An Art of Balance

Chapter 15: Midnight Conversations

Later that night, Lizzie was lying awake in her bed, staring at the yellow canopy above her head. She listened to the regular breathing and occasional rustle of sheets as one of her friends turned, unable to fall asleep herself.

She kept thinking about Skye's odd behaviour. Although she had followed her friend almost immediately after she had left the rest of the team in such a hurry, Lizzie hadn't been able to find her. She had only briefly seen her after dinner in the Common Room, but even then, Skye had made some bad excuses to not spend time with any of them.

It puzzled Lizzie; it wasn't like their fight a few weeks ago, when she had known exactly why Skye was angry at her. She actually didn't seem to be angry at all; she avoided everyone, sitting by herself brooding. There was an almost haunted look about her, her nose buried in her battered copy of Quidditch Throughout the Ages, scanning the pages intently as if looking for an answer Lizzie didn't know the question to.

Lizzie turned in her bed, hugging her pillow. She wished Rowan was here to talk her through her sleepless spell like she often did. But her friend was on prefect patrol tonight and it would be quite some time before she returned.

And truth be told, Rowan didn't care much about Skye's antics; few people did. Lizzie often wondered herself why she put up with Skye's attitude over and over again. She couldn't say it for sure; maybe because she saw behind the brusque façade Skye chose to display. She knew how pressured she felt by her family's legacy.

Lizzie understood that sentiment. Although a fair troublemaker in his time, her brother had been an outrageously gifted student. In her first year, most of the teachers had often referred to her as 'Jacob Jameson's sister' until they had gotten around to learning her name. Filling someone's shoes was never easy.

She drifted off into an uneasy sleep. She couldn't have been asleep for long when she suddenly awoke with a jolt. She blinked into the blinding light of the wand pointed into her face, unable to see who was the disturber of her nightly peace.

"Oops, wrong bed," a familiar voice giggled.

"Tulip?" Lizzie mumbled sleepily, rubbing her eyes. "Is that you?"

"No, Lizzie Jameson, it is not. Tulip Karasu would certainly never sneak into your dorm while your prefect watch dog is away. Go back to sleep now, there's nothing to see here."

The light moved away from her and over to where Tonks was snoring in her bed. She heard a muffled cry as Tulip poked her awake, then a quick set of excitedly exchanged whispers and snickering.

Tonks jumped out of her bed and the two of them tiptoed to the door of the dormitory.

"If someone asks, you've never seen us!" Tonks chuckled. "And don't go anywhere near the Slytherin Common Room tomorrow morning."

"Whatever," Lizzie muttered in response, closing her eyes in a futile attempt to go back to sleep. But it was no use, she was fully awake by now.

Mouse, who had been sleeping snuggled against the back of Lizzie's knees, seemed to share that sentiment. She got up and stretched lavishly before hopping off the bed. She padded to the door the two pranksters had just left through and looked back at her expectantly.

Lizzie scowled at the animal. "You have your own door."

She pointed at the small hole in the masonry hidden behind a drawer. It lead to a complicated network of passageways traversing the whole of the castle; it allowed the numerous animals inhabiting Hogwarts to move around undisturbed if they wished to do so.

But Mouse was clearly not in the mood to take the exit designated for her. Her tail was twitching impatiently when she saw Lizzie had no intent of getting up and opening the door for her anytime soon. She opened her mouth and let out a demanding cry that seemed to echo across the silence of the room.