June 1995
As the date of the Final Task approached, the mood in the Castle turned electric, anticipation so thick on the air Liz imagined even everyone else could feel it.
The Champions had already been informed of what the Final Task would be — though only in general terms, with little in the way of explicit detail. For some months now, the organisers had been in the process of shaping an enormous hedge-maze, covering a not insignificant fraction of the Valley, so the very basic idea wasn't exactly a secret. The Champions had been told the goal would be to navigate to the middle of the maze, where the Cup would be waiting for them, the first to touch it would be the winner. They would all be sent to different starting points — the junior Champions would start in somewhat easier areas, but they would filter into more dangerous parts of the maze as they got closer to the middle, the same as the senior Champions — but their entrance would open up at different time, Liz entering first and the other Champions so many minutes later, relative to their score.
As had been explained way back at the beginning of the Tournament, their cumulative scores could give them an advantage in the Final Task, but everyone was technically still in the running, regardless of how they'd done in previous Tasks. Liz would have a bit of a head-start, yes, but the pack would all enter at more or less the same time behind her — and the senior Champions did know more magic that might be useful to deal with whatever they'd find, she didn't doubt that they'd be able to catch up by the end. Ingrid would be entering behind the pack at the same margin Liz was entering ahead of it, which would seem to disqualify her (especially since she was also a junior Champion), but Liz didn't know, she'd managed to whip out some surprises over the course of the Tournament, who could say.
They'd been told there would be traps and threats in the maze, but they hadn't been told what exactly those were. Talking to all the Champions, Zabini had sort of implied they should maybe work on their spells to deal with magical creatures, and further practise their cursebreaking — and also healing, if they were injured the only way they'd be able to get help from outside was if they forfeited — but no specific information. But, Zabini had continued to slip information about the Tournament to Severus, so Liz actually had a pretty good idea what she'd be facing in there.
She wasn't particularly optimistic, if she was being honest. Navigating the maze itself, that shouldn't be a problem. The designers were trying to make it difficult, with palings and shite that would make you forget which direction you came from, things like that — those shouldn't affect Liz at all — even squeezing in some multidimensional space-bending shite, and the passages of the maze would even change with time. They were magical hedges, obviously, they'd be able to move, making it very difficult to find your way by process of elimination — the walls could even trap you, if you weren't careful. But Liz was a bloody cheater, she suspected all she'd have to do to pick the optimal direction at any time was to just lean into the Sight a little. The same way she could brew perfect potions when she took the time to try, it might slow her down a little but it should prevent her from getting lost.
It was the contents of the maze that were going to be the problem for her. They'd mixed in devil's snare and venomous tentacula into parts of the hedgerows, which shouldn't be too bad — though she'd be in trouble if she didn't spot the tentacula before she got poisoned. There were a few other carnivorous and poisonous plants in there, wasn't sure what all, but there would be snargalove, hopefully she didn't run into any of those. The plants shouldn't be too much, though.
But there would also be creatures, and those were going to be more difficult to deal with. Ironically, the bigger, more dangerous ones would be easier for her. There would be hippogriffs in there, they'd gotten some graphorns from somewhere, and there were even trolls — that seemed a little dangerous, but what did she know — but Liz should be able to compel those into leaving her alone no problem. There would also be some magical snakes around, but those would probably help her, since she could take them over with parseltongue and throw them against other problems. The things Liz was more likely to have issues with were big groups of small, relatively harmless things, like doxies — and even a single bite from a doxy would make her feel miserable for the rest of the Task, and it would only take a few for her to be so ill she wouldn't be able to continue. Of the creatures Zabini had told her about, the doxies were probably the biggest threat to her personally.
Zabini claimed the Ministry planned to catch several hags for the Task, surprisingly. Hags had roughly human intelligence, but almost exclusively ate other beings, so virtually no magical country on earth afforded them any legal rights whatsoever — in most (including Britain) it was perfectly legal for private citizens to just kill them. (Sort of like acromantulae in that way, really.) The problem with hags was that they had their own form of witchcraft, which could make them a pain to deal with, and were supposedly at least somewhat resistant to mind magic. Liz wasn't actually worried about the hags though, Zabini wasn't certain whether the Ministry would even be able to get any there, and if she ran into one she was sure she could just blow it the fuck up and move on. Unless it got really lucky with their weird witchcraft shite...
The traps were also going to be a problem. Some of them worked by illusions and the like, which wouldn't bother her, but the more direct ones would...especially since Liz's cursebreaking skills weren't exactly excellent. If it came down to it she could probably just blow her way through a hedge and go around, but if she got caught by something before she saw it, she might be fucked. And then there were the demons, most of those weren't any threat, but...
There were going to be boggarts in the maze — Liz was honestly dreading maybe running into one. She still hadn't ever been in direct contact with a boggart, and she preferred it that way.
The biggest threat would probably be the other people in the maze. The Champions were allowed to take each other out, of course, but there would be other people trying to hunt them down too. This wouldn't be announced for the spectators until the morning of the event, and the other Champions hadn't been told at the informational meeting either, but the organisers were recruiting duellists from other ICW schools to participate. (They were avoiding the participating schools and even those in the same countries, to prevent any conflicts of interest.) They couldn't win, nothing would happen if they touched the Cup first, but of course the event would be good exposure for someone planning on going into professional duelling...and they'd get a tidy monetary bonus for knocking out another fighter, and an even bigger one for downing a Champion. The maze would be just as hostile to them — though they would have access to shortcuts and safe spaces the Champions wouldn't — but they also didn't need to deal with the obstacles if they didn't want to, could just pick somewhere they suspected was between the Champions and the Cup and wait.
Zabini had warned her that the duellists they were recruiting would all be from the senior division, and they were prioritising people who did have interest in going pro, specifically because the exposure could do them good. So they were likely to be very dangerous — there were a few others things that might pose a problem for Liz, but if she was eliminated she thought it would most likely be because she'd gotten her arse kicked by one of the duellists.
Liz was rather nervous about the Final Task, honestly, more than she had been for most of the others. It didn't really matter to her whether she won or not — she obviously wasn't going to throw the Tournament (and not just because the Goblet might decide to punish her for that), but she didn't even really want to win — but this one was... If it were just another duelling tournament, that would be one thing — she'd know what to expect. This maze thing was so fucking complicated, and there would be so many things going on in there, and she really had no idea what she'd run into. It made it really difficult to prepare, and, not knowing whether she was using her time effectively was making her nervous just by itself, and then there were the fucking boggarts...
She did not want to run into one of the boggarts. That might even be the worst part of the whole thing, honestly, the idea of facing one of those fucking things while all of Europe was watching was kind of stressing her out...
(It would show her Vernon, she just knew it — all of fucking Europe did not need to see that.)
(That she kept thinking about it was starting to make her suspect that she would definitely run into one — she was a Seer, after all, maybe that was why it kept niggling at her — which was just making her feel worse.)
And everyone else getting all keyed up about the event didn't help either. Liz could feel the anticipation on the air, thick and crackling like lightning, pressing against her skin, so thick at times it was almost suffocating. On the worse days, it made her feel unpleasantly surrounded, setting her nerves on edge — she'd started taking drugs just so she could make it to class without halfway losing her mind. It didn't really help her ability to pay attention in class, much, but she did actually make it through class days despite fucking everyone watching her, so that was something.
Apparently, Dáithí had noticed, and reported her to Severus. He'd seemed rather exasperated (and maybe a bit worried, which was always weird to notice), but he hadn't done anything about it...besides make sure she'd be supplied through the end of term. So there was that.
And everyone was fucking watching her, because of course they were. Liz just had to be irrationally famous, and she just had to be winning the bloody Tournament, which continued to be fucking irritating. There'd even been multiple articles about her in Witch Weekly over the last couple months — or, if not solely about her, at least including her — mostly recaps of Tournament stuff and rehashing things to do with her donating shite to orphanages and politics and whatever, but also involving speculation about her love life with annoying frequency. Rita had apologised for that, explaining that she was simply too big of a topic right now to keep completely out of the papers — she claimed she was able to keep the coverage mostly favourable, warning the editors that Liz was unlikely to cooperate with features in future if they offended her too badly, but that was really the best she could do. Liz wasn't happy about it, but she guessed that was understandable. Rita was still keeping to their deal, as much as she could in the present climate, not participating in that shite herself and warning Liz when something mentioning her was coming up in Witch Weekly or the Prophet, just, stopping it wasn't in her power. A couple times, Liz had slipped Rita a correction, when these idiots got something especially wrong, but beyond that there really wasn't much they could do about it.
As low of a bar as it might be, it could have been worse. It turned out jumping in the water that one time and some of the crazy flying around she'd done in the Eighth Task had allowed someone to get shots up her skirt, but a warning from Rita and a few threatening letters from Severus had prevented any of them from actually being published — honestly, she was fourteen, for fuck's sake, she hated people so much sometimes...
Whenever she was out in public areas of the Castle, she could feel countless eyes on her, gossipy whispers following her around. Sometimes someone would come up and talk to her, about the Tournament, what she knew about the Final Task...and even about random shite, or nothing at all? seemingly just because? Not even people she knew, just, random people, their minds all sparkly and... She didn't know, it was very confusing.
Sophie joked that she had fans and, well, Liz didn't have a better explanation — though she kind of wished she did, because it was extremely fucking uncomfortable.
There were people being unsettlingly attentive in 'positive' ways, sure, but the attempts to mess with her were also stepping up as the Final Task approached. Throughout the whole Tournament, there'd been a slow trickle of people trying to hex her in the hallways, or poison her, or slip her a cursed object, whatever, but not anywhere near this frequently. The attempted poisonings didn't have a chance in hell of working — she'd been much more cautious about that ever since the love potion incident — but there were some close calls. The only reason she hadn't been affected by one hexed object (runes sketched onto a sheet of paper, slipped into her things while she'd been in the toilet) was because she'd flailingly torn apart and subsumed the magic attacking her before it had time to latch on properly — Severus was a little impressed she'd actually managed it, thanks to the practice she'd gotten with blood magic subsumption, apparently. The hex would have only given her a painful rash for a few days, so not one of the bad ones, but it still would have been a pain to deal with, especially since it would have resisted treatment. Attempts were pretty frequent, and with significantly worse curses than that, but she always felt it when someone swapped out one of her things with a switching spell — and back-tracked it to its source to threaten the person into giving her the original back, they'd quickly stopped trying that trick — and the vast majority of them came through the post, since Liz was just too perceptive to slip something easily in person.
Of course, her post was still being redirected and sorted before being forwarded to her — the trapped things that were only tedious or embarrassing they just destroyed, but the actual dangerous ones they forwarded on to the DLE. There'd only been a handful of those, Severus told her that Cediny told him that it was only a mild uptick over the normal level of shite she got anyway. Because, yes, people essentially attempting to assassinate her was just a routine thing that happened, enough that Cediny had a background rate she could compare to.
She wasn't worried about that sort of thing — Severus and the elves had the post stuff handled, and she was much more difficult to attack in person — but it was just fucking weird to think about. Liz's life was wild sometimes.
And, naturally, people did occasionally toss hexes at her, when they thought they had an opening. These attacks didn't really work, for the most part. Liz was normally sensitive enough to feel the attack coming, often even before the spell was cast (being a mind mage and a Seer was cheating), and she was quick enough to dodge or block it. She'd gotten unlucky a few times, but they were just annoying prank jinxes, not a big deal. Honestly, her friends got hit more than she did — a few times, she'd reflexively dodged an incoming spell only for it to continue on and hit someone she was walking with. Nobody who'd been hit (Hermione, Tracey, and Sally-Anne, so far) blamed her for it at all, but Liz had still switched to always trying to block them instead. Blocking was slower than dodging, so she risked getting hit more often, but they weren't serious spells anyway, it wasn't a big deal.
Liz had gotten hurt a couple times, and hospitalised once, briefly. One bastard had gotten clever, and animated one of the suits of armour dotted here and there across the Castle as she was walking by — and then, while she was distracted by the first one, animating a few more. The basic spells she'd started with had just splashed off the things — they had surprisingly good spell resistance — Liz had gotten cornered, and even temporarily pinned by one before, maybe freaking out a little bit, she'd decided to stop fucking around. The bloke orchestrating the attack (a seventh-year Ravenclaw) had been animating more armour, but he'd turned and fled when she resorted to serious dark curses, pulverising one of the constructs, and then a second one, before the elves realised something was wrong and showed up to stop the rest. She'd ended up with a few bruises, some strained tendons in her left arm from when one of them grabbed her, but it wasn't so bad, could have been worse.
Flitwick had been impressed that the boy had managed to pull it off — apparently the suits of armour were enchanted to protect the residents of the Castle if it came under attack, but they were controlled through the wards, the boy had needed to get around that somehow — and at the same time absolutely furious. Liz was later told that the boy had been suspended for the rest of the term, only allowed on the grounds for as long as was necessary to take the NEWTs — he was even escorted in and out by one of the Hit Wizards in the Valley, which seemed like overkill to her, but whatever.
The worst incident was when she'd been cornered in the halls by a group of upper-year Gryffindors. Outnumbered and surrounded, she'd tried to fight them off — she'd managed to hit a couple of them, but she'd definitely gotten the worst of it. (Bastards took a mind magic -blocking potion before jumping her, and laid down binding hexes to trap her if she tried to get away with quick-step, annoyingly clever.) That could have gotten really bad, but the elves had alerted the staff immediately — technically before the first hex had even been cast, Liz suspected — her attempt to fight back and escape had slowed them down enough that they'd barely even had her down before help arrived.
She'd had some cuts and bruises, a few broken bones and fucked-up joints, but the most painful part had actually been from the overpowered stripping hexes. One of them had been to disarm her — the second time, she'd summoned her wand back to her hand the first time — but the second one had seemingly just been for the hell of it. They'd managed to put enough power into them to shred sections of her dress to ribbons (it was a total loss, she'd ended up throwing it out) and even sizeable patches of her skin — that shite fucking hurt, even worse than the pain hexes they'd been using when they were interrupted. Though, Liz was a little weird, and didn't think pain hexes were actually that bad, but having her skin basically sanded down like that was seriously fucking painful, it'd sucked.
While she'd been sitting in hospital, waiting for the healing poultice to patch up her skin (the rest of her injuries Pomfrey had dealt with pretty quickly), Severus had told her very firmly that she was to either be with people or under her invisibility cloak whenever she was outside of Slytherin. Needing to be escorted places was fucking embarrassing, but Liz hadn't argued the point — by then she'd been thoroughly tired of dealing with this shite, so, fine. She'd later learned that Severus had had a talk with Flitwick about it, who'd himself gone on to have a talk with the duelling teams about it, within a day or two she started seeing members around far more often than usual. Not really, you know, intrusive about it, they were just...there, keeping an eye on her like. Which, again, fucking embarrassing, but whatever.
Luckily her friends didn't really mind sticking around. Daphne and Tracey and Millie just wordlessly started following her up out of Slytherin — talking to Daphne was still slightly awkward sometimes, but she was mostly at a point she wasn't making an idiot of herself anymore — and sometimes even Blaise and Draco (with the bookends), surprisingly. Hermione and Lily were usually around when their schedules allowed, and Padma and the Hufflepuff girls, and sometimes Fay too. Occasionally there were other people she didn't know as well, like Justin or Morag or Tony or Michael, the group got pretty big sometimes, a little crowd hanging around Liz. Which, yeah, continued to be embarrassing, but they didn't make a big deal about it, like they were just hanging out, so Liz tried not to let it bother her.
At least the irritating and uncomfortable amount of attention on her at all times declined somewhat as exam season proper came up. The Final Task was being held the week after exams, so they'd have all the school shite properly behind them, turning the end of the Tournament into a big send-off before leaving for summer. As usual, the exams were spread over two whole weeks, the OWLs and NEWTs taking over the duelling hall each morning and afternoon — they used to be held in the Great Hall, but they'd relocated this year, for whatever reason — the other years having theory exams in the larger lecture halls and practicals wherever made sense for the subject. Liz and Cedric were exempt from the end-of-year exams, thanks to the Tournament, but they'd both independently decided to take them anyway — Cedric said it was only fair, since Fleur and Viktor had Proficiencies they couldn't skip, and Liz because it wasn't like she had much else better to do with her time.
It was the first Thursday of exams, and Liz felt she was doing...mostly pretty good so far. Monday had been Potions, which was a gimme for her — the stuff they were getting into was much more complicated than they'd started with, and the practical had been tricky, but she was willing to bet she'd gotten a literally perfect score. Tuesday had been Arithmancy — and Muggle Studies, for the people who were in that one — which Liz was less sure of. The concepts weren't difficult, she just...wasn't very good at maths. She'd actually had to leave a few problems unsolved, hadn't been able to get the algebra to work out — she felt she'd done well enough to pass, but she probably hadn't scored great.
Wednesday they'd had Divination and History, which had both been easy. Divination had been a somewhat odd exam, each of them taking a turn talking to Miss Eva one-on-one — less an exam and more a brief conversation about what they'd done this year and how they felt about it. The talk did end with them trying to divine something on the spot, a few different media sitting around they could pick from. Liz decided to show off and didn't use any of them, just going quiet and trying to feel something out...which wasn't really that impressive, since she was a Seer, and happened to have been high at the time, but still. (She was pretty sure she Saw herself setting up a dream-walking trip — with other people around, like it was a demonstration of some kind — so apparently she'd finally get the historians poking over Gaunt's place to agree to that soon.)
They'd had Charms earlier today, which had been dead easy — she'd been a little iffy on some of the theory questions, fucking herself a little with the time she'd been spending on Competency stuff, but she'd killed in the practical. (Charms had always been easy for her, she hadn't even revised at all.) After hanging around for their group to all finish the practical, they'd taken over one of the sitting rooms dotted around the Castle, to cool off and talk about whatever until it was time to go down to dinner. They hadn't gone over the exam they'd just had for very long — theory had been in the morning, Hermione had already finished obsessing over the exam booklet at lunch — transitioning into just chatting or revising or discussing their remaining exams.
Tomorrow was Transfiguration — honestly, Liz was considering skipping that one. She didn't need to take the exams, after all, and she'd always been frustratingly terrible at transfiguration. And, honestly, she'd kind of let her Hogwarts Transfiguration lapse while she studied for the Competency exam instead, which was going to be a bigger problem than usual for this exam in particular. Liz had been revising a bit along with the others, and there were some topics she, just, didn't remember at all. They weren't in the Competency curriculum, and she'd skipped so many classes this year...
Besides, Liz didn't like being shite at things. Forcing herself to struggle through the exam would probably just make her feel terrible for no good reason. She was still using this time to flip through a copy of Hermione's conveniently summarised notes, but really, this was just convincing herself more and more that she shouldn't bother with this one.
She was distracted looking over Hermione's notes — and simmering over how fucking frustrating she found Transfiguration to be, that really had never gotten any better — pulled out of it when she heard her name, attention brushing over her. "Hmm? I'm sorry, I wasn't listening."
"We're talking about down to dinner," Padma said. "I was just wondering if you're feeling well enough to deal with the Great Hall today."
"Oh, well..." It wasn't really a surprise that that had occurred to Padma in particular, she'd always been especially good about making considerations for Seer-related things. But now that she'd given up and just started taking drugs when she needed to, it really wasn't as much as a problem anymore. "I should be fine. I might take another tablet before going down, though." Mages didn't actually call their little crystalised potions that, but they were basically the same idea as the muggle things, and she'd slipped into using the word without really thinking about it.
With a little shiver of uncertainty, Sally-Anne said, "Maybe if you're not feeling up to it, it'd be better to just go down to the kitchens instead? I mean, I don't mean to be, you know, just, you've been taking a lot of that stuff lately..."
"That's pretty common for Seers, it's perfectly safe." Padma thought Sally-Anne having reservations about it was a bit muggleish of her — she was too polite to actually say that, but.
Liz shrugged. "Severus says it's fine, until this Tournament stuff blows over. Besides, I eat better when I'm on that stuff, and everyone keeps telling me I need to do that." There were a couple quiet flickers of discomfort, from people who'd wondered (verbally or mentally) whether she had, you know, a food problem. "It's okay, I'm just saying.
"Anyway, I think I'll take a detour up to the library first, I've got a couple books to turn in." She'd begun gradually preparing to go home already — there was only, like, two weeks so before they'd be leaving school, and Liz would be rather busy for that last bit of it, with the Final Task and all. Nilanse and Honish and company had started taking the house out of stasis and setting up to actually be lived in again, but slowly in little chores now and then, since there wasn't really a big rush. Going through her things and packing up what she wasn't going to need in the next couple weeks anyway, she'd stumbled across a few library books she'd taken out since the last time she'd gone through her things, She probably should have gone by to return them at some point going to and from the Charms classroom, but she guessed it'd slipped her mind.
"Oh, I was thinking of going by the library myself," Hermione said. "I'm out of— Well, I'm still trying not to obsess so much, but I need distractions to manage that. I've been thinking of looking into more of the old epic poetry and the like they have tucked back in that corner — what was it you were telling me about earlier? Something by Cad...Cadyr? Cadell?"
Liz picked up a clear discordant wiggle as Hermione spoke — she was lying.
...Interesting.
"You mean Cadeyrn of Porthyswŷdd?"
"That sounds like it. The one who wrote about the unrest ahead of the Anglo-Saxon invasions, and the early Wizengamot getting themselves tied up in knots..."
"Yep, he has a few works about that that managed to survive. The Cambrian is pretty archaic, though, you're going to want a dictionary."
"Aren't there any modern translations?"
"Well, there might be a couple, I guess, but I don't remember which ones..."
As Liz and Hermione babbled on about old Cambrian epic poetry, the rest of the group decided that they didn't need to come with, they could just go ahead and leave the two of them to be nerds. She was supposed to be escorted everywhere, and normally there'd be more than one person — especially since Hermione wasn't exactly much of a duellist, so she'd really be more of a liability than anything — but it wasn't like they expected an attack, and nobody wanted to wait for Liz and Hermione to waffle about picking out books before being able to get down to dinner.
Which was, of course, exactly what Hermione was counting on. She could be surprisingly devious sometimes — her Slytherin friends had clearly been a good influence on her.
They actually got going ahead of the rest of the group, Hermione's Transfiguration notes retrieved from Liz and tucked into her bag, the two of them slipping out of the room while the others were still stalling chatting or packing up their things. A tingly, simmering edge to Hermione's mind, they were still putting on a show of talking about Cadeyrn of Porthyswŷdd, a few similar Cambrian works one or the other was familiar with. They had gotten into quite a bit of proper literature in Cambrian class over the last year, some of them they actually knew from class, but they were also both nerds, and spent a possibly unreasonable amount of time reading, so. Of course, Liz could tell Hermione's thoughts weren't really on poetry, but someone might still be listening.
They reached the Grand Staircase, pausing to let a group of...second-years go by, coming down to dinner from one class or another. Using the opportunity to fish her packet of crystalised drugs out of her bag, Liz muttered, "You're not actually thinking about Cadeyrn of Porthyswŷdd."
"Nope," Hermione admitted — she hadn't expected to fool Liz, cheating mind-reader and all, that'd just been to get their friends off their backs. They would go up to the library so Liz could return her books, but Hermione planned to take a...diversion, on the way back. "Is that a problem?"
"'Course not. I just think it's funny you used bloody poetry as an excuse."
"Had to pick something believable, didn't I? Besides, I honestly would be interested in recommendations — though I'd prefer having my own copy, so I can make annotations, you know."
"Hermione Granger, I'm surprised at you — writing in a book? What's next, food in the library?"
"Oh, shut up..."
They didn't bother filling the air with more random chatter on the way up, walking in silence. Silence to the ears, anyway, Hermione's mind was plenty noisy to Liz — sharp and bubbling and sizzling, warm and tingly with excitement, putting a bit of extra haste on her step and making Liz's breath a little thick in her throat. Liz wasn't getting any specific details from Hermione's head, exactly — besides that she intended to divert them into one of the sitting rooms on the way back down — just the feeling, making the air between them hot and tense, Liz's steps feeling a little stiff and clumsy, her skin crawling. Not in an unpleasant way, just, Hermione's mind could be slightly overwhelming at times. Especially with what she was thinking about at the moment, knowing what was going to happen soon, as soon as Liz could get her books returned, it was rather infectious, Hermione's own excitement and anticipation seeping into Liz, her heart beginning to throb in her throat and her fingertips, occasionally glancing over at Liz, as the seconds went by her attention increasingly hot and...
Liz still didn't think Hermione was attracted to her, precisely, but there was...something. It wasn't the same thing, felt different from Daphne's attention, or Katie's — or that of a handful of other people who'd gotten infatuated with her at one point or another (which was too often, just, uncomfortable) — or not even all that different in tone, really, but not focussed the same way? She thought it was mostly memory doing the trick, not a biological impulse so much as a psychological one, indirect. And it was definitely there, enough that Hermione found it rather confusing — she didn't know how to tell the difference, didn't entirely understand what was happening to her, because hormones could be like that sometimes.
At some level, Hermione had started associating Liz with orgasms. It wasn't conscious, Liz didn't think, it was just something her mind did — because, like, the way minds worked, sprawling webs of association, and Liz was the only person she'd done basically anything sexual with, so that kind of made sense? Hermione would remember, yes, all the way back to the day after that first time, she'd look at Liz and memories would flicker past behind her eyes, but over time it'd grown unconscious, just reflexive, look at Liz, sexy thoughts. Not all the time, no, but. Happy sex chemical shite probably helped firm up that association, you know, some instinctive part of her brain being like the good-feelings-stuff happens around this person, you like them, if that made sense. Liz wasn't certain it did, really, but the connection made sense to her.
It was somewhat pleasant to have focussed on her, honestly, if a bit awkward at times — if Liz started visibly blushing around Hermione for no obvious reason, that might be kind of obvious.
The walk up to the library was agonising — her skin hot and prickling, her heart throbbing in her throat and her fingertips — but they got there eventually. She slipped her books onto the return cart, Hermione's attention on her making her slightly clumsy, and then they turned right around and left again. Liz didn't know where they were going, but it felt like Hermione had a plan — she turned to the right, so Liz just followed her. The excitement burning higher, hot and sharp and impatient, Hermione led them down the hall a bit, around a corner, there was a staircase over here, they went down a level. The Cambrian classroom was over that way, Liz knew, but Hermione turned the opposite direction, along hallways Liz hardly ever bothered with...though there was a parseltongue-sealed passage over this way, and a rather nice gallery overlooking the courtyard just there...
Belatedly, Liz noticed a slant of anxious anticipation on Hermione's thoughts — she had plans, and was a little nervous about it. She wasn't explicitly thinking about whatever it was, though, Liz couldn't tell.
She was a little distracted by that, she nearly missed Hermione turning off, a sudden grab of her hand bringing her mind crashing against Liz's, the usual clockwork turning inundated with clinging simmering sizzling warmth. Tugging her a little toward one door in particular — Liz stumbling a little, her head spinning slightly from the drugs — Hermione cracked it open and quick peeked inside before stepping through, closing it once Liz slipped in behind her. It was one of the sitting rooms dotted across the Castle, but an unusually small one. These were meant for students to gather outside of classes, so there was normally room for maybe a dozen people at a time, at least — this one, decorated in Hufflepuff brown and Gryffindor red, had just an armchair and a poofy two-seat sofa, lit only by the fire crackling away in the hearth.
Even as Liz pulled out her wand to start casting locking and privacy charms on the door, she frowned. This room seemed...weirdly familiar. She didn't think she'd ever been here, though, she wasn't sure what it was reminding her of.
"Is this all right?" Hermione asked, an uncertain shiver running through her mind. They'd never done anything anywhere except Liz's bed or the bath in the Slytherin dorms, she wasn't sure Liz would be comfortable with it. Actually, not just that, she was also a bit uncertain about this just in general — this was the first time they'd snuck off during the day like this. Liz had noticed Hermione contemplating the idea before, but she'd never gone through with it, and she wasn't entirely certain whether this was welcome or not.
But, well, Liz had followed her in here, so that was sort of a silly thing to worry about. "It's fine, just let me finish with the palings quick." She finished off the locking and privacy and silencing spells with an aversion paling, wrapped around the whole lot, which should prevent anyone from noticing the accumulation of energy from all the spells she'd cast. A waver of confusion from Hermione, she couldn't see the door anymore, instantly guessed what she'd done. Tucking her wand back into its holster, she said, "There, that'll do." She reached up to grab the collar of Hermione's robes with both hands, and yanked her down, Hermione letting out a surprised little eep, jittery clockwork mind flooding through hers as she found her lips, a hot thrill crawling over her shoulders and down her back.
They were only kissing for a handful of seconds before Hermione let out a hum — a little muffled, the vibration carrying through Liz's lips, her ring faintly buzzing against her teeth — leaned back, started scrabbling at the side of her robes. Liz backed off a step, going for the laces of her own, after a second of clumsy picking just loosening them all at once with a sweep of her fingers and a wandless charm. Her heart pounding in her throat and her teeth, feeling warm and tingly, Hermione's attention pressing on her hot and soft and clinging, a bit light-headed and pleasantly fuzzy from the drugs, Liz could feel herself grinning. Her robes pulled over her head and tossed away, Hermione a couple seconds behind her — she never wore much under her robes in the summer months, this time a tee shirt and a pair of cotton shorts. Swaying, Liz lurched a couple steps forward, her hands going to Hermione's hips without really thinking, automatic, Hermione always looked great in shorts...
The height difference made the kissing part a little awkward, but Liz didn't really care too much at the moment, her head too ecstatic and spinny, Hermione's hands running over her back and her attention wrapping around her warm and fuzzy like a blanket, Hermione's excitement and hot anticipation pulsing through her, her heart pounding in her teeth and her fingertips, Hermione's breath caught a little at Liz's hands on her bum, hanging for a second, a crackling something ringing through them, so Liz caught her lip with her teeth, Hermione letting out a little startled squeak, Liz breathlessly giggled, Hermione growling back at her (playfully) annoyed, her hand at the back of Liz's head and pressing in (their teeth even clacked once, oops), leaning over her, hardly giving her a chance to breathe, light-headed...
Liz slowly stumbled back, her head spinning and the floor seeming to tilt a little under her (drugs), eventually her hips bonked against the back of...either the sofa or the chair, she forgot which was where. Hermione pressing against her, she noticed after a second Liz didn't have anywhere to go anymore, was about to pull them around — Liz was quicker though, covered herself with a featherweight charm, wormed her arms up to wrap around Hermione's shoulders for leverage, and hopped up onto the back of the sofa, this was the sofa. There was a twitter of...something in Hermione's head — amused, but also this wasn't according to plan — but she didn't say anything, arms around Liz's waist pulling her closer, Liz wrapping her legs around—
She noticed the flare of discomfort as the heel of Liz's boot dug into Hermione's leg, oops. A flick of her wrist bringing her wand to hand, she tapped at one boot, the laces springing open, a gentle banishing charm slipping it part way off, she kicked it down the rest of the way, freeing one foot. Getting the other one was a little more awkward, aiming around Hermione, leaning to—
Of course, leaning that way exposed her neck, and abruptly Hermione's face was there, and ah, teeth! a strangled sort of ghrk noise wrenched out of her throat as a heavy hot thrum shook her, her heart pounding in her teeth and between her legs and her skin crawling and her head spinning, Hermione's amusement and an odd smug feeling pulsing through her. Tension beginning to coil up, Liz clutched at her shoulders, dizzy, Hermione kept working at her neck, sharp hot sparks shooting down, aahhh, she pawed at the heel of her boot with her opposite foot, after a couple tries (clumsy and twitchy) managed to push it down, a couple kicks flinging the boot away, she pulled herself in closer, legs around Hermione's hips, gasping for breath and her skin hot and crawling, her spine curling, her hand reflexively trying to jump between her legs, but her dress and also Hermione were kind of in the way...
She pulled at Hermione's shirt instead, the assault on her neck finally letting off for a moment so she could pull it over Hermione's head — leaning back and pulling up, she teetered on the back of the sofa, her legs clenched around Hermione for balance, one heel digging into the back of a thigh. Skin hot on her fingers, a shiver running through Hermione and into her, pressing her face against Hermione's shoulder, smooth and warm and soft against her cheek and her lips, light little nibbles and kisses along her shoulder raising sharp warm slithery sparks shooting through Hermione's head, brushing the bra strap out of the way, fingertips pressing into her back, Hermione's breath loud, teeth found the shell of her ear, Liz tensed, her skin crawling, interrupting her, Hermione using the opportunity to find her neck again, her head pounding, light and spinny, heart throbbing in her fingertips and her teeth and between her legs, waves of hot tingles crawling over her with each touch of lips and tongue and teeth against her neck (she was going to have to heal that before they left), her throat thick with a groan and her eyes stinging, she squirmed closer, clutching at Hermione and her legs tightening around her waist, heat coiling low sharp and distracting, Hermione's hands behind her hips, her back arching, linking her shins behind Hermione's arse, she pulled, turning, squirming in place, trying to find friction somewhere, a funny fascinated amusement sparking away in Hermione's head...
Hermione pulled away, leaving Liz flushed and gasping for breath — she didn't completely back off, hands slipping over Liz's thighs and catching her wrists, mind still loud and insistent against Liz's. A slanted smug feeling in her head — apparently she found the way Liz was staring at her, her face very red, to be unreasonably funny — there was an edge of nervousness, but also an anticipatory fascination, tension building in Liz's throat and prickling over the back of her neck. Tugging at her wrists a little, Liz tipped off of the back of the sofa, a little unsteady on her feet, her legs weak and twitchy. Hermione started edging them around, she meant for Liz to sit down. With a slightly shaky almost shy smile, her voice thick, heavy from excitement and slightly unsteady from nerves, lower than normal, a weird half-whispery grinding, she said—
"Take off your dress."
Cool pins and needles prickling over the back of her shoulders, her hair standing on end, Liz grimaced. She didn't go back, but it was there, vague — like those detached moments, one foot here and one foot somewhere else, not feeling quite real, but this time the other foot was there. But only sort of, unfocussed and numb (the drugs were probably helping there), it didn't hit hard, just an indistinct feeling of unease, a squirming unpleasant chill settling in her stomach, warring with the heat coiling tense, making her feel a little nauseous, her skin starting to crawl, she grit her teeth against it, trying to stop...
"...Liz? What is it?"
Pushing out a little hum, Liz shook her head. She twisted her wrists out of Hermione's grip, took a teetering step back, rubbing at her forehead with the heels of both hands, frustrated tears sparking in her eyes. It wasn't overpowering, but it was still there, seeping through her (like bleach on the air, burning at the back of her throat), Hermione's attention on her starting to feel muggy and clinging, making her unpleasantly self-conscious. With a little groan, Liz tipped back another step, and tried to sit on the arm of the sofa — she misjudged the distance, her bum sliding right off the edge, she flailed to grab onto something but still ended up slamming down onto the floor. "Fuck, ow, stupid..."
"Are you okay?" Hermione wasn't asking about hurting herself like an idiot.
"Yeah, I just..." Rubbing at her forehead again, gritting her teeth — it could have been worse, she'd had much worse, but she could still hear it. Like, a hard hit to the head, but instead of just meaningless ringing she heard the grumble of Vernon's voice, eyes on her skin like wasps, the fabric of the sofa scratching at her chest— Liz bit out a sharp sigh, took in a long, slow breath, fighting to clear her head. "Having a stupid Liz is broken, P.T.S.D. moment, that's all."
"...Oh." While Liz kept breathing, trying to calm down, Hermione's mind was churning, concern and anger (not at Liz) and guilt. "Um. Did you want me to get your bag?" Assuming Liz would have a calming potion in there, she meant.
"It's not that bad — it didn't hit super hard, and I think the cannabis helps. Just, sucks." Sighing again, Liz muttered, "Really not up to it now. Sorry."
"No, Liz, you don't—" Her attention brushing back over Liz, eyes on her skin like ants, she grimaced, straightened her skirt down over her thighs — it'd ended up a bit bunched up when she fell. Which was silly, it was just Hermione, Liz couldn't count the times she'd seen her naked, and they were literally having sex, even feeling all self-conscious and gross she still got a bit frustrated with herself. But she guessed her fucked-up brain shite never made any fucking sense, whatever. "It's okay, I— You don't need to apologise, it's fine."
A few seconds passed in silence, Hermione's mind squirming and uncomfortable — and still feeling rather guilty, which, it was kind of her fault, though obviously she hadn't done it on purpose — Liz rubbing at her forehead with the heels of both hands and taking slow steady breaths. The creeping unpleasant feeling did gradually diminish. Frustratingly slowly, the not-ringing in her ears and the squirming in her stomach fading away second by second, but she guessed that was better than the alternative.
She did wonder why this little episode was so much less...overwhelming than the one with Daphne like half a year ago now. Hard to say, it could be any number of things. The context was different, just a words thing and not actually physical, which might make a difference. And she was high at the moment, of course — that tended to make mind magic and Seer things less intrusive, or, at least easier for Liz to just let it wash over her and not freak out too much. Maybe it was just the desensitisation she'd gotten in? She didn't know. As very frustrated as she was at the moment, she was so sick of being a fucking mess, it was still a little reassuring, because this wasn't nearly as bad as last time, and, she didn't know, she couldn't help feeling like that was a good sign.
Maybe she was fooling herself there, but she didn't think she was? She'd worked really hard on this shite, and, she thought this was good. Still sucked, yeah, but, still good.
At some point, Hermione had sat down next to her, leaning against the sofa just to her left — which Liz kind of appreciated, Hermione's attention on her was uncomfortable at the moment, easier to settle down without it. Not touching her, so it wasn't super clear, but Liz could still feel her mind ticking away, twisting slimy guilt and concern dribbling off of her. Which, Liz should probably deal with that.
It wasn't really her fault. She'd set Liz off, but she couldn't help that Liz was fucked up, and sometimes she was unreasonably sensitive about things sometimes, and she didn't...
Liz frowned down at her lap, clicking her lip ring against her teeth.
She didn't know.
Nerves sizzling at the back of her neck, Liz took another slow breath, staring down at her knees. "Um. It was, er... It wasn't so bad, like, nothing like that time with Daphne. I think I'm getting better? I'm not sure, maybe it's just the drugs, but I think the...desensitisation...thing, really helped."
Hermione's attention brushed over her for a second, but then she looked away again — aware Liz could feel it when she looked at her, trying to avoid making her feel too self-conscious. "Good. Are you feeling better now?"
"Yeah, um. I'm still not going to be able to...do anything, for a little while. Sorry."
"No, Liz, it— You don't have to apologise for that."
"I kinda do, though. I mean... It is my fault — not for freaking out, I can't help that, but because I didn't tell you what...might set me off. I'm just, you know. Don't want to talk about it."
"...I understand. I still don't think you need to apologise, but I get what you're saying." Hermione hesitated for a second, thoughts clicking away, simmering with reluctance — worried about crossing an invisible line, Liz thought. "What was the trigger? I'm not sure how..."
Liz took a long slow breath, in and out, and then a second one. There was a sharp niggling of nerves at the back of her head (she was not to talk about what went on at home), but quiet, enough to mostly ignore. She felt a little twitchy, fiddling with the hem of her dress, but she kept going anyway, working at the knot in her throat. "When I did... When Vernon decided I did whatever — I didn't even fucking know what it was half the time — he would..."
Her voice low and soft, Hermione muttered, "You don't have to tell me. If this is going to be too difficult, I mean, you can just tell me what I did wrong."
"No, it's all right." It wasn't, really, Liz feeling very tense and twitchy (like she was about to get in trouble), but just because something was hard didn't mean she shouldn't do it anyway. She'd been spending years learning that lesson by now, so. She cleared her throat. "Um. There was this sofa, in the living room, he'd... Close the blinds — couldn't have the neighbours seeing, you know — sit me down, and just...lecture at me, about whatever it was. Not so much the specific thing I did wrong, it always seemed like the same speech every time? Not about the thing I did, but about me, about how much of a useless freak I was, you know..."
Liz was interrupted by Hermione's mind suddenly clattering against hers, busy and hard and mechanical and at the same time thick and soft, simmering with concern and anger (not at Liz). Finding her hand, fingers lacing through hers, warm feelings pulsing over her.
It took a handful of seconds for Liz to find her voice again, throat tight. "I, er... I know you got...some details, from nightmares and stuff. But. When he thought he'd yelled at me enough, he, he'd tell me to get up — get up, girl, never used my name if he could help it, always girl this and freak that." Hermione's hand tightened on hers a little, that simmering anger directed at Vernon growing sharper. "Um. And I'd... He'd tell me..." Dropping her voice a bit, grumbling, "Take off your dress."
"...Oh."
"I didn't go all the way back there. I still heard him, but it was...vague — like a ringing in your ears." Turning to give Hermione a weak smile, she drawled, "Still enough to kill the mood, though."
Hermione let out a little, unamused huff. "Yeah, I guess it would. I..." She hesitated a moment, thoughts clicking away, an edge of nerves — Liz was close enough now to tell that she really wasn't sure if Liz would react to this question well, wasn't sure it was her business. Before Liz could get ahead of it, Hermione said, "Hear him? You mean you...literally hear his voice?"
"Oh, yeah, sometimes. Not as much as I used to, it really is a lot better. Especially since I've, you know, been having less nightmares and shite. But, it still happens."
...The words that occurred to Hermione to say were I'm sorry, which of course didn't exactly make a lot of sense in context. After all, that wasn't Hermione's fault. She did find it kind of horrifying, and, sympathy and concern and anger all mixed up, burning in her throat, her hand tight around Liz's, the echo carried through starting to make her eyes prickle.
Liz cleared her throat, and moved on — Hermione's mind was just too loud this close, keep that going too long and she'd probably end up crying or something. "So, yeah, let's...avoid that. Also, um, I..." Gritting her teeth against the nerves crackling over her skin and her stomach squirming, Liz hissed, "Don't take off my pants, let me do that. That's, um, that's what set me off, with Daphne, that time. Yeah."
The thing that Liz wasn't saying — why that was a problem — Hermione just found more horrifying. But thankfully she realised that Liz wouldn't want to linger on it, pushing past the subject and not asking questions with what seemed like actual physical effort. (This was Hermione, after all, she was nothing if not curious.) "Okay. I'll remember."
"Good, thanks." They just sat there for a moment, the gears of Hermione's clockwork mind steadily turning against hers — the heat of that talk burning down to a low background hum, not going away so much as just gradually fading out of mind. They should get down to dinner before too much longer, but Liz wanted to wait a little bit, to make sure she was...less obvious. Though she guessed everyone wouldn't think it was suspicious if she came down looking like she'd just had a panic attack. Definitely had to heal the marks she'd have on her neck, though, now that she was thinking about it she could feel that smarting... "Sorry, um, I know you had a whole plan here, didn't mean to mess it up."
"That's all right, Liz, I—" Cutting herself off with a sigh, Hermione's head tipped back to lean against the side of the sofa. Her arm rubbing against Liz's shoulder reminded her that Hermione wasn't wearing a shirt at the moment — Liz reflexively glanced her way, but she was still feeling too bleh to manage much more than yep, those are Hermione's tits, look at that.
Oh, there was probably going to end up being an obvious mark right there on Hermione's shoulder, oops, should probably heal that too when she got to it...
"I was trying to do something nice, but...well, I guess I can get carried away sometimes. I probably shouldn't have sprung it on you, I am sorry for that."
Liz blinked. "What?"
"Well, you've been looking like you've been having a hard time lately, I don't know, all tense and quiet, more than usual, and, I just thought..."
So, lately Liz had seemed like she was in a bad mood, and Hermione'd thought the thing to do about that was surprise her with sex? Not like she was complaining, of course, just hadn't seen that coming, was all. She was also babbling, which was kind of funny, Liz felt a smile twitching at her lips.
"I was thinking I would, um..." Hermione shifted in place a little, a squirming hot embarrassment crackling through her mind — reminding Liz of the few occasions when Hermione had been called on to answer a question in class, but didn't know the answer off the top of her head. "I was going to...you know, oral. I guess."
"...Oh."
...
"Um. Some other time, maybe."
A curl of amusement slipping through her discomfort, Hermione agreed, "Some other time."
The thought was making Liz a little, she didn't know. It was a weird thought, and embarrassing, imaging Hermione, you know, that close, to things, kind of making her insides squirm. But it wasn't entirely a bad thought...obviously. Just a little much. And not just for those reasons, she...
It also just seemed...different. Like somehow more, she didn't know, something, than what they'd been doing already. She didn't know if there was a real line there, or if it were just Liz's stupid fucked-up issues with her own body making it seem like a bigger deal than it really was, but, she didn't know. It just seemed like a different kind of thing.
More intimate, was maybe the word she was looking for? But that didn't seem right — they were having sex, so, that was already pretty fucking intimate. She didn't know why, it just felt like another degree to her.
This whole thing hadn't stopped being so damn confusing, Liz had just been...trying not to let it bother her. But maybe just because the thought of Hermione eating her out was shoving it in her face again, maybe it was the drugs, maybe just because this was already a pretty serious talk they'd been having, she... Well, this didn't seem like a bad time? "Um, Hermione?"
"Hmm?"
Liz glanced her way — Hermione's head was still tipped back against the sofa, staring blankly up at the ceiling. She was partly thinking about the whole eating her out thing, but also Liz-is-broken stuff, and hating Vernon, and the stupid Tournament, and wishing everyone would just leave her alone...and also their Transfiguration exam tomorrow, and what her summer break was going to look like, with the baby and her French relatives being magical and everything, and vague concern about Sally-Anne for reasons that weren't explicitly spelled out. Because Hermione's mind was just ridiculously busy sometimes, could give her a headache just watching. "What is this? With us, I mean, are we...?" She wasn't entirely sure how she wanted to finish that sentence — "dating" seemed like the wrong word somehow.
Hermione took a moment to think about it, gears clicking away. It didn't take her very long, though, she'd spent some time thinking about just what was going on with them herself. She didn't answer right away, cool squirming hesitation crawling over Liz's skin, worried how Liz would feel about it — which was pointless, Liz was a bloody mind-reader, she'd seen what Hermione was about to say before she even got to it. "No. No, I don't think so. I think we're friends. Is that, er..." Glancing down at Liz, a tentative, reluctant sort of grimace twisting her face, "Is that okay? I mean, if you wanted to... I..."
She was trying to work up to saying that she'd be willing to give being a proper couple a try, if that was what Liz wanted — but in a way that didn't trivialise the idea, in case Liz was actually taking it seriously. Not wanting to hurt her feelings, like. But before she could torture herself too much, Liz said, "No, that's fine. I'm not... I mean, if it was your idea, I'd give it a shot, but... Honestly, it's probably better this way. I've more or less got friends down by this point, I'm less likely to fuck that up."
"Liz," Hermione muttered, with a little crackling of disapproval.
"Yeah, I know, I'm just saying. It's fine, it's not— I wasn't, like, hoping we were or anything, you know, I was just confused. Friends is good enough for me."
"I'm sorry if I've been..." She didn't finish the thought, but Liz was pretty sure she'd been about to say that she hadn't meant to lead Liz on, or whatever. "I suppose I could have... Well, I've been quite confused myself."
"It's all right, I could have said something earlier too. I thought about it, but I didn't want to, er..."
There was a sudden warm twitter of amusement from Hermione's head. She'd guessed that Liz was about to say that she was enjoying the sex, and didn't want to accidentally fuck it up by saying the wrong thing. She almost teasingly said something about enjoying herself too, but was hung up by a flash of self-consciousness.
Liz tried very hard to ignore the warmth swiftly growing on her face. "Shut up. Anyway, yeah, um. I was actually thinking about asking Katie out, soon, so."
"Oh! That's great, I know you've liked her for a long time." Hermione was actually remembering them playing quidditch last year, that one game where that they spent most of a match baiting each other.
...Apparently that had come off as weird flirty behaviour? Liz was so bad at telling. "Um, I wouldn't have said so if you'd asked me back then, but I'm awful with feelings shite, so, fuck knows."
Hermione thought that was funny too, really not helping Liz with the whole face changing colours thing, ugh, why did she blush so fucking easily these days... "Is that going to be a problem? This, I mean, you know."
Liz shrugged. "I was going to ask her about it. Assuming you're okay with me telling her."
"That's fine." She was a little uncomfortable with the thought — she didn't know Katie as well as Liz did, mostly just as one of the older Gryffindors she didn't talk to, if one of the nicer ones, uneasy with her knowing personal things. (Worried that the gossip would get out, the Gryffindors would bully her for being a slut or whatever, the concern not at the surface of her thoughts, subconscious.) But she trusted Liz's sense of Katie's character enough to not be worried about what might come of telling her too much. "If you have to... If Katie wants us to stop, that's fine. I'll be disappointed, of course, but I want you to..." Hermione trailed off, not entirely sure how to finish that sentence.
"Yeah, I get it." Liz hesitated for a second, before admitting, "I'm almost certain she's going to be fine with it."
"...Did you have a Seer moment?"
"I, um, I went crystal-gazing about it."
"Oh!" Hermione chirped, straightening next to Liz a little. Her attention crackling over Liz as she glanced this way, "I remember that! It was the day after that first time, in Divination class, you... Well, you went off into the corner, and you do that sometimes, but I noticed you kept looking at me. I thought it was, just..."
Liz nodded. "Yeah, that was it — I didn't know what was going on, with this, I tried to see if I could figure it out. I'm pretty sure Katie and I are going to be a thing, and I'm pretty sure we're going to keep...doing whatever this is. For years, at least."
"Really? So...are we still going to be friends, after Hogwarts?" She was also thinking about Liz leaving, but, she was aware her parents were in contact with basically none of their secondary school friends, so.
"Yeah, um...I think you're going to make me your first child's godmother?"
"Oh! Oh, that's good to hear. Unless, you don't think that's going to be soon, do you? I was hoping to finish university and— Well, I guess not university, as such, but you know what I mean."
"You were older in the vision it showed me. Hard to say how much older, but it wasn't soon, I don't think."
"Good, that's good." Hermione was pretty sure she wanted to do the whole, you know, having a family thing, just not right away. She did have significantly older parents than most of the kids she'd known growing up, but she actually thought that sounded better — get some time to have a life to yourself, before taking on big responsibilities like having children and shite. Though, Rachel had been born a bit too late, she thought, by the time she got to Hermione's age her parents would be...kind of old, already...
"The safe window for mages is wider, since we live longer," Liz said. "Not by a lot, I don't think, like a decade or two, something like that — it's not proportionate, it's actually a smaller fraction of mages' lives, you know. But yeah, you're not going to miss it if you wait a while."
"Right." Hermione did wonder how Liz knew about that kind of thing — she'd come across it looking up ways to stop having periods, but Hermione didn't need to know that — if not curious enough to actually ask. She kind of assumed Severus had talked to her about this stuff at some point, which was funny, he was nearly as awkward about that type of conversation as Liz was. "It is a relief to hear that...
"I never really had friends before Hogwarts," Hermione admitted, her voice dropping a little bit, an uncomfortable queasy lurch washing over Liz. Embarrassment, and...something else, she wasn't sure what. "Back in primary, it... I never really had much in common with children my age. I used to think it was because I was more intelligent, that they were jealous or just stupid and mean — in retrospect I think it was...I was socialised badly? I didn't spend much time with other children when I was little, playing by myself, and once I learned to read, well. I always got on better with adults than other children, I think because I simply spent more time around adults, so I never learned to relate to people my own age. And I realise now I can be a bit...pushy, and judgemental, that must have been...off-putting."
"You're not nearly as bad about that anymore."
"I know, but the thing that helped me...well, get the stick out of my arse, so to speak, was actually having people who'd stick around long enough to explain...how I'm coming off. And, who care enough to realise how worked up I can get about things, and get me to realise I'm only making myself miserable — even when it takes repeated reminders, or forcing me to get away from my books, like when exams are coming up. I'd probably still be, you know, the way I was, if people didn't care enough to help. And I know it must not have been easy, I was so insufferable, looking back...still can be, sometimes..."
"...Yeah. Yeah, I...don't like thinking about it. What I'd be like if I didn't decide to play along with the whole friends thing, you know." Liz was still a fucking mess, sometimes, but it was fucking obvious that she was in a much better place than she'd been when she'd started Hogwarts. She didn't know how much of that she owed to her nosey bloody friends, or how much was Severus, or Liz just deciding to take trying not to be miserable all the time seriously...but, she probably wouldn't have done anything about if if she hadn't had people who gave a damn nudging at her, so. There were still times when it was hard, but, she was better than she used to be, definitely, enough that it was kind of scary to think about.
Hermione gave a low little hum, agreeing. "I don't think anyone really tried before, not until you and Dorea came to get me that Hallowe'en." That had been all Dorea's idea, of course, but Hermione realised that, she was just saying. "And you kept trying, when I know I wouldn't have been making it easy on you, at first, and... I don't know if I've ever said how much it means to me. Our friendship, I mean. I don't really know how to, I can't... It really hit me, last year, when everything was coming out around your adoption. I remembered, earlier, that incident with Lavender and Parvati, when you came up and got my things back, and I thought..."
She wasn't actually talking about the news of the stuff with Severus — she was thinking of the article about the Dursleys. That hadn't been her first clue that Liz...had issues — obviously, Hermione wasn't an idiot, in retrospect she'd been kind of obvious sometimes — but seeing it spelled out, and how Liz reacted, and... Hermione had the most Gryffindorish protective impulses sometimes, and gratitude for Liz trying to protect her, with her roommates and various other bullies and all, an odd deep feeling Liz didn't know how to read, and intense soft affection bubbling up her throat, the funny mix of feelings tangling up in her chest—
When Liz felt her eyes start prickling, she tried to pull herself a bit away from Hermione's mind. She took a long, deep breath, trying to work out the heat in her throat — randomly crying from vicariously picking up on Hermione's feelings would just be embarrassing.
(It was still a bit baffling to her, to feel someone actually care about her that much, but she realised that was Liz is broken stuff. Of course, she couldn't actually stop herself from feeling vaguely confused about it, faintly suspicious that she was being tricked for whatever reason, but she knew that was irrational, at least. That was progress, she was pretty sure.)
"It means a lot to me," Hermione continued. Liz noticed her voice was a bit thicker than before, the faintest edge of a croak to it — tearing up a little herself, apparently. Okay then, Liz guessed her response to picking up Hermione's feelings wasn't her crying for no reason again, that was apparently normal. It was so hard to tell, honestly. "More than I...really know how to explain, you know? And I wonder sometimes, about the future. We won't be in school forever, and with you transferring out, and... Sometimes I worry, how things will turn out. That you've Seen us, that far in the future, still friends long after Hogwarts, that... It's a relief, honestly, I... Well."
Hermione didn't feel like she'd gotten the thought across the way she wanted to, but she just didn't think she could. (Sometimes, other people weren't that much better at feelings things than Liz was.) And there was an edge of embarrassment now, over getting emotional — Hermione was even trying to wipe at her eyes surreptitiously with her free hand. Which was silly, Liz was a bloody mind mage, she was hardly likely to slip it past her, and some days it seemed like she cried at the drop of a hat, seemingly for no fucking reason, she could hardly judge...
She hadn't realised Hermione thought about it that much. What the future would be like, she meant, whether they'd still be friends however many years down the line. This was maybe a bias on Liz's part here — she was better than she used to be, mentally, but she realised her complete inability to imagine her life even just five years ahead was...not normal. She remembered it was one of the questions on those mood screening things Severus still gave her occasionally, and sometimes they talked about it, it... The feeling she got that it was one of those things that made Severus concerned.
Normal people generally had things they wanted to do with their life — Liz, just, didn't. She'd gotten slightly better, in that there were a couple things that she wouldn't mind the idea of. Like, going into duelling professionally, or going for a Mastery in enchanting or some shite, or hell, even going to fucking culinary school, why not. Things that didn't sound bad, just, she couldn't picture it, in her head, and she didn't really feel strongly about any of them. She didn't feel that strongly about the future at all, honestly.
(Other than the blood alchemy procedure this summer, that is, she was very much looking forward to that — more than she had anything else ever, it kept randomly occurring to her, at least a couple times a day. It was a weird feeling.)
That Hermione felt that strongly about them specifically, that she worried whether they'd still be friends however many years in the future, was honestly a little surreal. She didn't know how she felt about that. It was definitely something, she could tell she was having a feeling, she just had no idea what it was.
But, when she thought about it, she knew how to stop Hermione from worrying about that. It was kind of a big deal, there was a reason Liz had stalled so long, but here Hermione was being all emotional about their friendship, and it'd be an easy solution to—
Liz's breath caught, stiffening against the side of the sofa — she suddenly remembered where she knew this room from.
The realisation giving her a kick in the arse, shoving past the spanging of nerves, Liz blurted out, "I've been thinking of adopting you."
There was a sharp clatter of surprise from Hermione's head, attention sweeping over her, pins and needles. Liz looked that way to find Hermione frowning at her, the constant mechanical ticking over of her mind seeming to jam up for a second. "...Really?"
"Yeah, um, the idea occurred to me ages ago, I've just been...stalling, I guess. Making sure I want to do it."
Hermione was silent and still a moment, her thoughts too confused and unfocussed for Liz to really pick anything in particular out of it — not that she was looking that closely, letting Hermione mull it over in sort-of private. After, like, half a minute or so, she asked, "And what would that look like, exactly?"
"Well, the legal situation is...kind of complicated, actually. Because you're muggleborn, you know — normally an adoption contract would be between two houses, passing a member from one to the other, and technically the head of your house is the Headmaster, and Hogwarts is, um. I've talked to Sylvia about it, and she says the most straightforward way to do it would be to claim your parents as vassals, and then we could just—"
"Woah, woah, hold up a second. And what would that look like?" The use of the word 'vassal' gave Hermione a bad feeling.
Liz shrugged. "Whatever we want it to look like? I'd work out an agreement with your parents — or more likely Sylvia would do that, she can write it in legalese and everything. Nothing would have to change, really, we can write the contract so they don't have to do anything, just, adopting people up out of a vassal house is something people do all the time, makes it much simpler. And it'd give your parents legal rights on the magical side too, I guess."
"...Oh," Hermione muttered, feeling slightly scattered, overwhelmed...which was definitely Liz's fault, she realised she was babbling, couldn't help it, nervous... "I'd need to talk to my parents about that, but, um. Wait, what about Rachel? If she's a mage and, you know, up to it—" She still thought there was a pretty good chance that her baby sister was retarded, but she'd be too young to tell for a couple years yet. "—would she still be able to go to Hogwarts? If our parents are legal citizens on this side, I don't think she'd count as muggleborn anymore."
"Well, no, but I could just adopt her too, and then get her a spot as a Potter."
"Right, of course, that makes sense." She played it off smoothly enough, but she was rather startled that Liz was just bluntly saying she'd adopt Rachel too, like it was obvious. Which, honestly Liz thought it was? "Um. So that's how it would work, then. We'd just...be Potters."
"Yep."
"...Liz, I'm older than you."
Liz rolled her eyes. "It's not like that, when mages say 'adoption' they mean bringing someone into the house. So we'd be like, I don't know, sisters or cousins or something."
A fluttering swirl of feelings pulsing off of Hermione's mind — too tangled up to quite straighten out, surprise and disbelief and realisation and affection — she breathed, "Oh! Oh, I..." She broke for a second, cleared her throat. "Ah, you're trying to help again, aren't you? I know it can be difficult for muggleborns after school, since we don't have a house affiliation. I wasn't terribly concerned — I assumed I would get protection through a Mastery programme, and if it comes down to it I can always move overseas. But that's what this is about."
"Er..." Hermione turned a raised eyebrow on Liz, curious, she gave a sheepish shrug. "I did think of that but it's, er, not the reason it first occurred to me. It was a while ago now, I don't remember the context of the conversation, but, Severus brought up the whole...courtship, aristocratic marriage thing, and I said I'm not doing that, and he said that a lot of noble types are going to be annoying about that. Since I'm the last Potter, and some people care about that kind of thing. I'm not having kids, ever, and Severus— He kind of leaves it open, like I might change my mind about that one day, but not judgemental about it, like he thinks I should, you know? I'm not sure how to say it. But then, I guess he probably thought he was never going to have children either, and I'm pretty sure now he's going to, so it might be on his mind, I guess. Anyway, he—"
"Wait a second," Hermione interrupted, "was that something you Saw?"
"Oh yeah, um, I'm pretty sure Severus is going to marry Síomha, and they're going to have...three kids? At least two, maybe more." Hermione gave her a very weird look, a funny shivering in her head. She had absolutely no idea how to feel about that — which was fair enough, Liz was pretty sure Severus still didn't either. "Anyway, so, he explained that if I really don't want to ever do that, I can at least get people off my back by adopting people. Um, you won't have to, like, get married fucking immediately after school, like the nobles tend to, just if I start adopting people the nosey bastards will get that that's how I mean to keep the institution of the family going and shite, so they'll stop bothering me about it.
"Not that making sure you'll have proper legal protection and whatever didn't occur to me, it just wasn't the original reason why I had the idea. More like, you know, killing two birds with one stone? I thought I might take some of our other muggleborn friends too, um... At first, I was just thinking you, that I could take in more people was something that occurred to me later. I've got a fucking huge empty manor, you know, why the fuck not."
Hermione was rather amused, mind twittering and lips twitching, though Liz wasn't quite sure what part of that ramble had been funny. Or maybe just that she was rambling at all, she just did that sometimes, couldn't help it. "So...you're basically trying to hand my family your entire fortune."
"Um...sure? I mean, I guess, if you want to put it like that..." Liz still meant to do the phylactery thing (if only because getting old seemed miserable), so it wasn't like she was going to die of old age or anything. But she seriously doubted she'd want to deal with all this Lady Potter shite forever — she barely even wanted to deal with it now — she suspected she'd be passing it down to Hermione's children or grandchildren or whatever before too much longer. Fuck, she might get sick of it early enough to just hand it straight to Hermione, who knows.
"You're very silly sometimes, Liz, you know that."
"Well, it's not like I'm having kids, so it has to go to someone — and I was really just thinking about getting the nosey noble types to leave me the fuck alone about getting married. And, you know, taking care of...people, later. Um. It also occurred to me that it'd be a lot easier for you to get into whatever Mastery thing you'd be interested in, this sort of thing on the magical side really is still very discriminatory."
"Yes, that's true." That thought had occurred to Hermione, she was just hoping that her obvious potential would be enough to overpower the disadvantage. "I will have to talk to my parents about it. My mother is rather frustrated by...the legal situation, so, we'll see." She suspected her parents wouldn't appreciate the idea of their children becoming literal nobility, just on principle, but they were also aware magical Britain sort of sucked for muggleborns, and sometimes you had to take whatever advantage you could get.
"So...you are open to the idea?" Liz asked, just to be sure. From the tenor of her thoughts, Liz suspected so, but it'd never been explicitly spelled out.
"It's a— Oh! Did I never actually—?" Cutting herself off, Hermione squeezed the hand she still had a hold of, leaned a little closer to Liz. Her curly cloud of hair started brushing against the side of Liz's face, which was kind of itchy. "Yes, Liz, I am open to it. I'm flattered you would– it— Well, it's very sweet of you." An edge of teasing humour slipping into her voice, "Even if the idea started with selfish motivations, you found your way to a thoughtful one eventually, and it's the end result that matters."
Liz rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah..."
At this point, they'd been stalling for a while — they really should get down to dinner eventually, if only so their friends didn't start sending out search parties. They sat there silently for another moment — Hermione still holding onto her hand, contemplating the new shape of the future Liz had just suggested (she did like the idea of them being literally family, she wouldn't have to worry about their friendship fading after school), how she would sell it to her parents...and also the Transfiguration exam, because of course — before eventually Hermione said they should get going. Before Hermione got up to track down her shirt (Liz wasn't actually sure which direction she'd thrown it), Liz healed the mark she'd made on her shoulder...though she probably hadn't needed to, it was pretty subtle. She quick cast a mirror charm, and woah, her neck was a lot more obvious — it was just very red at the moment, but Liz knew that'd be pretty bruised up by the morning. Not that she was surprised, it was pretty sore. It wasn't too difficult to heal that up, but her skin still looked off, so she covered the area with one of those smoothing cosmetic charms, just in case.
They were dressed again pretty quickly, Liz helped Hermione fix her hair — Hermione wasn't especially great with cosmetic charms, and honestly she'd probably just overdo it. There, that was good, Liz started moving to pick up her bag.
But before she'd quite reached it, she was surprised with a hug. Oh, well, okay then, she guessed hugging was fine. Hermione had kind of sprung it on her, though — Liz's arms ended up pinned between them, which was a little awkward, but whatever, Liz just let her head rest against Hermione's chest (short) and didn't worry about it. Hermione was soft, and warm, her super busy mind bubbly and fuzzy with squishy feelings. She was flattered by the adoption idea, relieved that Liz meant for them to be in each other's lives permanently, their friendship really was very important to her, and she was still processing what'd just happened, both Liz having her freak-out moment and the conversation afterward, a tangle of thoughts and emotions Liz didn't really know how to pick apart, washing over her thick and hot and clinging, surrounding her and pulsing through her and—
Oh for fuck's sake! Liz cleared her throat, gently pushed at Hermione's chest, arms loosening from around her. She took a step back, squeezed her prickling fucking eyes shut, her breath hot and thick in her throat. Taking slow, deep breaths, she tried to choke the tears back — it was working, she'd broken contact quickly enough, it was just extremely fucking frustrating.
"Are you all right?"
Liz flailed her hands in the air for a second, before rubbing at her cheeks with her fingers. "I'm fine, just... Feelings, ugh."
A pulse of squishy, soft amusement from her head, Hermione drawled, "Yes, I love you too, Liz."
"Bleeeehhh."
(There was really nothing else she could reasonably say to that.)
Hermione quietly waited for her to calm down, which thankfully didn't take very long. She checked with a quick mirror charm, and her eyes were a bit red and ugh. Just covered that shite with some more cosmetic charms — with how she kept fucking crying all the time, she'd gotten pretty good at the specific ones she needed for that.
They'd just picked up their bags and were on the way out the door, when Hermione said, "You know, if we go through with the adoption, that would make our relationship sort of incestuous."
"Oh, shut up..."