Liz woke up slowly, warm and soft and comfortable — a little dull soreness, but nothing that bad. Still half-under, that vague near-wakefulness where the world feels numb and far away, floating.
It took a long moment for a hand gently shaking her shoulder to pierce through the warm sleepy fog. The mind close against hers resolving into clarity, the complex ticking like the regular turning of clockwork, Hermione was waking her up.
Belatedly, Liz realised she was snuggled up against Hermione's side, head resting on her shoulder. Wasn't the first time that'd happened, of course — the rare times she'd shared a bed with someone, she almost always woke up like this. No idea why, honestly. Hermione's own theory that she got cold in her sleep and unconsciously sought out the nearest source of warmth was reasonable, she didn't have a better one.
...That shouldn't have happened this time, though. The blanket pockets they came up with to keep their minds separated stopped that from happening, and, Hermione was here for her desensitisation stuff. (Liz did feel skin against hers, and as she woke up more she became aware she was naked right now, so.) What the hell had happened to their blankets? No wonder she'd gotten cold in her sleep, if the blankets were gone.
Realisation spanging through her, Liz tensed, her breath catching in her throat. She'd just woken up enough to remember what happened last night. Her stomach lurching and nerves suddenly sizzling, what the fuck what the fuck what the—
"Liz?" Hermione had noticed her tense up, took it as a sign that she was awake.
It... It didn't feel like Hermione was freaking out. Liz was still a little too unfocussed to read her mind very well, but... "Yeah?"
"I'm sorry, I know you were asleep, but I need the toilet. And, we should have a shower before class."
Hermione didn't say it out loud, but she suspected they both smelled of sex.
Still numb and weak with sleep, Liz clumsily levered herself over, sat up. Hermione's attention brushed over her skin, vague and indistinct in the subtle reddish light — but Liz still felt the blooming warmth of a blush, her stomach nervously twisting, tense and... "Um. Yeah, I..." She rubbed at her face. "Can you go up to Gryffindor for that? I just have History this morning, I think I'm going to skip it, try to catch more sleep." She remembered, she didn't sleep very well last night, kept up by her head spinning in confused circles...
There was a flutter in Hermione's head, the gears of her thoughts briefly stuttering, eyeing Liz in the dark. (She tried not to cringe against her attention focussing, kept breathing.) After a second, she said, "Yeah, all right. I'll need you to get me out of Slytherin."
"I can, um, there's a passage that goes pretty close to Gryffindor. Come on..."
Liz spoke the key to turn the lights up a bit — not to full illumination, that would be too much for her dark-adjusted eyes — Hermione's attention suddenly far more focussed, eyes like a physical touch on her back, she grit her teeth. It lifted away quickly, though, Hermione moving to get out of bed. So Liz did the same, her knees a little shaky, steps unsteady and awkward.
She didn't know what was happening.
She was so confused.
But she tried to, just, fight past it, act normal. Hermione pulled on a school robe, not bothering to put on anything under it — she would be going straight into the shower, after all, and it's not like anyone would notice. Strapping her wand holster to her arm, Liz watched her, frowning to herself a little. (Trying and completely failing to not have pervy thoughts, Hermione moaning against her lips, her hand—) Fuck it, why not. Liz walked over to the dress hanging on the wall, pulled it on, quick knotting the ties closed to hold it in place. A quick aversion charm to keep anyone from noticing her chest was lopsided, and that would be fine just to walk Hermione out and come back.
She felt Hermione's attention on her, curious — trying not to cringe, Liz just shrugged back. She'd be having a shower too, and it's not like she planned on anybody seeing her. The charm on her chest probably wasn't even necessary, but she could be paranoid about that.
Before long Hermione had gathered all her things — she'd packed up for classes today last night anyway — Liz covered them both with an aversion charm. She hesitated for a moment, nerves crackling over her skin, before reaching for Hermione's hand, and they walked out. The Slytherin dorms were quiet, dark — the lights were low, meaning it was still before seven...though probably not by that much, she didn't think? It was hard to say, she hadn't checked the time. They briefly stopped by the toilets before moving on, there was a secret passage over this way that emptied out upstairs, on the fifth floor near Gryffindor, would be a short walk for Hermione from there.
The whole walk passed in tense, nervous silence, Liz's skin crackling and her stomach twisting with anxiety. Or, at least, it did for her — holding her hand so Hermione could see through her aversion charm, there was no sign at all that she was anywhere near as uncomfortable as Liz was. A little uneasy, maybe, something turning over in her head, Liz too wary to look too closely, didn't know what she'd find. But whatever she was thinking, she didn't say a word either, clockwork mind steadily churning away...
Liz had no idea what was happening, she didn't know what to say.
(She couldn't help feeling like she'd fucked up, badly, the thought making her feel sick...)
Neither of them spoke a word, out of Slytherin and through the secret passage, spiralling up a tight set of stairs. Liz cracked the exit open, showing a sliver of the dark hallway beyond. She cleared her throat. "The Staircase is that way," she muttered, pointing to the right. "We're on the fifth floor, just under Gryffindor. Your aversion charm should last that long, but you'll need to take it off to give the password."
"Right. Thanks." Hermione started forward, Liz loosening her grip — but Hermione didn't let go of her hand, stopping only a couple steps away. Her mind turning, sharp and bright...working up to saying something.
Her stomach churning and her chest tight, Liz grit her teeth, her pulse painfully throbbing in her head, waiting—
"Are you coming to breakfast or lunch today?"
...That wasn't what Hermione was going to say, she'd chickened out. Fair enough, Liz didn't know what to say either. "Um." She cleared her throat. "Maybe. Depends how I'm feeling by then, I guess. I will be at Divination."
"All right. See you then."
"...Yeah. See you."
Hermione shot her a cautious sort of smile, before letting go of her hand and walking off. Liz watched her go for a moment, her fingers tapping at the latch on the hidden door.
She was so confused.
Liz retraced her steps, most of the walk passing in a daze — memories flickering in her head, wandering and unfocussed (sleepy), turning back to what Hermione had not said, wondering what she was thinking, if Liz had fucked it up, if she was going to—
The thought made her feel sick, so she forced herself to stop.
Back in her room, Liz stared at her bed for a moment, blank, the back of her neck tingling. Then she startled into motion, pulling off the sheets and stripping the pillows, piling the Seer-safe linens at a corner of her bed — signalling to the elves that they should be cleaned, someone would notice and pick them up probably as soon as Liz wasn't in the room anymore. She hit the pile with a strong scent-neutralising charm, just because. It wasn't like she thought the elves gave a damn, they almost certainly didn't, but the thought of one of them noticing was, just, vaguely embarrassing...even though she'd probably never meet whichever elf was going to handle it. It was just the principle of the matter, she guessed? She didn't know, Liz was bloody irrational about this stuff sometimes...
She gathered up some underclothes, pants and a couple vests to hide her lopsidedness, and her bath bag, before stepping out again. The lights out here were suddenly brighter than they'd been just a minute ago — it must be seven o'clock. One of the shower rooms was occupied (Pansy, her things on the counter), but that still left one available. Liz undid her hair with a few careful charms — remembering the pleasant vaguely ticklish feeling of Hermione's fingers working through it last night, and then remembering Hermione's fingers between her legs, letting out a hiss through her teeth and squeezing her eyes shut — once it was free instead binding her hair on top of her head with a couple charms, cast a barrier over it to keep the water out. She had just washed it last night, and her oil stuff was still in there, didn't want to ruin it.
For a long moment, Liz stood with her head leaning against the wall, hands folded behind her neck, taking slow, deep breaths, the hot, stinging water pelting her back and running down her body. Her head a tangled mess, bouncing from thought to memory to thought to...
What the fuck was even happening, she didn't understand...
Finishing her shower and dressing, slow and distracted, Liz eventually returned to her room. She hadn't been gone for very long, but someone had already come by to replace the bedding — the second sheet and blanket were folded in a stripe along the bottom of the bed, Liz got the feeling the elves didn't quite know what she wanted the second set for. (They didn't question it, though, because elves were accommodating like that.) Her bath bag flopping down to the floor, Liz aimlessly stepped deeper into the room, not really with any particular destination in mind, in the end just plopped down to sit on the corner of the bed.
She was so confused. Did they...
Did she and Hermione have sex last night?
Liz limply flopped over onto her back, staring blankly up at the ceiling — not really seeing it, memories swirling in her head.
...
She thought so.
Part of it was, she...wasn't really sure what the line was? Like, what counted as having sex, and what didn't. She thought the way people normally talked about it kind of assumed straight people, where there was an obvious line. It was kind of fuzzier when both people were girls, she thought. Maybe. When they'd been masturbating in the same bed lately, she didn't think that counted? Definitely sex-adjacent, maybe, which was why she'd been pretty seriously confused about what was going on with them in the first place, but no, she didn't think so. When they'd started—
Oh god, she'd kissed Hermione.
Liz forced out a thick breath, pressing in on her forehead with the heels of her palms, her eyes squeezed shut. She didn't know what she'd been thinking, just, Hermione had been thinking about it, hadn't been able to find the words to ask, and— Fuck, why had she done that...
Well, because she'd been in the middle of getting off and hadn't been capable of thinking straight at the time — that wasn't a complicated question, when it came down to it.
She had the feeling Hermione hadn't really known what she was doing. Not that Liz had cared at the time, but. Which did make sense, Liz had way more experience kissing than Hermione did — she knew Hermione had kissed some random boy during the party at the Greenwood over a year ago now, and also Neville a few times, but, added up all together that was fewer times than Liz had with just Daphne. And she was pretty sure, having watched Hermione's thoughts on the matter, that she'd never properly snogged someone before. That would have been the first time, for her.
...Liz didn't know how she felt about that.
But anyway, once they'd started kissing, she guessed she'd call that a grey area? They'd still been getting themselves off, mostly, she didn't really know...
Though, they hadn't entirely kept their hands to themselves. So, grey area.
And Hermione had, er...finished her off. So. There was that.
Remembering the feeling of Hermione's fingers on her clit, a wave of cool prickles sweeping over her shoulders, a tingly little echo between her legs, Liz let out a frustrated little puff of breath, pressing her knees together and squeezing her eye shut...
That hadn't really happened, had it? It was...kind of hard to believe.
But then, it was also hard to believe that she'd, just, imagine it, or something.
...
Liz pushed herself up to her feet (teetering the first couple of steps, clumsy), retrieved her pensieve from her desk. Setting it down in the middle of the floor, it only took a moment to copy the memory — she was quite proficient at it by this point, having gotten a lot of practice — the silvery coil of flittery mind-stuff slurped up into the basin. The charm had worked, but that didn't necessarily mean anything — she could just be remembering it wrong. She laid down on the carpet, dipped her fingers into the cool, tingly liquid, and Liz was yanked, to the side and down, through a whirl of blue-silver light and shadow...
The memory started with Liz getting into bed. It was hard to see, very dark in here, but Liz could read the pair of illusory minds in the recreation easily enough. There was a brief moment of crackling tension, before—
Liz let out a huff of surprised laughter — Hermione was intentionally teasing her. She vaguely remembered thinking last night that she might have been, but it was super obvious from this perspective, without her own, er, preoccupation getting in the way. Not sure what was up with that, it was such a weird thing to do.
...Hermione did seem rather amused with Liz being...distractible, sometimes. And she did find it gratifying, for the lack of a better word, that Liz thought she was attractive, she'd already known about that. It was hard to say, exactly — past-Hermione wasn't explicitly spelling it out in her own head or anything — but it seemed like Hermione found it...amusing? to mess with her like this. Not sure if that was the right word, but, it was something, anyway...
(She didn't know how to feel about that either, it was very weird.)
Not too much longer after that, they were both going at it, which was...odd, to watch. Well, watch, she couldn't see much at all, but just because it wasn't really happening didn't mean she wasn't picking up what they were feeling — especially since Liz's mind was very very loud. Also, she could hear still, and that was...kind of distracting.
She skipped ahead a bit — she had absolutely no sense of how long this had lasted, exactly, but she didn't need to stand here and watch all of it. A couple more short hops (didn't want to miss anything relevant), she noticed the thought start percolating in Hermione's clicky clacky mind. Past-Liz was kind of distracted, not paying attention, but from this perspective Liz could tell it wasn't actually a new thought. Hermione had contemplated it, before, now and then since they...she'd started spending the night. More out of curiosity than anything, wondering what it was like, if it would feel different from the handful of times she'd kissed Neville. She'd kept the thought to herself, though, not sure how Liz would take it...
She wasn't explicitly spelling it out, but the feeling Liz got was that Hermione didn't have much better of an idea of what was going on here than she did. What they'd been doing before was one thing, but, to Hermione, kissing would be...crossing some kind of line. Not clear what that line was, just, a feeling Hermione had, vague, worried and...
Well. Liz would say that it was a relief that Hermione was just as confused as she was, but it wasn't, really. In a way, that honestly almost made it more frustrating — apparently, just asking Hermione wouldn't do much good.
The Hermione in the memory wavered back and forth for a while on whether she should try it. She almost certainly wouldn't have if she weren't, you know, excited, definitely not thinking straight.
(Heh, not thinking straight...)
Liz skipped ahead some more, looking for the moment she really needed to know about. She started noticing her magic expanding out, filling the room, warm and thick and fluttery, tingling like smoke and crackling like a summer thunderstorm. Not unusual, that was a thing she already knew happened. Daphne had noticed it first, slipped a bit when she got really into snogging, but it was much more noticeable in sexy moments — in memories of Liz getting off (which she'd checked just out of curiosity for what her mind and magic did) it got so thick on the air she could practically taste it. Hermione could feel it too — it felt vaguely cool and silky to her, smelling of a floral spiciness she couldn't identify (Liz didn't normally smell magic, Hermione's sense of magic was different from hers) — which was vaguely intimidating, just from how big and intense it was, but not really unpleasant, and she was distracted with other things anyhow...
She grit her teeth through Hermione's orgasm, ducking her head against the feelings pelted at her, trying to shrug them off. That was always a hell of a thing to pick up on.
And way more intense when she was actually touching the person at the time. By the end memory-Liz was wound up so tight that she could hardly move, practically shivering with desperation, lust and frustration spanging hot and cold and sharp and slithery around her head. Liz remembered this, she'd had moments like this before — though this had been the worst one, by far. She didn't know why this happened. The same process that made her movements kind of stiff and jerking toward the end, her muscles not quite cooperating, just, more this time. It was very weird, but she guessed bodies were dumb sometimes, whatever.
Hermione noticed she was having trouble, eventually. Her mind still a hot squishy unfocussed mess, she didn't really know why...though she did kind of guess it had something to do with Liz picking things up. And so she decided to, er, help.
Or, "decided" was maybe too strong of a word — Hermione hadn't really thought about it at all, too dazed and floaty from good-feeling brain stuff. She'd just...
...done it.
Liz hadn't just imagined it. The pensieve was a scrying tool, it didn't just reproduce her memory, it only showed what actually happened. It wouldn't show it to her if it hadn't.
It'd really happened.
She didn't...
Oh god, she was such a fucking mess — crying and snuffling, squirming against Hermione, moaning and squeaking and groaning, occasionally coughing as the competing sobs and sex noises fucked up her breathing...
She was honestly embarrassed in retrospect. Just, ugh, why was she like this...
Dismissing the memory (before it finished), Liz was pushed back up through cool magic and swirling light and shadow, dropped back in her body with a hard thump. She lay there on her back, staring blankly up at the ceiling, fingers idly tapping at her stomach.
(Feeling a bit flushed and twitchy from all the sexy feelings she'd just been hit with, but she was trying not to get distracted by that.)
She hadn't just imagined it. Hermione really had...
So, did that count? Had she and Hermione had sex last night?
...
Maybe? Not sure, but, she thought that maybe counted.
What did that mean? Did it mean anything? She didn't know what...
She was so confused.
Liz didn't get much of anything done for the rest of the morning. Not long after she'd replaced her pensieve, sitting dazedly at her desk, a house-elf appeared in her room to ask her if she was going up to breakfast today — a bit apologetically, maybe worried he'd interrupted her. No, she didn't feel up to going to the Great Hall just now...and honestly she didn't feel hungry at all (her stomach kind of tight and twisty), she'd rather just not have breakfast today. The elf, surprisingly, didn't obediently accept that and move on. Instead he pouted up at her, and 'reminded' her that she was under medical orders to eat regularly.
That wasn't actually true, of course — she was arguably supposed to keep taking her nutrient potion, but the meal schedule Nilanse had worked up with the kitchen elves wasn't actually a medical thing. Well, sort of, she guessed some magical countries considered the Sight to be a disability, but whatever. She wouldn't be surprised if some of the elves were under the misconception that it was, since she did have various health issues going on. And also she was a skinny bitch — it was better than it was before, yes, but Liz was aware her weight still wasn't exactly ideal. Hell, it was one of the first things a healer had brought up when she was down in France for the blood alchemy stuff...
So it wasn't worth arguing about, Liz just rolled her eyes. She wasn't feeling well this morning, though, so something lighter than normal would be good, and she'd try to eat more at lunch. Like, her usual breakfast tended to be kind of greasy, from the sausages and stuff, she didn't think her stomach would tolerate that at the moment. Liz wasn't sure if the special, Seer-friendly ingredients they had for her would tolerate doing something different, but the elf said they'd figure it out, vanished again with a little pop.
Liz was fruitlessly poking at her Competency Arithmancy notes when her breakfast appeared. Oh, that would do — they'd brought her a little platter of a kind of oat biscuits (what Gaelic mages called scones, she knew from Muirgheal), with a little thing of butter and a somewhat larger thing of soft white cheese...and also a little bowl of berries, because the elves kept trying to get her to actually eat fruits and vegetables. And there was coffee too, of course. She wasn't really hungry, but she should be able to get this down, at least.
She said thank you to the empty room — might seem like a silly thing to do, but she assumed an elf was watching, in case something was wrong with her breakfast, so.
The first couple bites of cheese-slathered biscuit were difficult to get down, her throat tight and her stomach twisted up, but once she'd gotten a little bit down it gradually grew easier. She did manage to eat all the biscuits, and even the fruit — gooseberries and sour cherries, mostly, the elves aware she didn't really like sweet things. She might have actually been able to manage her normal breakfast, if she was patient about it, but oh well. At least she'd actually be able to eat at lunch.
She didn't manage to accomplish anything else. Trying to work on Arithmancy was fucking pointless — she wasn't great with this subject in the first place, but as distracted as she was at the moment, the figures and equations kept swirling unfocussed in her head, impossible. Really not taking in anything at all, she quit pretty quickly. Next she tried to do some History reading — not even Competency stuff, since she was skipping History class right now, so — but that didn't go much better.
In the end, she spent most of the morning laying on her stomach on her bed, flipping through a couple catalogues. Since she'd done more poking around with enchanting and scrying and potions on her own time, she'd been nursing an interest in craft magic — textiles and ceramics/glasswork especially — but there were some serious issues with getting into it. For one thing, in Britain craft trades were often closed to outsiders: the details of how the magic actually worked could be considered a trade secret, shared around within the guild or passed down master to apprentice. If someone did try to publish a book that taught you how to do it, it was very possible that they'd get sued into oblivion. You could find books that explained the craft itself, without the magic part, but if you wanted to learn how to do it the magical way you practically needed to do an apprenticeship — obviously, Liz wasn't interested in doing that.
She'd talked to Tamsyn about it, which led to a long conversation about why she wanted to look into these things. The ceramics and glasswork was pretty simple — she just thought it seemed vaguely neat, especially the alchemy that went into it sometimes. Which, the alchemy involved was still somewhat above her head — the basics that went into it was the sort of thing the Continental system got to at Proficiency level — but while she couldn't learn that without going into the trade, there was no reason she couldn't play around with it on her own and come up with her own stuff. (Alchemy was an academic field, after all, the results were reproducible if you understood the process well enough.) The basics of the craft, there would be books on that part. Tamsyn had even suggested that she might look into pottery and/or glass-making classes somewhere in the muggle world — some places had things you could, just, sign up for and go to, like at libraries or universities or whatever. Might be worth thinking about, though not until after leaving school, when she'd be able to make it to things like that...or maybe just when she was allowed to apparate on her own, she guessed.
The textiles one was also simple: it'd be very convenient to be able to make her own clothes. Part of it was that a lot of the enchantments that went into standard stuff was, like, defending against mind magic, or curse detection, that kind of thing — Liz's own resistance to and defences against anything targeting the mind were better than any protection normal clothing would have, and she could feel magic on objects for herself just fine. (Poison detection was useful, though, she was still wearing the ring Severus gave her years ago now for that.) Also, her taste in clothing could be kind of weird, and if she was making it herself she could do whatever she wanted without having to try to explain it to someone. And there was the Seer stuff, of course — normal producers didn't make things with Seer-friendly fabrics. The people she'd found recently who did had a pretty limited selection, and were relatively conservative and plain in style, which wasn't ideal.
Tamsyn pointed out that she could just bring her own Seer-friendly fabric to a tailor and have them use and enchant that — that possibility hadn't occurred to her, honestly, that would solve part of it. Making her own stuff had the same issue with ceramics/glasswork in that you needed to be in the trade to learn how the magic worked, but enchanting was also reproducible, there was no reason she couldn't just make it up herself. It was just enchanting, stitching runes in with thread. (And sometimes also alchemy, imbuing the thread itself with whatever properties.) She'd even done a few basic things herself, with schemes in the box Lily had left for her — the most useful one expanded pockets by a lot, she'd put that in multiple articles of clothing and her bags and things. Stitching runes into cloth was slow compared to just carving them into something with an annihilation blade (a name that never stopped being cool), but it was the same principle.
But yeah, while she could get around Seer issues buying stuff — partly, anyway, sometimes they might not take substitutions like that — there were other good reasons to get into it. Tamsyn said she could also find classes for the basics in that — and not just in the muggle world, a lot of poor people in magical Britain made their own clothes, she could probably find, like, group practice sessions and stuff she could join. Since she was a bloody noble lady and all, she might need to pretend to be someone innocuous to be welcome, but that should be trivial to do. (Mind mages were cheaters.) Getting competent enough with all the skills involved might take a long time — even just stitching in runes had taken multiple practice attempts with old clothes she didn't need anymore (and the end results might be functional, but they still didn't look good) — but that was fine, Liz didn't really mind. She'd be spending a lot less time studying after Competencies, so she could use a hobby.
So, since she had a general outline of a plan, she might as well start looking into playing around with some of the basics — and she was filthy rich, so it wasn't really a big deal if she spent money on something that ended up not being very useful. One catalogue she had was put out cooperatively by a couple booksellers — one of them happened to be Goldwing Press, which she actually partly owned — that had a decent-sized craft magic section. A lot of it didn't seem super useful, since there was a limit to what they could legally put out on the magical side, but it might be good enough to get a start? She left a little nick next to the ones that seemed mildly promising, at least, jotting down thoughts in a notebook so she didn't forget.
The other catalogue was for supplies, for all kinds of things. Though, this one was actually in French — stores that sold craft magic supplies in general didn't exist in Britain, she'd have to go to separate shops for each kind of different thing, which sounded like a pain. (Also, they didn't have owl-order catalogues, so she'd have to physically go there.) The French catalogue was far more convenient, worth the extra charge she'd have to pay for international shipping. The downside was that the catalogue was written assuming you already had basic knowledge in this stuff, so they didn't really explain what things were very well — most of it seemed relatively straightforward, but some of it wasn't immediately obvious, and some of the more technical stuff was completely opaque.
And it wasn't just basic supplies they sold, they had big things too, like kilns for firing shite or melting glass or whatever, and looms, and all kinds of equipment, it was honestly kind of a lot. Some of that might not be feasible for her to get at all — things like the kilns they installed for you, but they only did that domestically — and other things might be more convenient to just go over to France and pick up in person. Like, they sold looms, a bunch of different kinds too, spread over like a dozen pages. Different sizes and different types, a lot of the descriptions kind of nonsensical, since it involved specialised terms she didn't have the context for. One thing she did get was that there seemed to be different degrees of automation — you might think that one that did more of the work for you would make it easier, but the impression Liz got was that the more thoroughly-enchanted ones were for professional work, so probably weren't actually ideal for beginners...not to mention you probably already had to understand how the bloody things worked to set them up correctly...
She should probably start with something smaller and simpler, but it was hard to say, really. Might be worth asking someone who actually knew what the fuck they were doing — Tamsyn was familiar with the economics involved, but didn't know much about actually doing stuff, so.
Idly paging through the catalogues, trying to interpret the less-than-helpful descriptions, making notes about this or that, might not actually be a productive use of her time, but it was something she was capable of at the moment. She was at it for a while, at the very least narrowing down the options to something she could think about later, interrupted after some time by her alarm going off — it was quarter after eleven, meaning her friends should be getting out of History (Slytherin and Hufflepuff) or Potions (Gryffindor and Ravenclaw) right about now. She hadn't realised it'd been that long already, but all right.
Thinking about leaving her room, there was an immediate churning of anxiety in her stomach, the back of her neck prickling. She would be seeing Hermione out there — they had barely any classes with Gryffindor this year, but she had Divination and Cambrian today, and Hermione would be in those. And lunch too, of course, it was pretty common for their group to sit together, especially at lunch. She was rather nervous about it, honestly, she didn't know what was going on, and...
She did not want to fuck it up. She'd already fucked up her friendship with Dorea, she didn't want to lose Hermione, too.
A lot of basic social stuff could be confusing for her in the first place, but this was so much worse. She had no idea what Hermione was thinking, if she'd act differently, or...
Not to mention, there was a very real possibility of Liz being obvious about it — as seriously fucking confused as she was, she definitely didn't want to have to explain herself. Though, people did just expect odd behaviour from her sometimes, it might not be a problem...
Puffing out a sigh, Liz let her head fall against her catalogues, lacing her fingers behind her neck. This was going to be so uncomfortable.
But she really should go anyway, so she forced herself out of bed, dropped the catalogues and notebook on her desk. She quick pulled on a uniform robe, tightened the laces with a sweep of her wand (an unthinking smile flickering at the sensation of the cloth hugging around her), double-checked that she had everything she needed in her bookbag. A last long deep breath in private, and Liz opened the door and stepped outside.
Between her stalling and the walk up here, by the time she got to the Entrance Hall it was already around the half-hour — meaning both the single- and double-length classes should be out by now. There were a stream of students coming down the Grand Staircase, some immediately sweeping into the Great Hall or lingering in the Entrance Hall, chatting with friends in different classes or years or some of the foreign students. (The Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students had mostly clumped together with their own at first, but they'd gradually loosened over the first few months, it was perfectly normal now to see groups in a mix of uniforms hanging out or whatever.) Liz grit her teeth at the eyes sweeping over her as people noticed her show up, her skin crawling. Mealtimes had been pretty fucking miserable sometimes to begin with, really, but it'd been so much worse this year, with people paying more attention to her than normal due to the whole Tournament thing. Especially since Liz kept ending up in first place...
(She was still irritated about that, honestly. She couldn't throw the Tasks, since the Goblet might punish her for that — also, losing too badly in front of literally half of Europe would just be embarrassing — but it wasn't like she wanted to win. If she ended up taking the prize in the end she was going to be so annoyed.)
Ducking her head a little against the weight of too much attention on her, trying not to cringe, Liz walked through the Entrance Hall, on a straight, unerring line from the stairs down to Slytherin to the doors into the Great Hall. It was bloody crowded in here, of course, and terribly loud, but more audibly than psychically — the wards around the tables helped to ground the ambient magic in the Hall somewhat, cleaning it up. Not perfect, no — there was some bleed-off at the edges, hot-cold almost electric buzzing, an occasional feeling or distorted thought slipping through — but it was definitely an improvement from the previous years. Which was kind of a lucky break for her, honestly, since Liz's Sight had just gotten more sensitive since she'd started using it, mealtimes this year could have been significantly worse.
She walked through the grid of tables, eying the back couple rows of the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw sections, looking for familiar faces — trying to ignore the nerves churning in her stomach, her skin prickling. About halfway across the Ravenclaw tables, she spotted the Hufflepuff girls (minus Susan and Megan) and Tracey, Millie, Justin, and Dorea together in a big clump. Plus Blaise, but he was a frequent presence lately, and no Daphne, maybe checking in with Astoria? None of the Gryffindors or Ravenclaws, yet, they must have been let out late...
Leaning into the dome of the wards just behind Justin and the Hufflepuff girls — they happened to be on the outside, their backs to the wall — Liz said, "Hey, you got room in here?"
"Oh Liz! Sure, we can, um—" Sally-Anne leaned around a little, called, "Hey, can you scoot down a little over there? Let's just..."
It took a little bit for the Hufflepuffs to open up a spot in the middle of the group, between Hannah and Sally-Anne — which was how she liked it, honestly, their group blocking other people's line of sight and keeping her insulated from anyone who might try to bother her. (The Hufflepuffs could maybe sometimes be a little overly protective, sometimes, but it did make getting through the school day somewhat easier, so.) Liz had hardly sat down before Hannah asked, "Did you want us to start passing you things, or did you eat before coming up?" She thought the latter was more the more likely option — Liz's friends were aware she was trying to restrict her diet to Seer-friendly stuff as much as was possible.
"I didn't, but don't bother. The elves will notice I'm here and send up something for me in a few minutes."
"Can they prepare something that quickly?" asked Sally-Anne, not realising how silly of a question that was (muggleborn). "Don't you normally skip lunch?"
"Yeah, but I told them I'd try to make it today, so. Anyway, what have I missed?"
Turned out, not much, but she had only missed morning classes, so she hadn't really expected to be that out of the loop. Potions lessons were increasingly just practice for this year's final exam — they would be given a potion, which they had to analyse by any of the methods they'd been working on over the last two years (or a combination of methods, whatever worked), and brew their own potion to counter it. Vitale was gradually ramping up the complexity of the potions they were working with, which had increasingly led to minor accidents in the classroom as someone accidentally triggered some kind of reaction trying to break it down, but injuries had been very infrequent and superficial, Vitale keeping a close eye on it. Which really drove in the point about the increasing student population making classes terribly unsafe, too many more people in the room and they might start having serious problems...
Today's History class had actually mostly been talking about supplemental stuff that wasn't in any of their books, Ollivander filling in the gaps with lectures. Honestly, skipping History wasn't the best idea in the world, since he did do that kind of thing pretty often, but it wasn't like Liz cared about her marks in History much, so. Sophie and Millie both offered pretty much straight away to let her borrow their notes, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem.
After a little bit of talking, the other half of the group showed up, Potions finally letting out — her food had arrived by then, mushrooms and beans and bits of bacon cooked in gravy and spread over some kind of mashed root vegetables, with a bit of the spiced rye bread the Potter elves made her. (Some of the other people at the table thought her lunch looked gross, but it seemed great to her, so.) Lily immediately went to sit next to Blaise, their group making room for Hermione, Padma, Lisa, and Neville and Michael. The whole time they found seats, Liz could feel Hermione's eyes on her, her mind clicking away. Ducking her head, poking at her food — thankfully having an innocuous excuse, the plate having just arrived — she grit her teeth against the subtle warmth on her cheeks, for fuck's sake, just act normal...
Anyway, Potions hadn't been particularly interesting, nothing new she had to worry about.
There had been some news in the Prophet this morning, but nothing particularly exciting. Some of the nationalists were still acting up, which should be a surprise to nobody. Apparently, there'd been a standoff between the Hit Wizards and the militia for Teulu Prydain. They'd been coming in to arrest a suspect associated with a spate of vandalism over the last couple months — mostly of businesses and such owned by people who opposed the rather reactionary strain of nationalism Teulu Prydian promoted, including a couple noble families in Common Fate (Dorea said a block of flats owned by the Blacks had been one of the targets) — but the locals had showed up to defend the house, the Hit Wizards and the militia facing each other with drawn wands. By the sound of it, they'd come very close to a fight breaking out (which could have gotten very nasty very quickly), but the order had come from up the chain for the Hit Wizards to stand down. Instead, the suspect had been ordered to present himself 'voluntarily' at one of the Ministry courts for questioning, which might or might not turn out better, they'd have to see.
Some people were extremely annoyed that the Hit Wizards had backed down, letting the criminal off (at least temporarily), but apparently there were a lot of people who thought they'd made the right call. After all, that was just one person — the DLE was pretty certain this was being done by multiple people, and they were less than confident that the suspect would identify the rest anyway. (Or even could, it was possible they were working independently.) The suspect should face charges, but in the meantime avoiding escalation that could easily spark a riot was obviously the better course of action.
Liz wasn't entirely sure she agreed, but she understood the logic, anyway.
And that wasn't all the news to do with Teulu Prydain, though most of it was older stuff, that she'd already heard about from one place or another, just hadn't been in the papers much — there were hints and rumours that they might be involved with the Night Briar Brotherhood, and that there were former Death Eaters among their numbers. The former they'd denied strenuously, and Liz was inclined to take their word on that one — Teulu Prydian had started their militia in the first place to protect their people from local Brotherhood types, the two groups did not get along — but they hadn't really bothered denying the latter. Not that that was necessarily as bad as it sounded. A lot of people had been associated with the Dark Lord's movement, especially when you went into indirect connections, or people who had been hired by Death Eaters for one job or another that didn't even necessarily have anything to do with the war — Teulu Prydain was mostly made up of commoners, so that was more likely to be the connection with the Death Eaters that they had. Of course, there might be a couple Marked Death Eaters among their numbers, but if they were free they'd been exonerated of any serious crimes. Surely there was nothing wrong with them, just, continuing on with their lives, right?
Liz understood the argument, but she kind of thought it was horseshite. The human-supremacist, exclusionary, pseudo-religious, British nationalism promoted by Teulu Prydain had significant overlap with the politics of the more explicitly racist Death Eaters — it was really no surprise that, with their political wing in the Allied Dark having finally fallen apart, former Death Eaters might be finding their way into other movements with similar interests.
If you were running a political organisation, and fascists started joining because they liked how fascist you were, it was maybe time to take a breath and give some thought to what you were doing.
On the other hand, the Gaelic nationalists hadn't gone away, they'd just been somewhat quieter than Teulu Prydain lately. Not that Liz thought that meant they were cooling off or anything — Saoirse Ghaelach had been around longer, so had gotten through some of these growing pains already, and were better organised than Teulu Prydain, with centralised leadership and everything. Arguably, the British nationalists were going through the same process of resolving into a single, unified movement under the banner of Teulu Prydain that the Gaels had under Saoirse Ghaelach from the 60s through the 80s, still scattered in some ways that the Gaels weren't. She suspected Saoirse were just better disciplined, and trying to keep themselves out of the news, so they could continue to prepare relatively unimpeded.
And by "prepare", Liz meant for a separatist rebellion — the situation didn't look that bad yet, if anything calmer than the first few months after the World Cup, but she was pretty sure that was practically inevitable at this point anyway.
(Also, she'd had multiple glimpses of the future that suggested they'd be having a civil war soon, so there was that.)
The only other news of note had to do with issues coming up with the implementation of the education programme. They weren't really unexpected issues, though — there were a lot of arguments going on about where to put schools, and the particulars of the design, and the exact terms of the contracts with the companies (and sometimes guilds) who would be providing the materials and doing the actual construction, which was all part of the normal process. There'd been a brief challenge in the courts about local schoolhouses in Gaelic-speaking communities planning to just adopt the programme at an Ollscoil — there were texts and workbooks and everything already in use, an Ollscoil had even offered to greatly expand the print run and provide them to the Ministry-run schools at cost — but while the law didn't specifically empower the Department of Education to set a Gaelic-language curriculum, neither did it forbid them from using outside resources when applicable, so the challenge had been dismissed. (Supposedly Zabini had said she would cover the cost to get Gaelic-language materials to the relevant primary schools out of her own pocket if her Department was barred from doing so, because Blaise's mum could be unexpectedly great sometimes.) They were planning to break ground on expansions of existing craft schools and an entirely new guild-managed one over the summer — there were more minor issues with the contracts involved and the specifics of the grants from the Ministry to cover the cost, but, like with the primary schools, that was normal and should mostly be manageable. The incoming class at Caoimhe's Academy and the Oxford school would be somewhat larger this autumn, but they wouldn't start seeing significant changes until next year, and the entirely new craft school probably wouldn't open at all until the year after that. All three existing schools with academy programmes had started the process of expanding them — though Caoimhe's Academy and Oxford were both planning to expand by a greater proportion, since Hogwarts was remaining stupid selective — but it might be a couple years before they saw big changes there.
Though there would be an interesting change at those three schools for next year: all three were planning to implement the required alterations to the wards while students were away over the summer, meaning they'd be able to begin admitting veela/lilin students as early as next autumn. She'd already known that was going to happen, as part of the expansions they were all doing, but the big news that'd been in the Prophet today was that it seemed like someone might actually be planning to take them up on it. Allowing veela/lilin students had been mostly theoretical, since there weren't really any in magical Britain anyway, but it seemed like that was going to change soon — news had broken today that four veela/lilin clans living primarily in Sicily, Tuscany, and Austria were shopping around for a plot of land in Britain, in the Highlands or the Hebrides. (They tended to like mountains.) It would be the first veela/lilin colony in magical Britain...or, the first one since they'd been chased out of the Isles centuries ago now, anyway.
It was too early to say, since it'd just been in the papers this morning, but the immediate impression her friends had gotten was that the reaction was a lot more muted than they might have expected. The intensity of the bigotry against veela and lilin specifically had cooled off a bit over the last century in the first place, and hosting a bunch of them here at Hogwarts for months now with no issues also probably helped. Or, it would help with the reaction of Hogwarts students themselves, anyway — there was really no telling how people outside of the school would take it. Blaise said the article had been written with a subtly 'concerned' sort of tone, but he was cautiously optimistic that it wouldn't be too bad.
The representative of the clans that'd been interviewed for the article, in the country to look at potential sites, had expressed an interest in starting to send their children to local schools right away — it might be a few years until that happened, though, since there were residential requirements and stuff. Tracey pointed out that the rules specifically allowed schools to make exceptions for individuals under certain circumstances, which should apply in this case, so it might end up happening sooner than that. Liz guessed they'd see.
The whole time they were eating and talking, Liz struggled to act normal — which was made significantly more difficult whenever she felt Hermione's eyes on her skin.
She wasn't acting any different. Of course, Liz was trying not to give anything away herself, so that didn't necessarily mean anything on the surface. But she was a bloody cheater mind mage — unlike Liz, Hermione seemed perfectly normal and unconcerned internally as well.
Well, not entirely. There was an edge of...uncertainty, Liz thought she'd call it, looking her way and thinking. Watching her, sometimes, and...wondering how she was taking it, Liz thought. Looking for any sign that she was having trouble, or something.
And, occasionally, she remembered.
Liz was a little taken aback, the first time. It was early on, when they were still talking about the Potions class they'd just gotten out of. She'd been idly tapping her fingers on the table, listening — and suddenly Hermione was remembering Liz's fingernails dragging along her skin, an echo of the moment slithering through the mechanical clicking of her thoughts. It was just a brief flash, no external sign anything out of the ordinary was happening — except Hermione's eyes lingering on Liz's hand, anyway, but she didn't think that was really noticeable? — and then she was back to paying attention to the conversation, like nothing had happened.
And it kept happening, in little flashes. Not preoccupied, the way Liz could get, just occasionally remembering. A thought, move on, a thought, move on, like it wasn't a big deal. Honestly, Liz thought it was affecting her more than Hermione — a little bit into lunch, she started feeling a faint warmth on her face, her fingers a little twitchy, trying to keep breathing normally, not to give anything away, she was in public...
She actually choked a little, once, when she was hit with a very explicit flash of near the end there, Hermione contemplating the texture on her fingers, an echo ringing in her ears of Liz's moaning and squeaking, squirming and— Liz broke into coughing, waving off a few concerned glances, her face suddenly burning and...
Hermione did that on purpose. As Liz settled down, easing her throat with a gulp of water, she caught Hermione's eyes, and her lips curled into a thin little smile — mind flickering with an odd thrill she didn't know how to read, touched with amusement. But only for a blink, and she looked away again, leaning over to say something to Millie.
...
What the fuck was happening? She didn't understand, Liz was so confused...
Eventually, after stalling chatting for however long, they decided it was time to get going. They left the Great Hall somewhat early — partly just because they'd all finished eating a while ago, partly to avoid the crush of the last ten minutes before the next period (not just for Liz's benefit) — their group dividing to head toward different classes. Hermione was in Liz's Divination class, of course, but she wasn't being distracting at the moment, talking to Dorea about something. By the time they got up to the room, Susan peeking through the door — she'd been sitting elsewhere for lunch (maybe with Shannon?), but appeared as they were passing through the Entrance Hall — Miss Eva was in there still eating her (plain, Seer-friendly) lunch. But she said they could go on and come in, them being around shouldn't ruin her appetite too badly.
Miss Eva was sitting at the front of the room, cross-legged, a plate and a bowl and a mug sitting in front of her. Liz noticed, again, that she didn't use the same cutlery everyone else did — the standard implements down in the Great Hall were metal, but these were obviously ceramic. For whatever reason, Miss Eva was far more sensitive to mined metals than Liz was. (She knew the working conditions in mines and stuff could be extraordinarily shitty, but the echoes just didn't stick to them for her in the same way, it didn't bother her as much. Gemstones were mostly pretty clean too, it was weird...though most of the ones she'd touched were alchemically-crafted, come to think of it.) Her friends were quickly finding seats, Liz glanced around for a second before making a bee line for Miss Eva's desk.
"Hello, Liz," she said — Miss Eva often just use first names, especially when she wasn't thinking about it. She was avoiding Liz's eyes, her mind glazed over more than usual, probably trying to keep herself psychically isolated so she could eat without Seer shite getting in the way. Liz tried to pull her own mind back, but she really had no idea how much it helped. "Did you need something?"
"Yeah, um, I'm a little...preoccupied with something. I was hoping I could spend the afternoon scrying on my own. I know that's mostly just okay in our evening class, but..."
Miss Eva shook her head. "That's fine, today was mostly going to be free time anyway, to work on your projects. Remember to take notes on what you See." Their final project for the year, she meant. Instead of an exam, Miss Eva was having them do a whole bunch of scrying of the past and future, and trying to draw out what it meant, filling in as many of the blanks as they could. It was a significant amount of work — between the descriptions of whatever they Saw, interpretation of any signs that were less than explicitly clear, and explaining their reasoning in putting it in a timeline and building a story out of it, it could easily add up to several feet in length — but they had the entirety of the rest of the term to work on it, so it wasn't as bad as it sounded. Some people had still complained about it, especially the ones who'd never been happy about Divination not being an easy O anymore, but Liz was pretty sure some of their other classes actually added up to more work in the same span of time. And then they'd have final exams on top of that, so, honestly they were complaining about nothing.
Liz thought it was a pretty neat project, honestly — though it was a mix of easier and more difficult for her than it was for most everyone else. Non-Seers tended to be much worse at interpreting the echoes they did get, even with help, so they often had less and more ambiguous information to work with. On the other hand, the clearest impressions Liz got were things that directly involved herself. Obviously, figuring out what was going on at a time of place with only a few little glimpses scattered here and there, from a single perspective, was very difficult. She'd been trying to aim for places and events more than just focussing on herself, but that was harder to do — she was inside her own aura, naturally, which had an effect on the echoes she could pick up — and the impressions she got were more vague, her notes had a lot of fuzzy guesswork in places. As long as he focussed more on trying to build a narrative for herself, and a couple of close friends, it should turn out mostly okay.
Over the last couple weeks of working on it, she had come up with a few interesting tidbits. Like, she was pretty certain she was going to do Proficiency study in Durmstrang — she han't recognised the room she was in, but she had recognised the uniform. She'd caught a lot of glimpses of her fighting, both in duels — by how flashily she was dressed in some of them, it seemed like she would be duelling professionally for at least a little while — and in real fights, where people were actually trying to hurt her, but without context it was kind of hard to tell what was going on. There were enough glimpses of her friends for her to be pretty sure she was going to be adopting multiple of them, which, sure, why not. She'd caught a couple of her with little kids, but she was positive they weren't hers — hard to explain why, just, instinctive feeling. Severus and Síomha's, maybe, or they might belong to one of the friends she was going to end up adopting, who could say.
She was certain there was going to be a war, and soon. (Though she couldn't say how soon, it didn't work like that.) And she wasn't the only one who'd gotten that impression either, multiple of her classmates saw enough to get the same idea — someone had gotten worried about it enough to ask, and Miss Eva confirmed she'd Seen the same thing, but Fate was moving too quickly to say precisely when it would start, or how it would end. Liz thought the suggestion had been to take whatever specific details they'd picked up as a possibility, not a certain fact, which was fair enough. There was far too much random chance when it came to messy events like a war, and the further in the future you looked the more imprecise the Sight got, so.
Liz felt confident that she would live through it, and most (if not all) of her friends, but beyond that it was hard to say.
She'd Seen some things that she was sure had not and would never happen — glimpses of another timeline, so to speak. That was something that could happen, of course, scrying was very precise in the present but grew more and more unreliable the further you went into the past or future. You could get around that problem by using a specific thing as a focus, like Liz tried to do with dream-walking, but that only worked for the past, predicting the future was always a crapshoot. It could give you an idea, sometimes, but it took a lot of educated guesswork to come up with anything actionable. There were reasons people couldn't just, like, scry future financial news and use it to get rich, it didn't work like that.
After a bit of playing around, she'd found she could even do it on purpose by... It was hard to explain exactly. Kind of like crossing her eyes to force her vision out of focus, but with her aura? Whatever. She'd played around with it a bit, though it'd been hard to make sense of most of it, just little flashes without enough context. Once in the arena watching the Third Task — watching it, she wasn't in the Tournament — with Hermione and Susan and a rather brighter, happier-seeming Neville, Liz wearing a scarf and cloak in Gryffindor colours. Another seemed innocuous, just sitting down to dinner, except that the adults in the room were definitely Lily and James, a couple younger kids who must be siblings who'd never existed. (An unfamiliar house, Liz suspected that was a glimpse from if they'd fled Britain to avoid being targeted because of that stupid prophecy, but that was just a guess.) Another of what she suspected was Liz going full terrifying metaphage, only a little younger than she was now, her aura wild and noisy and flickering, hiding in some train station, minds glowing stars in all directions, clingy magic crawling across the air, someone trying to find her, Aurors or something...
It'd been vaguely interesting, but Liz had decided to stop playing around with it just last Monday — she'd stumbled across a flash of a slightly younger Liz killing herself, and abruptly lost the stomach for this game.
Anyway, she'd been making some progress with the project, between playing around with other things she was curious about, but there was still a lot of work to do left. Which was fine, Liz didn't really mind — she thought this was an interesting project, all the scrying she was doing just wasn't immediately useful for it. But she still found herself grimacing at Miss Eva's suggestion. "I'd rather not, honestly."
One of Miss Eva's eyebrows curled up, she glanced at Liz just for a blink before turning back to her food. "Oh? Why not?"
"It's rather, er, private."
A little shimmer of humour in her head, she drawled, "I've seen everything, Liz. You're not going to shock me, and the only people who need read it are you and me."
...True. "Well, I don't know if I'd include it anyway, but... Okay, I'll take notes, just, if it does end up in my project, I'd prefer it if we can just pretend you didn't read it and have it never come up again."
"Agreed. Go ahead and get started whenever you like, we'll leave you to it."
Right, okay. Honestly, it wouldn't be the worst idea in the world to take notes on what she Saw, if only to force herself to think about it, just, don't think about Miss Eva reading about it later...
Liz went by the double row of crystal balls arranged on a table against the wall, scooped one off of its stand with both arms — the stands were enchanted to help tune the environment to better receive echoes, but only non-Seers needed those. In addition to the more classroom-typical tables and chairs, there were a few armchairs and sofas scattered in the remaining available space. She headed to one in the back corner, gently set the crystal ball down on the cushion, so she could safely remove the strap of her bag from her shoulder, dropped it on the floor nearby. Soon she was sitting cross-legged in the chair, the crystal ball pillowed on her robes in the bowl made by her legs. Belatedly, she remembered she was supposed to be taking notes, summoned her bag up to her (wandless) hand.
She found the lengthy scroll of her notes for this project, marked off another section and simply labelled it what's with HG. (Clear to her what she meant, but innocuous to anyone else glancing over it — her handwriting was shite enough only the slightly larger heading should even be legible to anyone else.) A couple charms to hold the roll open to the right spot and stiffen it to make it easier to write on away from a proper desk, and then a sticking charm in case she accidentally knocked it off the armrest, and there, that would do.
For a moment, Liz did nothing but slowly breathe, in through her nose and out through her mouth — fingertips of both hands limply resting against the cool crystal, back curled to hover her face over it, only inches from the surface. What did she want to focus on, exactly? Not what Hermione was thinking, her brain was far too active, that could show her literally anything. No, she was confused about what was going on in Hermione's head, but what she was really worried about was...what this meant for their relationship, she guessed.
Like, she didn't want to fuck it up, make Hermione hate her or whatever. But she also wasn't sure, you know, what this meant? Were they still friends? or something else? She didn't think it was normal for friends to be having sex with each other, but Liz also wasn't an expert with normal people social stuff, so she could be completely wrong for all she knew...
Their relationship, that's what she was going for, just, about them. That was rather vague, didn't know how helpful this was going to be, but she could try...
Not so much forcing her aura as simply letting it breathe, expand, gently brushing her fingertips over the surface of the crystal, spreading the calm, smooth magic over it. The crystal drank it up, like charging a reservoir or dropping a memory into her pensieve, growing denser and denser, until the material almost seemed to glow, a warm weight pressing down heavier on her legs. (She was imagining that, charging a reservoir didn't actually make it heavier.) Until, eventually, there was a firm tug on her magic, pulled harder into the ball, hands clutching at the sides, her breath freezing in her chest — her surroundings falling away, attention drawn inexorably into the heart of the crystal, pulling her down, down...
The image came through odd — colours vivid yet blending together, shapes sharp but smearing with movement, dreamlike — but Liz still recognised the kitchen at her house. She was standing at the hob, whisking some kind of lightly-bubbling sauce in a pan, a sprig of sage held between her teeth, occasionally reaching up to pluck off a couple leaves, crumple them in her fist (and shredding them with a wandless charm) and dropping them in the sauce. Nilanse was standing on a stool nearby, leaning over the counter to knead at a blob of dough. Hermione was sitting on the counter, her feet idly kicking, she said something, didn't make it out, Liz letting go of the pan handle to remove the sage from her mouth so she could respond...
This was last August, she was pretty sure, back when Hermione had been staying at her house. Liz didn't remember this exact moment, but she and Nilanse had cooked nearly every day that month, so it could have been any of them. She had no idea why she was being shown this one.
After some timeless seconds (it was hard to guess how long these things lasted), Liz's attention was released, the ball going dark again. Frowning to herself, she turned to her scroll, and picked up her pen — not that she really knew what to write, the tip idly tapping. That August had been rather significant, she guessed. Liz doubted there were very many people that she'd be comfortable having in her house for a month like that, and, it'd gone pretty well, she thought? A few awkward moments here and there, and Liz had shut herself up in her room a couple days to get some time alone, but Hermione was understanding about that, so, yeah. Liz made a brief note about cooking over that August — not sure what she was supposed to get from the crystal showing her that, so she didn't have much to say — before turning back and trying again.
The next one she was shown was in the future, definitely — Liz's hair was a deep, vibrant red, and her close-fitting dress (definitely with a corset) was showing cleavage, so. (Pretty subtle, yes, she was still tiny, but that was still kind of wild to see.) It was hard to say how far into the future this was, but they did look subtly older, at least a few years. They were in an unfamiliar building — somewhere Gaelic-speaking, Liz caught a glimpse of the Saoirse Ghaelach uniform in the background — talking to a couple unfamiliar adults, one behind a desk and one standing with them. It looked like Liz was translating back and forth for Hermione, must be primarily in Gaelic. The words weren't coming through clearly, and what she did get was mostly referencing things she didn't quite follow — but she thought they were explaining Hermione lived at her house, and...
Officially registering her residence at the Refuge, Liz thought. This must be after the Gaels declared independence — the war might or might not still be going on at this point, but their replacement government was getting off the ground enough to do administrative stuff like that. That was the feeling she got, anyway...something about some council or whatever, local government voting stuff, maybe?
So, she would be adopting Hermione, then — she was pretty sure that followed, anyway. At least, there was still a chance of that happening — the Sight wasn't perfectly reliable, after all — so she hadn't completely ruined it, yet. Liz made a couple quick notes about that one, the suggestion of the Gaels' independence and Hermione living there...now that she thought about it, this kind of suggested Liz would end up with Gaelic citizenship. Not a big surprise, really — Saoirse had their own issues, but they were better than the fucking Wizengamot, if she had to pick one she'd go with the Gaels. (Also, she wanted to keep her house, so there was that.) Severus's future wife (she was all but positive) was a big name in Saoirse, it probably wouldn't even be difficult to arrange that. All right, then.
Her gaze again being dragged through the crystal, and she was a little taken aback to see Liz and Hermione in their underwear. This was post- blood alchemy again, Liz's hair colour made it obvious, wearing a slip that reached down to the tops of her thighs, Hermione in knickers and a vest, the latter short enough to show a narrow strip of skin around her middle. She was confused for a moment, before she noticed the wall of glass, the little raised platforms on the floor — they must be getting fitted for clothes. Some formal event, maybe, what they were saying didn't come through very well but that was Liz's feeling. After a little bit, the door opened, a couple women stepping through, bundles of cloth folded over arms, and the vision faded out.
...She was pretty sure the implication was that Hermione was getting dragged to formal events with her, stupid noble shite, whatever. That might mean that the adoption had gone through, or they were dating by then, it was hard to say.
The next vision she was shown was in her dorm room. The lights were out, but Liz could still see better than she should be able to — the colours washed out and reddened, but the shapes coming through as clearly as they ever did through this thing. They were in bed, tucked into their little blanket pockets, Hermione propping herself up onto an elbow to look over at—
Liz was having a nightmare. Curled up on her side, tense and shivering, making some kind of noise, she couldn't quite tell what. Hermione watched her for a moment...and then slid closer, loosening her blanket pocket a little, pressed herself against Liz's back. One arm came around, nudged Liz's blanket down a little, finding Liz's wrists, and she pulled in, hugging Liz against her, her face pressed against the back of Liz's neck...
It took a little bit, impossible to say how long, but Liz eventually calmed down — sniffling a little bit (crying in her sleep, apparently), her shoulders twitching, but she'd relaxed, the painful tension gone out of her body. Eventually, Hermione released her, pulled the blanket back over Liz's shoulder...and shuffled back over to her side of the bed, settling in to go back to sleep.
When the vision dissolved, Liz just blinked down at the blank crystal ball for a couple seconds. The class had started at some point, the rest of the students with their own notes out, poking at one scrying aide or another, Miss Eva answering some question from Susan. Liz found Hermione, stubbornly glaring into a crystal ball — Hermione could get scrying to work, but she wasn't very good at it, found it incredibly frustrating. (She'd been doing most of their project with cards, but she'd take a bit now and then to try to get crystal balls to work properly for her, with very little success.) Liz watched her, a funny prickly feeling running along her neck and down her back.
Had that been the past or the future? It was definitely this year — the colour of her hair hadn't come through very well, with everything so red, but Liz had caught a glimpse of her scars. She didn't remember it...but, it didn't seem like she'd woken up at all, so she wouldn't remember it. Hermione hadn't said anything, she'd assumed she just hadn't had any nightmares while she'd been sleeping over? She had been sleeping noticeably better than before, avoiding psychometrically bad stuff and anything that stressed her out too much really helped, but...
She didn't know how she felt about that, seeing that.
There was definitely something, her back tingling and her throat thick and her chest warm, but she didn't know what to call it. Feelings continued to be hard.
Hermione let out a little puff of breath, leaning back in her chair, hands rubbing at the back of her neck. She glanced around the room for a second — and noticed Liz, meeting her eyes. Twitching, Liz looked down, gritting her teeth at the heat blooming on her face...
She felt the pressure of Hermione's attention on her for one breath, two, but then she looked away. Liz relaxed, forced her hand to move for her pen.
Not that she really knew what to say about Hermione apparently comforting her while she was having a nightmare. She'd had no idea that'd happened...would happen? She didn't know...
Liz gathered herself, eventually, sank into another vision. A crowded space, outdoors somewhere Liz didn't recognise, dozens of people around — some of them were nymphs, by the look of it — chattering about something, Liz and Hermione standing to the side, not really part of the conversation. Hermione muttered a suggestion to Liz, but she couldn't make it out, and the vision dissolved not long after that.
Another vision, Liz and Hermione were in one of the sitting rooms scattered around Hogwarts — a tiny one, just a two-seat sofa and a single chair, it wasn't familiar to Liz at all. They weren't actually on the sofa, instead sitting on the floor...and their clothes and hair were a little ruffled, which was, er, suggestive. Liz mentioned she'd been considering offering to adopt her — oh, this must be when Liz finally worked up the nerve to ask her! — Hermione looking rather taken aback, a moment, asking what that would look like, exactly—
—an odd swirl, the colours smearing, and suddenly she was looking into Hermione's house, sitting with her parents, an infant that must be Rachael on the floor nearby. They were talking about the adoption, it seemed like — Liz was saying it would include both Hermione and Rachael, and Emma and Daniel, give them actual legal standing in magical Britain, didn't need to be magical to be a citizen, answering questions, too muddled for her to pick up much. Liz's hair was still black, this must be early in the summer.
So, she would be adopting Hermione, then — the whole family even, like she'd talked about with Sylvia. It seemed like this one had been near enough in the future to be pretty confident it was accurate. Good to know. She made a quick note of that and moved on.
Liz arriving at Hermione's house, Hermione looking very surprised. Her hair was red again — by Hermione's reaction, Liz thought this must be shortly after the procedure, Hermione hadn't seen the results yet. Stepping inside, talking, Liz wanted to go clothes shopping, if Hermione wanted to come with, she had tits now! (She thought she missed future-Liz explaining that she didn't know how bras worked, wanted help.) Hermione glanced over her shoulder, before muttering a question about showing her. A swirl of colour, and they were up in Hermione's room, Liz tugging her dress over her head, standing there in her pants. And woah, she did have tits — she was a skinny bitch still but, you know, they existed. Hermione was asking questions about the procedure itself, and then she was prodding at Liz's chest, whatever she was rambling on about cut off, another swirl of colour and they were on the bed, Hermione also stripped down to her knickers now, their legs tangled together and—
She cut off the vision with a dizzying lurch — clutching the crystal ball in somewhat shaky fingers, she could feel her face burning.
That...kind of suggested they were going to continue having sex, then.
Liz was very confused.
Once she managed to shake it off, she reached for her pen, but she didn't really know what to write. (Other than that she really liked how she was going to look after the blood alchemy procedure, and she couldn't fucking wait, even just getting that little glimpse leaving her practically fizzing with excitement.) The mix of impressions she was getting were just leaving her more confused than before. Somewhat reassuring, sure, since it didn't look like she'd fucked it up, but she didn't know what any of this meant, really. The adoption seemed to be happening, but they also still seemed to be having sex, and...
There was a thought. Instead of reaching for her relationship with Hermione, she looked for Katie instead — after all, if she and Hermione were going to be a thing, that probably meant she and Katie weren't going to happen anymore? The first thing she was shown, she and Katie were sitting at a table outside of a restaurant on a brick street, Liz didn't recognise it but it looked like somewhere sunny. It must be hot, wherever this was, they were both wearing swimsuit tops, Katie a pair of drawstring cloth shorts and Liz a fluttery loose skirt — Liz's top was rather, er, skimpier than Katie's, a band around her middle and tied closed behind her neck, that was kind of a lot. (Honestly, she looked fucking great, but that's not why she was here.) Once that vision dissolved, Liz tried again, finding them someplace very rural, fields and shite in the background, lazily walking along a path hand-in-hand.
...Visiting Katie's family, she suspected. Yeah.
She checked a third time, just to be sure — they were on one of the balconies at Liz's house, a platter of snacks and a bottle of wine sitting on a table, the sky fiery from the sunset. Katie was in a chair, Liz in her lap. They were kissing, slow and soft, all sweet and shite.
Yeah, that definitely looked like they'd still end up dating. Really didn't know what was going on with Hermione, then.
Liz was tempted to look up more stuff about her relationship with Katie, but she'd rather not know too much ahead of time, some of it should still be a surprise. So after taking a short breather, she went back to asking about her relationship with Hermione. Further in the future, if she could help it, maybe that could give her a better idea of where things were going...
As the vision resolved, future-Liz was moving to stand — she was at the head of a longish dining table, she didn't recognise the room off-hand... No wait! She thought this was the family dining room at Clyde Rock. She didn't recognise it immediately, she'd only been there once, but maybe. The Liz in the vision did seem a little older, but it was hard to say by how much, maybe only a few years. The people sitting at the table were a mix of familiar and unfamiliar, Hermione and her parents, a couple other students from their year, there was Sophie's mum, and—
Adoptees. That's what this was, people Liz had adopted (was going to adopt) into the House of Potter, and their families. There were Hermione and Sophie, and Sally-Anne, a few younger teenagers who were probably baby siblings, Chelsea and even Shannon, and Dean bloody Thomas for some reason, a couple she didn't even recognise...
It looked like Liz was going to get very serious about adopting muggleborns in a couple years. That was pretty neat, she guessed — the more people there were in the House, the less pressure there'd be on her to marry and have kids like a 'proper' Lady. And, well, she did have all these empty houses and shite, and way more money than she knew what to do with, might as well put all that to use...
She tried again, finding herself looking into an unfamiliar cosy-looking room, the lights turned low. Hermione was in a wood-framed but thickly-padded chair, looking kind of wiped out, hair stringy from sweat and bags under her eyes — but she was smiling, seeming exhausted but pleased. She looked significantly older, definitely an adult, but it was hard to tell how old, exactly (especially since mages aged weird), and she didn't seem to be wearing anything, only mostly hidden by the blankets draped around the chair and over her. Those little details suddenly made sense when the funny smearing shapes resolved enough for Liz to make out the bundle held against Hermione's chest, half-hidden from view by a blanket, a thin damp mop of hair and a squished wrinkly face and a hand with stubby little fingers.
An unfamiliar man stepped closer to the chair — by his bronzeish-brownish skin tone probably not a local, maybe Hermione would meet her husband(?) overseas — leaned over close, Hermione gingerly handing the infant off to him. The man rearranged the blankets a little, wrapped better around the baby (against a chill, maybe, while away from Hermione), took the couple steps over to Liz. Passing the baby to Liz, there was a little bit of lecturing about what to do — Liz rolled her eyes, exasperated in a light, joking sort of way, she had held a baby before, you know. (Present-Liz had hardly ever seen a baby before, of course, but who knew how far in the future this was.) And then Liz was holding the thing, and there was some talking...
Liz was pretty sure she was going to be Hermione's first child's godmother. Seemed like a weird pick to her, but what did she know, things might be different whenever this was.
...Come to think of it, she'd probably get practice dealing with this sort of thing when Severus and Síomha had theirs — actually, that was probably how future-Liz had learned to hold an infant in the first place. Whatever.
These glimpses the crystal ball was showing her were only somewhat helpful. Like, it was reassuring that it didn't look like she'd fucked it up, that they'd likely still be close years and years in the future — well into a period of her life Liz honestly couldn't even imagine at this point — which was good to know. Unfortunately, it wasn't really telling her much about, you know, what the fuck was going on with them, exactly. Maybe she was asking the wrong questions...
Her next attempt had her dropping straight into Liz and Hermione naked in bed, writhing against each other, and— She cut the magic off immediately, her skin crawling and her cheeks burning.
...They'd seemed noticeably older. She hadn't been looking for very long, but they'd both been proper adults, definitely — again, hard to say how old exactly, but, at least out of school already. That wasn't making her any less confused.
Once she'd calmed down a little, her heart slowly relaxing back to normal and her face cooling off, she tried again. This was the farthest glimpse into the future she'd gotten so far, she thought — the images were even murkier than usual, colours glimmering and shapes unstable and swirling into each other, bad enough she couldn't make out their surroundings very well at all. They were walking along a street at night — lit up and colourful, a muggle city — talking about something, she couldn't make it out at all. Hermione was still recognisable as herself, but she was significantly older — Liz could even make out lines at the corners of her eyes, not old old yet, still pretty subtle.
Liz did look older too, definitely an adult...but she seemed noticeably younger. Like, Deirdre and Emily's age? Maybe a little older than that, but not by very much — definitely younger than Hermione, though. (With how slowly mages aged, the difference was literally enough that Hermione could be her mother.) She was going to take that as a sign that she would end up making one of those phylactery things Tamsyn had mentioned, so she could decide to just stop ageing at some point. It was a little odd that Hermione seemed so much older — if they were still close by then, she couldn't imagine not offering to make her one too — but maybe she'd simply turned it down, for whatever reason...
...or maybe she'd just wanted to have kids first? Liz knew enough about how the things worked to know that they should completely prevent pregnancy from happening, so. She guessed she had no idea how far in the future this was, it was possible Hermione looked significantly younger than her actual age too...
This vision was fragile, she was only able to hold onto it for a moment before it was slipping away again — too far away, the echo too weak without something solid to focus on. She went ahead and made a note of it anyway, especially the suggestion that she'd stop ageing...probably around a decade from now, she thought. Of course, that kind of blood magic was illegal in Britain, but Liz very much doubted Miss Eva would care. And she couldn't exactly get in trouble for a 'crime' she hadn't even committed yet, so.
It looked like there was still time left, the rest of the class still poking away at their projects, so let's try this again...
Eventually, who knew how many more visions later, the double-length class period came to an end — Miss Eva came by to get her attention when she came out of it, to make sure she didn't miss her next class — but even after a couple dozen glimpses of the past and future, following Liz and Hermione through the years, she was hardly any closer to figuring out what the hell was going on as she'd been before.
As far as she could tell, the adoption probably was happening. Liz and Hermione would both date other people. (In one of them she thought she'd even seen that future long-term girlfriend she'd caught hints about before.) They were going to remain close, for years and years, to the point that Liz was going to be, like, an honourary aunt or some shite to Hermione's children. Or, actual aunt, technically, she guessed? It did look like they were going to be Potters, and that's how that worked, so. As far as she could tell, it looked like they were going to be friends for basically forever — maybe literally forever, depending on how the stuff with the phylacteries worked out.
Also? They would be having sex.
Not just soon, like this summer, but well into the future. Years, at least, she couldn't really say how far...
Liz had no idea how to interpret that.
Was friends having sex with each other, just, a thing that some people did? She didn't think so — it seemed to her that "friends" was a platonic category just by definition — but she'd admit she was hardly an expert with social relationships and shite, so maybe she was wrong.
...Or maybe they would be a thing, while also seeing other people. That was a thing Liz knew people did do. It was even almost expected with the nobles, since marriage was all business and politics and whatever — it was very common for the older teenagers here at Hogwarts to be doing the whole courtship thing while also dating someone they actually liked. Continuing later in life too, having your husband but also seeing other people (like Narcissa and her lovers), very normalised, to the point that the Lord and Lady's apartments at Clyde Rock even had extra bedrooms for them. She guessed something like that was possible? Or, there were relationships that had several people in them instead of two, like Millicent Bagnold's odd little family, but that seemed less likely, since it seemed like Hermione was going to be marrying a man.
She didn't know, this was all still confusing.
But, as she thought about it in Defence class — thanks to the duelling team and her own study, she was far ahead in this class, didn't need to pay attention — she decided that was okay. As few real answers as her crystal-gazing had given her, she'd still learned what she'd really needed to know.
She hadn't fucked it up. She and Hermione were going to be okay.
Just knowing that, for certain — she'd Seen it — had her feeling much calmer than she'd been before Divination class. She was still confused, yes, but being confused about social stuff and personal relationships or whatever wasn't even unusual for her. As long as she knew they were going to be okay, she could live with that.
Besides, now that she wasn't kind of freaking out about it, she could admit that it'd been incredible. She didn't know what it was exactly, but feeling Hermione come so intensely had, like, really really keyed her up, and, that was literally the single best orgasm she'd ever had, it'd been fucking amazing. A lot, yes, she'd practically blacked out for a second, but that was hardly a bad thing, was it.
So, now that she knew they were going to be okay, she hadn't ruined it, she didn't see why she couldn't, just...avoid rocking the boat.
(She didn't want to accidentally give Hermione the impression that doing it again would be a bad idea, after all.)
(Now that she wasn't freaking out about it, she badly wanted to do it again.)
(Sex was really nice, turned out. What a surprise.)
Defence class could be so mind-numbingly boring for her these days — a lot of her classes were, honestly, since she'd spent so long working ahead and studying for the Competencies. The double-length classes could be especially miserable, even more time she was stuck being bored in class, unable to do anything or even move to bleed off the pent-up energy. Out of a lack of any better ideas, Liz spent most of the rest of the class doodling on a spare bit of paper, only half-listening to Ollerton. She had continued playing around with drawing a little over the last year or so, every once in a while, but she was still pretty shite at it. Honestly, she didn't expect to get better, she could hardly even make her handwriting legible even when she tried. It was just something to do with her hands.
The class seemed to drag on for fucking hours, but in time it mercifully ended. Liz quick checked the time with a snap of her fingers — it was ten to six. By the time she got downstairs, she'd need to be at Cambrian in just under an hour. She rolled her eyes — she guessed she wasn't dipping down to her room to ditch her bag — and got up to follow the Slytherins and Ravenclaws out of the room. Some of the group split off to head to their dorms, to drop things off or change out of their uniforms, but all of her Cambrian classmates, at least, continued straight to the Great Hall.
Since she'd actually had lunch today, the dinner the elves sent up for her was a little lighter than usual. There was a bit of fish, with some soft porridge/noodle/mash stuff that sort of reminded her of that couscous stuff they'd had at the World Cup, drizzled with some kind of butter-cream sauce. (With some strips of carrot, of course, someone down there was stubborn about getting her to eat more vegetables.) It was intensely herby, honestly very good, just less hearty and a smaller portion than what she was normally sent — she'd guess whoever down there was handling her meals had assumed she'd be less hungry this evening, which was a pretty good guess. As was normal in the evenings (even days she had class after), she was sent a mug of hot cider. Students generally didn't get anything alcoholic on normal days, but the single mug wasn't enough to prevent her from functioning at her evening class, so. Besides, the stuff was great, maybe a bit sweeter than she'd normally like, but whatever they'd used didn't bother her for Seer reasons, so.
She wasn't entirely surprised when, after she'd cleared her dinner plate, it was swapped out with a smaller, almost saucer-sized one — sometimes her meal was followed up with a snack, though she hadn't been able to figure out the pattern. She'd had these ones before, kind of like little bites of cheesecake? The bottom was a crumbly sort of cracker — made with almond meal, turned out — and cheesecake was normally sweetened but this was savoury instead. Mostly the soft part just tasted like soft cheese, but there was an added bit of nuttiness and mintiness to it, maybe a bit of nutmeg? She thought they were fucking great, honestly — she'd asked Nilanse about it, apparently it was an old recipe her mother had dug up out of somewhere, added it to the pile when Nilanse had been asking the other elves about ideas for Liz's meal schedule. Which meant they had the recipe already, Liz was definitely playing around with them over the summer, they were good.
Like last time, throughout the meal she'd occasionally feel Hermione's attention on her, thoughts clicking away in her head. Liz mostly managed to ignore it though. She hadn't managed to ruin it, so, whenever Hermione worked through whatever she was thinking about in there, that was fine. They were going to be okay, so she didn't have to worry about it.
Being a Seer could actually be useful sometimes — she just wished that was more often than it was fucking annoying.
Cambrian was a required class for the first two years, but it was optional from third-year on, so their class was much diminished now. There were a total of forty-one students in their class, but, once you took out the fluent Cambrian-speakers and the people who dropped it after second-year, there were only ten left: Hermione, Sophie, Padma and Parvati, Michael, Lily and Blaise, Greg (but not Vince), and Dean Thomas and Ronald bloody Weasley. Or, eleven, including Liz herself. Those were mostly people Liz could get on with just fine, disproportionately her friends, or at least people in the study group. After a few months dating Lily, Blaise was practically part of their group now. Parvati had been cautious with Liz ever since the underwear incident, she wasn't so bad when Lavender wasn't around, and she was aware Liz and Padma were friends, so she was better when Padma was around. Greg was actually an okay sort once you got to know him, but he was pretty quiet anyway. Liz didn't know Dean very well (most of the Gryffindors didn't like her much), but he was nice enough, definitely the least annoying of Weasley's friends — spent a lot of time scribbling away in his sketchbook, Lily knew him from the art club, said he was a lot better to talk to when Seamus wasn't around. Apparently the two played off each other in a way that didn't really reflect favourably on either of them, Liz hadn't noticed...
The big exception was, of course, Ronald bloody Weasley. It'd been going on two years now, and he still hadn't let go of his stubborn conviction that Liz had absolutely murdered his sister, that he had to do something to stop her from just getting away with it. By this point, at least, he'd gotten rather quieter about it — she mostly didn't react to his goading (unless she was in an especially bad mood at the time), and Weasley had eventually realised there wasn't anything he could do to her. No one believed him — except a handful of ridiculous Liz-Potter-is-definitely-an-evil-future-Dark-Lady people, anyway — he hadn't managed to bait her into 'revealing' her 'true self' with his harassment, and he couldn't take the matter into his own hands either, because she always saw him coming, and she was simply the better duellist (and it wasn't even close). She'd heard even the other Gryffindors were getting frustrated with him, supposedly he'd had a very serious meeting with McGonagall and his parents about it...
At this point, basically all he could do was quietly hate her, occasionally make a nuisance of himself being loud and obnoxious when the frustration bubbled over. She felt him watching her, sometimes, simmering and hot and roiling, his eyes burning into her back. And now was no different — as the end of the hour approached, Liz and her friends in Cambrian class got up, the rest leaving at the same time kind of ended up glomming onto them, Weasley with Thomas back there, attention hot and sharp on her skin. It was a little irritating, but she just tried to ignore him as best she could.
(Sometimes she wondered why Tamsyn couldn't have just killed Ronald instead — she suspected Ginevra wouldn't have been such a paint to Liz about it.)
They were nearing the classroom when Hermione abruptly blurted out, "Hey Liz, can I talk to you for a minute?" Her eyes flicked to Sophie and Lily and Blaise — quick and subtle, she didn't think anyone noticed. "It's about this summer, should be quick." Liz could feel the lie, but she really hadn't needed to have cheater magic powers to figure that one out for herself.
Despite herself, a sudden chill dropped into her stomach, prickles crawling over the back of her neck. She had not expected Hermione would want to talk about it this soon, she wasn't ready, what the hell was she even supposed to say...
This was going to be so fucking awkward.
Trying to force herself to keep calm, Liz took a deep breath, before nodding. "Yeah, sure. Over this way..." They took a turn off just before the hallway their classroom was on, the rest of the group continuing on without them. Weasley glanced down the hall as he passed, gaze hostile and mind simmering with suspicion — honestly, what the fuck did he think they were doing over here? After walking a short distance down the empty corridor, Liz came to a stop, cast a privacy spell with a swish of her wand. "What's up?"
Hermione moved to speak, drawing in a breath and...nothing came. She hesitated, her mind a confusing cacophony of conflicting thoughts, uncertainty and nervousness and embarrassment...
Somehow, it hadn't occurred to Liz that Hermione wouldn't know what to say either.
A flash of clarity, coming to a decision, Hermione's mind started to click away more smoothly again, the tangle of feelings starting to ebb. "Um. Tomorrow?"
Liz blinked. "What?"
"It's Tuesday, tomorrow," Hermione said, as though that was all the explanation necessary.
That was one of the days they'd scheduled for Liz's desensitisation stuff they were doing, she meant. Tuesday, Thursday or Friday, one of the days on the weekend...
This wasn't what she'd meant to say — Hermione had chickened out.
"...Don't we have a nighttime Astronomy thing tomorrow?"
"No, that's next week. Tomorrow we have a big study group meeting in the evening. We were going to take over one of the sitting rooms and you were going to bring snacks, remember?"
"Oh! Yeah, you're right, sorry." She'd planned to skip lunch (and maybe Transfiguration if she didn't feel like going), and have Nilanse pop her back home so they could make, like, biscuits and whatever else for the group — a thing she'd done a few times now, since the article about her sending things to the werewolf kids had come out and her friends kept asking. Sophie and Millie and Hannah in particular kept nagging her about it, apparently they really liked the cheese puffs. She had a feeling she might actually end up cooking/baking with a few of her friends over the summer, kind of teaching them like, it was very silly. "Um, sure, I guess we can—" Her voice abruptly failed her, as she realised what they were doing right now.
They were scheduling a time to have sex. Hermione hadn't said anything, neither of them had, but she was pretty sure that's exactly what was happening here.
Feeling her face suddenly fucking burning, Liz ducked her head, she didn't know what to...
Hermione noticed, obviously, made a pretty good guess at what Liz was thinking — but she didn't know what to say either, her fingers fidgeting, weight restlessly shifting from one foot to the other.
Because that was what they were doing, Hermione realised that too. She'd known what she was doing when she'd immediately moved on to talking about tomorrow.
She'd also enjoyed herself last night, and she also wanted to do it again. Enough that it had kind of taken her by surprise, she'd been thinking about it on and off the whole day — it was like when she discovered a new subject, some book or problem that had her attention, distracting herself when she meant to be focussing on something else...
That curious fascination, one of those feelings that marked Hermione's mind for Liz, could easily pick her out of a room with her eyes closed. She wanted to do it again, yes, but not just the same thing over again, she wanted to try things, she was interested, she wanted to...
She didn't want to talk about it.
She wasn't ready to talk about it — she was as confused about what was going on as Liz was. She'd worried for a bit that it was going to be a problem, but Liz seemed to be mostly acting normal, and wasn't angry with her or hurt or— She'd meant to ask if Liz was okay, and if they needed to talk about it, but she didn't want to talk about it, she didn't know what this was, or what to say...
Hermione wanted to do it again. But she didn't want to talk about it, not yet.
...That was fine with Liz.
She leaned a little harder against Hermione's mind — not doing anything, just making it more obvious she was listening. Apparently Hermione had been distracted enough with her own thoughts that she hadn't been paying attention, a sudden jolt of tension spanging through her, her eyes widening. "We can go down after the meeting," Liz said, quickly, not wanting to give Hermione too much time to worry about what Liz was going to do about what she'd just seen. "Actually, um, how about you come with me to meet Nilanse during dinner, and then help me bring things back after the meeting? You have been to my house, so, you're the best person in the group to help out." Of course, Liz didn't really need help, she and Nilanse could magic things around without any trouble, but it was an excuse their friends wouldn't think about too hard. "We'll feed you too, of course, just, need to be there over dinner to put everything together."
For a long, simmering moment, Hermione just watched her, her mind clacking away. Finally, "Yeah. Yeah, I can help out. If that's what you want — I wouldn't want to make it more difficult." She wasn't talking about snacks tomorrow.
"I wouldn't suggest it if I thought it'd be a problem." Liz also wasn't talking about snacks tomorrow.
"...Right. So. Tomorrow, then."
"Mhmm."
"Good. That's good. I mean, I— Yeah."
Their private, empty little corridor fell into silence. Liz avoiding Hermione's eyes, sightlessly staring down and to the side — her face warm and her heart throbbing in her throat — Hermione's attention heavy and soft and tingly on her skin. They stood there for a few seconds, longer, a rustle of Hermione's feet shuffling, her thoughts loud but unfocussed, simmering with that very Hermione fascination.
"Um, we should get to class."
"Right, class." Her voice came out a little wrong, Liz cleared her throat. A wave of her hand broke the privacy spell. "Let's go, then."
None of them spoke at all during the short walk to the classroom, the air heavy, almost painfully awkward. But, a few metres away from the door, Hermione snagged her hand, clockwork mind clattering loud against hers, an odd little thrill Liz didn't know how to read. A quick squeeze, Hermione gave her a small, shy sort of smile she didn't quite know how to read, before letting go again and stepping through the door.
Liz felt very sure everyone could tell she was blushing, but she pretended not to notice.
These girls, amirite.
Anyway, switching back to First Contact for a scene. Bye.