"Herbology again, Neville?" Sophie asked.

He briefly looked up at the sound of her voice and nodded, but it was Seamus Finnigan who leaned forward from the sofa.

"Not spoken to Moon by any chance, have you?"

Sophie Roper had never been a gullible girl, not really, but the whispers of her fellow Gryffindors were hard to ignore. She began shaking her head and had barely parted her lips to mouth her reply, when Parvati Patil strode forward from the entrance.

"I swear," she said. "Something fishy is going on with those three."

Lavender Brown and Lilith Moon chorused with a sigh of assent as she sat down, and the three of them joined the party around the fireplace. The sofas and the armchairs were now fully occupied and Neville had to apologise twice to Sophie for bumping his elbow into her leg as he scrawled more notes on the sides.

Seamus lifted his hand in salute. "Hey there."

Lilith ignored him as usual, but Lavender and Parvati were already too busy chitchatting to notice.

"Did you see Hermione hurry past us without even saying hello?"

"I swear," Parvati replied. "Something is not right with her."

"She did mumble something about the library ––"

"Oh Lil," Lavender interrupted, "don't be so naive! It's Harry Potter obviously." Her eyes darted around the common room, and then she lowered her voice to continue. "Haven't you noticed that even Ron avoids them now?"

"And they seemed to be such good friends," Parvati said.

Sophie bit her tongue back. The other girls nodded and they would have brought the rest of the group up to speed on the scandalous conduct of their fellow Gryffindors if Dean Thomas hadn't climbed out of the entrance and brightened the mood with his mellow whistling.

"Oi, mate!" he called out to Seamus.

The sandy-haired boy returned the gesture, but once Dean was closer, the two friends exchanged a series of looks that went from Seamus to Lilith and back. It was impossible to miss the covert conversation, though Sophie tried at least to look unconcerned by turning her eyes onto the small girl to her right.

Born and bred in Dublin, Lilith's active and somewhat fanciful imagination, combined with a ready tendency to make things appear out of nowhere, had served to set her against kids her age. Her parents' efforts to introduce her to magical children had been fruitless and even less helpful had been her mother's acquaintance with Mrs Finnigan. If anything, meeting her son Seamus had convinced Lilith that Muggles and wizards were just as unworthy of her attention.

"Has anyone seen my copy of A Guide To Transfiguration?" Neville asked, his eyes desperately searching the room.

"Here," Sophie said, handing him the book. "You gave it to me yesterday after class, remember?"

"I swear," Parvati cut in. "You'll never learn, Neville."

Neville said nothing, but he set down his notes and books. "What were you saying about Hermione?" he asked.

Lavender pulled a face. "Don't let me get started on that one."

Dean chuckled from behind the sofa. "Ah, I can easily guess what sort of day today is." He slumped next to Seamus and addressed the whole group: "Trio's at it again, yeah?"

Everybody started talking at the same time; the cacophony of voices jumbled all together was so jarring that soon enough the hissing and snapping of the fire was the only noise that could be heard.

"Not so much of a trio anymore, are they?" Neville said at last.

The girls all nodded, but the boys bobbed their heads from side to side.

"It was a bit annoying that Harry got special treatment," Seamus said.

"Again," Dean added.

"He says he didn't do it though."

Sophie's words hang in the air, met with a mixture of rolling eyes and awkward shifting. They wanted to believe Harry, but the evidence was against him and if even his best friends were divided on the subject, how was the rest of Gryffindor House they to feel?

"Don't care wha' he says, this is becoming the House of the Boy-Who-Lived," Lilith said, her voice too fast and too quiet at the same time.

"So?"

Seamus was always the only one quick enough to pick up Lilith's otherwise unintelligible lilt and she resented him for it.

"Better than Slytherin, the House of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named," Seamus said.

Sophie tapped Neville on the knee; everyone had already tensed up as Lilith aimed a lethal glare at Seamus. Back in their first year, it hadn't taken long to realise that the small girl and the sandy-haired boy from Ireland were not going to be friends. At all. It fell on their housemates to put a stop to the endless black looks and angry words – nipping it in the bud, Neville had called it.

Under the cover of Neville's feeble excuse for diverting the attention of Seamus, Dean took his wand out and ignited the hem of his friend's robes. Sophie and Parvati, in the meantime, pointed out some nonexistent fluff in Lilith's auburn hair, which Lavender was quick in getting rid of. The whole operation was carried out with smooth precision and, delighted with the results, Sophie exchanged a small smile with Neville and Dean behind Parvati's back.

"I think I'll hit the hay, I'm knackered."

Lavender huffed. "Sometimes I really don't understand what you say, Lil."

For a moment, no one moved. Lavender's comment could be just the thing to get tempers going and Sophie could see that Dean was on the point of saying something, anything, to break the tension.

And then, Lilith laughed. "You explain, Seamus."

"Says she's tired," he said, and his lips broke into a smile as well.

Dean yawned and stretched his arms, Lavender and Parvati linked arms and bid goodnight to the group; soon, Sophie and Neville were gathering their things, and Lilith and Seamus would be the only ones left in the common room.

"No, it's okay, I can manage," he said, when she offered to help him carry his homework.

"Do you believe Harry, Neville?"

"Got to," he replied. "We're Gryffindors, we stick together." He smiled and glanced over at the fireplace. "Look at Lil and Seamus."

Sophie turned around to see her housemates walking towards them. They were arguing, as usual, but it wasn't a rowdy brawl as much as they both seemed to be allowing the other the benefit of the doubt.

"Goin' up, Sophie?" Lilith asked.

She nodded, and they sent off Neville and Seamus up the spiral staircase that led to the boys' dormitory. Sophie heard the portrait hole open and close as she stepped on the stairs, but when she turned – expecting to see either Harry, Ron or Hermione – she found the round room empty.

Sophie shrugged and followed Lilith up the stairs, thinking that it should have come to no surprise that Sirius Black had managed to get in, the previous year, since the Fat Lady seemed to open and close in the middle of the night for no particular reason.