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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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.