Setting a small mug of coffee down on its plate, Waker leaned back into one of the Ravenclaw common room's many sofas and shot a quizzical look at Delilah, with whom she was attempting to study. The Nolan girl had spread several textbooks and borrowed library tomes out on the table in front of them, along with a few rolls of fresh parchment, a newly opened jar of black ink, and a half dozen spotted quills. Hoping to add a bit of allure to the art of early homework completion, Waker had also fetched two steaming cappuccinos and gingersnaps from the overly helpful elves in the kitchens.

She supposed it wasn't against the rules to request snacks if they were for study purposes. But, shockingly, studying wasn't her only objective this afternoon. Waker felt that multitasking was a severely underrated skill. Why couldn't one draw up a thesis while simultaneously confronting a friend about shady Slytherin stalkers?

"You know, Del, our final exams are going to be here sooner than we think." Or not quick enough, if Waker's semester's worth of exam preparation had anything to say about it. "I was hoping we could start with Charms. Yes? No? ...Yes?" She tried to sound encouraging, and inclined both eyebrows sanguinely, not unlike somebody's mother-turned-coach.

"Also," she added, this time less insistently. She relaxed her face. She considered her words carefully, and leaned forward again to pick up her mug. Before speaking, Waker took a long sip of the warm, frothy liquid. To appear casual was key. Delilah had been expertly brushing off Waker's questions lately, and the Nolan girl wanted to finally put to rest the nagging in the back of her own mind. "Do you have any idea what that Atticus boy wants? He's been watching you."

Not wanting to be too confrontational, Waker took another sip and flipped open the hefty book laying on the couch between them. "Defense," she muttered, closing it again, and setting it atop a stack on the table. She picked up one of the Charms texts from its carefully-organized pile, but covertly shifted her gaze back to Delilah even as she appeared to be absorbing the book's table of contents.



Waker's outfit

Delilah would give anything to distract Waker from the task for homework because she wasn’t up to the task of completing homework so soon. There was no way to completely distract her friend from homework though, which as usual irked Delilah a bit. What was the harm in putting off the homework? Delilah played with her button on her sweater with her eyes focused on her fingers as they played with the brown button. Every now and then her eyes darted up to Waker to look at her, she knew it wouldn’t be long before this game would end and he would want her to buckle down.

"You know, Del, our final exams are going to be here sooner than we think."

“Mmhmm,” she sat up reaching for her cappuccino that Waker had so kindly supplied them for this ‘study’ session. Sipping it at it she looked over at her trying to look completely innocent yet her game was to get away without doing a bit of homework. Crossing one leg over the other she turned her attention towards Waker. “I suppose Charms is alright,” yet she made no effort to grab her book.

The also caught her attention and Delilah raised an eyebrow. What could the also be? Delilah was sure that Waker’s focus was to be on homework and not idle gossip. She sipped at her drink as she waited to see where this was going. The name Atticus washed over her sense and made her hair stand on edge, the whole situation of a few days before flashed before her eyes. She was trying to forget about it.

“I…” she didn’t even know how to begin, the whole situation seemed so strange and unlikely. “I did find out,” she finally let the words softly leave her lips as if she was saying something important that need much thought. “He draws me,” spoke as if it was a question, she was still questioning it herself. “I saw the pictures, he is very good but so good that he appears to know the details of my face better than I do.” Delilah leaned forward and placed her coffee upon the table picking up a book finally. Her charms book lay unopened upon her lap.

Delilah's Outfit

Waker was glad that Delilah didn't protest her suggestion of Charms. It was one of the broader subjects to tackle, and the homework load for the class would undoubtedly mount up even higher next semester. But the topic of Atticus was nearing the front burner now, and Waker found herself wanting to discuss the strange boy's haunting of her friend almost more than she wanted to be the first student to hand in her finished Charms essay.

Delilah's answer was the last thing Waker expected to hear. She was torn between a sorely un-Wakerish fit of feverish giggles, and complete recoiling. The result was a strange contortion of the Nolan girl's face. Her fingers spread over the half-smile, half-grimace that plagued her bee-stung lips, and she spoke disbelievingly.

"Draws you?" Waker's eyes shut and she lowered her hand slowly. She opened them again, wider than usual, and stared directly at Delilah. "He draws you," she repeated with equal emphasis on the words, as if she still couldn't quite wrap her head around it. "And you don't think it's creepy?"

Waker was certain that Delilah did find it creepy, but she still had to ask. Creepy would have been the first adjective to leave Waker's mouth if the roles were reversed. She wouldn't have praised the boy's talent and then gone about pretending to do charms work, even if he turned out to be Da Vinci. And Delilah usually wasn't half as militant about schoolwork as Waker, so it seemed that she still evading the subject of Atticus by picking up her own book. Being quite the evasive type herself in these situations, Waker assumed this was the only conclusion.

"He must be infatuated with you." If the drawings were as lifelike as Delilah led her to believe, an infatuation was possibly an understatement. "It can't be healthy. But..." Sweet? Could it have been sweet? Waker wasn't sure. These types of things weren't her strong suit, but she felt there was a difference between shyly admiring a person from afar and, well, this.

"He's tried to speak with you, then?" She was too curious now. This was too weird. "Was he strange? Stranger than the average silent Slytherin type who stares you down in corridors while secretly drawing every crevice of your face," she elaborated. "If he's stalking you, Delilah, I think you should tell the Headmaster," she added much more soberly, her small, witchy smile disappearing.

“Waker,” she paused looking at her, “Creepy doesn’t even begin to cover it.” Delilah shivered at the thought of that boy’s eyes memorizing her face and features the way he had. God it was not the most comforting thought to know that she had been looked at the way she had. She wished that the whole thing had not happened or that she was still in the dark about it. Her fingers moved along the spin of her book.

“He doesn’t even know me.” Delilah looked up at Waker again and rolled her eyes. “He just apparently likes the way I look.” She sighed as she tossed her book to the floor giving up even pretending to look like she would study. Her eyes followed her book she had tossed as she winced, she was never so cruel too books. “I am sure he is the only boy I know that could tell me the exact colour of my eyes. I am sure even George who I know has been close enough in the past wouldn’t be able to tell me.” Delilah was sure the other boys she had dated wouldn’t be able to tell her they were light blue with a hint of green.

“It is just so weird, why couldn’t I have a normal boy like me in a normal way.” She made a shudder noise as she uncrossed her legs and then re-crossed them after picking up her coffee again. “He didn’t exactly seek me out to talk to me, it was more I fell on him and he had no choice but to talk to me.” Delilah was still embarrassed about that. “I interrupted him drawing a picture of me, from his memory.” It was so unnerving to know that someone knew her that well.

Stalking, he wasn’t stalking or at least that was what Delilah figured. “I don’t think he is stalking me. He just looks…a lot.” Delilah looked at her cup and then back to Waker. “He is just awkward, not mean or even overly creepy like you would expect, he is just awkward.” Yeah awkward was the way to describe his social skills.

Waker was relieved to hear the words. Delilah found the whole thing odd, too. Waker felt a little weight in her chest lift even as her lips tightened into a line. It was certainly not the best thing to be relieved about. There was still the worrying fact-- the actual root of the problem-- that Atticus had made Delilah his personal art project.

The Nolan girl nodded quite somberly in agreement. "Doesn't he usually hang around those Slytherin girls? He seems quiet... I didn't even know his surname name until he started staring at you." Then Waker had taken it upon herself to pay extra attention to one of the professor's rolls. She usually only fleetingly glanced toward the classroom door to see who would barge in late or not at all. The names that generally stuck were the ones in her own house, the ones who always skived lessons, or the ones who did as well as she. But especially the ones who did well.

Waker knew as well as the next girl that it was nice to have someone who liked the way she look, but the terms usually made a difference. "Well, I don't know about that. I mean, George must know." She knew that her friend's ex had had to repeat a year, but he couldn't have been that dense. "But it's weird for Atticus to describe them if he's barely spoken to you. How hard does he have to stare to take in that much detail from so far?" Waker almost shivered at the thought.

Waker stiffened a little when Delilah suggested that she couldn't be-- or hadn't been-- liked by a normal boy. She was not especially good at being consoling, but she knew that what Delilah said wasn't true. Her friend had a lot to offer, much more so than Waker, whose idea of fun probably seemed like an all-night study session (though in reality it wasn't). "There are probably plenty of normal boys who like you in normal ways," she offered awkwardly. "They're just too typically male to say anything." But at least they probably didn't draw Delilah's pupils and pores from mental snapshots.

Setting down her coffee and picking up a bit of apple she'd brought along with the gingersnap biscuits, Waker nibbled at it thoughtfully. He was awkward, hmm? "Do you maybe..." She paused, not sure whether she wanted to continue the question. She shifted her stare to her charms book and flipped to the chapter they'd been studying in class. "Like him?" She looked up again, eyes slightly narrowed as if studying a particularly challenging rune.

Who Atticus hung out with was beyond Delilah; she didn’t exactly pay much attention to him until the other day when she fell over him. Now that he was in her life in a way she had not expected him to be she supposed she might want to get to know a bit more about him. There had to be something about him that made those girls hang out with him. “Yeah I think he does hang out with those Slytherin girls, I don’t really pay much notice.” Atticus was not on her radar; well he didn’t use to be on her radar. Now she actually felt a little bad for him as he had seemed so horrified at being caught. When he dashed out that day it seemed as if he had lost something in the way he looked, perhaps he wouldn’t be a bother anymore?

“I really doubt that George knows,” Delilah shrugged her shoulders because it was no skin of her nose if George knew or not. The fact Atticus knew was just weird and made the situation creepy. “I don’t know how hard he has to stare but apparently he does and has been getting away with it until now.” He had successfully doing it without her knowing but now that she knew maybe he wouldn’t anymore? “Maybe I won’t have to worry about it anymore now that I know?”

Boys, it was such an annoying topic. Delilah loved talking about it most of the time when there was something juicy to talk about or a cute boy to drool over but talking about the lack of boys in her life was not something she fancied. “Well if they are out there and interested I wish they would just tell me.” Delilah grumbled after she spoke scratching at her cheek.

”Like him!” Like Atticus Pennyapple? As if! Delilah looked at Waker as if she had gone insane. “Why would I like Atticus Pennyapple? I don’t know him.” Delilah did not know one thing about him and the fact was he didn’t seem so enthused to talk to her. “He doesn’t really seem like he wants to talk to me anyway.” Delilah was not going to be phased by it.

“So let’s get off this topic of Atticus,” she paused taking a sip of her drink. “Anything new going on with you?” She felt like she hadn’t sat down and talked to Waker in a while and felt like she needed a bit of insight into the bit of her life she might not be caught up on.

"I wonder if they know what he's up to," She trailed off, narrowing her eyes and thinking of the cryptic web that the Slytherins seemed to form. It was silly, she knew, to assume that they were all equally sinister. And in fact, Waker liked plenty of the Slytherins. She admired their ambition, and often wished that she could be a touch more ruthless about her own goals. But there was still an air of mystery about them, something inherently 'old world' that probably had to do with a Pureblood majority-- there was no way around it. But the thought of Atticus lounging around his own common room, conducting a similar discussion with his own friends seemed near impossible.

Not wishing to argue the point about George, but privately disagreeing (for Waker felt that Delilah was being too hard on herself in thinking that a former boyfriend wouldn't know her eye color), she continued instead with the point about boys as a whole. A single, impenetrable entity.  "You could always try talking to  them," she suggested cautiously. "The ones you're actually interested in. Summer's coming up, and there are bound to be parties and things during the holidays." Parties which Waker usually vouched out of, but secretly wished to attend. She grabbed a quill from the table even as she pondered the coming season's social events. The sheer blankness of her parchment was beginning to annoy her now. Time management was much more complex than most people assumed. Essays and parties was infinitely trickier than essays or parties.

Waker refrained from cringing, knowing she had said the wrong thing. She rounded her shoulders and began to write the first draft of the topic sentence of her Charms paper. "Fine, it was a stupid suggestion." She pursed her lips and stared harder at her paper, not enjoying having to admit any wrongdoing. "But, I don't know, you seem completely off guard and sort of intrigued at how well he knows you without actually knowing you." To state the obvious. And it was understandable. Atticus' fascination was creepy, absolutely, but Waker was beginning to see it two ways now: it was sort of flattering in a sick way, wasn't it? She didn't say this aloud, however.

While glad at the thought of not having to upset her friend any longer, Waker was none to pleased when the tables turned to her own life. "No," she lied coolly, now practically shooting lasers through her barely-started homework. But she paused at the end of a sentence and looked up at Delilah, relaxing her face a little. The girl had confided in her. "You... I," she hesitated. "I might have slapped Devlin," she admitted, feeling her cheeks go rosy. She immediately began scratching across her parchment again.

Delilah would prefer not to think about the girls he hung out with because what if they knew that he drew her and found it amusing and laughed at her. Delilah didn’t really care about it but it was just this weird feeling of self-consciousness that she was sure every teenager felt when it came to their body. Delilah’s was on display for people to see if Atticus felt so inclined to show the work he did. “I don’t even want to think about them looking at pictures of me,” she shuddered as she spoke.

Talking to them? Novel concept and she was sure she could if she could find someone that struck her fancy the way that George had. “I suppose I could talk to them, the ones I like, if I liked someone.” Delilah shrugged her shoulders as she thought about the parties her friends would throw, the ones she would have to decline on because of her summer job. Hopefully though she could at least make it to a party or two over the summer. “Yes, the parties do you plan to attend any this summer?”

Delilah looked to watch as Waker wrote, no doubt that start to a first draft of the essay Delilah was trying to ignore. “I am intrigued, wouldn’t you be? Some one knowing you that well?” Delilah now felt a little weird for thinking so much about Atticus and how he watched her and just knew her. She really wanted to get onto a different subject and stop thinking about it.

Wait? Did Delilah hear Waker correctly? “You might have slapped Devlin?” Delilah had this smirk on her face as she felt a laugh burst out a bit. “You either did or you didn’t Waker so which is it?” Delilah had her money on she did slap him otherwise why would she bring it up, but she was more curious as to why. “So what did the bugger do this time deserver it?” Devlin did change from the days when they spent time together, but Delilah did feel for him and at times missed him. Devlin and been a good friend to her at one time.

"He's probably not the type to hold open art galas for his friends," Waker noted sarcastically, now voicing what was going through her mind. She felt guilty for even bringing up the idea that two Slytherin girls might now about the 'situation' (for lack of better word). "Not that I think they would have anything bad to say. You're too harsh on yourself, Delilah." Waker knew because she could relate, but in different aspects of her life.

"Do you like someone?" She prodded, not able to stop herself now. Rigid as she was, Waker was still a teenage girl. Now that Delilah had fully captured her curiosity, she found herself wanting to talk about things that didn't necessarily include textbooks or resumes. (She had to keep up the studious air, however.) She felt like a rather bad friend for not knowing which boy... or boys, in the plural.. Delilah currently liked. But if the other girl was being truthful, the answer was no one. Hmm. "Maybe," she shrugged, trying to sound casual. "I just don't think I could handle the after effects of too much fire whiskey." She gave a tiny sigh of laugh and imagined herself stumbling out of someone's house at three in the morning and falling in a potted plant. She would never show her face in school again.

Waker tapped her quill to the corner of her mouth as she flitted between her book and Delilah. "Yes, probably," she admitted. "But what happens if it goes too far? He's drawing you now. What if he starts snapping photos when you think your alone, or following you into the lavatory?" She cringed at the idea. "But it is intriguing."

There weren't enough books in the library to hide behind. Certainly not enough stacked on the coffee table in the Ravenclaw common room. "I did, and he definitely deserved it." She made sure to stress the point, fearing that Delilah might think her horrible, even though Devlin had more or less fallen out of friendship with her, too. Waker knew she had to tell her, though. She had told Fauna, and she was arguably much closer with Delilah. "We were arguing about something out here in the common room. In the middle of the night. He eventually tried... he kissed me." Her quill had come to a stop, but Waker pressed it down so hard that she almost poked a hole in her paper. She still hadn't figured out why Devlin had done it, but it haunted her and she wanted to pretend it hadn't happened. "He was showing off or something."

“Well let’s bank on that,” Delilah would prefer to keep Atticus art project just between Delilah, Waker and Atticus but she was sure some of his friends had to know about what he did with his time. Delilah would rather not think about it. She knew if she did she would be just too hard on herself. “Thanks Waker,” she said quietly as she played with her pearl necklace.

Waker’s next question rang in her head. Did she like someone? Well the only person that struck up any interest lately was Atticus and she didn’t like him, or she was pretty sure of it. “Nah, I don’t like anyone. Nobody seems to have caught my interest.” That was a lie but hopefully Waker wouldn’t see through that or just understand that it was the intrigue of the unknown.

“Who said you had to indulge in fire whiskey?” Delilah smirked at Waker. “I know I don’t enjoy the after effects of Fire Whiskey, but I find myself indulging at parties.” Delilah chuckled as she continued to toy with her necklace.

Delilah laughed as she rested her head back against the couch. “I don’t think it will go that far, but I will let you and the Headmaster know if it does.” Delilah thought it impossible for things to go that far.

“What!” She said loudly sure that anyone in the common rooms or dorms could hear that. “He kissed you?” She said in a more hushed tone. How could Devlin just kiss Waker like that? She figured Waker would be confused about a move like that. “Maybe he still likes you? Or he could have just been messing with you.” Delilah hoped it was neither of those things and he had just kissed her for no reason at all, but that was highly unlikely. “The nerve of him though.”

Waker opened her mouth and closed it again, finally smiling a bit. "Of course." She knew they both had their own reservations, but she was glad that she and Delilah could talk to each other about these things-- that they could be honest with each other, even if it took a bit of extra effort and occasional squirming.

Letting Delilah's next sink in, Waker decided not to push the point. Had she not just be thinking about the concept of trust? If Delilah liked anyone, she was sure the truth would come out in time. For now she would let the girl keep her secrets, if there were any. "Maybe next year," she offered, with a small, knowing smile. "Maybe someone will mature into Prince Charming over the summer." One could only hope, with the current crop of boys they had to endure. "Too bad we don't get transfer students."

"Well I guess I don't have to, but then they'll all think I'm no fun, won't they?" Which most people probably already believed, Waker realized with a bad taste in her mouth. She took another sip of sweet drink in hopes of washing the thought away. "How's your tolerance? I think I'd be on the floor after one bottle. Maybe two, since I'm tall."

Waker smoothed a hand over the parchment perched in her open book, happy to hear that Delilah wouldn't let Atticus plague her too terribly. "Good. I'm not one for hexes, but if he needs his pens banished..." She trailed off, shrugging. She could be particularly witchy when the mood struck her. And Banishing Charms were a specialty.

Cringing at the volume with which Delilah replied, Waker averted her eyes. "He... yes, but not like that. Well, yes, like that," she said, confusing herself thoroughly. "But not because he still likes me." She rushed to get that part out. "He made that very clear." Her voice seemed to go cold as she said it, thinking back to the night. It was just as well though, wasn't it? But still, it hurt a little, that he would be so malicious. They were both only human. "He wanted to let me know that I'd made a mistake, and that his facial hair is all the rage." She pursed her mouth, but ended up laughing just a little. It was better than turning into a sobbing mess. Waker wished she could forget everything about Devlin as easy as she could burn bits of her journal. "I think that ruined things for Inika, though," she added with a frown. "She's better off without him, too, but still..." Waker was privately glad that the Hufflepuff hadn't approached her yet. "I pity the next girl." Or maybe the future plaything deserved whatever she got, she thought privately.

Leaning to pick up a book she opened it up to discover some notes she had shoved into it. She smiled as she realized they were the ones she had been looking for last class. “Sweet,” she said under her breath with a pleased look on her face because now she didn’t have to write the notes out again. Saved her asking Waker for them.

A loud laugh escaped her when she heard Waker’s statement. “Develop in a prince charming, that is highly unlikely.” Delilah mused on it for a moment, “I agree though to bad we don’t get transfer students. I wouldn’t mind meeting some of those French Beauxbatons boys.” Delilah could definitely be a sucker for a smooth talking French boy.

“I don’t want to do this,” she pointed down to the open book in her lap. She played with the edges of the pages as she thought about her own level of tolerance for Fire Whiskey. “I doubt I have much of a tolerance but we could make an experiment out of it over the summer holidays.” Delilah was joking but she also wasn’t, that rebellious nature found a lot of interest in testing the limits of ones tolerance.

The more Delilah heard about what Devlin did the more annoyed Delilah got. “Who does he think he is really?” Delilah sighed heavily, “He is an ass to do something like that to you.” Delilah would never admit it out loud especially to Waker but Devlin’s scruff was sort of attractive. What buggered her most of all was Waker thinking that their little kiss was what caused the split with Inika. “Waker don’t even think it was you and even if it was she is better off without him. Though I think it had to do with that incident in the closet with that seventh year, the one dating his friend now.” Delilah paused to think on her name. “Hames something, she is friends with Atticus.” Delilah laughed at the thought of the rumours she had heard. “You did hear about that right?”

Waker's eyes darted toward Delilah's book in an attempt to analyze whatever the girl had found to put a smile on her face. "From class?" She wondered, leaning closer. "See, this won't be so bad." Waker flashed a little grin of her own. Their studying was getting off to a decent start. And they had made progress in the Mysterious Atticus Pennyapple department, or at least Waker believed so.

While Waker occasionally had reservations about not mastering French, the idea of being courted by someone whom she could not fully understand was sort of appealing, despite her usual need to know everything. Perhaps ignorance was bliss when it came to romance (though she could not say the same for certain girls who fell victim to certain con artists). "You're onto something there... I can't get riled up enough to hex a boy if I can't understand whether he's insulting me or not, can I?" The idea was beginning to sound more appealing with each passing second, in fact. "I wonder if it's too late for us to transfer," she joked. Waker would do no such thing. And risk her perfect attendance and years of warming up to professors? Not a chance.

In matters of school work, it seemed Waker had spoken too soon. Delilah's announcement that she didn't want to do her own homework made the other girl's eyes roll back into her head. "It's like a cold, Del. It'll only get worse if you don't treat it now." What was that Mary Poppins line about spoonfuls of medicine? Or maybe that was sugar... Waker reached for another two biscuits, waving one as temptingly as she could manage. She bit into the other.

"What sort of experiment?" She asked, narrowing her eyes and momentarily forgetting about her homework. "Downing bottles to see who gets alcohol poisoning first?" Waker could hardly imagine it. She was pretty certain she would lose, too. She tilted her head and attempted to purse her lips, but ended up smirking. Delilah could be very adventurous sometimes. It often made Waker nervous, but it was also an endearing quality; she found herself drawn to it in an inexplicable way.  Most of the time she had to pretend not to be, though, or they might end up in detention or worse.

"I don't know... but not the same person he thought he was a few years ago." That was was clear as day. That Devlin was gone, perhaps even dead. "Thanks," she added, now taking her own turn show her gratitude. She was extremely glad Delilah was there to bounce thoughts off of, because Waker didn't trust many people. She winced when the incident with the seventh year was brought up. Waker knew the girl in question, and had been briefly clued in about the closet ordeal by Fauna. It was ironic that she was Atticus' close friend, though. Were they all doomed to be tangled in one messy web forever? "Sort of... not entirely," she replied weakly. Maybe now would be a good time to hear the truth, but it was awkward and uncomfortable visualizing Devlin in such a scene. "I hope no mini Devlins were made in the process."

Won’t be so bad? Delilah was determined not to do the homework. She would rather just toss her books carelessly aside and run around outside or something. “Maybe I will go practice quidditch or something?” Delilah raised an eyebrow at Waker. “You know I just treat colds with some good rest and ignore it.” Delilah laughed as she knew she couldn’t do that with her homework no matter how hard she tried. “Now as for this transferring I wish, I would like to see some of this foreign boys.”

The laughter continued as Waker narrowed in on the experiment talk. “No, that would be stupid and neither of us are that stupid.” Delilah said just as she reached out and grabbed for the biscuit. “I was thinking more a long the lines of testing the waters with half a bottle and seeing the affects.” Her tone sound as if it was just such an obvious answer before she bit into the delicious biscuit. Delilah was determined to get Waker out there and do something less Wakerish and more Delilahish.

Now Delilah was not normally one for gossip like this but she couldn’t help herself when it came to what Devlin was up too. If things had been like they were before Delilah would have been there in a second to defend Devlin and say that nothing happened, but with the way things were she might as well let Waker in on the rumours. “From the sounds of Devlin’s Oh Gods and the pounding against the door who knows anything is possible,” Delilah shrugged her shoulders. She let that linger for a moment as she sipped at her cooling drink. “Even if they were doing what everyone thinks they were doing in there, since he was in his boxers when that Gryffindor boy burst in, I don’t think he would be that stupid as to make mini Devlin’s.” Delilah had really didn’t think Devlin could be that stupid.

"But..." Was everything in Waker's life doomed to lose to Quidditch? When had the sport become so superior? A thousand years ago, probably. In an alternative universe, Waker felt she would have to swallow her pride and trade her books a broom, since everyone from her friends, to her rivals, to her ex-friends seemed thoroughly enamored with the game. "Quidditch practice won't help you pass your finals, not unless they involve scoring goals and I haven't been informed." She looked almost pleading now. And the way Delilah spoke of ignoring colds made Waker simultaneously anxiety-ridden and admiring. She wished she could be so carefree. Just once.

Waker nodded, resigning to a moment of silent reflection about those French students they would probably never meet before continuing the topic of alcohol tolerance. She had to agree that neither of them were that dense or dangerous; she also supposed that-- as much as she did not like admitting it-- Delilah had a point. A test might be a good thing. "Well..." She lowered her her voice a little and looked around, as if afraid that the Headmaster might be looming in the shadows, ready to expel her for even thinking of touching a bottle Ogden's. "We should try it before we go to any parties." Had those words really just left her mouth? "I mean, so we go in with some idea."

Waker's face turned distinctly white as Delilah retold the story concerning Devlin, Hames, and a closet. She had made a mistake in asking for more details. It wasn't something she needed to know. It wasn't something anyone needed to know, but especially not Waker. "Oh..." Was all she could manage at first. And then, her face souring: "He should just have his bed and belongings moved to a vacant broom cupboard. It would be more convenient, don't you think?" And Waker wouldn't have to dodge him every time he entered the common room since their last brawl.