HARRY:

To our continued surprise, Malfoy didn't ruin her life.

I finished out my week of detention, then Hermione's birthday was upon us.

I had been trying to keep a closer eye on Lucy without her noticing. I didn't like the sound of "I don't think I'm ready to heal yet." I hadn't told anybody else what she said, though, not yet.

So, when the sound of an Exploding Snap game made her knuckles whiten against her glass of butterbeer in the common room that night, I noticed immediately. I didn't say anything, not wanting to draw attention to it since no one else had seen anything amiss, but I did jump up and wedge myself between her and George to remind her I was there and always would be.

I then offered the wildest distraction I could possibly imagine, before she could spiral into memories of the caves, or of Cedric, or of anything else. It was Hermione's birthday, it was a party, and she was going to enjoy it as far as I could help it.

"Who wants to play truth or dare?"

Six heads snapped in my direction.

"I mean," Hermione said slowly with a glance in Lucy's direction, "I would be up for it if everyone else is."

"Yeah," Ginny echoed with a glance at Lucy as well, "me too."

Beside me, Lucy chugged the rest of her butterbeer, tightened her ponytail, and grinned. "I'm in."

Her announcement sent Fred scrambling up to their dormitory for the gummies, and when he returned approximately ten seconds later, the game was underway.

"You first, birthday girl!" George announced, holding both bags out to Hermione. Unsurprisingly, she reached for the truth candy and popped it in her mouth.

"I've got a question!" Ginny said. She leaned forward and asked in a stage whisper, "Have you ever cheated on an exam?"

"No, of course not!"

Ginny looked distinctly put out. "Not even once?"

Hermione shook her head. "Of course not. I don't need to."

"Very true, Granger, very true!" George held the bags out to Ginny next. "Your turn."

"Dare, obviously," she said with a roll of her eyes.

Ginny had to do a backflip over Angelina. Angelina confessed that if she and Fred weren't together, she'd be dating a Ravenclaw named Matthew. Ron had to do his best Irish jig in front of Lavender and Parvati. Fred had to sing a duet with the Fat Lady. George, not about to be outdone, had to sing a duet with Sir Cadogan.

After that performance, I opted for truth. I didn't want to have to sing with a portrait, funny enough.

The second the candy was in my mouth, Ginny fixed me with an intense yet amused look. "Tell us, Harry, who do you fancy?"

"Cho Chang," I replied automatically. I felt my face flame in response to the variety of reactions around me. Ginny looked disappointed. Angelina laughed. Ron looked surprised for half a second then shrugged. Fred grimaced. George rolled his eyes. Hermione bit her lip. Lucy's face was a perfect blank. I chuckled uncomfortably. "I thought that was common knowledge, though, Ginny. Why d'you ask?"

"Interesting," she said in response, avoiding my question entirely as she turned to Lucy. "You're next. Truth or dare?"

Lucy shrugged. "Truth, I guess." She reached into the bag, tossed the gummy candy into her mouth, and started chewing.

"Alright, your turn! Who do you fancy, Lucy?"

"No one at the moment," she said without a moment's hesitation.

Ginny's eyebrows shot up, and Hermione choked on the butterbeer she had just tried to drink.

Fred reached for the bag and inspected the contents with George. "There's got to be something wrong! Cub, what the hell did you do to these?"

Lucy laughed. "I didn't do anything. I told the truth."

Ginny snatched the bag back from the twins and wrestled out another candy. "I don't believe you. You did something. Do it again. Maybe the double dosage will get it out of you."

"I didn't do anything," Lucy said again, but she obliged and made quite the show of chewing and swallowing the candy.

"Who do you fancy, Lucy?"

"No one at the moment," she repeated in the same voice as the first time. She shrugged and looked around with an amused smile. "Why are you all looking at me like that?"

I glanced around. Surely enough, everyone in the circle was looking at Lucy with undeniable confusion. Everyone, that is, except me. I wasn't confused at all, seeing she'd never seemed to fancy anybody before. Just the same, I had the distinct feeling I was missing something based on everyone else's apparent surprise.

George was the first to answer, an uneasy smile on his face. "That's a new answer."

Lucy raised her eyebrows at him. "Meaning?"

"Nobody's ever given that answer before," he said with a shrug. "Not even you. Anyway, Hermione, it's your turn again. Truth or dare?"

The feeling I had missed something grew more intense, but I didn't have time to dwell on it. Round two was even more wild than the first, including a joint dare where Fred and Angelina had to switch clothes for the rest of the round and a dare that involved Ron attempting to apply his own lipstick with his feet.

Lucy and I both wised up and chose dare on the second round. My dare was to hold a handstand long enough for Ron to take a picture — he took his sweet time with the camera, of course — and Lucy's was to talk in a high-pitched voice until her next turn. She kept doing it through the third, fourth, and fifth rounds too, because it was hilarious. She was laughing just as hard as the rest of us, and it was honestly so great to see.

We played until we exhausted the supply of candies and we realized just how late it was. The common room started to empty bit by bit, but I still had an Astronomy essay to finish, so once Hermione and Lucy headed up to their dormitory, I headed up to mine to get my book and charts.

LUCY:

I would have liked to stay up with Harry and maybe helping with his essay, but Hermione seemed like she wanted to talk to me, so I followed her up to the dormitory. She wasted no time before beginning the interrogation, half-laughing as she shook her head at me.

"How did you do that? I know there's veritaserum in those. Are you immune to veritaserum? Is that it? Even if you didn't want to say Harry, you could have at least thrown out a name to make it more believable!"

"I'm not immune to veritaserum," I said.

"What did you do, then?"

"Nothing."

Hermione's smile faded as she stared at me. "Did Harry do something?"

I shook my head emphatically. "He didn't do anything."

"So what changed between you two?"

"Nothing."

"Lucy-"

"Hermione, I mean it, nothing changed between us."

"Obviously something did, you wouldn't have hesitated six months ago-"

"I can think of a couple of things that have changed in the past six months, Hermione," I said in a strained voice.

She bit her lip. "Lucy, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

"It's okay," I interrupted, shaking my head. "Don't worry about it. Harry and I are just fine, though, really."

"Are you sure, Lucy?"

"Positive." I smiled and held out my wrist with the charm bracelet. "See? We're fine."

Hermione nodded reluctantly. "I-I will say, Lucy... when George pulled that out of his pocket, we — Harry — we all..." Sudden tears appeared in her eyes, and I rushed forward to hug her. She clung to me, trembling under the weight of the memory. "S-Sorry, I-I really try not to think about it too much, but sometimes I-I just-"

"It's okay," I whispered. "I'm okay. It's okay. I'm okay."

"No, you're not. Don't try to tell me you're- you're- Lucy, you're not."

I held her tighter. "Mione, please listen to me. I had so much fun tonight playing truth or dare. This is the happiest I've felt in... I don't know exactly. For now at least, I'm okay."

"Really?" she asked, pulling away and hurriedly scrubbing at her cheeks.

"Really."

Hermione gnawed on her lower lip for a second as if she were debating whether or not to say something. When she hesitated a moment too long for it to be comfortable, I filled the silence as best I could.

"Besides, you heard Harry. He fancies Cho, not me."

"I was just about to tell you I'm not quite so sure about that," she burst out, speaking quickly and excitedly. "I think maybe in such small doses, veritaserum only reveals what the person thinks is true."

"What do you mean?"

"Lucy, you didn't see how Harry was for those couple of days we thought you might be dead or dying." She nodded to the bracelet. "That never left his pocket after George gave it to him. And when we all found out about it, well, Harry went off a bit, shouting about how it wasn't fair that it was you of all people and that type of thing."

"And how was he for, you know, the days between that and me coming back?" I asked shyly.

"Lucy, I've never seen him act like that, ever."

"Like what?"

She pursed her lips, searching for the right description. "It was like someone had sucked the light out of him, when you were taken away."

HARRY:

When I came back down to the common room, Ginny was staring into the fire with her arms crossed and lips pursed.

"Everything alright, Ginny?" I asked as I set my books down and settling into a chair, seeing as it was just the two of us in the common room.

"I'm not sure. I don't think so." She turned on her heel and flopped down into the chair across from me. She put her feet up on the table and dragged a hand down her face. "Lucy talks to you, right?"

I blinked. "Yeah, of course she does."

"She actually talks to you? About something other than school and the weather and whatnot?"

"Er, yeah. Yeah, we talk."

"Hrmph."

She fell silent for a while, lost in her own thoughts, so I reached for a quill and started working on the essay. I had just started my second paragraph when she spoke again.

"Cho Chang, huh?"

I glanced up, stretching my fingers after writing for so long. "Yeah, Cho Chang. Why?"

Ginny shook her head and pushed herself to her feet. "Something's wrong with those candies. Good night, Harry."

"Night," I called as she disappeared, but I was thoroughly baffled by the conversation I'd just had, if one could even call it a conversation.

I returned to my essay after a moment. As I started writing again, I realized Lucy had been happier playing truth or dare than she had been in a long time. The thought made me smile.

LUCY:

Even after I had showered and climbed into bed and wished Hermione one last "Happy birthday," I couldn't sleep. My mind was racing.

I had known in the back of my mind I didn't feel quite the same way about Harry. But, well, if I was being honest with myself, I didn't feel quite the same way about anything anymore.

It wasn't like the way Harry apparently felt for those days I was gone. It wasn't like a dementor, which sucked everything out of me and left me feeling empty. I could still feel emotions, in an all-consuming way that swept over me like a sudden storm, but those emotions were... only anger or sadness, it seemed.

It was like the anger and sadness were all I knew anymore. My emotions were such a constant back-and-forth war, from one extreme to the other and back again without the slightest warning, that I didn't have the capacity to feel anything else.

That was why I was so surprised by how happy I was at Hermione's party, really. It was like I had somehow found the tiniest ray of sun peeking through the clouds even as the storm whipped me back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. I couldn't feel it, but I could see it. I believed that one day, maybe I would feel it. Maybe one day, it would find me.

But for that night, I could see it. And that was alright.

I wanted to cling to it, that tiny ray of sun, but even as I lay there, I could see the clouds converging again. I could feel it. I closed my eyes, bracing for the storm to surge again, and before I knew it, I was asleep.

HARRY:

Eventually, I wrapped up my Astronomy essay. I made my way back up to the dormitory, and to my surprise, I wasn't the only one awake.

Neville glanced up from his book and waved cheerfully. I waved back and shoved my materials into my trunk. I disappeared into the bathroom to change into pajamas, and Neville joined me a couple minutes later.

"Realized I forgot to brush my teeth," he admitted with a somewhat sheepish grin.

"Happens to the best of us," I said as I reached for my own toothbrush.

Neville glanced at me in the mirror. "Lucy seemed happy tonight."

I nodded as I squeezed the peppermint toothpaste from the tube. "I noticed the same thing."

"Did you notice that she was shaking less?"

"Come to think of it, you're right. She was."

He smiled and nodded. "She's getting better, I think."

"I hope so," I replied. "Merlin, I sure hope so."

LUCY:

Falling.

In rapid succession, all of Cedric's birthdays, at least the ones to which I had borne witness.

Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.

The screaming wind whistled around me, growing louder and louder by the second.

Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.

The searing wind tore at my skin, growing fiercer and fiercer by the second.

Just when I couldn't take it anymore, a new sound, a new sensation.

A splash.

Force that knocked the wind from my lungs.

Water so cold it burned my skin.

Nothing but darkness before my eyes.

Sinking.

Sinking.

Sinking.

Sinking.