Dated to 12/12, the wee hours of the morning

[noonelaughed]

By the time the party started dying down, and people had either decided they were going to stay where they were and sleep on Chris's floor or stumble back to their own home or to someone else's, Chris was fucking well off. He wasn't sure just how much he'd had to drink, and he'd definitely had at least two of those brilliant brownies that Effy'd brought along with her.

What Chris really needed, he'd decided, was some proper food. Like, food you could only get up at the compound. So, a group of them had decided to take the small train-- the one that had showed up with the snow had-- up to the compound kitchen. Only, that had been ages ago now and Chris wasn't entirely sure that they hadn't passed the compound already.

Fuck it. None of it really mattered, anyway. The night was still young.

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There's a joke in there somewhere, something to do with flying and being high out of their minds, but Effy dismisses it, almost angry at the thought for interrupting those of weightlessness and serenity. Like the party, it's both quiet and loud out here, but the sounds of the wind are nothing like the music, something more natural, more powerful. Something glorious.

"I've never flown before!" She shouts back, something she might find lamentable — try everything once, after all, and it did look fun in those movies — if she were anywhere approaching sober. But she isn't, and in this moment, she never wants to be again.

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He wished he could take her flying at that very moment. Pluck his wand from his pocket, accio his Firebolt and hop on. Race the train, weave through tree trunks and trail their fingers over the sea. Climb and dive until they were dizzy and couldn't keep the horizon straight.

Harry opened his eyes and they were still on a train. "It's freedom," he told her over the wind. "It's the only way to live."

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Freedom does sound nice, she must admit. The only way to live, he says, words echoing in her mind long after the fact. This, here, right now? This is the only way to live, she thinks. Without a care in the world — this one or the next — with her every sense kicked into overdrive. With colors that are too bright, even in the dark, and skin that tickles regardless of touch. Words that taste like spice, like honey, and sounds that bounce around inside her skull until they finally fade away.

"We're living now," she tells him, still staring at the sky. "Look! I've never seen stars like this." There's a lot, apparently, that she's never seen or done. It's a good thing she's getting them out of the way now.

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There had been a kind of calm lingering around Harry in the last few days. It was unnatural for him, but he had not really questioned it until now. He had set himself up to die. In some ways, he had been going about life as if he were dead. Dead back home and therefore home didn't matter. But it did matter. It was all a part of him, all of his life and all of his death. He felt alive and connected, and for a little while it all made sense. They were living now and that meant everything, every part.

Harry tilted his head back, not expecting to know what he was looking at. Astronomy had never been a very strong subject for him. But the sky was completely unfamiliar, not even the simplest stars standing out to him. He laughed suddenly, a barking sound lost in the wind. Wouldn't Hermione be upset that here was another class that didn't help them.

"I love this place," he decided. "It makes no sense."

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Whether she loves or hates Tabula Rasa depends entirely on Effy's mood at any given time, and right now, she couldn't be happier. That nothing here makes sense doesn't seem to matter at the moment, not the way it does when she's alone in her hut and missing her life, however shitty it had recently become. Right now, everything is fantastic, and despite making no sense at all, it's all crystal clear.

"It's the only thing that makes sense," yells Effy over the wind, because it sounds about right in her head, even if the statement itself is nonsensical. Sense, she's quickly beginning to find, is fleeting and, in this moment, rather useless.

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The train took a turn, not hard but at enough of an angle that Harry's balance shifted and his shoe, wet with snow, slipped from the edge of his cart. More graceful on a broom than on land, Harry wasn't helped by the alcohol dulling certain senses too. Reflexively, he dropped his hands to the nearest thing available to give him balance - Effy's hips - before his foot found the bottom of his cart. "Merlin's-- Sorry," he laughed.

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Effy laughs, too, but most likely not for the same reason. Having spent the past few hours swaying in cramped spaces against friends and strangers alike, she isn't in any state to object to his touch. In all honesty, it might well be among the tamest forms of contact she's experienced tonight, though that's more a testament to Chris's ability to through a party and her own culinary success. But if sense if still a factor, his apology makes none whatsoever, so she laughs. "What's he got to be sorry for?"

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He didn't move his hands. Effy was a lot warmer than the wind and Harry hadn't realized how cold his fingers were until now. He blinked slowly, parsing her response, and laughed again. "Everything. Purebloods. Malfoy. Ugh, definitely Malfoy," he said, pulling a face.

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Subconsciously — or consciously, it's hard to tell with how high she is and how much the train is moving — Effy leans into Harry's touch, because while it isn't the first time anyone has touched her tonight, it is the longest, and arguably the nicest. She's not used to it, and she wasn't even before the island, when there was no shortage of physical contact in her life. What's new is that it's just a hand on her hip and nothing more. This could easily be chaste, platonic, well-meaning; he's not trying to slide it up her shirt or down her skirt, and that makes all the difference. That sets him apart.

"I think I'm going to like you," she finally admits, almost thankful for the fact that she's so completely out of it, because she never would have said so otherwise.

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"Really?" He sounded a little thrilled by the idea because he was. Whatever Snape, Malfoy, anyone said about Harry being worshiped and touted, Harry never saw it that way. Deep down inside, there was still a part of him that was that little boy shoved into a cupboard, taken out only when useful or necessary, whether it were to clean the dishes or to save the day. But there was none of that here, with the threat of both the Dursleys and Voldemort gone. If Effy said she liked him, it had to be that she liked Harry alone, not what he could do or what he stood for. And Harry liked to be liked. It wasn't the most important thing by far, but it warmed him through just then.

"I- I think I'm going to like you too," he said, even though he already did like her.

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There is a part of Effy that doesn't quite believe it, but fortunately it is also a part easily silenced by too much energy and not enough sleep, by all the drugs and drinking and no food or water in her stomach to dilute it all. As little faith as she has in herself, she doesn't manage to hold onto to the thought for long, and it vanishes in the next instant, forgotten when the train jerks once again and she latches onto the nearest whatever. It's Harry's hand, the one not on her hip, and for whatever reason, that makes her laugh.