Whether it was the whisky or the boisterous giggles from her Slytherin counterpart, Aly felt that the lightness in the air was not only contagious as dragon pox but also strong as an army, swiping swords and shoving shields in order to get the previous burdensome weight between them to flee in fear from its pure might. Joy was the wrong word; it was closer to triumph, some sort of relief that, finally, there had been a breakthrough. Truly, in the end, it all boiled down to one particular quality that the Ravenclaw girl always held so close to her heart: she loved to be loved, and she hated to be hated. Pei's laughter, as easy and freeing as a high-flying broomstick ride over the mountains near Hogwarts and its surrounding countryside with the wind in one's hair, was the first to tear down this fear that Aly had truly been the object of the Slytherin's dislike - and Aly's own half-chuckle, her own sitting down, her own acceptance of the idea that Opeila could have been something other than an enemy was the final, crushing blow. Except it wasn't crushing - not to her. To her, and hopefully to Pei too, it was positively liberating.

They still had miles to go, though, before they could rest - as was proven by Opeila's quick response, almost defensive, to the (somewhat embarrassing and self-critical) suggestion that both girls were at fault. The white-haired teenager insisted that she hadn't written Aly off, as the brunette had proposed; instead, she dug a hole deeper: "I don't consider people friends when I meet them... neither of us made the effort to get to know the other that well." The last part was true, at least, and Aly was somewhat willing to share the blame. She inclined her head, halfway between shameful and simply not wanting to look at the Slytherin lest her anger flare again at the sight of a face she'd despised for genuinely just so long. "I'll admit to my part in that," she said softly. "I think I was too shy when we first met, and by the time I came around to making more friends, I got... well, I wasn't at Hogwarts for quite a while. And then I came back and..." She waved her hand in a vague gesture so as not to implicate further negativity or seem as though she was accusing Pei of the same point that had been hammered to death between them in just the last few minutes. "You get it."

But the most important part was not the Seeress's assignment of blame, but what had come just before it: "When I say that we're not friends, I don't mean that I don't want us to be..." And yet, for the moment, Aly let it slide. Though she was growing more tolerant of the other girl, she knew that true fondness was still a ways off and, in addition to that, there was still more that had to be said. More to address. More to resolve. The key was in the lock and had just not yet been turned.

As Aly thought this, Pei pushed the bottle of firewhisky away, slurring that she probably shouldn't have any more. The Ravenclaw eyed the level of amber within the crystal bottle, significantly lower than it had been when the Slytherin had pulled it from the cabinet; she caught the carafe before it could tip over and shatter or spill on the beautifully tiled kitchen floor, then reached away from herself and Pei to place it as far from the two teenagers as she possibly could. The last thing she wanted, after all, was a letter back to Hesper detailing how Aly had been a terrible houseguest, made their daughter cry, and drank all of their liquor - what an unsightly argument that would have turned out to be, if brought to fruition. By the time she turned back to Pei, the other girl was talking about their families and similar situation, suggesting that the pair should be "on the same team"; that was enough to touch the ghost of a smile to Aly's lips, though it was more ironic or perhaps sardonic than anything. The fight against Hesper's more-than-lofty aspirations for her daughter was not a competition but a war. It was almost cute to think that Opeila believed herself powerful enough to take on the entire Livingston clan, though - glancing around at the ornate kitchen surrounding them, Aly agreed that perhaps if anyone else had a bit of experience dealing with like family members, it was probably Pei. She let them sit in almost-comfortable silence for several moments that stretched on into the dark face of eternity.

Turned out that Pei was quite tolerable when she wasn't talking. Kidding. She was tolerable the rest of the time, too. Maybe even more than tolerable.

The elongated quiet ended with the dry sound of fabric scooching across tile, and Aly looked over at Opeila just in time to see the other girl reach for her hand. Her normal knee-jerk reaction was to dart her limb back, away from the path which Pei's was taking, but she realised just in time that this was her instinct and managed to keep her hand there, resting on the tile, with only the slightest flinch of her fingers to insinuate that she might have been thinking of moving it.

A squeeze of the hand - comforting, warm, only slightly damp - and then, the words Aly hadn't known she'd been waiting for.

"... I think we could be friends."

The smile was real this time, even if it only flittered across her freckled face for a fraction of a second. Barely a moment passed before Aly squeezed back, her own love for being loved much stronger than any grudge she could ever hold; it was why this hatred had begun to fester deep in the pit of her heart, after all, and to resolve the issue resolved the grudge. At least a little. "I think we could, too, but... tomorrow, maybe?" She eyed Pei's posture, the slight sluggishness to her words, and then pushed herself up to a crouch and then a standing position, placing the firewhisky bottle back in the cabinet from which Pei had pulled it (at least, she was pretty sure) before crouching again to offer her hands to Opeila. It was more than just offering to pull her up to standing; it was an olive branch, and she hoped Pei knew that. "I think you could stand to get some sleep for now, and I want to eat this cheese that's been slowly melting in my pocket. Here, I'll help you back to your room."