(DISCLAIMER: All characters and the whole Harry Potter franchise - except for Jeremiah Hallysworn, Mallory Evans, Alice Urie [plus a few other more characters I haven't decided to get into the story yet] - belong to none other than J. K. Rowling)

Fool, Fool, Fool! Alice just couldn't get the prospect of that night out of her mind. Calling herself different names in all languages she knows, all but Italian, to piss herself off and kill herself. So far, all were working but she was far too lazy to even have a spell in mind for suicide.

"You seem at war with yourself, Alice. The fire hadn't done anything too bad for you to be scowling at it?" The dreamy voice erupted her from her self-downgrading.

"Maybe it has, Mal. Maybe it hasn't," Alice spoke distantly. What Mallory just said made Alice relive a memory. A memory she refused to visit, yet a memory that held one of the most important experiences in her life.

"Alice!" The teenage boy said, clinging to his sister.

"What? Can't handle a ride with your little sis? Get outta here!" She nudged him a bit and he wavered.

"No! Vaffanculo!" He said hugging her tighter.

Alice willed the broom past the tower spires of the town.

"You swear too much, B!" The girl squealed and flew past the clouds.

"Ah, you bugger! Okay, okay! You're one of the best flyers I've met! Let's go down, now!" Her brother said and Alice only laughed.

She complied with her brother's request and landed at their yard.

Just as she was about to get off her broom, the young boy tackled her down and pinned her on the ground.

Alice was laughing so hard but she could clearly hear her own heartbeat. It was certainly not at a normal pace. With it skipping a beat occasionally and at a fast rate, Alice could nearly cry at what she felt.

His face was inches from hers and was laughing as well with a mischievous look in his eyes.

"You will pay for that!" Said the boy before tackling his sister's sides as she squealed in both delight and want for him to stop.

Alice was both happy and sad at that moment.

She was happy, having Brendon in her arms and close to her. She was happy that brother was with her and laughing. She was happy that they were together and that in that moment, nothing could stop them.

She was sad, knowing that she would never have him know what she truly feels about him. She was sad that this is all they could be.

But she did not care anymore.

For at that moment, they shared something people rarely had.

Eyes peering into each other, Alice wanted to cry with joy. She was with her brother and no matter what happens in the future, she knew she had nothing to worry about. For that was that time she realized she had fallen. And that was the time she knew that she would never get the chance to see who would catch her, for there will never be anyone down there. No. She didn't care about the whole lot of that at all.

At that moment, they both knew they were infinite.

Alice closed her eyes tightly, holding onto that memory.

"Excuse me for a moment, Mallory, I just need to do something." she said to the person beside her and Mallory agreed kindly. She needed to get out of here. She needed to do something to see if that was real and just a dream. It felt so terribly like a dream. Like it never happened.

She walked out of the Common Room at a pace she wouldn't usually have used. Her breathing was ragged and her eyes were burning in the threat for her tears to spill.

This is ridiculous. All this time I've been trying to stop it, yet I crumble like a cookie just as it hits me.

Not many students were in the halls. It was almost dinner time and most of them had gone to their Common Rooms or served detention respectively (if any of them had it). In time, Alice found herself facing a blank wall at the seventh floor of the castle.

Alice furrowed her eyebrows at this. What am I doing here? I need confined place! Not a place where anyone could just spring up out of nowhere!

Just as she was about to leave, the blank wall in front of her did not seem to be blank at all. Before her, what seems to be a door with intricate carvings had started to materialize on the wall and Alice stared in awe.

Doors materializing on walls? It seemed a bit familiar to Alice. The words 'door' and 'materializing' seemed to be partnered up once in a textbook she had read.

Once the door was in full view, it opened to reveal a room with very little light.

Alice had to cast 'Lumos' to see but it was barely needed. As soon as she had stepped in the room, torches that went initially unnoticed lit up all around the room

Of course! Alice finally realized. The Room of Requirement!

Alice went further into the room and heard the door closed but paid no mind to it before extinguishing the light on her wand.

She closed her eyes to search what she had been looking for.

His lips. Oh, so pretty when he smiled.

Alice was ready to cast it. She knew she would be able to.

His laugh, oh so pleasing to my ears.

Alice felt as if she was on top of a tall tower and that she was stepping on a very fragile ledge at the moment. Yet, she was smiling. She was smiling because she knew someone was holding onto her hand and made sure that she wouldn't fall.

She felt like the very person she loved to no end was beside her, whispering things she hadn't heard in a long time.

And as her thoughts revolved around the brown eyed boy, she opened her eyes, ready to chant the spell she had failed for so many times.

"Expecto Patronum!"

Alice did not squint when the silvery lines of light brightly emitted from her wand.

She did not close her eyes. She felt herself have tears falling at the sides of her cheeks at a alarming rate.

At the tip of her wand, an animal she knew too well came out. It was the very animal she had been seeing in her dreams at night and in her thoughts when she was awake all night.

Out flew a mighty barn owl. It was the exact same one she sees in her dreams. With it's mighty wings spread out, it squawked in a manner that Alice was very well acquainted with.

It went on squawking around before it turned it's own head to Alice. It swooped down to perch itself on her shoulder.

She let out a sob and the form disintegrated into the wispy silver and white lines that had been produced with it.

"Brendon," she said shakily as the tears kept on glowing. She did not stop them.

Her patronus was the only thing that could drag her out of her darkest days. It was a barn owl. It was her brother's Animagus form.

She remembered how he would joke around that form. He would send fake mail to her in it. And the next thing she knew, he had been tackling her in tickles again.

She dropped down to her knees. She had successfully produced a Patronus for the first time. She wondered why she hadn't when he was still alive. Maybe she simply didn't know what happiness exactly was until she lost the feeling. She knew what happiness was right now and she definitely knew what sadness is.

+-+-+-+-+-+

Alice was sitting in places far from anyone else in class. She had become even more silent than how she had ever had. She was not participating in class except for the rare occasion of her invited to the board during Arithmancy and when she would be asked about a certain brew in Potions.

Mallory had given in to her request of being alone for at least a week. She was reportedly one of the top students in her year and the infuriating dark haired boy had not get in her way whatsoever.

It was all going well, Alice said to herself. She could manage. She always has. All those years after he went out of her life. She managed through every solitary day in the room she once shared with him. She never rode a broom properly after that. She managed to stay at home without anyone to talk to. She managed, yes, but in her heart, she knew something was damaged and it could never be fixed ever again.

Days had passed. They turn into weeks and Alice would've said that she hadn't felt anything at all.

It was a week before Halloween that her routine got affected. It was another Hogsmeade weekend and most people went, as usual. She had just come from the Library, researching about a certain potion they had been assigned to work an essay on. She was about to get to a Lavatory near by but a familiar dark haired Slytherin just so happened to be in front of it.

She did not know why, but it seemed that the very presence of the boy in any room made her build up in restlessness. He was, as she had said many times before, infuriating. It would be a wonder to other people why the heck Alice was not at all affected by Tom Riddle's particular charm and vanity.

When Mallory had mentioned it once in a random conversation before she requested of her space, she could only think of one thing.

No, he doesn't even have anything on Brendon.

And it was to that she had been holding. It was a strange thought. Overly odd, yes. Having your own brother set the standards of how being attractive is. Her standards, she knew this was a firm fact, had indeed been broken by her own brother.

She spent so many nights trying to see what type of woman her brother went for until that time she realized he wasn't going for anything at all. He was hands down the most accepting and stale little bachelor she had ever been around at.

But as the Slytherin prefect was prancing about and Alice swore that he was deciding whether or not to go inside the girl's lavatory and answer the question that has been secretly going around about his sexuality. Alice realized that this may be the case but as entertaining that would be for her, it wasn't what it seemed.

By this time, the Slytherin had taken notice of her. Despite his hate for people who were too curious to find themselves following him, he was impressed by how Alice walked without any noise at all. But nonetheless a bit irritated.

She stared at him and he stared at her. Little sparks of irritation were to be found on either's body language. They both seemed to spark a rise out of each other but have different ways in channeling them out.

"What has you coming here, Mr. Tom Riddle?" Alice murmured under her breath but Tom clearly heard everything.

"I believe the same question stands for you, Miss Urie." He responded coolly.

"Please, Mr. Tom Riddle, I asked first." Alice said with a mildly sweet tone. She herself didn't know if it was fake or not. Something in between genuine and artificial - that is, if there was such a thing.

The boy before her only narrowed his eyes before responding, "I was just wandering the castle and looking around for any trouble I could work out. I am, after all, a prefect."

Lies, Alice immediately detected. He had been using that excuse twice. This boy uses repetition like an essential. Although Alice exaggerated, it seemed it was the most likely and accurate definition of how Tom Riddle went. Observing from afar was quite a hobby for Alice and she used the swarming fans of the Slytherin to her advantage. Hanging around near them when the boy was around, she suspected that he had a routine when it came to lying. He tends to use the same excuses all over again and it went on unnoticed by the people around him.

Alice nodded in faux understanding. She wanted to let the boy feel as if she is like everybody else, even though he knows she isn't. She decided to play along until she would twist the game along the end.

She hoped to see the day when his face would be priceless as she reveals what he was. Alice was definitely not dumb. The boy was something else, he intends to have a façade where none of his fellow students suspect that he would be anything but a perfect student with a past that he isn't proud of. It was all a play. She knew this and let it be, for she knew she was doing the same. Sort of.

For Alice, there was a thin line between lying and trying to be genuine. Alice had lost the ability to contort her face into an expression upon her own will. Her face simply did not have any. At least, not after the incident that happened to her brother.

"Your turn, Urie." He spoke up, causing Alice to erupt to her trailing of thoughts.

Her once calm voice came in a snapping and infuriated manner, but sounding aimless just the same, "Can't a student roam around the castle to explore? Or just loiter aimlessly while the rest of the school's population is either at Hogsmeade doing things I have no business in? Well in that case, you are no fun, Mr. Tom Riddle. Hogwarts is partially my home now, as it is the same for a lot of students. So it is in my right to do as I like it without any troubles."

"To snap at a prefect," Alice groaned internally, again with the 'Prefect excuse', "is NOT in your list of privileges to do as you like it." Tom was smirking, knowing he'd found a loophole through to prove her something wrong.

Alice only stared at the boy in silence. She was urging him to get along with his plan. She knew that there was something he needed to do with her but she didn't know what. Maybe if she urged him to do it, she would get a glimpse of what he was scheming on about.

"But, I can let you off, just this once," he emphasized the word 'once' before letting onto having a mischievous glint gleam in his eyes as his smirk became bigger. I bet this is going to come with a holdup, thought Alice as she waited for the catch.

"But, on one condition," knew it, thought Alice. "You are to answer three questions of mine truthfully. I can ask it at any time or at any place."

Alice slightly furrowed her eyebrows. What was this boy up to which involved her answering his questions? This could be for anything; setting her up on high hopes or some crap like that. Alice thought she should be careful now, yes she should.

"Three . . ." she whispered under her own breath.

"Yes, three." He confirmed before giving her a curt nod and stalking off somewhere unbeknownst to Alice.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

UPDATE. I HADN'T DECIDED TO ACTUALLY DO IT BC SCHOOL. AND HOLY MACARONI, 400 FRICKIN VIEWS- and 20+ votes. (And I feel awful nao bc this chapter is crappy as heck and idk what happened lol).

Also if you don't know who Brendon Urie is, he's the vocalist for the band Panic! At The Disco and I have like a ton of hidden puns for song lyrics here so don't mind me 😂😂😂. Anyway, it's 12:20 am now and I still have to finish up a group report for tomorrow.

Hope you enjoyed it, vote and comment as you wish (no hate tho pls) and I'll see you guys on the next chapter.

All the love as always,

tuffhufflepuff xx ❤❤