painting showed the Valley from a very similar angle as you could see from the top balcony, she'd noticed before — it made the entrance on this side very obvious, once she knew what to look for.) This was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, there were some professors' apartments closer to the Grand Staircase, but really nothing all the way over here, the corridors on this level long and straight and empty. Which means she could take this leg of the trip the fast way: Liz dipped, the bottoms of her bare feet catching on the stone tile a little, and leapt into a quick-step, jolting forward a dozen metres in a blink, skipped a step to catch her balance, quick-stepped ahead again, took a corner to the left, quick-stepped again...

The intersection ahead was brighter than most parts of the Castle — there was a staircase here, curving down to the fourth floor, and a big section of the floor here had been cut out, open space from the fourth floor up to the ceiling of the fifth floor. The staircase actually went out a bit, the wall bulging past the stone to left and right and made entirely out of glass, overlooking the Lake far below. There were a few random open spots like this, not sure why, but they were rather pretty, at least? There were even some potted plants around and everything, taking advantage of the extra sunlight.

Of course, since Liz was completely mad sometimes, she charged straight at the middle of the circle, and then quick-stepped forward and up — she came out in mid-air, the glass wall ahead of her and empty space all the way down a whole storey and a half below her, her momentum making her tilt, her stomach lurching and an ecstatic rush prickling over her skin. But she ignored that as best she could, focussed on drawing her magic up for another quick-step, her momentum continuing to carry her forward, her palm smacked against the glass, turning to look down at the floor below her, and she pushed—

She came out of the quick-step a few feet above the stone floor, a quick wandless banishing charm cut off her speed, she lightly plopped down onto her feet, going straight into a sprint. There was a clanging of shock and a few wordless shouts from nearby, apparently she'd startled a couple who'd gone off to snog in private — at least someone had seen that trick, because that had been smooth as fuck, if she did say so herself.

Once she was clear of the corner, she quick-stepped down the corridor once, twice, a sweep of her fingers brushing aside a Gryffindor-coloured tapestry to reveal a narrow, straight staircase. Turning back on itself once, it felt like it only went up a single floor, straight up — Liz knew it would actually have taken her up to the seventh floor and clear on the other side of the Castle, one corridor down and around the corner from the entrance to Gryffindor. She was close enough that she could hear people milling around chatting, hanging out in the sitting rooms nearby or in the sunny hallway overlooking the Valley just over there.

In fact, a couple of younger kids were just going for this shortcut when she burst out, startling them. There were some stammering apologies for a few seconds, and then swirls of confusion as they noticed she was barefoot, carrying her shoes in one hand — abruptly, Liz burst into giggles, something about their reaction was just funny...

Right, enough of that, the Grand Staircase was this way, she jogged off, leaving the baffled little Gryffindors behind her. The corridor opened up ahead, into the big open area the Grand Staircase wove its way upward through, a railing blocking off the terribly high drop. It was a little noisy, Gryffindors and Ravenclaws coming up or down the stairs and hanging around, but there was nobody back this way, her hallway empty as she came up to—

She came close enough to feel out the people on the stairs — they were there, Katie and Artaimís and Cynfelyn and Roger, ahead to the left and somewhat below her. She'd made it.

Dropping her shoes, she stepped back into them. She sank down to sit on her heels, her back against a wall, so she could easily reach the buckles, tightened the straps back into place. Then she sat there for an extra moment, catching her breath.

That might have been a little excessive, but she'd barely made it on time: they were just reaching the top of the stairs now, she'd only beaten them by a minute. If she hadn't done those reckless indoor quick-steps, she probably wouldn't have made it on time. No idea whether the Gryffindors would cooperate, if she tried to ask them to get Katie for her, so, really the only shot she'd had.

Time to go see if the effort had been worth it.

Their group stalled for a moment at the top of the stairs before splitting up, Katie and Artaimís moving toward Gryffindor, passing by straight behind her a corridor away, Cynfelyn and Roger moving further away toward Ravenclaw, soon passing out of the edge of her weird magical sense horseshite. Liz pushed herself upright again, quick cast a mirror charm. She'd managed not to mess up her hair with the quick-stepping, but she was a bit pink in the face, spreading down her throat to her chest. Also, that bruise still looked awful, but there wasn't anything she could do about that. She'd mostly gotten her breath back, and she hadn't gotten super sweaty or anything — it was pretty cool inside the Castle, even in June — but she might as well take care of that anyway with a quick cleaning and drying charm, aaaccchh, that was fucking cold!

Shaking that off, she let out her breath in a sharp huff. And then she started walking, aiming to head off Katie (and Artaimís) near the entrance to Gryffindor.

(Her heart throbbing in her throat and her ears was probably only partly from running all the way up here like a crazy person.)

She was moving at a quick walk, her shoes clacking against the tile, by the time Katie and Artaimís turned into the hallway leading to the Fat Lady at their more leisurely pace she was only a few metres behind. There were people hanging around out here — the portrait was actually propped open, too many people moving in and out to bother with opening and closing it every time — Liz drawing attention as she approached, eyes brushing over her skin, a few whispers here and there. Not really a surprise, everybody in this bloody school knew what she looked like, and with the excitement last night, well.

Interestingly, there was less hostility directed at her than she would have expected — there was still some, of course, but, she guessed the atmosphere was far more ambivalent than she'd grown accustomed to from Gryffindor in her first couple years here. But she'd already noticed that the animosity some of the older students and Weasley and his friends had didn't seem to extend to the younger kids — having arrived at the school after the controversy of her being Sorted into Slytherin, and the nonsense around the Chamber of Secrets — and there were some younger-looking kids around, so, that would do it.

She was catching up, reached only a few paces behind them before calling, "Hey Katie."

Both Katie and Artaimís paused, looking over their shoulders. "Liz. What is it?"

"I, um, could we talk for a minute?"

"Sure." Katie glanced around for a second, hesitating — she suspected Liz wouldn't be comfortable talking about whatever this was in front of the crowd out here — before turning and starting back the way they'd come. "Come on, let's go back this way, it'll be quieter over here."

As they turned and walked away, Artaimís lingered for a moment, her attention fixed sharp and thoughtful on them. A bubbling of giddy, ticklish amusement, she guessed that Liz was asking Katie out — nosey little shite. Thankfully, Artaimís didn't say anything about it, just turned around and sauntered the rest of the way toward Gryffindor. Though Liz had a feeling that she'd be annoying about the two of them later, at least she was leaving them alone for now, she guessed that was something.

Katie took the corner back toward the Grand Staircase, ambling away from the Gryffindors gathered around their dorms. Her mind wasn't particularly noisy, but it wasn't well-defended either, so Liz could tell she meant to quick dip down to the sixth floor, where there shouldn't be anyone around. Well, there might be a couple snogging couples here and there — it was the last day of term — but nobody who would bother them, at least.

That thought had prickles breaking over Liz's skin, it took some effort to hold in the urge to fidget.

Once they were away from the worst of the crowd, only a few people here and there coming to or from the Staircase, Katie asked, "Did you run all the way up here?"

Liz shrugged. "I wanted to catch you before we left for summer. Best chance for it, I think — no idea how long the thing tonight is going to last, and the day we leave is always a bloody mess."

There was a twittering of amusement, at the juxtaposition of Liz rushing up here but also trying to play it off all casual, but mixed with it a warm, tactile sort of curiosity, snagging on Liz's skin, as though trying to tug information away. (Just in her head, of course, Katie couldn't actually do that.) She still didn't know what this was about, somewhat surprisingly, but she was interested. Externally, she just said, "Fair enough."

They walked in silence for a moment, Liz trying not to feel too self-conscious, very aware of the other minds around, Katie's eyes occasionally brushing over her warm and clingy and curious. She wasn't nervous, exactly...or she wasn't worried this was going to go badly — she knew for cheating Seer reasons that they were going to end up together, at least for a while, and in her vague sense of the timeline this was the only point where it made any real sense. (She would be leaving for a school on the Continent next year, after all, there wasn't that much time left.) But she felt a little jumpy, and prickly, and twitchy, and she had no real idea why, what word should be put to that. Feelings were hard.

As they turned onto the stairs, Katie asked, "So, what do you have going on this summer? Besides Syracuse, of course. You didn't say much when we were talking about it over lunch." She wasn't uninterested in what was going on with Liz, but it was also partly just to get a conversation going, so the silence didn't get too stiff.

"I guess the biggest thing I have going on is my, er, procedure, a couple weeks before the tournament." She'd told Katie about the blood alchemy stuff, back on New Year's in Kaunas, but she wasn't telling people in general since it was illegal here — everyone else would just get to be surprised when she showed up for the Syracuse trip looking different.

"Oh! Right, I was wondering if it was coming up soon. Good luck with that." Katie did notice that that would be very close to their exam, which she thought was a little silly, but she didn't point that out aloud.

"Sure. I don't have much on besides that. I'm hoping the historians and whoever poking around in Gaunt's place will...I don't know, let me do a demonstration, at least. Still trying to convince them to let me do the spirit-walking shite down there, you know. Um, probably start that potions project with Severus."

"What potions project?"

"Oh, um, he doesn't really like the thought of me managing my Seer stuff with recreational drugs, you know? But there's something in cannabis that really helps, so, he suggested we figure out how to isolate it. Partly as an advanced potions lesson, I guess, but he also said we might do a write-up on it somewhere — so people can make it for other Seers, you know."

"And I'm guessing getting a paper published in an academic journal before you even sit your OWLs is a neat side-benefit," Katie drawled, cool humour prickling on the air around her. She did think it wasn't exactly fair that Liz's guardian was a well-known alchemist (and healer), so was in a position to give her a leg-up into academic circles like that...especially since there were already so many advantages Liz already had in other areas. Not really bitter about it, just, very aware of that fact, in a way a lot of their classmates from more well-off families probably wouldn't be. Of course, she also thought it was funny that Severus had decided to turn not wanting her to be constantly high in public into a potions lesson, which, yeah, that was kind of funny...

(In Katie's head, she referred to Severus as Liz's father, not her guardian, but Liz knew by now it was better not to comment on things people thought — as long as it wasn't aloud it was better to ignore it.)

"Yeah, true. Severus says it can only be done with a Seer anyway — how the Sight works isn't understood well enough to do it theoretically, you know, and most Seers as sensitive as I am can't exactly function very well, so. Not much going on besides that, I don't think. Oh, I'm turning fifteen, so I'm going to have to start going to stupid society shite, ugh..."

"Oh no, how awful." They got down to the sixth floor, Katie stepping off the stairs and turning in a seemingly random direction. "Having no choice but to attend fancy parties with fine food and expensive wine, filled with all the movers and shakers of British society. How shall you ever survive?"

"Come off it, Katie, I can't imagine you could have gone to Hogwarts for five years without realising that the movers and shakers of British society are all an inbred pack of insufferably self-important pricks." Katie laughed at that because, well, that was obvious, to everyone who hadn't grown up in the nobility — and even a fair number of the people who had, honestly. "The only fun part is dressing up all pretty, and you don't even like skirts." Liz had liked the outfit Katie had turned up to the Yule Ball in, but she had a feeling that kind of thing wouldn't be considered appropriate in fancy circles, it was basically just dresses and robes.

For a second, Katie considered making a flirty comment about liking skirts just fine — she just didn't like wearing them — but couldn't figure out how to word it for best effect, so dropped it in the end. "True, true. I'll just have to settle for pictures, I guess."

So she'd ended up going with a different flirty comment, though a more subtle one — there were always photographers at these stupid things, to populate the bloody inane society pages over the next couple days, but the implication she was making was obvious enough. Not sure what to say to that, Liz just rolled her eyes. "Mhm."

"That reminds me, though, isn't your birthday the Thirty-First? July, I mean."

"Yep."

"We're going to be in Syracuse then. I should remember to come prepared."

"Ugh, don't bother. I really don't give a shite about my birthday."

There was a funny cool wiggle, Katie shooting her a glance, but whatever feeling that was it came and went too fast for Liz to decipher it. "Too late, you've got it in my head now — all your own fault for whinging about your obligations," the word said with maximal sarcasm. "As soon as I get home, I'm going to write the rest of the team, so we can start scheming."

"Getting the whole team in on it? That's just evil."

"That's me, evil. You're going to have a nice birthday, Liz, whether you want to or not."

Liz let out another groan, rolling her eyes — and once her face was turned away, fought down a smile. She didn't care about her birthday, but it was still... No, she didn't know what that feeling was, exactly. She appreciated it when her friends tried, she guessed, especially with how difficult she knew she could make that for them sometimes.

"Thanks again for taking care of the exam arrangements, by the way. It wouldn't have been a problem for me to get the Dunbars to set something up, but making a trip out of it is much better. And it was nice of you to help out Chelsea and Artaimís." Katie's pronunciation of the Gaelic name was reasonably natural-sounding — she didn't speak Gaelic, much, but there was plenty of it around in Scotland, so she was more familiar with it than a lot of people.

"Sure," she said, shrugging a little. "I was just going to have Severus do mine, but this works too. Not really a big deal."

"Not for you, maybe."

Liz just shrugged again, not really sure what to say. They were a team, right, helping her teammates with shite that they couldn't deal with themselves so they could compete properly just made sense.

They were getting well away from most of the people around by this point — she did still feel a mind now and then, but there really weren't many people this far out. There wasn't much on the sixth floor, when it came down to it, the classrooms and the professors' apartments all in the fifth floor or below, the access to Gryffindor and Ravenclaw and the Astronomy Tower on the seventh. They were coming to a T-junction, the hallway they were on meeting one running along the outside wall, the stone broken up with banks of windows looking out over the Valley, the shore of the Lake, some trees, the sprawling blob of Hogsmeade, the hills in the distance, sunlight streaming through into the hall. Very bright, and somewhat warm by the standards of Hogwarts, the afternoon sun soaked up by glass and stone.

...They were pretty alone out here, out of the way, unlikely to be interrupted. So Liz should just...get to it, she guessed.

"So," Katie chirped, taking a left down the sunny corridor — angling away from Gryffindor Tower, not like it mattered at this point. "Are you looking forward to getting back into quidditch next year? You still owe me a rematch for that nasty foul back in fourth year."

"Not my fault you can't bloody well watch where you're flying. And no, I'm not doing quidditch next year."

Katie's step hitched for a second, throwing her a quick glance. "What, seriously? But you're a great seeker! Keep pulling shite past me, at least."

"I just don't think I'll have the time for it. Between captaining the junior team, and running the bloody club, that's going to be a fucking pain, and..." She hesitated for a second. "And I'm taking the Competencies over winter break, so, I'll be spending a lot of time revising for those."

"...Why Competencies? Those are the Continental OWLs, right?"

"Yeah. I'm transferring out after next year."

There was a flitter of surprise from Katie, but nothing too intense, more cool and contemplative. In fact, she figured out pretty quickly why Liz might want to get out of Hogwarts — it wasn't really a secret that she found a lot of the stupid celebrity horseshite to be a bit overwhelming at times, and with the national question heating up, well. "Do you know where you're going?"

"Not yet. I was looking at smaller schools, you know, somewhere quiet." That got a nice clear click in Katie's head, nodding to herself. "The University of Syracuse is on my list, but depending on how bloody miserable I find the heat while we're there for the tournament, I might change my mind about that, we'll see."

"Mm. Good luck with that. Finding a quiet one, you know."

"Thanks."

Katie went silent for a moment, her mind turning all cool, and... The thought of Liz transferring out was making her...uncomfortable — and that wasn't just Liz being bad at feelings this time, Katie couldn't put her finger on it herself. She was tempted to say Liz should stay, but she understood she had good reasons to want to leave, and she didn't want to make it an argument and everything, especially since it was the last day before summer break and all. Besides, she was already a year older than Liz, so her transferring out would only be reducing the overlap of their time at Hogwarts by one year. And with how ridiculous people could be about Liz, and how much more difficult her Sight obviously made it some days, yeah, getting the fuck out of Britain made obvious sense, now that it'd been pointed out to her. Especially since, given the Girl-Who-Lived stuff, Liz would be a potential target if a civil war did break out, so. It just made her uncomfortable, was all.

It wasn't something Katie was quite verbalising to herself, but Liz could tell what was going on easily enough: Katie liked her, and she didn't want her to leave.

It was still a little surreal sometimes, seeing that people liked her. She realised by this point that that was, just, stupid Liz-is-broken shite, she did have friends now, obviously — she knew, rationally, that there were people who liked her. But, for whatever reason, it just didn't quite sink in properly, so it was often a little weird to find it in someone's head.

She'd already known Katie in particular liked her, even, and not just in a friend way — she had tried to kiss her, at that New Year's party in Kaunas — her brain was just fucking stupid sometimes.

"So!" Katie's voice had a bit of a high snap to it, trying to force cheer into it — didn't want to make Liz uncomfortable about transferring away, worried that she'd already done so, Liz going quiet at the same time she had. "What did you want to talk about?"

...Speaking of kissing, they were alone in this warm sunny corridor, nobody in sight or in reach of her magical senses. Here and now would do fine.

So she should just...do that.

Liz snagged Katie's wrist, and came to a halt — not seeing it coming, Katie took an extra step to stop, looking back to her with a curious eyebrow raised. For a second, she just stood there, looking up at Katie, and...

She didn't know what to say. How to...

Of course, Liz realised she was bad at this, you know, normal person...social...feelings stuff. She remembered, during her visit to the Greenwood when Daphne and her happened, she had been the one to initially broach the subject...out loud, anyway — she'd caught Daphne thinking about it, and suggested that she could just...do that. If she remembered correctly, anyway, details got kind of fuzzy after a year. (Better than the specific words they'd said, she remembered the sunlight in the gardens and the babbling of water in the little aqueduct thing and the buzzing of insects, and Daphne's mind all bubbling and warm and ecstatic. Daphne had been barefoot. And the kissing, obviously.) And Hermione, she'd initiated that too...except, Hermione had been thinking about it, trying to work up the nerve to ask, and Liz had simply cut out the middleman. So, she might have done this before, but it had been in very specific circumstances, and didn't really help her figure out what to do now.

She didn't know what to say.

So she decided she wouldn't say anything. Liz stepped closer, letting go of Katie's wrist, her hands coming up to her collar instead — she was wearing one of those wrap-around tunic things mages had, it was pretty easy to get a grip on her lapels. Colourful curious sparks in Katie's mind, interest thick enough around her Liz could almost taste it she, just, looked up at her, steadily meeting her eyes. Hopefully making clear what she was thinking without actually having to figure out how to say it.

And it only took a second, it clicked with a lurch deep enough it almost made Liz rock back and forth on her heels. Katie's hand was up between them and touching Liz's face almost before she even realised it was there, bringing Katie's mind crashing into hers, startling her a little — more intensely surprised than Liz would have thought, to the point she probably wouldn't do a great job of finding words either, but quick getting overwhelmed with a giddy thrill, hot and sizzling and clingy and crackling with excitement. Her head tipping back a little, Katie was suddenly very close, and—

Liz was a little taken aback when Katie's lips just went straight to hers — Daphne would almost always go slow, hesitantly, giving Liz a chance to turn away. Just, took her a little by surprise, was all. Katie's fingertips light on her cheek and the heel of her palm just under her chin, she lingered for a second, the thrill in her mind sharpening, funny prickles sweeping down Liz's shoulders and back. Just a breath, before Katie started pulling away a little. Their minds this close, Liz could instantly tell that she'd noticed Liz stiffen up a little — that was just the surprise, she was fine — so she tightened her hands on Katie's shirt, fisting in the fabric with a gentle tug, and Katie came right back, giddy amusement giggling through her head, Liz making a better effort of meeting her properly this time, her lips tingling and her pulse echoing in her fingertips and little warm flutters in her chest...

They kissed once, and then again, Katie only pulling back a whisper, close enough to tickle on Liz's lips, slow and soft. It felt heavy somehow, not the actual physical part — another press of their lips light and almost...innocent? (not the word) but still making Liz's skin tingle and her hair stand on end and her heart pound in her throat and her stomach go all swoopy — but the feelings stuff going on, loud in Katie's head and echoing through her, something on the air thick and close against her, narrowing in, Katie's presence and feelings, another kiss bright and warm and eager thrumming through her—

(Being a mind mage or a Seer or both or whatever made it so things like this were a lot sometimes. Or, maybe some of this was just hormones, fuck knows, honestly...)

After a little bit Katie pulled back, not far, still close and warm and sizzling nearby, mind still loud, breath brushing over her skin. Her mind was very close, Katie was still touching her, her other hand had come up too, fingertips cool against the side of Liz's neck, a thumb running along her jaw. She knew Katie had opened her eyes, because her attention was suddenly very intense — thick and heavy and hot and clingy against her skin, following the thumb running along her jaw, or brushing over her cheek, following her hairline past her ear (tickled a little), just, looking, touching her, seemingly just because? Liz's eyes blinked open, Katie's face was only a couple inches away, her eyes met Liz's, but then flicked away again, following her fingers, brushing over Liz's face seemingly at random, so light and soft it almost tickled, just...touching her face, for some reason?

Well, no, Liz knew the reason, but that didn't mean it didn't...kind of baffle her. Even without having Katie's mind right there, hard not to look, she'd already been aware that Katie thought she was pretty. Or, "pretty" maybe wasn't quite the right word. She remembered bloody ages ago, in a letter, Tamsyn responding to Liz talking about her scars (and how she was resigned then that no one would want her because of them) by suggesting she compare herself to the bloody paintings around the castle — she realised now that she was actually approaching classically beautiful by British pureblood standards. (Not quite perfect, a little bit of extra roundness around her eyes and thickness around her mouth from her mother's side, but close.) It, just, she might know that, but it didn't really register, like, on an intuitive level? She was still kind of reflexively grossed out by herself, but that was partly for Liz is broken reasons, and also because of her scars, and being lopsided, if she was honest she never payed that much attention to her face, herself. Except when she was putting on her glamours or going through the effort of actual makeup, or whatever, but even then that was just a task, she was never really looking.

Katie was looking. That she liked the way Liz looked wasn't exactly news, it was just...

Well, she guessed Katie generally tried to be polite about it — she'd always tried to play nice, for the sake of the team and all, but she was also very much aware of the fact that Liz could feel it when people looked at her. There was that incident when arriving at Iași, for the tournament last summer, when people staring at her bum had been kind of freaking her out a little, Katie had generally been considerate about it since then. She did still slip sometimes but, you know, trying not to make Liz uncomfortable. Now all staring and, just, touching her face was kind of a lot all of a sudden.

Not bad, just...a little weird, and intense. And also a little embarrassing, as warm as she already felt she only noticed she was blushing because Katie noticed it, feeling rather twitchy, resisting the urge to look away, dip her head...

Katie's thumb brushing over the bruise around her eye, Liz winced. A flicker in her head, the hand on that side dropping down — propped against Liz's shoulder, fingertips settling on the side of her neck, which was distracting — Katie whispered, "Sorry."

"It's okay." Talking drew Katie's eyes to her mouth, one thumb running over her lips, that tickled, nudging at the ring — the pressure building up in her throat getting too much at this point, Liz reached up to hook a hand around the back of her neck, tugged her down. Their foreheads pressing together, Katie giggled against the corner of her mouth for a couple seconds, before getting control of her breath again, her lips finding hers, heavy and hot and lingering, Liz pulling her in closer...

One of Katie's hands slipping under Liz's scarf and into her hair behind her head, the other wandering, thumb tracing her jaw or knuckles running over her cheek or fingertips brushing down her neck, slow kisses one after the other, sometimes tweaking at her lip ring, breath tickling over her chin and neck. Liz had one hand behind Katie's neck, pulling her closer, the other settled on her waist — as much for balance as anything. She was feeling very warm and tingly, feelings from Katie's mind reverberating through her, it wasn't very long before she was starting to feel kind of shaky. Honestly, this was a lot, and as it went on, the way her knees were feeling, she wasn't sure how well she'd be standing right now without Katie right there.

Also, her neck was kind of starting to hurt a little.

She tried to ignore it, but it built over the seconds, Katie's fingers trailing along her neck, her lips parting a little, hot and soft and Liz's pulse pounding in her lips and her throat and her fingertips, her face burning and tingling, her breath tight, Katie's skin warm and smooth against her hand, catching on Liz's lip ring a little, shivering, trying to pull closer—

She felt a twinge in the back of her neck, just under the base of her skull. Her hand on Katie's neck coming around to her shoulder, "stop, stop," she leaned back a little, a gentle pressure on Katie's shoulder. Once her face was out of the way, Liz tilted her head forward, stretching her complaining muscles back the other way. She hadn't actually hurt herself yet, but, she didn't want to have to deal with a sprain or something through the bloody ceremony and the feast later.

"Are you okay?" Making a good guess of what the problem was, the hand in Liz's hair pressed closer against her skin, fingers making little kneading motions against the back of her neck, and...

...ooohh, that felt good, actually, Liz letting out a shivering breath. "Um. I'm..." It was hard to concentrate, the fingers gently kneading at the back of her neck and the thumb following the neck of her dress very distracting. Eventually she gave up, removed her hands from Katie's shoulder and waist to grab at her wrists instead, pulling her hands away. Hooking her fingers through Katie's, glancing up to shoot her a mock glare, she muttered, "I can't words when you're doing that."

Katie just smirked, with a warm giddy thrill — there was a bit of a slant to it, slightly smug, but mostly just pleasant.

"But yeah, that was my neck. Too bloody short..."

"You need taller heels," Katie said in a lilting drawl, teasing.

Liz rolled her eyes. "It doesn't help that much. You might have noticed I'm tiny."

"It's hard not to." Katie glanced over her head, which was easy for her to do, because Liz was frustratingly tiny. "Here," she said, pushing against Liz's hands a little, taking a half-step toward her, "this way."

...The windowsill, she meant. A quick look over her shoulder, was that deep enough for her to actually sit on? It was hard to tell from here. Worth a shot, she guessed. Katie hadn't let go of her hands, so Liz couldn't actually turn around, but that was fine, she was coordinated enough to walk backwards for a couple metres — or she would be normally, she was still feeling a bit twitchy, her steps a little awkward, Katie standing very close.

Also, she was wearing muggle denims today, and the way they clung around her hips was very distracting.

They were close to the windows now, Liz could feel the warmth the glass and metal had absorbed from the sunlight. Looking behind her, the windows weren't that high, but the ledge was too far up for her to just lean back onto — she needed her hands, either to brace herself with or to grab her wand. She started disentangling her fingers so she could—

—and suddenly Katie's hands were coming in tight and hard at both sides of her waist, under her ribs, and with a swooping in her stomach Liz's feet suddenly left the ground, she heard the squeak jump out of her own throat, her hands snapping up to Katie's shoulders—

She was set down a second later — the ledge was deep enough for her to sit on, if barely, her back against the glass and the edge of the stone at the top of the backs of her thighs — her heart fluttering in her chest and her skin crawling. Feeling weirdly out of breath all of a sudden, she clung onto Katie's shoulders, trying to calm down.

And of course Katie smirked at her. After a moment of Liz just trying to breathe, she asked, "You all right?"

"Yeah, just...startled me."

"I could tell — you squeaked."

Liz tried not to pout at her, but she could tell she failed anyway. (She could feel her face burning, weirdly self-conscious, resisting the urge to shuffle in her somewhat awkward seat.) "Shut up."

With a little hum, Katie took a little step closer. Her arms passing under Liz's, hands against the glass to either side propping herself up, another little step, Liz's knees slipping to either side of her waist. As she stepped closer, her face coming up a whisper away from Liz's — with her sitting on the windowsill, they were close to the same height, Liz's eye-level maybe only an inch or so up — her legs gently levered apart, fabric warm from body heat scratching at the insides of her thighs, a surge of hot tingles crawling over her skin, her stomach swooping, Liz sucking in a shaky breath through her teeth. Whispering against her lips, Katie said, "I can shut up, if you like."

Instead of answering — her breath hot enough and her throat tight enough she wasn't sure if she could words just now — Liz buried her hands in Katie's hair and pulled her the rest of the way in.

It felt...different, all of a sudden. Liz wouldn't know what she would call the kissing they'd been doing before. Besides, just, nice, she guessed. Physical stuff could be kind of a lot for her, with all the stupid mind-mage-slash-Seer shite, but Katie was happy, and excited, and Liz hadn't been making a complete mess of herself, so. Warm and, you know, squishy feelings, these things were hard for her sometimes and she never knew how to describe things, but nice, yes.

This was definitely sexy kissing, now.

The first kiss was relatively plain, the way Liz had pulled her in ending up with their faces just kind of smooshing together, but then Katie repositioned herself, pressing in, pushing Liz's head back against the window, she practically had to let her jaw drop open to take off the pressure. Which was clearly what Katie had been going for, covering Liz's mouth with hers, her skin crawling and heartbeat throbbing in her fingertips and her lips, a mix of warm squishy and crackling excited feelings pounding through her from Katie making her head spin, one kiss long and lingering and hot and mmm, a second, on the close making an audible smacking sound, oops, on the third Liz shifting a little to snag Katie's bottom lip with hers, and on the fourth there was a gentle little flick of the tip of her tongue—

—Katie's hands found there way to her sides, following the dip of her waist, Liz's hands in her hair and calves hooked behind her hips pulling her in, she could hardly even breathe, partly because Katie's mouth was in the way, nipping at her lips or pressing in firm and eager, tongue light on hers (Katie could taste the coffee she'd had with lunch), sneaking in hot wet breaths where she could, her skin crawling and her head spinning, slippery little sparks down her spine—

And Katie was happy. Not just happy, of course — hormones were a bitch, her head increasingly turning to sexy thoughts. Pressing close, the front of the windowsill low on her hips, and the thing was narrow enough that there, um, well there wasn't really any closer to go, Liz's legs wrapped around her waist, Katie's breasts pressing against her chest. The kissing, all lips and teeth and tongues, was giving Katie thoughts of kissing other places, and one hand had found its way up to Liz's face again, fingertips brushing over her cheek or along the side of her neck, but the other had slipped over her hip and down to her thigh instead. Nowhere super sensitive, just, Katie being so close between her legs had kind of pushed her skirt out of the way, her hand was on the outside of Liz's leg really not that far below her hip, fingernails lightly dragging over her skin, Liz could hardly breathe...

...that situation not made any easier when she caught Katie thinking about fingering her right here out in the corridor. Not like something she was really planning on doing, you know, just a random wild sexy thought, imagining her face, the look in her eyes, how she would feel, what she would sound like. Catching that kind of explicit sexy thought was always a little surreal, and Katie's odd preoccupation with what her face would be doing was...honestly a little embarrassing? which was maybe a little silly, considering they were actively snogging right now, but Liz couldn't help it. But catching the thought had her skin crawling almost painfully, her face practically burning (from a mix of embarrassment and sexy feelings, she thought), sharp heat coiling, her pulse pounding in her lips and her throat and between her legs, pulling Katie in closer, her legs shivering—

But she was also happy, the feeling reverberating through Liz bright and bubbly and giddy. She was well aware that Katie liked her, in case the constant teasing and occasional look, and those weird to Liz but culturally appropriate thoughts about her being scary-mumsy, if that hadn't been enough there had been that time Katie almost kissed her at the New Year's party. But, even before the actual almost kissing her part, there'd been that weird conversation, which Liz only partly remembered, because she'd been a little drunk and rather more than a little high at the time, which... She remembered Katie said she liked her hair? that she'd miss her hair, when she got rid of it with the blood alchemy stuff. Which was weird, her hair was awful, but it hadn't really been about her hair. Not that Liz had put that together until Katie had been leaning in to kiss her, because she could be terribly oblivious sometimes.

(She still didn't quite get what the point of that had been, honestly. But she didn't remember it very well, drugs, maybe she should put it in the pensieve...?)

And she knew Katie had been really disappointed, if nice about it — and maybe a bit worried that she might have just made things weird by trying to kiss her, Liz remembered she'd had to reassure her more than once that it was fine. Things had mostly gone back to normal after that, though Liz did notice Katie watching her sometimes, or having a, um, especially squishy thought, she just kept it to herself was all. And, after the Eighth Task, there was that hug, and Liz had almost kissed her, impulsively, and she was very sure Katie had noticed. But, well, back on New Year's, she'd told Katie that she was fucked up and just wasn't ready for this stuff — had actually told her that she thought dating Daphne had been a mistake in the first place, which she might not have done if she'd been sober — so, you know, she was being nice about it, and not making a whole thing.

She hadn't been expecting anything to happen, with them, or at least not any time soon. It wasn't like Liz had given her a timeline on how long this sort of thing could be expected to take — she was practically a different person now than she'd been as recently as second year, Katie had noticed that too, but she still had obvious difficulty with some things, so. She'd thought it was very possible that Liz wouldn't be comfortable with this stuff until they were older, like out of school, and by that point they might be at very different places in their lives, and might not even be interested in each other anymore. Her hopes had basically been on the floor, was the thing, this was a total surprise to her.

A very pleasant surprise, giddy glee surging through Liz thick and bright and bubbly, it was honestly hard to hold in the vicarious giggles.

But between those feelings, and the sexy feelings, and whatever the hell was going on in Liz's own head, it was too much. Even over her stomach swooping and her skin crawling and her heart throbbing in her lips and her fingertips and tingly sharp heat coiling low in her middle, she could still feel it bubbling up her throat, her chest tight and thick. Her head spinning, nerves practically sizzling, too much.

She should stop before, just, inexplicably breaking down crying. It would happen, inevitably, there was nothing she could do to prevent that — but she should at least explain why first, so she didn't give Katie the wrong idea.

(She had no idea whether Katie would be as understanding about it as Daphne had been, but she guessed they'd cross that bridge when they got to it.)

Liz didn't want to stop. It turned out Katie was good at this, which wasn't really a surprise, and her happiness was intoxicating — she never felt like this on her own, it was fun. (While she was high, anyway — intense normal people feelings could be a bit much when she was sober — but the dose she took before the team meeting hadn't worn off yet, so.) But she didn't want to start crying just now either, that would be...awkward.

She stuck it out for a while, until her throat was burning and she felt the pricking start up in her eyes, before finally calling it. Turning her face away from Katie's (breaking the kiss making another funny noise), bringing her hands down to her shoulders, Liz groaned, "Stop."

Katie hesitated, confusion shimmering through all the other stuff going on in her mind — very obvious, because one hand was still on Liz's thigh and the other on her neck, her nose tickling her cheek. "What...?"

"I don't– I need you to stop touching me for a minute." There was a funny hot sharp clang through Katie's mind, but then she suddenly got a whole lot quieter as she let go, taking a step back. The windowsill wasn't really comfortable to sit on without Katie propping her up, so Liz tipped down to her feet — and then immediately stumbled, catching onto Katie for balance. Her legs were all weak and warm and shivery, standing was hard. She didn't bother, a quick cushioning charm and she sank down the wall (careful not to bang anything against the edge of the windowsill) and plopped down to the floor.

She sat there, feeling all flushed and twitchy (her heart still throbbing in her fingertips and her lips and between her legs — Katie's attention on her, straightened her knees and self-consciously smoothed her skirt down her thighs), and tried to breathe. Fighting through the hot knotted tension in her throat, blinking against the pricking in her eyes. She leaned back against the wall, covered her face with both hands (she could feel the warmth on her face), just, breathing, as slow and deep as she could.

The whole time, she could feel Katie standing there, just, watching. Still keyed-up herself, from the whole moment they'd just had, but... Well, her feelings were rather less transparent to Liz now that they weren't in direct contact anymore. But there was plenty of confusion, and, there had been an edge of hurt there at first, but that was quickly replaced with concern. In fact, Katie was starting to worry if she'd done something wrong, but she wasn't sure if she should say anything just now.

"I'm fine," Liz croaked, her uncooperative throat making her voice come out funny. Taking one hand off her face, she reached out to pat the floor next to her — using the contact to wandlessly press in cushioning and warming charms while she was at it. "Just a little overwhelmed, is all."

Katie wasn't sure what Liz meant by that, but decided to just take the claim that she was okay at face-value. She hesitated for a second, before moving to sit down next to Liz. There was a flicker of surprise when she noticed the spells already on the stone, gave Liz a lingering look — Katie was aware that she could do a bit of wandless magic, but pulling off something like this so smoothly, without Katie even noticing, was still impressive. "Ah. 'Overwhelmed'?"

"Yeah, er." Liz grit her teeth, trying to swallow a surge of preemptive embarrassment — and the worry that Katie might think it was weird, and actually never mind, she wasn't interested in Liz anymore. But that was stupid, she was a bloody Seer, she'd literally Seen them together in the future, it was fine. "Um. Mind mage shite... Or, it's mind magic and the Sight, technically, but. Skin contact makes people's minds very very loud, so, my feelings plus your feelings is a lot. I was about to start crying there, had to stop."

"...Oh." A lurch of surprise, some kind of thoughts swirling away, Liz couldn't quite make them out from here.

"I'm sorry, I know it's a pain, but I can't really help it."

"No, I get that. I was just thinking..." Katie hesitated a second, before admitting, "Well, it's kind of romantic, isn't it?"

Liz dropped her hands from her face, plopping down into her lap, so she could give her a proper scowl. "Maybe to you — you're not the one who has to deal with fucking crying like a baby because you're kissing a girl you like."

Because she was a bloody pain like that, Katie smirked back at her. "No, I'm just the one who gets to kiss a girl I like so good that she literally cries about it."

She scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Don't feel too smug, that happens to me pretty easily. Honestly, half the time touching myself makes me cry, so." She didn't realise what she'd just said until she was tipped off by the pulse of surprised amusement from Katie. "Oops," she groaned, covering her face with both hands again, "didn't meant to say that. I took my drugs, earlier, I'm... Do me a favour and forget you heard that."

"Sorry, too late."

"Ugh..." Liz took another long, slow breath, before dropping her hands again. She didn't look back over at Katie though, just, facing forward across the hall — she'd just put the thought of her masturbating (and crying) into Katie's head, okay, she was feeling a little self-conscious right now. "Anyway, I'll be okay now. Sorry."

"It's all right." A little tentatively, Katie reached over, slipped her fingers through Liz's. "Okay?"

"Mhm." Having their hands in her lap was a little awkward, though, so she moved them over to the side, resting on the floor in the narrow gap between their thighs. "Not in danger of it anymore. If I were I would have stopped you."

"Right. And, ah, what should I do the next time this happens?"

Turning to give Katie a smirk (trying to power through the awkwardness), she drawled, "So sure there's going to be a next time, eh?"

Katie smiled back at her, warmth bubbling to Liz through the bridge of their hands. "I have a good feeling about it, yeah."

"Sure. But there's not really anything in particular. I mean, I can't help it, it's going to happen no matter what. Just, er..." Liz made a little circular gesture with her free hand, not really sure how to put it. "...ride it out, I guess, and once it's over go back to...whatever we were doing before."

"Right, I can do that." Katie was somewhat sceptical — right after she'd just been crying, she wasn't generally in a snogging mood herself. But she also didn't think Liz would lie to her about it, so. She was also distracted by the thought that, well, Liz had said it was both people's feelings that she picked up, but that word was somewhat ambiguous. Maybe that was just supposed to mean emotional feelings, but she couldn't help wondering if Liz had meant physical feelings as well. Because, if just snogging was a bit much for Liz, actually having sex while feeling what both people were feeling sounded overwhelming.

...Katie's guess wasn't wrong, but that seemed like a little much to talk about just now. She'd already accidentally mentioned masturbation, let's just leave it at that. "I just– I stopped it this time because, you know, I didn't want to spring it on you. It is bloody weird, so, I didn't want you to think...something was wrong, or whatever."

"I did for a second there, but if you just started crying out of nowhere, yeah, I would have gotten the wrong idea." Especially with what Liz had suggested back on New Year's about not being ready for this stuff, but Katie didn't say that part out loud. "Thanks for thinking of it."

"Sure. So, um...I hope me crying at the drop of a bloody hat isn't a deal-breaker?"

Katie smirked at her again, a thrill passing through Liz, her skin tingling and her stomach fluttering. Belatedly, she noticed smudges of her lipstick here and there around Katie's lips, oops... "Was that supposed to be your very Liz Potter way of asking me out?"

"Yep. Don't look so surprised, this is me — I can hardly get through a day without putting my foot in my mouth at some point. You're the romantic here, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing."

"I'm not surprised, it's just very funny." That registered as a lie to Liz — if softly, since Katie didn't really expect her to believe it — because she actually thought it was cute. "And no, it's not a deal-breaker. Actually, I'm a little curious — I can't remember ever seeing you cry before? Not even close to it, even, I don't think. Frustrated to the point that you get a little red in the face, sure, but, I've seen you get broken bones and shot through with bloody piercing curses, and I don't think I've hardly seen you tear up at all."

"I don't think I've cried just from being hurt before?" Well, that wasn't entirely true, she could think of at least one time that she definitely had cried from pain — Katie wouldn't know about that, though, since she obviously hadn't been there when Severus had cut open her back. "Or even negative feelings that much, honestly. It's the good feelings that do it to me, for whatever fucking reason. I don't know why my brain has it fucking backwards, it's very annoying."

Katie just shrugged — she didn't think it was that weird. Happy-crying was perfectly ordinary. Maybe it was a little odd that Liz was so susceptible to it, and didn't cry so easily for other reasons, but it wasn't that big of a deal. It might be rather awkward the first few times, but as long as she reminded herself that she hadn't fucked up, Liz was just like this, she thought it would be fine. And it was sort of sweet, so, whatever.

...Well, at least one of them wasn't too bothered about it.

"Yes, by the way. In case you were wondering."

Yes about wha— "Oh! You mean, er, right, good, that's um...good."

Squeezing Liz's hand a little, Katie took a second trying not to laugh at her, even biting her lip. "You're very silly in private, you know that. A lot of people think you're all flat and cold and serious, but get you alone and, well."

"I blame the drugs."

"It's not entirely the drugs."

...Well, no. Liz didn't know what else to say to that, so she just shrugged.

"I am... Come to think of it, I guess I don't have to tell you I'm happy — you can probably tell, can't you?" punctuating the not-question with another squeeze of Liz's hand.

She nodded. "Yep." She almost said that it felt nice (all warm and smooth and bubbly and fuzzy, inside), but managed to bite her tongue. It felt like a rather creepy thing to say, so.

"Right. Honestly, I've considered making a move before, going back a while now, but I didn't want to...you know, make you uncomfortable. Especially after that time in Kaunas."

"Autumn, third year."

"What?" Katie asked, frowning at her a little.

"I'm pretty sure I've liked you since our first quidditch game, after you switched to seeker? I didn't realise at the time — I didn't even know that I liked girls yet, I don't think — but, you know, in retrospect."

"...Oh." Katie was rather surprised, and...flattered? Liz wasn't quite sure that was the right word. Just, she'd had no idea Liz had liked her all the way back then, it was kind of a nice feeling. "You beat me to it, then. I didn't really start thinking about until last autumn — before I found out about you and Greengrass, I mean."

That wasn't a surprise, honestly. Liz was a year younger than her, having any real, er, intentions toward her before right around then probably would have been a little creepy. "What, so, all those times you checked out my arse that spring and summer were just for fun, then?"

There was a little bit of a guilty flinch — she hadn't realised that early on that Liz could feel it when she did that — but then her shoulders tilted in a lazy shrug, giving Liz a crooked smile. "What can I say? You have a nice arse."

"Mhm," she hummed, rolling her eyes. "There, um, there was one thing we need to talk about first."

There was a brief flicker of curiosity, but it was quickly overpowered by creeping wariness. "Is it about your fifteenth birthday coming up?"

"What would that— Oh! No, I'm not doing the...silly noble courtship thing."

"Good," Katie said, relaxing against the wall a bit and giving her hand a little squeeze.

"I thought you've dated people who were doing it before." She had just been...well, shagging Lettie Prewett, anyway, and Liz was positive Lettie was already engaged and everything.

"Well, I have, but..." She trailed off, an ambiguous, confused mix of feelings fluttering through into Liz. "It's hard. You know, complicated. It wouldn't be a deal-breaker," with a little teasing lilt on the word, "but it isn't fun to deal with, all the stuff that comes with it, you know. This way is much better."

...She was pretty sure Katie was talking about emotional complications, which, no, she didn't know, really. From thinking about things and talking with Daphne, and observing some of the other dating stuff going on around her — her year-mates had been hitting fifteen this year, so courtship shite had been starting to ramp up too — she thought this was one thing that didn't really quite click for her. The jealousy stuff, she meant. She didn't see why someone she was with having things with other people should bother her? But, she got that some of it, at least, was an insecurity thing, uncertainty whether the person would ditch them for someone else — that wasn't a problem for her, what with being a cheating mind-reader and all. At least, when it wasn't a...weird possessive thing, which was honestly seemed slightly creepy, but whatever. "If you wouldn't be happy about that, I'm not sure how much you're going to like this either."

"Why? What is it?"

Probably better to just rip off the bandage and be done with it. Except, well, Liz hadn't talked to anyone about this before — she'd hardly even talked with Hermione about it before — so, it took a moment for her to figure out what the hell to say, work up the nerve to spit it out. "I've been, er...having sex with Hermione?" It came out sounding more like a question.

There was a flare of surprise from Katie, a physical twitch Liz could feel through her hand. Katie straightened from the wall a bit, turning to look at her — her eyes widened a bit, eyebrows curling up her forehead. "Wait, really? You mean Hermione Granger, Gryffindor in your year, big curly hair? always has her nose in a book?"

"Do you know any other Hermiones?"

"Well, no, but..." Katie was just kind of shocked, was all. Hermione was an enormous bloody swot, and wasn't exactly the most socially graceful person in the world — she'd stepped in multiple times over the years to stop people from bullying her, mostly just when it was older kids (though it was obvious that Hermione didn't get on great with her dormmates either). She wasn't as bad as she used to be in, like, first or second year, but... Well, Katie didn't have direct reasons for thinking this, exactly, but she'd always gotten the impression Hermione was...kind of a prude? She didn't know her well, but screwing around with her friends still seemed wildly out of character.

Liz just shrugged all that off — it hadn't been said aloud, and Katie wasn't necessarily wrong, so. "She's been my best friend for a while, since Dorea got stupid about me being gay. She was helping me with something, earlier in the spring, and it, er...kind of just happened? I don't know, shite is weird and confusing."

...Katie was tempted to make a joke about Hermione helping her with something, I bet, but she was too dumbfounded, couldn't find her voice, and by the time she did it kind of felt like the moment had passed.

"I wasn't planning on stopping but, um, I can, if it's going to bother you."

The surprise starting to trickle away enough for her to think about practically anything else, Katie wasn't really sure whether it was going to bother her not. After a few seconds, she asked, "Are you two, er, involved?"

If Katie weren't still holding her hand, so Liz could see pretty directly what she was thinking, she probably wouldn't have gotten what she meant by that. "No, we're just friends. We, um, actually had a talk about that, recently. Like I said, it just kind of happened, and we were both a little...confused." She hesitated, not really sure she should be saying this — she didn't think it could mess anything up? And even if talking about it with the wrong person could, to be blunt, Katie simply wasn't important enough to fuck with it. Yeah, it should be fine. "I've been thinking about adopting her, actually. You know, into the House, her and her baby sister too, I guess."

"Oohhh..." Some of the shocked tension in her mind started to ease, a flutter of some warm feeling Liz didn't quite now how to read. "So she'd be like your sister or cousin or something."

"Sure, I guess."

"Well, that's fine, then," Katie said...almost feeling a little exasperated? She turned to relax back against the wall, squeezed Liz's hand again, a little bubble of amusement. "Really threw me for a loop there, for a second."

She was suddenly very confused. "Hold on, so... Me screwing Hermione isn't a problem...if it's incest?"

Katie snorted out a little laugh — and then there was a lurch in her mind, her head tilting, frowning at her. "Sorry, Liz, sometimes I forget you're muggle-raised...or at least I get the impression it's different with muggles, I haven't really asked. But around here young people fooling around with their relatives is perfectly normal."

...Somehow that didn't seem quite right. "Really."

"Yes, Liz, really. Normal part of growing up. If you keep doing it as an adult, people might think it's a little odd, but." She shrugged. "You can't marry someone in your House, fooling around is fine."

"Um. Okay." She hesitated for a moment, not sure if the immediate question that came to mind was, she didn't know, rude or something. If Katie took it the wrong way she could just apologise, she guessed. "Is that everyone, or just, you know, communes like yours?"

Katie opened her mouth to answer, but then froze at a sudden cool jolt in her mind. "...I'm not sure, honestly. It's not something people really talk about. You're the mind mage, though, you tell me — haven't you ever noticed?"

Well, sure, she'd noticed people having sexy thoughts about relatives before, but... "It's hard to tell the difference between a memory of something that actually happened and, well, imagination. I guess I assumed people are just perverts?"

"Probably a safe guess," Katie said, her voice wavering with a chuckle, bubbly amusement echoing through Liz making her own lips twitch into smile. "I guess it doesn't matter whether it's an everyone thing, it's normal where I grew up."

"What, you saying you've done it?"

She shrugged. "Sure. I've fooled around with a few of my cousins, for years now, shagged my brother a couple times over break."

...Liz wasn't sure whether she meant winter break, before the Yule Ball and the tournament, or Easter break, which some people did go home for, but it's not like it made a difference. "Really."

"Like I said, Liz, it's normal."

That seemed a little...odd to her — she wasn't sure if Katie was actually correct about this being a normal thing in magical Britain, or if this was just weird hippie commune shite. Honestly, Liz could go either way on this one. But, well, it wasn't really her business, and if Katie being weird about incest meant she wasn't going to have a problem with Liz's...stuff with Hermione, then she wasn't complaining. "Right, okay. So, you're fine with me and Hermione, then."

"Doesn't bother me, yeah." In fact, now that they'd cleared up that this was actually incest and therefore fine — still weird, by the way — Katie had moved on to thinking about it. Because, well, everyone were all perverts, when it came down to it. Not that she was having explicitly sexy thoughts, so much — it seemed like it might be a little uncomfortable, given the size difference.

Liz couldn't help feeling a little annoyed. "Hermione isn't that fat, honestly..."

With a little mental start, Katie had forgotten she might be watching, she said, "Oh no, I didn't mean it like that. Just, you're tiny, is all."

"Oh, shut up," she grumbled. "It works out just fine, you perv. The height difference is annoying sometimes, but that's going to be an issue with practically anyone."

"Yeah, that makes sense." Of course, talking about the height difference being an issue that directly immediately had Katie thinking about the logistics, which came with some somewhat graphic mental images — she'd had boyfriends who were rather taller than her before, by close to the same proportion Liz was shorter than her, and she didn't think it was that big of a problem? — and then she was having explicit sexual thoughts. Not just about Liz, but also Hermione, surprisingly...or maybe not so surprisingly, considering what they'd just been talking about. Katie had had a threesome before, with a boy and another girl, but not two other girls...

Liz rolled her eyes. "I really don't think Hermione would be up for that. Besides, I'm pretty sure she's straight."

It didn't slip by Katie that she'd said she didn't think Hermione would be up for that, but she decided not to draw attention to that. "That wasn't a serious thought, Liz — people are perverts, remember?"

"Oh no, I know, I was just saying."

"Mm. And if she's shagging you, I'm pretty sure she's not straight. Assuming she's having a good time with it, anyway, and you would be able to tell."

She just shrugged, not sure what to say to that. Sex felt good — she didn't think you necessarily had to be attracted to the other person for that to be true. "Whatever. It doesn't bother me either, by the way. I mean, if you're going to be shagging other people."

Feeling a little amused, but also with a warm...something Liz didn't know how to read, Katie said, "I wasn't planning on it. I'll mess around between relationships, but when I'm with someone I'm with them. You know?"

"Sure, I get it. But you don't have a problem with me and Hermione." Just, what, triple-checking at this point...

"No, I don't." Katie turned a little, her leg bumping Liz's. Her free hand came up to Liz's face, gently turning her the rest of the way to face Katie — she'd sat up away from the wall, twisted around, leaning close over her. Her lips curled in a little smile, dark eyes dancing, her thumb lightly brushing Liz's cheek, slowly back and forth, she dipped in closer, an inch away, her face and hair filling Liz's vision. Feelings pulsing through Liz warm and soft and sweet — fragrant, her weird magical senses translating it into cream and rosemary — Katie muttered, her breath brushing over her skin, "It's romantic competition that would bother me."

Oh. Okay. "I'm bad at that. You know, squishy feelings stuff. Fair warning."

"Bad at it? or don't like it?"

"...Bad at it. I think." When Daphne had been, you know, being romantic, she'd mostly felt confused, or overwhelmed, but not really in a bad way? And, well, she'd known from cheating mind-reading that Katie was the romantic type, and she'd still thought this was a good idea, so. "I never know what the fuck I'm doing, is all."

Smirking at her, Katie drawled, "I can work with that."

And then she kept, just...staring at her, and touching her face. Fingers slowly circling over her cheek, thumb following her jaw, running down her neck or up to tuck a bit of escaped hair behind her ear — they must have messed it up, earlier, she'd have to fix it before going down for the thing...and her lipstick too, probably — her thumb lightly tracing over Liz's lips making her shiver a little, her skin tingling, that tickled. Katie's attention on her was heavy, and sharp, but not unpleasant, warm and tingly, matching the feelings coming off of her, soft and fluttery, cream and rosemary...

It was kind of intense, honestly. Not bad, just, a lot.

After a couple minutes of Katie, just, staring, and touching her face — for some reason, Liz didn't know why she kept doing that — she couldn't take it anymore. "Well? Are you going to kiss me or not?"

Katie laughed, her amusement bright and clingy and comfortable.

---

Pff, silly girls. Don't think that scene quite landed the way I wanted, but maybe I'm being overly-self-critical again, who knows.

Turned out I wasn't able to smoosh the last two scenes together — I shouldn't have been surprised I went too long again, wordy bitch. One more chapter left in fourth year.