Impossible to Return

Chocolate and Numbness

"Do you have the Charms homework?"

Marlene and Desiree froze and stared at Piper in shock.

Piper felt irritated; she had only asked a simple question. "What are you gaping at?"

Marlene unfroze and approached Piper as if the counter curse to 'petrificus totalus' had been cast. "You haven't spoken in an hour. You came in your dormitory and have been doing your homework like a robot."

"It was a bit unnerving." Desiree added, swinging her legs as they dangled off her bed.

Piper looked at the pile of finished homework, some of it not due for two weeks. "I didn't want to fall behind."

"Piper, I may have not known you long, but I do know you never do homework this early. What's wrong?"

"Nothing." The biggest lie on the planet, but Piper had no desire to revisit what had happened an hour ago. She didn't want to ever think about it again.

Homework was a great distraction. Not. But it made her struggle to think about spells and facts and such, which was better than doing nothing, which would practically invite those memories in.

Piper expected Marlene to say something else. Piper knew Marlene hadn't been fooled, from the way she still looked concerned and knowing.

However, Piper did not expect Marlene to hug her.

Piper was stunned for a second at this sudden gesture of affection, and that broke the wall she had set up. Piper burst into tears.

Marlene only hugged her tighter, and Piper could hear all the words that spilled out of her own mouth: how the fight had started, how Jason had excused her of cheating on him, how they had all broken up. Marlene listened closely, never inturrupting as she stroked Piper's hair comfortingly. When Piper was finished talking, she still hadn't stopped crying.

"Why don't we have a girls night tonight? It might cheer you up." Marlene suggested. "But if you don't want to, I understand entirely."

A girls night? Maybe that's what she needed. But all Piper felt like right now was collapsing on her bed and hopefully falling into a long dreamless sleep.

The aroma that surrounded Piper as she hugged Marlene was one of their dormitory most of the time. A smell of roses, that reminded her of the Aphrodite cabin. The Aphrodite cabin in Camp Half-Blood. The camp where she had met Annabeth, Jason, Piper, Leo...

Piper started to cry even harder, and felt slightly guilty that she was soaking the shoulder of Marlene's robe with salty tears. She felt like her world was crashing down around her. Well, in a way it actually was, in the non-literal sense. Her world was Jason. Her world was Annabeth, Percy, Hazel, Frank, and even Nico...

Piper had never known such true friends. Friends who weren't just hanging out with her because her dad was Tristan McLean. Friends who didn't care she was part Cherokee(because apparently that was a negative trait to some people, which was really stupid in Piper's opinion).

She had never really had her dad. Those days he spent with her were great, but he was never constantly around. He was filming the next movie, doing interviews and the like.

She stole that BMW all that time ago to get her father's attention. It ended up being one of the best things she could've done, because she met Jason, she met Leo, she met Coach Hedge, which then led her to Camp Half-Blood...

Everyone needs friends. Whether it's your mother, your father, your siblings, your peers, your next door neighbour. Everyone needs someone to depend upon, someone who will stick with out through thick and thin, someone who knows your flaws but loves you just the same.

And Piper had had that. But it disappeared. Like an illusion.

Maybe it was. Maybe it was all a trick of the mist like her first relationship with Jason at Wilderness High School.

But deep down in her heart, Piper knew it wasn't a trick. That's why it hurt so much. All the memories, the stories, the quests, those were real. They weren't fake.

The friendship, the sacrifices, the wounds, the love. No one could instil such strong emotions and feelings falsely. Not Amortentia, not the Mist. They had to happen naturally.

Piper wasn't sure if she would ever feel such powerful feelings ever again. But she would sure as heck try to find new friends just as amazing.

Maybe one day Marlene and Desiree would end up being as close of friends as Piper had been with the other demigods. Maybe one day she would find a boyfriend she loved even more than Jason.

One thing was for sure: moping around would do nothing.

Piper smiled at Marlene. "Let's do this."

>>>•<<<

"Where's Lily?" Alice asked, wrapping her arms around herself. "Is she coming or what? I'm freezing."

"You're wearing a sweater." Desiree pointed out, as she struggled to take her hair out of the mini braids she had done that morning.

Alice was indeed wearing a sweater. It was grey, over-sized, and one hundred percent Frank Longbottom's.

"And how does Lily coming solve your problem of being cold?"

Alice shrugged and blew a piece of her black hair out of her eyes. "She usually has a charm for everything."

"I'm insulted you didn't ask me," Marlene said, mock-offendedly looking away from Alice.

"Okay, Marlene," Alice said, "Can you warm me up with a charm?"

"Actually—" Marlene said sheepishly.

"Aha! You don't know one!" Alice said triumphantly. Marlene smacked her with a pillow.

Alice was going to retaliate when Piper spoke up. She had been sitting quietly on the floor with the other girls, not sure if this girls night was going to help her. "I know a charm."

"Really?" Alice asked eagerly, her intention of hitting Marlene with a pillow forgotten.

Piper waved her wand and recited the charm she had learned recently. Alice immediately sighed and smiled, showing that the charm had worked. "Thanks Piper."

The dormitory door burst open, and Lily came in. And quite the state she was in.

Her hair was up in a messy bun, with pieces of red hair escaping. Her wand was behind one ear, and her tie was lose. She was carrying a huge stack of books and her bag over one shoulder was filled to the brim with papers and quills. When she set her books in her bedside table, a few quills spilled out of her bag.

"Where have you been, Lily?"

Lily's shoulder drooped after she set her bag on the floor and wiped away sweat from her brow. "I nearly missed a meeting with James for our Head duties because I was talking to someone, and then I realized I had forgotten about my homework because I was so busy making sure I finished all my Head Girl duties."

"Oh. Well, we're having a girls night, want to join?"

Lily shook her head and flopped down on her bed. "I'm exhausted." She yawned. "I just want to have a good long sleep......"

And she was out.

Marlene smiled with laughter. "Okay then. It's just us."

"What's first?" Alice said, smoothing her hair to the side out of her face. "We had one of these so recently I don't think there's much new gossip."

Marlene grinned. "This is a special girls night. A Chocolate Girls Night."

It turned out a Chocolate Girls Night a normal Girls Night, just adding them all gorging themselves on chocolate until they were sick to their stomach. Piper knew she'd probably regret all the sweets in the morning, but then again, it was worth it.

The Girls Night turned out to be exactly what Piper had needed. Forgetting about her problems and laughing at old stories of the other girl's time at Hogwarts made Piper feel like she was a little girl all over again, when no one cared who you or your parents were, or judged you at all because everyone was too young to understand that concept.

Maybe Piper's world wasn't over after all.