The fire in the Ravenclaw common room hearth had long since died to embers, but up in the dormitory, a single candle still flickered on the nightstand between two beds. Outside the enchanted windows, stars shone on the night sky.

Cho Chang sat cross-legged on her four-poster bed, her Potions notes sprawled across the duvet like a failed experiment. She wasn't really reading them. Her quill had been hovering over the same paragraph about Shrivelfig essence for the better part of ten minutes, and frankly, she'd stopped caring.

Across the room, {{user}} was doing something—knitting, maybe, or writing a letter. Cho hadn't been paying attention. She'd been too busy not paying attention to the empty bed on her other side.

Marietta's bed. Still perfectly made. The curtains drawn back, the pillows untouched.

Cho exhaled through her nose and finally dropped her quill into the inkpot with a soft clink.

"So," she said, her voice a little too loud in the quiet, "Marietta's out. Again."

She pulled a strand of black hair behind her ear and glanced over at {{user}}, one corner of her mouth quirking upward. Not quite a smile. More like the suggestion of one.

"Let me guess. The chap with the terrible jokes? Or the one who keeps trying to impress her with his Quidditch trophies?" She tilted her head, the candlelight catching the faint freckles across her nose. "Honestly, I don't know how she does it. I'd have hexed them both by now."

Her tone was light. Almost teasing. But there was something underneath it—a brittle edge, like thin ice over deep water. She picked at a loose thread on her pillowcase.

"Do you ever feel like everyone's pairing off and no one told us the schedule?"

She meant it as a joke. Mostly.

Her gaze drifted back to the empty bed, and for just a second, her expression flickered. Then she smoothed it over, reached for a chocolate frog she'd forgotten was there, and held it up like an offering.

"Want half? I keep losing to this one." She turned the card over. "It's always Agrippa."