Stargirls PV Dealla Prince

Dee had originally not planned to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas that year. She'd done the Christmas at school thing before - and, not to get her wrong, the castle was beautiful over the holidays, with fairy lights and icy decorations - but she also loved spending it with her family. Her parents, to be more precise, in case anyone needed the clarification (it should be obvious).

But then, last time she'd gone home for Christmas, she'd come back to find her best friend missing.

It wasn't that she didn't trust Aly, really; she knew now why her curly-haired better half hadn't returned from winter break last year, and she knew it hadn't been her choice. But could you really blame her for wanting to make really, absolutely, one-hundred-percent sure that she wouldn't return to a dormitory in which her best friend's bed was empty again?

So Aly stayed, and Dee stayed, and really, it was the most fun she'd had in a while. With no classes and most of the students gone, the castle was their playground, whether they caused silliness together or on their own. (There was plenty of time for both.) The days had gone by quickly - too quickly - and the girls had decided it was only right that they sent off their break of freedom with a sufficiently momentous celebration.

It had been Aly's idea, of course, to watch the meteorite shower, with her love for astronomy, for which Dee had lovingly called her a nerd more than once. That the astronomy tower was the only right place to do so had been obvious to them both, and Dee was a little late (as usual), hustling up the steps three at a time. She supposed she had years of running up the stairs to the Ravenclaw common room to thank for being able to do so without falling flat on her face. Not really late, of course, she should be well in time for the shower to start, but a few minutes after their agreed upon time, nonetheless. Not that Aly would be surprised by this.

Of course, Dee always had a good reason for being late, and tonight's was bouncing against her back with every step, stowed securely in her bag; her little contribution to the event. She slowed down nearing the top, stepping more quietly and carefully, in case Baird was lurking around somewhere, but the coast (or tower) seemed clear, and she easily slipped through the doors that Aly had left unlocked, buttoning up her coat and wrapping her scarf around her neck and face before she stepped out onto the balcony. "Sorry I'm late," she whispered, touching Aly's shoulder in a gesture that was both affectionate and familiar. She didn't sound very sorry, and she wasn't, but Aly would be used to that, too.

Another step and she was at the railing, leaning over it almost recklessly far as she glanced first down, following Aly's gaze to where the grounds lay snow-covered and the lake frozen, then up at the night sky. No meteors yet, but a sky full of stars, familiar from years of astronomy lessons. She shot Aly a grin, bright and sharp and excited. "Perfect weather, eh?"

@Aly Salinger

Soft footfalls on the steps of the tower quieted as they approached the top, alerting Aly to her best friend's presence. Perhaps other, less observant people may have worried that they were about to get caught, but Aly Salinger had always been quite good at recognising the footsteps of her loved ones. At home, for instance, her mother Hesper's were loud and purposeful, often accompanied by the clicking of heels on the tile or stone; Becca's were quiet and scurrying, almost like the house-elf was a little mouse; her father Benjamin's had been lazy and carefree, without a set rhythm, favouring his left side slightly - back when he was still in the land of the living, that is. But Dee's were different from all of those, as Aly had learned over years of being the star duellist's best friend here at Hogwarts. Dee walked like everything was an adventure. Like she belonged, but wasn't overconfident. Plus, she'd recognise the heavy thumps of Dee's high-quality boots anywhere - no jingles of zippers, or clicks of heels like Aly's had to minimize her short height, just sturdy and self-assured.

And so the (slightly) older girl did not exactly jump with shock when a soft hand brushed lightly against her shoulder, and a familiar voice whispered a fond apology. Turning to look at Dee over her shoulder as the other Ravenclaw came to the railing at her side, Aly grinned at her, returning the brilliant smile and excited gesture. "No, you're not," she quipped quietly, in reference to Dee's being sorry, of course. Dee Prince always arrived exactly when she meant to. "And I know, right? The stars are smiling down on us today. I hate when stuff like this gets blocked by clouds and such."

The curly-haired teenager had really found a love for astronomy over the last few years. It had always been one of her best subjects, and she blamed that on her father's love for the stars - Benjamin Salinger had been the proud owner of a telescope and it had been more than once that a child Aly had watched this very meteor shower (and various others) with her father with said telescope poking through the open window of his office or set up in their backyard when clear conditions let it happen. In fact, Aly had just found out about a year before, whilst poking through that office, that her father and his mates had broken into the Astronomy Tower to watch a meteor shower in their fifth year... giving her, now a fifth-year, the idea to do one and the same.

And now, once Aly started talking about astronomy, it was hard to get her to stop. Staring at the starry sky above, she began to spill details upon details about the meteor shower, as if Dee didn't sit right next to her during astronomy and hadn't heard these very facts time and time again before. "They're supposed to peak in about an hour, right before one a.m., and apparently there'll be like a hundred and ten of the meteors per hour during this time, so we should start seeing them pretty soon if we watch carefully," she chattered on. "I mean, technically the shower's been going on for days, but tonight's the real peak. Course, the lights from the castle might drown out some of the dimmer ones, but- ugh!"

That last bit was brought on by a shiver that racked her entire body, for apparently it was quite a bit colder than Aly had prepared for. She wrapped her blue Ravenclaw scarf an extra loop around her neck, pulling her fur-lined winter cloak a little bit closer to her body. "Sorry. Rambling. Merlin's pants, it's cold out here."

"No, I'm not," Dee agreed cheerfully, setting down her bag with a soft thunk before she gave the railing a speculative glance from narrowed blue eyes. It looked cold, hard, and not particularly comfortable. "No clouds tonight," she quipped while she slipped her wand from her sleeve, close at hand as always. "They wouldn't dare ruin this for us." She'd personally fight the clouds if they spoiled this night for Aly. "Spongify," she muttered, wand pointed at a section of the railing next to a pillar, then patted it with her free hand. "Better."

Aly was doing her best impression of their astronomy textbook and Dee paused in her puttering, watching her best friend as she stared up at the stars. Her expression softened as it only ever did for a few people, and fewer yet lately. It'd been a long while since Dee's heart had been open for anyone to walk into. It was a very exclusive place now.

But then a shiver so forceful Dee wondered if someone had poked Aly with a fork shook her friend's body and sent her curls bouncing and a mischievous grin replaced the fond look on Dee's face. "It is pretty cold," she agreed casually, drawing out the i into a long, entirely too smug eeeeee sound. "Lucky for us, I have something that should help with that." Her grin widened for a moment, and she bent down, snatching her bag back off the ground, then hugged it to her chest with wide excited eyes. "I thought I'd make this night extra memorable, so I talked one of the seventh years into getting us... this." With a quick motion, she stuck her hand into the bag and pulled out a bottle of fiery red liquid. An unmistakeable colour, really, and they had used it before in potions class, every now and then. They just hadn't used it outside of potions class yet.

Taking a step backward, she hopped up onto the railing, which had a lot more give and bounce to it now, then held the bottle out in Aly's direction, jiggling it slightly. "Wanna try?"

@Aly Salinger

Before Aly could so much as finish her sentence, Dee's wand was out and she was casting spells. The elder of the pair (if only by less than a month) eyed her best friend with a mix of jealousy and awe as, suddenly, a portion of the railing around the Astronomy Tower had turned soft and cushiony, and Dee was hopping up on it with all the athleticism of a Quidditch player mounting a favourite broom. The two had always had such different lives when it came to sports - Aly was the broom sort, always off with the Quidditch team at rehearsal or a match or something, and Dee was notorious for her fantastic spellcasting, her ability to dodge a duel and hit multiple targets at once famed at least in Aly's mind. Aly, on the other hand, rarely cast spells outside of class unless they had to do with flower-conjuring, changing the colours of her clothes, or summoning a book she'd left across the room because she was too lazy to get up at the moment. That Dee could just whip out her wand and make the railing soft enough to sit on was... well, magical. "Careful you don't fall from there," she cautioned with a soft laugh, despite the serious nature of the warning. "I don't want to have to go explaining to the Headmaster how you - oh."

Her caution fell away at the sight of the bottle in her best mate's hand. Dee was always quite a bit taller than her, a few inches at least, but now on the railing she towered over Aly; not only that, the amber liquid in her handheld vial made her seem larger than life. Older, somehow. "Is that..." Aly took a step closer to her and peered at the contents, then back up at Dee with a shocked O expressed upon her lips. "Merlin, Dee, how'd you manage to get a seventh-year to give you firewhisky? Did you, like, bribe them or something?"

Suddenly, the cold was forgotten even without the aid of alcohol, and Aly gingerly took the bottle from Dee's hands; swishing the fiery amber liquid around in its glass prison, Aly uncorked it and raised it to her nose to take a sniff. The smell alone smacked into her like an Unforgivable Curse, causing her green eyes to water and her nostrils to burn. Forget drinking the stuff - just having it nearby was enough to set her on fire!, but then again, she supposed that was sort of the point. She considered, for a moment, thrusting it back at Dee and insisting that the bringer try it first - something that was definitely more in character for the lighter-haired fifth-year, but then she remembered that whole philosophy she was supposed to be trying out this year. Sneaking into the Forbidden Forest. Drinking potions she wasn't supposed to drink. Exploring and rule-breaking and the lot. They'd already 'let themselves in' to the Astronomy Tower, so... "Oh, what's the harm in one little sip?" she murmured, almost to herself, raising the bottle to her lips.

Unfortunately, as she tilted it back and her head along with it for a single small swig, the thin liquid inside moved much faster than expected, and Aly got basically a whole mouthful of the stuff. For one glorious second, it didn't taste like anything or hurt at all, but then the fifth-year was slammed by the full force of a fiery flavour; she managed to swallow most of it, but did turn and sputter some of it out with blubbering lips over the railing of the Astronomy Tower. "Hot. Hot. Hot," she gasped out, desperate for air, the cold outdoors providing only the barest of relief to her scalding tongue. "Oh, Merlin's bloody bloomers, that's bad. That's so bad." Opening her mouth to the fullest extent to get as much cold air in as possible, Aly fanned her tongue with both hands, asking as well as she could with her mouth in its current position, "Wha grankh hih tuhh, a-hi-uae?" Who drinks this stuff, anyway?

She shoved the bottle back into Dee's hands, ordering as strongly as she could, "Now you have to try it," before going back to opening her mouth and fanning her tongue. Seriously, if she never had firewhisky again, it would still be too soon. But, on the bright side, the hot lump moving slowly down her throat and into her chest had warmed her up somewhat.

Aly's very valid concern about Dee's safety went, of course, ignored. Too big was the excitement, the soft thrill at doing something not just against the school rules but illegal, not that this law was enforced very strictly. She hadn't tried the firewhisky before herself, so the grin on her face was wide with anticipation. "It absolutely is," she confirmed, looking not unlike Ninkilim when he was sitting on Dauncey's head again, staying just out of reach for Aly's cat: entirely too smug. "Oh, you know." She inspected her nails with fake casualness that was easily drowned out by the self-satisfaction she was radiating. "I have my ways." It hadn't been too hard, honestly; Dee had friends or acquaintances in almost every year, and she could be extraordinarily annoying convincing when she wanted to be. It had cost her some galleons to cover the cost of the whisky and the promise of some invigoration draught next time she made a batch. (The late-night studying for his N.E.W.T. exams was clearly getting to him.)

The shock on Aly's face was already satisfaction enough, and Dee's grin turned just a touch wider and smugger, her cheeks flushed - if from the cold or excitement was not entirely clear. When Aly took the bottle, careful as if she thought it might bite her, Dee watched impatiently, bouncing slightly on the spongified railing. She could probably slow herself enough if she fell, anyway. There was a moment when she thought Aly would refuse to drink it. Dee always had been the one more prone to bending rules between the two of them - a little ironic considering she was also the only former prefect in the pair - marching forward and leaving her friend to either scramble after her or knock her over the head to get some sense into her rock-hard skull.

But then Aly raised the bottle to her lips after all, and Dee leaned forward, eager, only to burst out laughing when Aly started sputtering. She stretched out a hand when her mate lurched towards the railing, not to help her but to keep the glass bottle from knocking into the stone. "That bad?" she asked, still giggling. There was no trace of remorse in her voice, only a mix of delight and curiosity. Aly's next words were hard to decode, considering her tongue was hanging out of her mouth and garbling what she was saying, but Dee made an educated guess. "I dunno," she replied, shrugging. "My parents have a bottle somewhere but I don't think they actually drink it. Mum uses it for potions, though. Hey, you look like you're sweating! So at least that is working."

Dee took the bottle easily when Aly forced it back on her, she would have tried it, anyway. After all, she hadn't gone through the trouble of getting it only to back out now. Still, Aly's experience had made her more cautious, and she adjusted her position on the railing for more stability before raising the firewhisky to her lips and tipping the bottle very very carefully. She got a much more manageable sip as a result and swallowed while she lowered the bottle, waiting with her head slightly tilted for a moment before she started coughing. That really was like fire, licking on her tongue and running down her throat, hot in her stomach. "Oh." Her eyes were watering, tears collecting in the corners and then spilling down her cheeks, but she was still laughing. "You're right, that is bad. Wow."

Using her sleeve to wipe at her eyes, she took a few deep breaths of icy winter air, then shrugged, and raised the bottle again. The second mouthful was bigger, and just as bad, but at least this time she'd known what was coming. Vision blurring through her tears, she held the bottle out to Aly once again, challenging. "You're not gonna let me drink this alone, are you?"

@Aly Salinger

By the time Dee was coughing up a lung in front of her, having taken a try of the fiery adult beverage herself, Aly's own tongue had cooled enough for her to fail to suppress a giggle at her best friend's reaction. "What, did you think I was faking it?" she teased the prince, finally able to speak normally once more. "Merlin, that stuff has a bloody kick!" If she hadn't actually felt warm for the first time all night, she might have hurled over the side of the tower - hopefully not onto some poor passers-by below, though that would teach them to go sneaking out late at night. No, that sort of behaviour was only for all right for fifth-year Ravenclaw best mates going through their joint teenage-girl delinquency phase.

She climbed onto the ledge to sit beside her best mate, feeling soft stone beneath her - an odd feeling, that much was for sure. It was more like sitting on rough cushions than anything else, and the teenager was suddenly glad that she had worn thick dark tights beneath her skirt tonight - now not just for the warmth they provided, but also for the avoiding of scratched-up skin whilst shifting on an unexpectedly comfortable surface. Duelling had done well for Dee, obviously; Aly couldn't cast spells worth half this. "Okay, so don't tell me where you got it," she muttered, only half-joking; the other girl could have her secrets, because Merlin knew that Aly had her own. Granted, of anyone in the world, her roommate was the one who knew the most of those skeletons in Aly's trunk - but still. "But if I like it, you might have to share your sources. Here, hand it over, Miss Mysterious."

She took the bottle from Dee's outstretched hand and raised it to her lips, more tentatively this time. Now that she knew how fast the amber liquid inside would slosh into her mouth, Aly was much more careful in taking just a small sip, and though it still burned going down, the fiery sensation was... much more tolerable. Fun, even - a little bit spicy, and her tongue tingled as she swallowed. "Okay, update: it's not that bad if you take it slow," she informed Dee, going in for another small sip. "Mm... yeah, it's actually sort of like... a spice cake, or that rice pudding they serve at feasts if the house-elves added a whole jar of cinnamon to it." A couple more sips went down hot before she balanced the bottle back between them, able to be snatched by either of them who craved another bit of the peppery warmth.

Leaning her head on Dee's shoulder, she stared out and upwards into the sky as the mellow heat in her stomach began to spread upwards into her brain; was that a headache forming, or did it feel good? "You know, Hogwarts is so quiet when most of the people are gone," she muttered, eyes half-unfocusing into the stars... but wait! Was that? - yes! A meteor streaking across the darkness of the night above them, and Aly's hand shot upwards, pointing to it with a gleeful laugh. "Aha! Yes, look, there's one! First Quantrantid of the night." Using her elbow, she nudged her best girl perhaps a bit harder than usual. "Make a wish, mate!"

Dee was a sight to behold, giggling and coughing at the same time, tears rolling down her face, and trying to get enough air in between to keep doing all of those things. "I didn't think you were faking it," she emphasised slowly, scooting to the side to make space for Aly to climb up to precarious heights beside her. Was it the most prudent idea to sit inches from a thirty metre drop while making their first bad choices about alcohol? Maybe not. "I just thought that maybe you're a bit more sensitive to it than normal?" Grinning wildly, Dee jostled Aly lightly, then leaned out precariously, enjoying the cold air on her heated face. Noticing Aly shifting beside her, she made a mental note to bring some sort of blanket or cushion next time they did this. Even soft as it was, the surface of the stone wasn't the most comfortable thing to sit on.

Huffing a laugh, she let go of the bottle easily when Aly took it back. "Mi sources es tu sources," she pronounced, cheerfully butchering the pronunciation of the Spanish parts of the quote, then glanced at her friend out of the corner of her eye. "I could introduce you, if you want... He's not my type, but I suppose he's kinda cute?" Not that she was very interested in dating lately, either way. But that was too depressing a topic for a night like this, or at least Dee hadn't yet had enough of the whisky to bring it up. "Though I do like being Miss Mysterious."

There was an odd tingling in her fingers, and she started fidgeting, pressing the nail of her thumb into the soft skin of her other fingers. Her cheeks felt warm. After stealing a few more sips from the bottle, Dee had to agree that the Aly-approved strategy did make it more drinkable. Or perhaps she was simply getting used to it. Things seemed to quiet around her, with Aly's head on her shoulder and muttering in her ear, and when the meteors started falling, Dee stared up at the night sky in silent wonder.

She blinked slowly. "I don't know what to wish for," she admitted quietly. The words came out a bit mumbled. "I..." Dee exhaled, closing her eyes. "I miss how I felt a year ago. I miss Jack. Not," she hurried to tack on, predicting Aly's outraged reaction. "Not Jack. Not really? I don't want to, like, get back together with him or anything as fucking stupid as that. But... how I felt with him. And... duelling. And just, feeling like I knew where I was going." Her lips felt numb as she pressed them together for a moment, then she sighed, her shoulders drooping. "Sorry," she mumbled. "Didn't mean to bring down the mood."

@Aly Salinger

Aly felt something wet splash onto her forehead, and she looked up to see fat tears rolling off of Dee's strong chin. She couldn't help but burst out laughing. "Merlin's beard, that really got you, huh? Slow sips, I said. Slow!" Her best mate flexed her shoulder somehow, jostling her slightly, and Aly took her head from the crook between Dee's arm and neck. "Ugh, fine. You're all bones anyway," she teased, flicking Dee's collarbone with a finger. "Remind me to bring a pillow from the dormitory next time we do this. Booted has enough cushions; it's not like they'll miss one or two."

She raised an eyebrow at the mention of the firewhisky source's gender. "Oh, it's a bloke? As in, our age? That feels... fishy," in a somewhat joking tone, but yet with a frown pulling at one side of her lips. "How's someone who's not even sixteen yet, let alone an adult, getting firewhisky? Maybe I should be asking him for his source." She took the bottle, sipped a single slow slurp of spicy solution, and put it back between them... then tilted her head to the side and hummed pensively, the cinnamon flames loosening her tongue and perhaps her common sense with it. "Well, that depends, though. Just how cute is he?"

After a heartbeat's worth of silence, she giggled again. "Kidding. Mostly."

At Dee's pondering as to what her wish should have gone towards, Aly nudged her with her shoulder. "There's always world peace. Or straight Outstandings on your O.W.L.s. Or mine, if you'd rather earn yours yourself." Though the quip was accompanied by a wisecracking grin, it was met only with mumbles and a sigh, and Aly immediately recognised that something was wrong; she turned to Dee just in time to hear fateful words leave her mouth: I miss Jack.

"You've got to be bloody mad," she spit out, an instantaneous riposte as to the mention of the Hufflepuff-who-existed-but-honestly-shouldn't-have's name. Jack Warren was nothing short of a lame-o, a jerk, one of two badgers that made it quite certain that Aly would never wander anywhere near the Hufflepuff common room lest she wanted to end up hexing someone and find herself in two weeks' worth of detention. "Jack's a git! He broke y-" And yet, Dee had predicted her combative response and rushed to assure her that it was not Jack himself that she missed, but the Dee she used to be.

Aly reached out and took Dee's hand in both of her own, rubbing her calloused thumb over the soft skin beneath the knuckle of her best mate's. She listened to her rant, something it seemed Dee very much needed to do, and then squeezed her hand tight.

"You didn't bring down any mood. Say what you need to say," she assured her, her eyes welling with sympathetic tears already despite the fact that all of Dee's had been due to firewhisky and not due to missing her admittedly shitty ex. "But I will note that Jack is a giant git who broke your heart, and you definitely should not get back together with him. So what if you're different from the version of Dee you were with him? I still love you!" She leaned her head on Dee's shoulder once again, ignoring the sharp poke of her friend's bones beneath her skin. "In fact, I might love you more now that you don't have that arsehole dragging you down. You seem much happier now that you're not having to worry about him. And it doesn't matter if you don't know where you're going - I'll always be right beside you, no matter where you end up. Unless it's detention. Then I'm splitting." Her head lolled back and she offered Dee a lazy, mildly tipsy smile. "Jokes aside, I'm seriously proud of you and how far you've come since him. And I have a good feeling about your next duel, so don't worry about that. Just go out there and hit them with all the power you've got, and stupid Gryffindor won't know what's hit them."

"Already noted," Dee yawned at the request for pillows next time, because obviously, there was going to be a next time they did this, and obviously, Dee was going to make sure her best friend was more comfortable then. She learned from her mistakes. Sometimes. "How is it that I know like, five different spells to turn a teapot into a variety of animals, and not a single spell to conjure a blanket?" She shook her head emphatically. "Transfiguration is so weird. Make it make sense, Aly." Of course, she was never going to complain when they learned yet another spell meant to blow something up in Charms class, because there was always use for more of those. No, Dee wasn't biased.

Aly's assumption that the source™ was their age and thus automatically dodgy earned a gentle roll of Dee's eyes. "Aly, I do talk to people outside of our year. Don't you?" she asked mildly. "You really need to expand your social circles, we've talked about this." There were always ways to meet other people. Like duelling, the Headliner, or just being unreasonably nosy, and Dee had acquired several older kids as friends that way. She frowned slightly. "Are you telling me you don't know a single seventh year at our school? Or do you just not talk to guys?" Finally, she gave a noncomittal shrug when Aly laughed away the option of actually meeting the guy - or any guy, Dee suspected. "I'll introduce you, if you want," she said earnestly. "It's up to you."

But then, Aly clearly wasn't the only one not quite ready to move on with their romantic life. Dee bit her lip, blinking through her fuzzy vision, and reclaimed the bottle, although the warm buzz was quickly tipping into something less pleasant. At least Aly hating Jack's guts was a constant she could always rely on, and listening to the inevitable rant that followed whenever her ex's name came up made Dee smile, even if it turned out a bit wobbly. "I don't want to get back with him," she emphasised, exhaling something that barely passed as a laugh. It felt necessary to repeat, since Aly didn't quite seem to believe her, no matter how often she said it.

Dee tipped her head back, staring upwards. The stars were still falling, burning across the sky and then winking out. "I don't... feel like I've come very far." The confession came heavily. Another sip of burning liquid, followed by a short cough. She could blame the tears on her cheeks on this. "I don't think I've gone anywhere since him." She paused, searching for words to explain, to pre-empt another supportive pep talk, no matter how much she appreciated Aly's unconditional love. "I'm not worried about the O.W.L.s, or about my next duel, I know I kick ass. It just feels like... everyone is figuring out where they're going. And meanwhile, I'm taking all the O.W.L.s not because they're gonna help me do what I want to, but because I don't know." She hiccupped, and set the bottle down a little too hard. "You're moving forward. I'm stuck in yesterday's dreams."

@Aly Salinger