Ayla quietly entered the sixth years' dormitory. It was pretty late and she wasn't sure if her room mates were still awake or if they had even made it back to their room yet. It wasn't unusually to see the older girls pushing their curfew in the library working on their homework.

She threw her journal on her bed and started pacing the room. She was full of pent up energy, her mind racing as she replayed the events of earlier over and over in her head. Had she just made a giant mistake? Was history truly doomed to repeat itself? She felt like she was cursed to fall for no good Slytherin boys again and again no matter what she did or how much she decided to distance herself.

She ran her hands through her turquoise hair. She needed to talk to someone about this. She needed help or advice and another letter to Fauna just wasn't going to cut it this time (especially considering the last two had already been about Rigel and her conflicted feelings for him) She didn't think she'd be able to hold out until the next Hogsmeade weekend when she could talk it all out with the former Hufflepuff. She needed to do something now before she exploded!

She let out a loud frustrated growl.

Zeta Pepper showed up in the cozy dormitory just in time to hear Ayla Collins growl. Zeta continued past her to her own bed and dropped her bag and began taking off the black outer robe that was part of their school uniform. Zeta had been ostensibly doing homework but in actuality very little homework had been done. Instead gabbing, drawing, planning for the next SAWS event.

"That about Storm's assignment?" Zeta assumed so. Last week their Defense Against the Dark Arts professor had paired them off and set them off to practice wards on various locations on the castle grounds. It was a hefty assignment suitable for N.E.W.T. students, but it was well dull. No one could be expected to have all the spells memorized and some of them involved runes so it was a great deal of sifting around in books.[1]

"At least you didn't get Rigel," Zeta said. Their collaboration yesterday out at the old Healer's Hut hadn't been as tortuous as Zeta thought it would be, but it was still a lot to deal with. She'd had to basically do all the work - he'd wanted to sit around. But at least they'd finished. All that was left was the write-up, which Zeta might be dreading more.

She continued to change out of uniform and into something more colorful and cozy. She had a huge roomy sweater in plum.

Ayla was pacing around. "You look like you're going to explode like a Snap card."

1.	Assignment suggested by Kit

When Zeta entered the room she paused her pacing momentarily and watched her roommate head to her own four poster. As the other Hufflepuff changed into something more comfortable Ayla started pacing again.

"No." She shook her head, "no no no no no." She answered in quick succession. At the mention of her current source of worry, Ayla looked from Zeta to the discarded journal on her bed and back again before remembering that she had been talking about Storm's assignment.

"You look like you're going to explode like a Snap card."

"I think I just might." She crossed over to her own bed and climbed atop her trunk, drawing her knees up to her chest and resting her chin on them, "I just did something bad. I mean really bad."

She looked up at her friend from her current position, "like, I don't think I've ever done anything this bad before. Not throwing Butterbeer at Baxter, or accidently enchanting Percy, or kissing Xavier on the school cruise or walking out on Alistair-" she stopped herself, "okay maybe not as bad as walking out on Alistair but pretty damn close!"

She couldn't remember if she had told Zeta about any of her past transgressions. She certainly hadn't told anyone about what had happened between her and Alistair over the summer but she figured the list of her sins now would be enough to impress upon Zeta just how serious this matter was.

Zeta listened with eyebrows raised as Ayla set the scene as colorfully as her hair was dyed. It was really something to witness and for a moment Zeta was amused. It was what they did. They overfloweth with passion and drama like an enchanted garden spilling over its walls. Just bluh-luh-luh-lah girltalk. But Ayla blew right past the snitch and Zeta started to worry.

Oh, Zeta knew all about everything with Xavier Tawse, and Percy was familiar but who the hell is Alistair and what the hell did Ayla do?

Zeta sat on the end of her bed leaning way forward so that she was on eye level with her friend. Then, Zeta reached out across the space between their beds, and clapped her hands sharply

"Ayla!" (Clap!) "What!" (Clap!) "Happened!" (Clap!)

Ayla's head snapped up when Zeta started clapping at her. She bit her lower lip, her eyes wide and she suddenly regretted saying anything. Only because she knew that once she started she didn't think she'd be able to stop.

"I kissed Rigel."

She took a deep breath steeling herself for the inevitable word vomit, "Well he kissed me, but he asked and I said yes and now I'm kinda regretting it only because of who Rigel is like I shouldn't be liking him AT ALL, especially after how he treated Lucinda but I can't help myself, when it's just the two of us he's super sweet and kind and flirty and AH!"

She leapt up from her spot and started pacing again, running her hands through her hair, "But he's a Slytherin and a complete jerk to so many other people and he came to see me, crying, cause Professor Greyfriar had hexed him which obviously means he must have done something really bad for the bloody Headmaster to have hexed him."

"I'm cursed! That's what this is. Doomed to fall for no good Slytherins again and again and again."

Zeta's jaw dropped and she gasped and knit her brows and everything. Next she twisted up her face in disgust, then scoffed in frustration, and then hissed, "what" when Ayla wrapped up by saying the Headmaster had hexed Rigel.

But Ayla, she looked like a wreck clearly very nearly as horrified as Zeta at all of this.

"I don't even know where to start!" she blabbed. "Rigel, though? Ayla....! Why...?" she moaned.

"Also!" she held up a finger. "What do you mean the Headmaster hexed him? Who hexes students?"

It was stupid but she felt betrayed. She felt terrible for Ayla because once again she'd gotten herself into boy trouble and as sweet and confident as Ayla was she couldn't seem to pick 'em. Zeta would never understand - Ayla had been there and saw what happened. How could she kiss him? It didn't matter he was cute and well-kept, not with all the rubbish coming out if his mouth.

Ayla felt both guilty and vindicated by Zeta's reaction. She knew if anyone was going to understand how torn she was in that moment, it would be her room mate. Zeta had been there. She had been there when Kyson had spewed his own werewolf fueled vitriol and Rigel had defended him. She had been there when he had infiltrated SAWs and verbally attacked Lucinda.

Then again, she hadn't been there when Ayla had checked in on Rigel in the library, she hadn't been there* when Rigel had held her when she was terrified of the Forbidden Forest and she hadn't been there only minutes ago when the regularily composed Slytherin had cried.

Ayla flopped down on her bed, pulling her journal out from under her. Resisting the temptation to look at Rigel's half of their conversation again, she tucked it under her pillow.

"Apparently Professor Greyfriar?" She turned her head to look at Zeta, "He took his voice. He can't talk for two weeks."

"Which honestly made the whole kiss thing kind of romantic." She said softly before growling in frustration again, "I feel like I'm losing my mind."

---

*Ayla doesn't know Zeta had snuck into the CoMC class with the mooncalves

Zeta got up from her bed and paced a little. She was aghast. Professor Greyfriar, cuddly, strange, talk-your-ear-off Professor Greyfriar had hexed a student. Not Professor Storm, not Professor Darkfall. Greyfriar. What did you have to do?

But what followed that revelation was even stranger. From what little Zeta knew about Rigel, there wasn't much else that'd be more poetic punishment. Merlin, what if Professor Onuris had thought the same thing about her when she'd got into trouble with her mouth back with the fliers.[1]

She leaned against her bed post.

"You are going crazy," Zeta said, truly concerned now. "What ... what do you see in him?"

1.	13 Jan 2012 - Rapture is Coming

Ayla stayed flopped on her bed and splayed her arms out to her side, her legs hanging off the edge as she was positioned width wise rather than lengthwise. She stared at the top of her four poster, the canopy overhead had been charmed to look like a swirl of stars.

"Godric, I wish I knew." She squeezed her eyes shut and tried hard not to think about it but there was no getting the sight of him out of her head, "With Blake it made sense, you know? He's actually a fantastic guy and even Xavier, I could put that into words, most of which includes hormones. Alistair . . ." She stopped herself, that one was still too fresh and hurt too much.

"For all intents and purposes there should be absolutely nothing that's drawing me to Rigel and yet, here I am! Once again consumed by a guy I have no business liking!" She pushed her head back to try and see Zeta upside down, "I need help, perhaps professionally."

Zeta wilted a little. There was nothing wrong with Ayla. This was just the way Ayla was with her big heart, casting it like the last spell on Earth, with everything she had. Zeta felt just a little jealous, not of the boy, not of the drama, but of the very of it all.

"You just need a distraction," Zeta prescribed and came to plop down on Ayla's bed with her, stretching long to reach Ayla's wireless. "It's winter-dark, it's Scotland-cold, and the homework boggarts lurk in every book and bag. Our ancestors would be setting massive fires and drinking ale and, wait, okay -"

She started giggling, realizing the road she was headed down. "Probably getting it on under elk furs or something. But we have modern distractions..."

The Wireless clicked on with a whistle and the lyrics became clear. "... I'm a menace to myself, I want you, nobody else ..."

"Oh, come on!"

Ayla smiled gently when Zeta didn't offer any affirmations towards there being something wrong with her. All she needed was a distraction. Usually that would mean writing in her journal but she didn't want to pick up the little pink book right now as she had just been using it to communicate with the suddenly mute Slytherin.

She rolled to her side when Zeta sat on her bed with her and propped her head up on her elbow. She felt a blush touch her cheek as Zeta relented that their ancestors were likely indulging in a distraction similar to Ayla's own dilemma. When the lyrics rang out and Zeta cursed Ayla let out a loud laugh and fell back again.

"The universe is officially against me." At the very least, this actually was helping her feel better, "Maybe I do need a distraction, sappy love songs not withstanding." She animatedly tapped her finger on her chin in a show of thinking.