"Miss Potter, can you please explain the significance of the powdered Griffin claw as an ingredient in the Strengthening Solution?"

I was sitting in Potions on a Thursday morning nearly two months into the school year, and would rather have been anywhere else. I barely registered Slughorn's words. "Erm... well... Griffins are... strong," I said helplessly, feeling an unflattering blush coming on.

Someone snorted behind me. "Wow, what an astute observation. Rowena Ravenclaw would be proud." Charlie.

I spun around to glare at the brown-haired boy, who, I noticed with amusement, had the buttons on his shirt done up wrong, and his tie hanging loose. His hair looked as if he had not bothered to brush it this morning, which was... nice? "And do you know the significance of the powdered Griffin claw, Charlie?"

He gnawed on his lip for a moment, glanced at Mason, who was his (much more neatly dressed) partner, then shrugged good-naturedly.

"Hah," I said. "Just as I thought. God forbid you would actually know something useful."

Charlie raised an eyebrow at me. "I'm sorry, Lily, is there a problem here?"

I smirked. "The problem, as far as I see it, is that you somehow ended up in the House meant for intellectuals."

He chuckled, and it crossed my mind that there was something attractive in the uneven rumble of his laughter. "Say what you want, but we both know I'm worth five of you in DADA... which is a lot more practically useful than the Muggle Studies grade you're so proud of."

I narrowed my eyes at the insolent, annoyingly cute boy in front of me. "Oh, I'll make you pay for that, Corner."

"Frankly, Potter, I'd like to see you try."

I had opened my mouth to say something even more snarky, but was cut off by our professor, who said, "All right, that is quite enough for now! We have work to do. As nobody seems to know, I must now explain to you all that the powdered Griffin claw..."

As Slughorn lectured on some boring Potions garbage that I knew I would never care enough to remember, I ignored the questioning glances from Autumn, who was sitting next to me, and reflected on the exchange with Charlie. That, right there, was exactly what I liked about him. I enjoyed getting him fired up about things, whether it was the moral standards of Marvel superheroes or the subject matter of a boring class. I thrived on the sparks of clashing with him while yearning for a different kind of clash; a different kind of sparks. Crossing swords with him shot electricity through my veins, and every moment of it was thrilling.

When class was dismissed, I turned around to say something to Charlie, and found him already halfway out the door. Mason, however, was standing beside his seat, looking at me, eyebrows raised. "Lily," he said, something like amusement in his voice. "Walk with me?"

I levelled a glare at him. "Did I not make it clear enough that I want nothing to do with you?"

He put his hands up, as if in surrender, and rolled his eyes. "Relax, okay? I'm not asking you to go camp out in my backyard and make friendship bracelets. I just want to talk to you. Briefly"

I glanced at Autumn, who was shifting on her feet, clearly made nervous by the fact that Mason was talking to me, which was only one step away from talking to her. After a moment's hesitation, I said, "Go on ahead, will you? I'll only be a moment." She smiled softly and did so.

When I looked back at Mason, he was smirking. "Could it be that you don't hate me as much as you put on?"

I pressed my lips into a thin line. "I never said I hated you. I just said we couldn't be friends like we were. Now say whatever you're so eager to say, and then leave me alone."

His cocky smile turned rueful, and he sighed. "Well, perhaps you'll think this isn't my business, but... " His brown eyes began to sparkle, and he waited a long moment before saying, "You were flirting with Charlie just now, weren't you?"

I immediately took a step back, biting my lip. "What on earth gave you that idea?"

Mason laughed. "Come on, don't play the innocent. You like him, don't you?"

I crossed my arms. "You're delusional."

He kept laughing. "Lily, don't bother denying it. I can tell when someone's flirting with my best friend."

I scowled at him and snapped, "You don't know me, okay? You don't know anything. So just shut your fucking mouth and leave me alone."

I jerked my bag over my shoulder a little more aggressively than necessary and strode out of the room, pretending I hadn't seen the surprise on his face, which had carried a hint of injury — as if he cared.

Out in the hallway, Autumn was waiting for me, and raised a questioning eyebrow. "What did he want?"

I let out a huff and shook my head. "Nothing," I said, trying not to sound snappish. "Nothing at all."

---

The waning moon reflected off the surface of the Black Lake as I crept along in the darkness, pulling my open sweater closer around me in defense against the chilled early November air. Nearly two weeks had passed since Mason had accused me of flirting with Charlie. I had not spoken to him since, although to my chagrin he made faces at me every time I spoke so much as a word to his friend. Stupid boy. I was now heading for a small grove of scots pines near the water's edge, where I could make out the dim form of a tall, lithe girl prostrated on the ground. When I got close, she shifted to one elbow and called out to me in a low voice.

"Salazar, where have you been, bitch? I've been waiting for hours."

I rolled my eyes and slid under the branches, down to the ground next to Julia. "Bullshit. Give me a break, okay? I had to finish an essay for Herbology."

My friend made a gagging noise. "Longbottom is a fucking nightmare."

I sighed. "He's not bad." I loved Uncle Neville, of course, but that wasn't something I would say to Julia. Liking Herbology was not going to win me any points with her.

"He's not bad, he's awful," said Jules, as she sat up to pull her long blonde hair into a messy bun. "I hate this goddamn school."

I almost shot her a reproachful look, but decided against it, settling for, "What's wrong with Hogwarts?"

"Hogwarts is full of professors from last century and kids who are so inept with magic that they should not be allowed to use it," she said, her voice completely serious. She had a very posh, high-society London accent, and when she made pronouncements like that, I often thought that she sounded like she ought to be royal.

I shook my head, suppressing a laugh. "You sound like such a bitch when you say things like that."

"Good," Julia said, and I could hear the smirk in her voice. "Being a bitch is my greatest aspiration in life."

"That, and being violated by Richard Madden."

Jules burst into a fit of giggles, and then clapped her hand over her mouth. "Merlin, that was atrociously loud, wasn't it?"

I smacked my friend. "Yes, it was. Be careful. You know we're fucked if we get caught out here so late." It was long enough after curfew that we wouldn't have been able to come up with a decent excuse.

"Oh, like hell we are. We've got parents in high places, Lily... we'll never get in real trouble."

"You don't know McGonagall like I do... She wouldn't let it go if we were her own grandchildren."

Julia clearly couldn't care less. She unzipped the fleece jacket she was wearing and pulled out a book. "I've got some good shit today," she said. "Straight off the market. A young Regency-era Lord and his brother's valet. Quite forbidden, of course. Lots of grasping in shadowed corners."

I grinned. "How scandalous."

"Indeed. And you know what's even more scandalous?"

"What?" I leaned towards her, squinting to see what she might be hiding, and my mouth fell open as she slipped something else out of her inner pocket: a flask. "Jules, tell me that isn't—"

In answer, she screwed the lid off and waved the container under my nose. The unmistakable scent of firewhiskey wafted up. My nose twitched, and Julia grinned at me, her white teeth flashing in the dim light of the moon. "I bribed Scorpius Malfoy for it."

I cocked an eyebrow. "Bribed him with what, exactly?"

She shrugged and let out a breathy sigh. "Nothing I needed."

I wasn't quite sure how to take that, so I let it stand. "Have you been drunk before?" I said, just because I wondered.

"Oh, sure. At my uncle's big Christmas party last year. I'm pretty sure I humped a statue... or maybe it was my cousin. I must have had bottles of wine to have been that fucking smashed. I can hold a lot, but... there's always a limit." Jules tilted her head at me. "You've never had firewhiskey, have you?"

I shook my head. The most I had ever been allowed to drink was a half a glass of champagne at the party we hosted after James finished his Auror training, and even that had left me feeling decidedly bad. Of course, I wasn't going to tell Julia that. But I eyed the flask in my friend's hand with trepidation.

She held it out. "Here, try some. This shit's good; I promise."

I hesitated. "Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean... we're already breaking enough rules being out here, without..."

"Bitch, please. Like you said, we're already breaking plenty of rules. What's one more, in the grand scheme of things?"

The difference between detention and expulsion, I thought, but of course I said nothing of the sort. I didn't want to sound like my aunt Hermione. "Oh, fuck it," I sighed, snatching the flask from her and bringing it to my mouth.

I tilted back my head and— Holy shit. The beverage, as its name suggested, burned like hell in my throat, and I coughed violently into my sleeve as I swallowed it. "Julia Addams, you are a goddamned moron," I gasped, reaching up to massage my throat, which felt raw and attacked.

Julia giggled, a smirk playing on her lips. The deep red, shimmering lipgloss she always wore sparkled in the moonlight. "It's always bad the first time," she said, not sounding very sympathetic.

"Are you saying the flavour gets better?" I asked, somewhat skeptical.

"Well... no," she admitted. "But it's not about the fucking flavour, silly. It's about the feeling."

I thought what it really was about, for Julia at least, was the illicitness of drinking it on school grounds. She liked to tempt fate like that. As for the feeling... I hadn't swallowed very much of the firewhiskey, but I did feel... almost winded, if that makes sense. A spot of fuzziness in my mind, brought on more by the shock than the alcohol. Nothing problematic.

Still smirking, Jules brought the flask to her lips, downed three mouthfuls without choking, and grimaced as she screwed the lid back on and set it down. "Shit," she sighed, "it's been awhile. I forgot how good that feels."

I shook my head, and wondered absently how I had ever become friends with Julia Addams. She wasn't the sort of person I used to hang about with. In many ways, she was like my brother. James, I mean. She was wild and unpredictable as hell and liable to get herself in trouble. I wasn't sure why I enjoyed that so much. Maybe I was like James too, deep down inside. Yet another grand disappointment. Yet another problem child.

Well, if I was going to disappoint my parents anyway, I might as well do it thoroughly, right? I grabbed the flask from where Jules had deposited it on the grass and unscrewed the lid once more, lifting it and knocking back a generous mouthful of the loathsome stuff. I managed not to actually cough this time, although I'm sure the look on my face announced my disgust loud and clear.

I hadn't eaten a thing since supper, and I knew I would be vomiting this shit in a few hours, but I also didn't care. I could feel the tingling of the alcohol, and the mad adrenaline rush I was getting from this blatant disregard of the rules, and I was relishing every second of this small rebellion.