I exchanged every gift you ever gave me for shoes.

[ALICE MICHELE ADAMS]

Alice Adams was not sick. Alice Adams was not wounded. Alice Adams was not mortally injured. Alice Adams was not, by any means, physically hurt in any way. Therefore, there was no legitimate reason for Alice Adams to be in the hospital wing.

No legitimate reason at all. However, there were several illegitimate and highly immoral reasons for her to be there, among them the fact that she had, just a few hours before, seen Professor Slughorn touch Nurse Tyler's elbow in a decidedly loving way and seeing this had, she suspected, broken her wee heart. By no means did she intend to go to the hospital wing searching for a cure for her broken heart; she was neither that sappy nor that trusting of Nurse Tyler. She barely trusted the nurse to mend a paper cut, let alone a heart.

The point is, none of Alice's reasons for being in the hospital wing would have been accepted as real reasons, were she caught there. And if they were accepted, they were the sort of reasons that were likely to get her into quite a bit of trouble.

And that was why Alice Adams was army crawling across the hospital wing, attempting to stay beneath the beds as much as she could. Alice was on a mission and her mission required that she reach Nurse Tyler's private quarters. It was seeing Slughorn touch Nurse Tyler's elbow that had inspired Alice's mission - for her mission was revenge.

Alice had, she thought, the most brilliant plan in the world. Said plan could be summed up in three words - go with it. She'd spent all of Divination plotting and planning, but to no avail. All of her plans were impossible, when it got down to it. The most realistic of her plans had involved a fire breathing monkey and a large pig, and, sadly, he had neither of those. Normally she'd have grunted at Krystal for options, but just as she was about to do so, Professor Nott had shoved another student's drained tea cup in her face and demanded she read the leaves or face the freezer for all of three hours, and if she was in the freezer, she couldn't very well get revenge, could she?

So, thanks to her lack of a fire breathing monkey and Professor Nott's misconception that she actually cared about his class, Alice was left with no choice but to wing it, and that was why, as she army crawled towards Nurse Tyler's private quarters, she was still searching for some inspiration.

A fit of coughing above her brought her attention to the fact that she was, at the moment, beneath the bed of a very sick child. She wondered vaguely if she could somehow use this student to get Nurse Tyler sick. She soon dismissed this idea, however, because Nurse Tyler cleaned far too much for it to be realistic.

Still, she peered up around the edge of the bed at the student in the hopes that their appearance would somehow inspire her. The student's appearance did not inspire any ideas in her, though his bright red hair did inspire her to squeak, "Ah, ginger!" and quickly army crawl to the next bed, as if his hair might be more catching than his illness.

Having now reached the last bed before the door to Nurse Tyler's private quarters, Alice paused, glancing around to check there was no one around who might bust her. There was only the sick ginger and a sleeping girl with bright boils on her cheeks. Satisfied that the coast was clear, Alice slipped out from beneath the last bed and cautiously approached her target. Her hand reached out, her fingers grasped the door knob, her wrist turned slightly in an attempt to open it and... it was locked. With very little hope, Alice pulled out her wand and whispered, "Alohomora." The door, however, stayed put.

It was just as well, she supposed, because she really hadn't known what she was going to do in there, anyways. She was about to give up and army crawl back out of the hospital wing when she noticed it and inspiration struck her.

'It' was a stack of blank parchment on a nightstand by the nearest bed, conveniently accompanied by a quill and ink. She didn't know why she hadn't thought of this earlier! It was so obvious!

Grinning, Alice rushed to the nightstand, snatched up a piece of the parchment, dipped the quill in the ink and began to write.

She wrote in a perfect imitation of Slughorn's handwriting; she'd been practicing for years to get it just right so that, come Tonks' seventeenth birthday, she could forge a love letter from Slughorn for her friend, so that Tonks could cherish it always. Honestly, she was such a good friend.

Upon finishing, she signed it the way Slughorn always signed things - H.J. Slughorn, with an extravagant flourish on the 'g' in Slughorn - and then re-read it, admiring her handiwork.

After pausing briefly to add a post script, Alice strolled back to the locked door and used a simple charm to stick the letter to it. Then, still grinning, she skipped out of the hospital wing and headed for Nott's office; she had to pay him back for interrupting her planning.

Bills, the letter read.
I dropped by to see you, but you weren't here.
I wanted to tell you all this in person, but...
well, I'd probably chicken out anyways, so this is better.
I don't think we can be friends anymore, Billie.
I've recently realized that I am far too good to be seen with the likes of you.
I need to be in the company of intelligent people. [Here, the words 'people like Alice Adams and Nymphadora Tonks' are scratched out, though they are still visible if one squints.]
From now on, I wish only to be colleagues, not friends.
Regards,
H.J. Slughorn.

P.S. You are a terrible cook and I exchanged every gift you ever gave me for shoes.

WHO: Just Alice; well, and Nurse Tyler, if K feels like posting.
WHEN: Whenever.
WHAT: Revenge.
WORD COUNT: 1,023.
NOTES: This is for you, K, because I miss you. I really don't expect a reply, I was just bored and felt like posting something for you. However, should you feel like replying, that's cool, too. Could lead to potential Slughorn times. Also, Alice is sort of out of character here; I'm actually not sure she'd be this mean, but, well... who am I kidding? Alice WOULD be this mean. Alice is AWFUL. Alice should be punched in the eye. She should be punched in both eyes, for that matter.

[BILLIE JEAN TYLER POISONS KIDS]

Cough, cough, splutter, splutter. That was the main sound Billie had heard for the last 30 hours or so. The young red-head in bed three had what could only be described as a very nasty case of the flu. So nasty, in fact, that her Pepperup Potion didn’t heal it, instead it would merely decrease the symptoms for a couple of hours. So as it were, every four hours she would give him a new dose of Pepperup potion, and every four hours she would watch the smoke bellow from his ears. On top of that she made sure he drunk plenty of water, and forced him to eat his three meals a day; even if they were only something light such as toast. All this would be well, had the boy been getting any sleep, but he had not; he’d been up the last two nights coughing away [meaning she too had been awake most the nights], and it was this that pushed her into her next decision. She usually wouldn’t give a sleeping draught in the day, but it was doing the poor boy no good to be awake, so that settled it. She started with a small dose; so that he could drift into sleep more naturally; rather than falling asleep instantly with his expression frozen midway in a coughing fit.

With that done, she felt it necessary to go and get herself a coffee, because although he could now have a good rest; she could not. It must have only been seconds after that Alice Adams army crawled into her hospital wing; and whether they passed each other in the corridor is unknown; because both were so caught up in their own, very important mission.
She made her way down to the kitchens at top speed, stopping only briefly to speak with Professor Smith – out of politeness more than anything – before reaching her destination. She gave the pears in the fruit bowl a little tickle, and then entered.

“Hello Nurse Tyler, what brings you down to the kitchens?” a squeaky voice asked from behind some empty pots and pans [they were beginning to prepare for dinner, so they told her]. “I was hoping you could make me some coffee, please?” A couple of house elves scrambled off eagerly; whereas others seemed far from it.
The house elves of Hogwarts had mixed reviews on Nurse Tyler, because of how often she cleaned her hospital wing. Some of them were offended by it; so when she would come down to ask for something, while several found it a great honour; several others found it even more offensive. As it were, she thought witches and wizards didn’t need slaves; but she had seen how they reacted whenever someone suggested they be free, and Dumbledore did pay them – even if it wasn’t much – so it wasn’t quite so bad.

To her left, a small house elf had taken a break from cutting up some potatoes to stare at her, so much to the point of it almost being awkward. “I did that job once. I was a dinner lady… not that I’m calling you a lady. Although, I don’t know. You could be.” The elf just stared at her blankly, before resuming the slicing of potatoes without a word. This meant she didn’t actually find out whether said house elf was a lady, since she found it hard to tell without hearing how high-pitched their voices were; but she had a sinking suspicion that the elf was, in truth, a male and she had just offended him further. Thankfully, another more upbeat elf presented her with a coffee, which meant after a sip and an ‘mmm, this is delicious. Thank you.’ She was free to go. She wasted no time in getting back up to her Hospital wing, and when she arrived, she found it almost unchanged. Almost, but not quite. Two things had changed, to be precise. Firstly the ginger boy was fast asleep [had he not been, he probably could have told Billie that Alice had recently been in here and was responsible for change two; but he was asleep and even if when he did wake up, he tried to say that Alice had been there, Billie probably would have dismissed it as a dream]. Secondly was this; a note had been carelessly stuck to her office door. She pulled it down and immediately recognised the handwriting as belonging to, one, Horace Slughorn. Of course, she didn’t know that it wasn’t his at all, but just a brilliant imitation.

She turned the parchment over in her hands a couple of times, before deciding that the best place to open this letter was in her office. After removing her hard-core locking enchantments, she pushed open the door, slipped through and then let it swing shut behind her. She took a seat and continued to stare at the envelope a few minutes more, as if this would clear up what this whole letter was about. For she had no idea what to expect, and when she finally did convince herself to read it, she found it was probably the last thing she would have expected. She re-read each word, neglecting the scribbled out words as just a mistake, to make sure she hadn’t misread.

Some of it didn’t really surprise her – if he was in one of those moods. You’re a terrible cook. Well she’d heard that one before. “I exchanged every gift you ever gave me for shoes.” That one was new, though it seemed like the kind of insult he might dish out if he was angry. But not wanting to be friends; that was the part that didn’t add up. Sure, they had their differences, and yes, they spent a good deal of their time arguing; but he was always the one to say that they were friends. Unless he had just had enough of it all, and was sick of the arguing and the differences. Except they hadn’t been arguing recently, the past few days they’d been nothing but pleasant and polite to one another. Perhaps if they had been fighting, she could have accepted this letter [that was a lie, she wouldn’t have accepted it at all; but right now she had convinced herself that she might.] but they hadn’t; therefore he had no reason to spring this on her. Her head seemed to be having some kind of internal argument, trying to decide just how to react to this letter; because right now it was a toss-up between upset and angry; both on top of the confusion, of course. Even if she could decide how to feel about it, what would be her next move? Would she accept it gracefully? Be his colleague, and not his friend. Could she do that? Or would she march down to his office and demand to know what this was all about? Or would she do like she did just after they broke up, and try to avoid him altogether? She wasn’t sure, but right now her best option seemed to be to hide out in her office until she could make some sense out of it all.

[HORACE JOHN SLUGHORN]

Horace Slughorn was in a good mood.

Scratch that, Horace Slughorn was in a spectacular mood.

Why, you ask?

Well, in part because he’d bought a new pair of shoes. They were green and he loved them so much that it was probably unhealthy.

But mostly Horace was in a good mood because it had been an entire week since he and Billie had got into a fight of any kind. And that was a record.

Well, they’d gone more than a week without fighting in the past, but all those times had been before they had… Well, just before.

Anyways, they’d gone a week without fighting and that made Horace very happy. That was why he’d bought his new shoes, actually; to celebrate.

Well, that wasn’t all true. He’d also bought them in an attempt to reinforce his good behavior – he hadn’t made a single inappropriate comment about Billie’s body in a week, either, and he felt like he deserved some sort of reward.

And also he had just really wanted green shoes.

He’d spent a good portion of his last class showing the shoes to his students and none of them had been even remotely interested in them. It was times like those that (though he would never admit it) he longed for Alice and Tonks. They would have appreciated his new shoes. But he didn’t have Alice and Tonks for Potions again until the end of the week, and by then the novelty of his new shoes would have worn out, so it was no good.

He did have one other hope though – Billie. Billie liked his shoes. Billie was sure to be excited about them!

Okay, she hated his shoes and there was no chance she would be excited about them, but he wanted an excuse to go visit her and showing off his new shoes was as good an excuse as any.

So he was going to go visit her. And he was going to bring her coffee, because when he’d been in the hospital wing the day before, she’d had a very sick young man in and said young man had had a very loud, persistent cough, which he imagined would make it very difficult for her to sleep. The fact that he was worried she might be tired was, clearly, the only reason he was bringing her coffee. It definitely had nothing at all to do with the fact that she’d once said he looked cute when he drank coffee. The two things were completely unrelated.

Completely unrelated. Completely.

Alright, maybe he did get a little excited at the idea of her thinking he was cute…

But regardless of his reasons, the point is that before going to the hospital wing, he stopped off in the kitchens and picked up two cups of coffee. If he hadn’t done this, he might have reached the hospital wing at the same time as Alice and been able to put a stop to her nefarious plot, but he did do it, and so he missed her.

Conversely, if he’d stayed in the kitchens just a little longer, he would have met Billie there and they could have walked back to the hospital wing together, and then she’d have known that he couldn’t have left the letter, because he would have been with her.

He did not, however, stay in the kitchens long enough to meet Billie there. Instead, he left in quite a hurry, because – rather ironically – he was eager to see Billie. He bounced, rather than walked, through the corridors, the two coffees balanced precariously on top of each other in one hand. He was just passing the corridor that led to Nott’s freezer when he saw Jarold Baxon turn a corner ahead of him. Knowing that Baxon would probably manage to ruin his good mood, Horace ducked off into the corridor beside him, narrowly avoiding Baxon and almost spilling one of the coffees.

He meant to leave the corridor once Baxon had passed, but a cry of ‘professor!’ from behind him made him stop and turn round.

A short ways down the corridor, Alice Adams was watching him. Which was not, by itself, a strange occurrence – he’d caught her watching him more times than he could count. What was strange about it, was that she was stretched out on the floor with a suit of armor on top of her legs, and instead of looking like she wanted to lick him, she just looked relieved. The expression on her face was probably the most normal expression he’d ever seen on her, and for a moment he wondered if perhaps she was not actually Alice, but some sort of imposter. He was struck by the urge to check her forehead for a zipper, and he might actually have done so, if not for the fact that just then Alice cried out again, this time shouting ‘professor, help!’ and he was shaken out of his strange thoughts.

Horace hurried over to his fallen student, set the coffee cups down on the floor beside her, and then bent and lifted the suit of armor off her. Much to his surprise, once freed, Alice did not leap up and begin touching him inappropriately. Instead, she rolled from her stomach to her back, sat up, and stared in horror at her leg. Again, he wondered if maybe she was an imposter, but then he followed her gaze and saw that her left leg was very obviously broken.

“What on earth happened here, Miss Adams?” He asked, more to distract her than anything else, because she looked as if she might cry and he didn’t want to deal with that.

She hesitated a moment before turning her head slowly to look up at him. “Would you believe that the suit of armor attacked me?” When he did not dignify this with an answer, she gave a heavy sigh. “I thought not.” She said, sounding thoroughly dejected. “You almost never believe my excuses. I think it’s because your hair gives you psychic powers.”

Actually, it was because her excuses were always outlandish and generally impossible, but psychic hair worked, too. “You’re avoiding the question, Miss Adams.”

She sighed again and returned her gaze to her leg. “Well, it’s like this,” She began, speaking very quickly, “I was going to go up to Nott’s office and mess with his stuff… You know, throw some papers around, write ‘Nott eats pants’ on the floor in chalk, that kind of stuff. But then his office was locked, and alohomora wouldn’t open it – seriously, what is with you professors and your heavy duty locks? Makes my life really hard. Anyways, I was going to give up, but then I thought that instead of doing that, I’d just come down here, wait for him to come down to release his latest freezer victims, and when he got here, I’d – well, I hadn’t worked that out yet, but I was going to do something and it was going to be really good.” She paused then, glancing up at him as if checking to see if he might assign her detention for intent to prank, but he just stared at her, so she continued. “Unfortunately though, he was already down here when I got here, and he spotted me coming. I guess he didn’t like it when I tried to knock him into his own freezer and shut the door, because he chased me back here and pushed the suit of armor over on me.” She hesitated for a moment, as if there was something more to the story, but then, apparently deciding it wasn’t important, she simply said, “And now my leg is broken, the end.”

Horace said nothing, but simply offered her his hand, which she took willingly and used to pull herself up onto one leg. She released his hand once she was up and he started to move to pick up the coffees he’d set down, but was stopped when she threw her arm around his waist and leaned on him heavily. “Do you mind if I use you as my crutch, sir?” She asked as she tightened her grip on him more than he thought was necessary.

No longer doubting that she was Alice and not some imposter, Horace walked to where he’d set down the coffees, Alice hopping along beside him. When he was once again balancing the two cups in one hand, he looked sideways at Alice and offered her a wary smile. “Come on, let’s get you to the hospital wing.” She opened her mouth to speak, but he saw where she was going and cut her off. “No, I cannot heal it for you and if you say one bad word about Nurse Tyler or try to claim she poisoned Tonks, I will leave you here for someone else to find, do you understand me, Miss Adams?” His tone was unusually harsh, and apparently she got the message, because she shut her mouth and began hopping along beside him in silence.

They made slow progress and Horace actually had to carry her on the stairs, but, aside from his having to tell her to stop sniffing him once, they made it to the hospital wing without incident. He was still carrying her at that point, and he was breathing a bit heavily when set her down gratefully on the nearest bed. Tearing himself free of Alice’s grip, Horace turned away from the girl and looked around the hospital wing. By then, of course, Billie had already gone into her office, read the letter, re-read the letter, and begun brooding about it, so all he saw was the sleeping ginger boy. Thinking it was probably best not to risk waking the boy, he did not begin shouting for Billie like he might have any other day. Instead, he strolled towards her office, set the coffee cups down on top of the stack of parchment Alice had used to write the letter, and then walked over to Billie’s office door and knocked. “Bills?” He called, his voice cheerful. “I’ve got an injured student here for you! And I’ve got new shoes!” He added excitedly, unaware that shoes were probably a sore subject thanks to Alice’s letter.

WHO: Alice, Billie, and now Slughorn.
WHEN: Whenever.
WHAT: Consequences of Alice's revenge now, I suppose.
WORD COUNT: 1,717
NOTES: I am fully just going to godmode Alice from now on, because she's my character and I can do whatever the hell I want with her. Also, I am still trying to figure out how I am going to avoid Slughorn's kicked puppy face, because he's not drunk this time, so I can't just make him randomly swing from being super upset to being like 'Oh, look, my shoe is untied!' Also also, I love you, K<3

[BILLIE JEAN TYLER POISONS KIDS]

Billie opened her door, only to slam it back in Slughorn's face. She was mad with Slughorn.

[BILLIE JEAN TYLER POISONS KIDS]

Billie still had a hold of the parchment in her hand. Once she was sick of constantly re-reading it, she scrunched it in her fist and slammed it on the table. Angry. She was definitely going to be angry. Leaving the letter behind, she stood up and marched straight to her office door, ready to give Slughorn a piece of her mind. The only problem was, that as soon as she'd reached it, she seemed to have had a change of heart. Her hand lingered on the door handle for a few seconds before she headed back to her desk and took a seat. She let out a heavy sigh, and held her head in hands. She ran her fingers through hair, tucking it behind her ears as she went, and leaned so that her chin was now the thing resting at her hands. Okay, so perhaps she was a little upset. Staring at the hate-mail, she finally gave into herself and straightened it out, so it layed crinkled, but readable in front of her on the desk. She could just about feel tears threatening to leak from her eyes, when she decided this whole thing was ridiculous. Why should she be the one who's upset? He was the one losing out on a perfectly good friend, and for all she knew, this was his intention. To upset her. Well, she would not give him the satisfaction of it! Too good for her... she'd show him what he was too good for.

Apparently she was angry again; and with that anger, she re-screwed up the letter and tossed it over into her bin, only to watch it bounce off the rim and land on her floor. Muttering about being a lousy throw, she stomped over to the bin, picked up the ball and dropped it into the bin once and for all. Even in all her anger, or sadness, or whatever it was she was feeling, she still couldn't leave it there on her floor - that would be too messy; and if there was one thing she couldn't stand, it was mess. Ironically, that's exactly what this whole situation was - messy - and no amount of antibacterial spray, or bleach was going to change that. She slumped down next to the bin, and leant against the wall. She had to think up a rational plan of action - one that didn't involve making things even messier than they were, because the one thing she was certain of; she couldn't hide in her office for much longer. She had patients to see to, for one, and she had eat! Food wasn't just going to appear by itself... okay, maybe it did in Hogwarts, but she couldn't just expect the house elves to send a meal to her office everyday; that was obsurd. She didn't want to be a Hermit, afterall. Although, she supposed she could have formed a club... Hermits United. She and other hermits could meet up every ten years and swap stories about caves. It'd be good fun. For a Hermit. She laughed a little to herself, and shook that idea off. Her laughter didn't last long, however, especially when she realised that the whole Hermit scheme was exactly the kind of thing Horace would come up with.

It was back to the drawing board. She got up and gave her back a good stretch and a rub, before sitting back at her desk; because everyone knew that you sit at desks to come up with a plan. She exhaled deeply, and picked up her wand. With a swish, she concentrated on the spell she was using and the drawer swung open. She pulled out her diary and did the same thing again, this time with a different wand movement, and the diary flung open to the next clean page. Next she pulled out her quill, and mindlessly began writing.

Dear Diary.
I don't have a wipeboard, so I'm using you instead.
Horace wrote this horrible letter and, well, if you want to see it you can go look for yourself because I've thrown it in the bin. Anyway, I'm trying to figure out what to do about it so I thought I'd use you to help. My options are as follows;
1) Avoid Horace completely and do the whole Hermit thing.
2) Talk to him about it... ask him what the hell is going on, although that would most definitely lead to arguing and, ugh, mess.
3) Do what he asked and be his colleague. Only talk to him when neccessary with work related issues, always address him as Professor Slughorn, and never ask him how he is or to share a mortgage.

[/i]

Using her quill, she roughly scribbled out that last line - she had no idea where that bit had come from, but it wasn't staying there. After staring at what she had written for several minutes, she decided to add to it.

4) Do as he asks; be his colleage and not his friend but show him just what he's missing by being an amazing friend to everyone else, and buy them elaborate gifts, and invited them to fabulous dinner parties - with chips - and when he asks why he isn't invited, simply reply "But this dinner party is just for friends, and you are not my friend, you're my work colleage. Now excuse me, my pear tart is in the oven." because without Horace there, I'll be able to cook and eat pear tarts as much as I like!
5) Become best friends with Jarold Baxon, since he and Horace no longer get on.

[/i]

She scribbled out option 5 so hard, that it almost tore her page. Being friends with Jarold really wasn't much of an option; sure he could be charming and amusing - a point she often expressed to Horace on many occassions just to annoy him - but like most people, she suspected him of dabbling in the Dark Arts, or jumping in head first. In fact, Horace used to be best friends with Jarold yet now they were practically enemies and it was probably due to Jarold's more-than-likely dark side. It was because the pair hated each other she'd even written that option, but upon reading it back, it really did seem too petty.

A knock at the door, followed by a voice [belonging to none other than the man of the hour himself] drew Billie out from her thoughts. Apparently, Horace was going to rush her into making her decision now, and he'd made sure that it wasn't going to be option one. If anything, it was as if he wanted an argument, why else would he bring up shoes of all things? Clearly he was attempting to rub salt into the wound. Billie seriously considered just ignoring him until he went away - if he specifically came here to find her to make sure he got a reaction, then she would do the opposite and simply ignore him. Of course, he was both smart and cunning enough to come up with a way to make sure she didn't do that, in the form of an injured student. He knew perfectly well she couldn't ignore him if he brought somebody hurt or sick with him - he was put in Slytherin house for a reason, she guessed.

Trying to remain as calm as possible, she opened the door, but as soon as she saw his grinning face, all the anger and annoyance seemed to come flooding back to her. "New shoes, huh?" she said, giving Horace the best glare she could muster up. "What did you exchange for those then?" She was tempted to continue by resentfully listing all the things she'd ever bought him and asking how many pairs of shoes he got for each, but then she remembered they weren't alone. She walked around Horace, making a point to glower at him for a few seconds longer, to see who he'd brought with him. Her heart sunk. The one person who could make this entire situation worse was sitting on one of her hospital beds. And she had a broken leg. A broken leg she probably wouldn't let Billie fix. 'Just brilliant.' she thought to herself.

WHO: [/b]Alice, Billie, and Slughorn.
WHEN: [/b]Whenever.
WHAT: [/b]Consequences of Alice's revenge now, I suppose.
WORD COUNT: [/b]1,393
NOTES: [/b]Yes, I copied your notes-y section, yes I rambled on and awful lot, yes only the last paragraph is actually in response to Slughorn knocking on her door, and yes she hasn't fixed Alice's leg yet. I probably could have rambled enough to meet your 1,717 words, I'm in that rambling mood, except it's way past midnight and I should already be asleep because I am back to work in the morning. Rubbish. Oh, and ps! I made sure Billie wasn't TOO mean to Slughorn, because I don't really want to imagine a kicked puppy face either! Love you lots, and miss you<3 oh, and pps! Yes, I left Billie's one liner up there - I couldn't bring myself to delete it. oh, and ppps! Just one more; I couldn't give Billie the obnoxious pink anymore, I just couldn't do it! It was too painful. Oh, and I have not checked this at all, so expect mistakes galore! Love you long time, A <3[/blockquote]

[HORACE JOHN SLUGHORN]

Slughorn frowned. "Billie, why so bitch-bitch?"

WHO: Alice, Billie, and now Slughorn.
WHEN: Whenever.
WHAT: Consequences of Alice's revenge now, I suppose.
WORD COUNT: 6. Well, 7, if you count 'bitch-bitch' as two words.
NOTES: LOLZIES, I'll write your real reply later, K.

[/size]

[HORACE JOHN SLUGHORN]

Horace was still grinning when Billie opened the door, and his smile only grew upon seeing her. He rocked back and forth cheerfully on his heels and waved at her with one hand. He might have gone on to say hello, too, but then she spoke, and her tone quickly wiped the grin off his face.

Of course, Horace didn’t know what was going on yet; he only knew that Billie was obviously upset with him. His brow furrowed and his grin faded into a slight frown as he tried to figure out why.

Perhaps it was because when he’d seen her the day before, he’d made fun of her for cleaning so much? But no, she’d laughed at that. Maybe Phillis had told her that she’d seen him looking at Waldgrave’s butt that morning and she was upset about it? Except why would she get upset about that, when they were just friends? Friends didn’t care whose butt you looked at, right? And anyways, he hadn’t been looking at Waldgrave’s butt, he’d been glowering at Baxon, and Waldgrave’s butt had walked into his line of sight. Or at least, that was what he’d told Phillis, and she totally bought it. So maybe Phillis had told Billie that he’d been glowering at Baxon, and she was mad at him for that? But that didn’t make any sense, because Billie liked Baxon just as much as he did – in other words, not at all.

He was just wondering if it was possible she was mad at him for bringing her more work when he happened to glance into her office and see her diary sitting open on her desk. A voice in the back of his head whispered that she’d probably written why she was angry in there, and if he could just get is hands on it, he would know what to apologize for.

Horace told the voice to shut up, because he was not going to read Billie’s diary again and he was not going to apologize, because he never did.

(The second part was not strictly true; he was always apologizing to Billie, just it was usually muttered under his breath in the hopes that she might not actually hear it.)

He might have gone on puzzling about what he could have done, but then he remembered that he still hadn’t answered Billie, so he shook himself and focused.

”Exchange?” He said, sounding more than a little confused. ”What? No, I didn’t exchange anything; I bought them. They’re green, see?” As if to prove that they were, in fact, green, he held one foot up for her to inspect. Billie, however, had already walked past him and was looking rather unhappy about seeing Alice. Horace didn’t blame her – he was often unhappy about seeing Alice himself, and Alice had never once accused him of poisoning a student.

With a sigh, he picked up the coffees he’d brought and walked up behind Billie. ”Sorry about her.” He whispered, nodding at Alice, who he now noticed was looking positively gleeful about the fact that the two of them did not seem to be getting on. ”She says Nott knocked a suit of armor over on her. Whether this is true or not, I don’t know, but it sounds like something he would do, doesn’t it?” Then, raising his voice from a whisper to his normal speaking voice, he offered her one of the coffees. ”I brought you coffee.” He said hopefully, as if a beverage might make up for whatever he’d done to upset her. ”Figured the ginger boy kept you up last night. How is he, by the way?”

He was about to ask if the boy's hair might be a symptom of his illness when Alice suddenly cut in.

”Don’t worry about me!” She half shouted. ”I’ve just got a broken leg! No big deal, you just go on with your coffee and your gingers! I’m just in excruciating pain, but it doesn’t matter!”

Horace just rolled his eyes, because it was obvious that she just didn’t like the fact that he was paying more attention to Billie than to her. It was also obvious that in spite of her shouting, she was not going to make treating her easy for Billie – at least, that was the impression he got from the way she had put a pillow over her hurt leg and was now leaning over it, wearing an expression that he suspected was supposed to look menacing.

”Tell you what, Miss Adams.” Horace said, strolling over to where she was sitting. ”If you let Nurse Tyler mend your leg without a fight and you don’t later accuse her of tampering with your leg or poisoning you, I will let you hold my hand.” Here he paused and held his hand up in front of her, wiggling his fingers a bit. ”How does that sound, sunshine?” He added, smiling at her.

Alice looked skeptical at first, glancing between his hand and Billie as if trying to decide if it was worth it. And then, with a strange squeaky sound, she took the pillow off her leg and grabbed his hand with both of hers.

Leaning over awkwardly, Horace stared at Alice for a moment as she clutched his hand to her chest, and then slowly turned his gaze to Billie. ”The floor is yours, Nurse Tyler.” He said cheerfully.

And then he set to work convincing himself that he was letting Alice hold his hand because it was what any good professor would do, and not just because he was hoping it would make Billie less angry.

WHO: OMGOSH, you'll never guess; it's Alice, Billie and Slughorn.
WHEN: Whenever.
WHAT: Consequences of Alice's revenge now, I suppose.
WORD COUNT: 940.
NOTES:This reply is positively wimpy compared to my last one! But don't tell the reply that; the reply is sensitive about his size, poor kid. Anyways, kicked puppy face has been avoided. Huzzah! There is much rejoicing. Also, I've made a new picture for this thread, because I didn't like my old one. Whatevs. Those are coldplay lyrics, on that new image, jsyk. Coldplay are really good; deal with it. I bugger you, K.

[BILLIE JEAN TYLER POISONS KIDS]

Billie rolled her eyes at Horace's apparent confusion. The fact that it seemed genuine seemed to make her even more annoyed. He knew what he'd done, he must have known. So why was he acting innoncent, and even more, why was he still talking about his shoes? It was a good thing he was behind her, because she felt that by not looking at him it helped to keep the anger levels down, yet at the same time, helped to keep them up. She knew that, if at any point he turned on the kicked puppy face then she would start to sympathise with him and perhaps even feel guilty; which is exactly not what she needed since, in her opinion, he was the one in the wrong. He was the one who should be feeling the guilt, though now he was showing no sign of it but rather sticking with confused.

As it were, Horace wasn't the only problem she was faced with. Problem number two was sat on hospital bed three and, while she hadn't made any move to help Alice or even ask her what had happened, she knew she could only neglect her duties as nurse for so long. She stared down at Alice's leg, pretending to inspect it [without touching it, of course, as she very well knew that if she tried, Alice would scream every accusation under the sun at her] for as long as possible, but she knew she couldn't put off actually speaking to the girl for much longer. She was about to ask how Alice hurt her leg, when Horace answered her unspoken question. She jumped a little, apparently having not heard Slughorn walk up behind her. That was another tick in the annoyed column... or perhaps she was just looking for excuses to be annoyed, seeing as she was actually quite relieved that he'd prevented her from having to listen to one of Alice's elaborate stories, which not only had a tendancy to stray so far from the truth it could be some kind of fantasy novel, but also somehow always ended in the blame being none other than her own; despite the fact that she clearly had no involvemnet whatsoever.

Any other day, Billie would have been pleased that Horace was being so nice to her. He'd brought her coffee, he was taking an interest in her patients, he'd brought up the perfect opportunity to bad-mouth Nott... and yet, today wasn't any other day. Today was today, and today he was sending her mixed signals. Lucky for Billie, she already had coffee so it gave her the opportunity to turn Slughorn's coffee down. Although, if you were to look deeper than the surface - and unknown to Billie herself - it was actually UNLUCKY she went for that coffee in the first place, because, of course, had she stayed in the hospital wing, she more than likely would have seen Alice and this whole situation could have been avoided; but now we're just getting a little too complicated, don't you think?

"I already have coffee, thanks." she answered cooly. Almost immediately after, she mentally kicked herself; common curtosy meant she had said thanks, which was far more than Horace desrved, she decided. Billie hoped her tone was harsh enough to prove that he wasn't forgiven just yet, it'd take more than a considerate coffee for that! On top of that, she made a point to ignore any attempts of conversation he directed at her - afterall, colleagues only really ever talked about colleague stuff, and perhaps the weather. Some might say that Nott and patients were colleague stuff - but in her mind, this kind of small talk wasn't small enough.

Believe it or not, in her own private Vendetta [exaggeration] with Horace, she'd almost forgotten that Alice was even here; a fact Alice seemed annoyed about - Well, that was a lie. Billie knew she was probably more upset that Horace wasn't paying her any attention. He was probably the only reason she was here in the first place [And Nott, but that was beside the point]. Alice never would have came here on her own, so he must have convinced her - his pursuasive power was another thing Billie let herself be annoyed by.

She was just about to wonder how on this earth Alice was going to let her close enough to fix her leg, when Horace sorted that out too. She wished he'd stop doing that; providing solutions to her problems before she'd barely even stumbled across them.

The quicker she could get the pair of them out of her wing, the better. She had no idea what kind of game he was playing, but it left her nothing but confused and, you guessed it, annoyed! By this point, upset had already passed. Anger, however, now seemed to be hiding round the corner, biding his time - waiting to unleash it's beast at any given second - because up until now, in her opinion, she'd actually been quite pleasant. Wasting no more time, she waved her wand over Alice's leg and muttered the correct incantation; she loved the simplicity of fixing broken bones. "Now, off you go. Both of you... I'm actually really, very busy." The hospital wing couldn't have been more deserted [with the exception of the sleeping ginger], had a tumbleweed rolled by; but Billie had told her story, and she was sticking to it.

WHO:

[/b]Alice, Billie, and Slughorn.
WHEN: [/b]Whenever.
WHAT: [/b]Consequences of Alice's revenge now, I suppose.
WORD COUNT: [/b]Around 922.
NOTES: [/b]I enjoy your new image, and I enjoy the coldplay lyrics! Also, apologies in advance for pretty much all of this reply. It was never a good idea to write back having be interrupted in my nap. I'm not sure how much of it makes sense, words are overused and I may have repeated myself a lot, I don't even know. The tenses are probably all mixed up too. Don't even get me started on the spellings! I promise that the next time I reply, I'll make sure I am awake. I'm getting too obsessed with not oweing people right now LOL.Love and Miss you <3 [/blockquote]

[HORACE JOHN SLUGHORN]

Billie wasted no time healing Alice’s leg, and Horace was, admittedly, very relieved. Not only did he want Alice to leave so that he could figure out why Billie was being so strange, but also he really didn’t want to be holding her hand. Not that he didn’t enjoy holding hands, it was just that he didn’t enjoy holding hands with Alice. First of all, it was probably against some sort of rules for him to hold his student’s hand – it was probably also against the rules to let a student cuddle with you during a detention, but, you know… whatever – and second, Alice was holding his hand very tightly and it kind of hurt. He would much rather have been holding hands with Billie.

Upon realizing her leg was healed, Alice immediately shrieked, “Oh, the horror, I think she’s broken it permanently!” But then Horace shot her a very angry look and she immediately cleared her throat and went on in a forced monotone, “I mean, thank you, Nurse Tyler. You’ve healed my leg. Wow! It’s just like magic!”

”Now, off you go.” Horace grinned quite happily when Billie said these words. He was just about to free his hand from Alice’s grip and shoo her from the hospital wing when Billie added, ”Both of you… I’m actually really, very busy.” His grin faded immediately and he fixed Billie with a stare that he hoped conveyed the depths of his confusion. Neither he nor Alice moved. Instead, Alice sighed contentedly and rubbed her cheek against his hand and he continued to stare at Billie, again trying to figure out what he’d done to upset her.

Because clearly he had upset her, somehow. {Actually, a very good imitation of his handwriting had – but he didn’t know that.} He must have done, because she almost never kicked him out. Even when he was being rude and inappropriate, she usually let him stay, and today he’d been nothing but nice.

Although to be fair, sometimes he didn’t realize when he was being rude – so maybe what he’d thought was perfectly nice had actually been unkind… But no, he really hadn’t done anything bad lately. At least, not to Billie. He’d been on his best behavior with her.
Maybe she was mad at someone else and was just taking it out on him. That was definitely it. Probably Jarold had been in to see her and he’d made her mad and she was taking it out on him because they were both timelords they used to be friends. That was totally possible, right? Yeah. Definitely. Totally possible. Absolutely no flaws in that logic.

Alright, there was several flaws in that logic, not the least of which that Billie wasn’t likely to let Jarold get to her and even if she did, she would probably then take her anger out on Jarold and leave Horace out of it all together.

Which meant that the only explanation for her anger was that she was just having a go at him for no reason.

And that made him mad.

He’d thought they’d been getting along quite well! He’d thought they’d been finally getting back to normal, that maybe they could really, properly be friends or, you know, more than friends. He’d thought everything had been good between them, but apparently not. Apparently she just wanted to fight.

And if it was a fight that she wanted, it was a fight she would get.

He shook himself out of his thoughts and focused on Billie, opening his mouth to say something not-very-nice, and then Alice rubbed his hand against her cheek again and murmured, “Hmmm, so soft, so smooth, so Slughorn-y…” Her voice reminded him that she was in the room and it would probably be a bad idea to start a fight with Billie while she was still there. It was with that in mind that he pulled his hand away from Alice, cleared his throat, and said, “Well, you heard Nurse Tyler, Miss Adams… Off you go. She’s very busy.” His tone was stern and Alice seemed surprised by this – which was reasonable, since ‘stern’ was not a word that could often be used to describe anything he did.

Alice got off the bed very slowly and then hesitated beside it. “You know,” She said casually, “She told you to leave, too, Professor… Perhaps we should walk together! You know, just in case angry dolphins have invaded the castle since we got here? I hear angry dolphins like to steal people’s magical hair, you know, and it’s always safer in pairs…”

For a moment he was genuinely tempted by her offer – losing his hair to an angry dolphin sounded absolutely horrid – but then he realized that there was a very slim chance of the castle being invaded by dolphins, if there was any chance at all, and anyways Alice would probably be no good in a fight against dolphins anyways, because she’d just panic and start vomiting up sticks of dynamite and his hair would probably get singed anyways, so he cleared his throat and said, “No, that’s alright, Miss Adams.” He hesitated a moment and then cast a sideways look at Billie as he added, “Nurse Tyler and I need to have a talk.”

Alice looked seriously disappointed, but said nothing. Instead, she began to slowly back out of the hospital wing, muttering variations of ‘here I go’ and ‘don’t mind me, I’m just leaving’ as she went. When she finally made it out the door, she simply hovered in the corridor, pretending to be extremely interested in the floor. “Miss Adams,” He said, feeling genuinely annoyed now, “I said go.”

In response, Alice put on her most rebellious face, sniffed once and said, “It’s a free country.”

Horace glowered. “No.” He said, “It’s Hogwarts, and I am your professor, and I am telling you to go, or I will assign you detention…” Alice looked sickeningly excited at this, so he added, “With Filch.”

Her face fell, but she didn’t move. “I want to see this!” She whined, bouncing around on her freshly healed leg.

Finally fed up, Horace marched across the Hospital Wing and slammed the door in Alice’s face. She gave an angry cry of ‘fine!’ and then there was silence in the corridor. Probably she was just lurking out their listening with her ear against the door, but Horace didn’t care. He spun around, his new shoes squeaking as he did, and glared at Billie. “What is your problem?!” He began, the anger in his voice evident, though he didn’t shout for fear he would disturb the sleeping ginger boy. A sound came from the corridor then that sounded suspiciously like gleeful laughter. He was about to continue, but then he really looked at Billie’s face and all the anger went out of him. He slumped visibly and took a seat on one of the beds, completely calm now. “I don’t want to fight, Bills.” He said, looking up at her with a raised eyebrow. “What’s going on?”

WHO: Alice, Billie, and Slughorn.
WHEN: Whenever.
WHAT: Consequences of Alice's revenge now, I suppose.
WORD COUNT: About 1,180.
NOTES: I apologize for pretty much this whole thing, because it's not very good. The next one will be better. Probably the next reply I write for you will be the best thing I ever write or at least, you know... It'll be decent. Also, check me out, avoiding the kicked puppy face by just making Slughorn all calm. Calm!Slughorn is sexy. ...Is there any kind of Slughorn that ISN'T sexy though? Yeah, I don't think so. Anyways, love you, K <3

[/size]

[BILLIE JEAN TYLER POISONS KIDS]

That was one thing she was relieved about, because while she wanted to admit she had no reasons to be happy that Horace was here [of course had it been any other day, she would have had many reasons to be happy he was there - reasons she would put down to them being friends] he was good at one thing; getting rid of Alice. While it was almost impossible to get Alice to come to her hospital wing, once she was there, it was equally as hard to get rid of her. Like the time she and AMAZINGSAUCE Tonks came up with the whole poisoning accusations; they'd stayed for hours. They'd even made signs at one point and tried to start a protest; saying things like 'Nurser or Curser?', 'Get Tyler Out' and randomly, 'Healer or HOOKER?' - their petition didn't get many signatures though, thankfully.

She couldn't help but roll her eyes when Alice said her leg was broken permanently, and then again as she told her story about the dolphins. In fact, she nearly wanted to laugh, and then came the “Nurse Tyler and I need to have a talk.” Perhaps this was it? Perhaps this was going to be where he confirmed everything he'd written in that letter. Maybe here is where he'd say that coming to see her had been a test, that he wanted to see how she'd react and she'd failed - that she'd proved to him his point, that he was too good for her. If that was the case, then what reaction would have passed his test? If she had gracefully accepted his offer to be colleagues, surely that would have been a fail for being so happy to let their friendship slip away? Getting annoyed or angry clearly hadn't pleased him. So, what? Was she supposed to beg for him to stay her friend? She was sure he would have just loved that... Bastard.

Billie had to take a second to remind herself that she'd created this whole little scenario in her head, and that he hadn't just told her that he had been testing her... at least, not yet. In fact, the whole thing did seem a little far-fetched... All she knew, this conversation was hardly going to be a civil one, because when ever they needed to have a talk, it never was. So that posed the question, did she really want to have this talk? She wasn't sure that she did.

Before she'd even had a chance to protest [well, she had plenty of time to protest, but she'd spent that time creating ways this might play out in her head], he'd already slammed the door on Alice. It was probably for the best, anyway. What would she have said? Weakly stammer out that she was busy again, when she clearly wasn't? She knew that wouldn't stand. She also knew that since she had already told him to leave, and he's stayed; there was probably nothing she could have said to make him go. She knew, better than most, how stubborn he could be. The only way out of this now was if somebody burst through those doors, horrifically injured. She looked at the doors hopefully, but of course, they remained shut. She then felt bad for wanting someone to be hurt, just so she could avoid any unpleasantness with Horace. Besides, this was most likely for the best, anyway. Once and for all she could actually find out what this whole fiasco was about, and the guess work could finally stop.

Then the moment came, this was the part she knew it would always come down to - the unavoidable where he'd turn on her and the real fighting would begin. And it came with three simple words, "What's your problem?" She knew it was going to happen, she knew he'd eventually get angry. She'd expected it, so why wasn't she ready for it? "My problem?" was the only comeback she could muster up.

Surprisingly, his anger didn't last long. "Yeah? Well why did you come here?" she instinctively responded, yet as she watched him sitting on the bed, she couldn't help but believe him. He really didn't want to fight.

It was at that moment, that she almost started to doubt it all, and wonder if she'd made the whole thing up - but then there was the letter. It was as solid as any proof could get. How could she make up the letter? How could she make up scrunching it into a ball, throwing it at the bin, missing and getting up to chuck it back in? She distinctly remembered the corners of the parchment slightly scratching her hands as she screwed it up. She recalled her back making an awful cracking sound as she slumped against the wall, and how the letter seemed to smell oddly like Sirius cookies. So if she'd imagined the whole thing, why would her mind create so many small details? Evan if she had somehow managed to nod off before Slughorn brought Alice to her, and dreamt the whole thing, there was still too much information. The sense of touch and smell were usually lacking from her dreams; which were always sights, sounds or perhaps even an emotion such as fear or sadness - like the dreams where you wake up crying; you never really feel the tears, and the trail they've left down your face, until you've woken up and said 'Oh, I'm actually crying.'

Of course, the easiest thing to have done, would have been to go back and check the bin to make sure the evidence was still in there - but as is the way with all good [or logical] ideas, you never think to do them until it's too late.

She was clearly looking too far into this. The letter happened - she knew it did - but she was probably just looking for reasons to believe it hadn't; because she didn't want it to be real. She didn't want Horace to not want to be her friend. She didn't want to go on for the days, weeks, years, or however long they'd spend working together, without being able to talk to him, or laugh with him or eat with him, and drink coffee with him, hold his hand or hug him; and that was fine, she thought, just as friends...

No, she was thinking too much. She did that a lot when it came to Horace - and when she wasn't thinking too much, she was doing too much - but that was normal with friends, right? Friends can think and do too much all the time! Yes they can, now zip it!

That was another thing she'd do a lot when it came to Horace - she had a tendency to have little arguments with a voice in her head as well - but that was perfectly normal too, and she'd hear no more on the matter.

She considered sitting down too, but settled for wrapping her arms around her stomach and staring at the floor instead. "Maybe you should tell me what's going on... you're the one who can't seem to make up your mind all of a sudden." She looked up at him with the last three words. His calmness seemed to rub off on her, since she no longer felt quite so angry as before.

WHO:

[/b]Alice, Billie, and Slughorn.
WHEN: [/b]Whenever.
WHAT: [/b]Consequences of Alice's revenge now, I suppose.
WORD COUNT: [/b]1,261 sez word count.
NOTES: [/b] I enjoyed your reply! I don't think anything you write could be bad; you have a talent for this. Now don't let me hear you saying this again, or I may be forced to cut off your tongue. Calm!Slughorn IS sexy, and no, there really isn't! I'm amused, because I totes wrote this out of order. I wrote random chunks and then put it all together like a jigsaw puzzle. Anyway, love and miss you, A. <3 P.S. I totes just re-read your old notes and giggled at you buggering me (: I bugger YOU. xo[/blockquote]

[HORACE JOHN SLUGHORN]

”Yeah? Well why did you come here?” Horace’s brow furrowed at this and he cocked his head slightly as he looked at Billie. ”Why did I… To bring you coffee, because I thought you might be tired! To see how you were doing! To –“ He cut himself off there, because he wasn’t sure what he’d been about to say, but he knew it wasn’t something that could be said. There were things that he and Billie didn’t say and as unsure as he was about what he’d been about to say, he knew that it was one of those things. “To be your friend!” He finished. Out in the hall, there was a noise that sounded remarkably like Alice Adams gagging, but Horace ignored it, looking at Billie very seriously as if he might convey what he had not said with nothing but his eyes. Talking about friendship was probably not wise, considering Alice’s letter; in fact, it was probably a very bad idea and was likely to just leave Billie even more confused, but Horace did not know that.

As it was though, it may not have mattered, because Horace was not entirely sure that Billie even heard him. She seemed to be deep in thought about something – what, he did not know – and he got the feeling she wasn’t paying him much attention.

He sighed and watched her as she thought, wishing he could see into her mind and know just what she was thinking so hard about it. The same evil little voice that told him to read her diary whispered that he could see into her mind with the use of a not-so-simple spell, but he told that voice to please shut the hell up because he was not about to invade Billie’s mind like that. For one thing, she would never forgive him if he did and for another, it was just wrong. And also he wasn’t sure he really wanted to know what she truly thought of him.

Having told the voice to shut up, Horace zoned out as he watched Billie. He had, by now, given up trying to figure out what he’d done to make her mad – he was, after all, pretty sure that she’d just decided to pick a fight with him for something and expected that she’d tell him why that was, eventually. Instead of trying to figure that puzzle out, he simply watched her. It occurred to him as he was watching her that he knew her face very well. For example, he knew that sometimes when she was just a little bit angry, she would raise her eyebrows just slightly and her mouth would open just so as if she had something to say, but was holding it back. And he knew that when she was very a happy, she would grin that special Billie grin that was so perfectly her – her eyes shining and her tongue poking out just slightly from between her teeth.

He knew these things and yet he had absolutely no idea how to read her now.

Which was, you know, kind of weird.

Because knowing someone’s face usually made it pretty easy to see what they were thinking.

A voice in the back of his head whispered that maybe he didn’t know her so well anymore, and for some reason this suggestion infuriated him.

He immediately began listing the things that he knew about Billie. He knew that she had a little scar on the back of her head from when he had landed the TARDIS a bit roughly and she’d fallen over when he’d been drunk and had pulled her a bit awkwardly into his pool and she bumped her head. He knew that sometimes she got sad about never having known her father and that had she had a time machine she might have gone back and saved him. He knew that there were things she told Phillis that she didn’t tell anyone else and he wasn’t jealous of that at all. (Okay, he was a little, but no one needed to know that.) He knew that she loved her job – though that was hardly a secret. He knew (from experience) that she didn’t like kissing in public and he was only mildly annoyed by it. He knew that when she saw someone hurting, she would do whatever she could to help them, even if they weren’t someone she particularly cared for. He knew all these things and more and he was a bit smug as he thought about them, because clearly the voice in his head was wrong.

The voice in his head came back by reminding him that they were just friends and most friends didn’t know quite so much about each other and people usually weren’t annoyed that their friends didn’t like kissing in public.

Horace scowled. Of course friends knew that much about each other! A friend who didn’t know so much wouldn’t be a very good friend, right? And of course they were annoyed by it! Not being annoyed by it would just be silly, clearly, and that was the end of that discussion, because Horace was right and the voice was wrong and – he had to stop bickering with himself.

The voice casually remarked that arguing with yourself was not as bad as arguing with inanimate objects and Horace promptly told the voice to be quiet, because Billie was speaking.

”Maybe you should tell me what’s going on… you’re the one who can’t seem to make up our mind all of a sudden.”

At this, there was a sound that was definitely a snicker in the corridor, and Horace twisted his torso and shouted, ”Miss Adams, if you are going to eavesdrop, at least be quiet!” Then, turning to face Billie again, he continued without missing a beat. ”I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Bills. What do you mean I can’t make up my mind? I’m pretty sure my mind is made up when it comes to you. You’re… I…“ He hesitated and then, ”My mind has always been made up when it comes to you.” He coughed slightly and added, “Because, uh, you’re my friend. Obviously.”

He furrowed his brow and thought for a moment and then shook himself and focused once more on Billie. Her arms were wrapped around her stomach as if she was hugging herself and she was looking at him, apparently a good deal more calm than she had been moment before. He was glad for that, at least, because for once, he didn’t want to fight.

”Just… tell me what I’ve done, will you?” He asked, his voice quiet. ”Will you please tell me what I’ve done to upset you?”

WHO: Alice, Billie, and now Slughorn.
WHEN: Whenever.
WHAT: Consequences of Alice's revenge now, I suppose.
WORD COUNT: 1,125. I seriously deleted three words just to get that five there, rofl.
NOTES: bahaha, I love you your jigsaw reply <3 I won't say that my reply is not very good this time [even though it's really not, rofl] for fear you will cut my tongue out, but I will say that I ramble quite a bit and I am sorry for this. Like that bit where Slughorn lists all the sheets he knows about Billie? I don't really know what the point of it was, but it gave me an excuse to mention the TARDIS, so I'm keeping it, LOL. Anyways, calm!Slughorn is still sexy. And btw, I love Billie <3 The Alice in me is disgusted by my love for her, but it can't be helped, lmao. Bugger you a whole bunch, K. Miss you a ton.

[BILLIE JEAN TYLER POISONS KIDS]

What had he just said? Being a woman, Billie was pretty good at multitasking [lol], but she couldn't be sure of what he'd just uttered. She was so deep in thought, she was only half listening to the words being spoken. She knew he'd brought the coffee up because that was always a word that would register on her radar, a word which would make her ears perk up like a dog hearing it's owner call 'walkies' - they could be in another room completely and they'd still come running - that was Billie with coffee. She'd only begun drinking coffee when she started training to be a nurse, having previously been a tea girl, but the long hours required something stronger and coffee was just that. So now, she loved coffee. To say she was addicted to coffee was an exaggeration, she thought, but she did drink it daily and it definitely made her feel more awake. They had Rehabilitation centres for alcohol and drugs, and even - believe it or not - sex . So maybe they should invent a Rehab for coffee? Though if you were to really look into unhealthy obsessions, it could be argued that Billie needed cleaning Rehab - a centre where they force you to sit and stare at dusty shelves without cleaning them. Pure hell! Of course, you also might suggest that Alice Adams and Nymphadora Tonks could use a Slughorn-Rehab or Horace-therapy, or saying that, just therapy in general.

All of this, of course, was far from the original point which was that Billie wasn't sure what she had heard. It sounded an awful lot like 'to be your friend.' So did that mean he'd changed his mind? Is that why he'd come? To say - or rather, reluctantly mumble - that he was wrong in his letter, and he really did want to be her friend. Perhaps she'd been looking at this from the wrong angle. She'd really jumped the gun on this one, though she was angry so it was understandably done, right? He could have been drunk when he wrote it, everyone who knew Horace well was aware that he was a fan of a good spirit every now and then. Or it's possible he was suffering one of his mood swings - Billie really needed to look into those, but it could be bit of a touchy subject and spur on a fresh batch of anger. Whatever the reason, it still wasn't very nice.

They'd both been quiet for a while now, apparently both on their own train of thoughts, so Billie jumped ever so slightly when Horace shouted at the door, more specifically the young girl behind the door. She couldn't lie, she was relieved his yelling was directed at someone else other than her - not that she usually revelled in the scolding of others. She'd finally settled on the fact that Horace had come to take back what he'd said, but when he spoke next; it shook everything up once again. He was oblivious - or acting oblivious - Billie couldn't decide which, but whichever it was, it was convincing.

She hated how confused she got when around him, and not just at what he wanted but about what she wanted to, because while she'd convinced herself that she only wanted to be his friend, when he said things like that, when he'd hesitate or let his sentence trail off, she'd always get this nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach willing her to scream out "What were you going to say!?" She never would, of course. Instead she just felt trapped in an alternate universe, doomed never to know how his sentence would have ended.

She stared him straight in the face, when she finally decided to answer, her voiced lowered to the same volume as his. "You... you said you didn't want to be my friend..." She couldn't hold his gaze, and turned to look at the window instead. She'd just heard herself, and she sounded ridiculous; like a child telling tales to their teacher on a playground. 'Miss, Miss! Horace won't be my friend anymore!' She wasn't sure at which point she'd regressed to a five year old, but in this instant - for a Hogwarts member of staff, she felt more childish than the students. She was even about to add 'Well actually... you wrote it... in the big, fat, meany letter you pinned to my door for the entire world to see!' [followed nicely by sticking out her tongue and blowing a raspberry] But that certainly would do nothing to help her current dilemma.

She thought hard, trying to come up with anything that might defer from how foolish she was being, for anything that might make her look a little more mature. However, she'd drawn a blank, so Billie did what she did best - she cleaned.

She summoned a damp cloth along with a bowl of soapy water [because clearly she always has these things sitting around, just in case], and moved a couple of feet from where Horace stood. She knelt down and started scrubbing relentlessly on a single spot on the floor. "You know... this stain... I... don't know what... it is, it's... it's been here since... I started... it's like... like it's worked into... the woodwork." Her voice was strained from the ferocious movement of her hand pushing the cloth backwards and forwards, and every now and again she would pause to gasp for a deep intake of air. She'd spent ours of her life attempting to remove the almost, unnoticeable mark from the ground, yet no amount of magic or muggle labour seemed to work. She'd tried all kinds of spells and enchantments, and no end of products, yet still the mark stared up at her, taunting her. She'd even had nightmares about it laughing at her as she helplessly tried to abolish it. In fact, she'd had this bad dream many a times - the dirt even spoke in a French accent once! Still, not matter how hard she scoured, the mark was persistent.

Frustrated, she threw her cloth down and proceeded to sulk where she sat. Being annoyed or angry at inanimate objects was usually Horace's area of expertise, but if he was allowed to do it, why wasn't she? Sadly, throwing the floor into the bin - like Horace had once done when angry at one of his shoes - was not an option.

Of course, her actions did nothing to make her seem anymore like an adult than her previous confession, but Billie ignored that. Children would never be upset over dirt or stains, and that was a statement she was sticking to.

WHO:

[/b]Alice, Billie, and Slughorn.
WHEN: [/b]Whenever.
WHAT: [/b]Consequences of Alice's revenge now, I suppose.
WORD COUNT: [/b] 1,135.
NOTES: [/b] I found up my coffee ramblings I warned you about haha, I really had a craving that day. Also, I was determined to beat your word count and end in a 5, so I added in some random bits hahaha. My bad. AND I have said this to you before, but I loved Slughorn's reply <3 It wasn't too ramble-y at all! And jsyk, the Tonks in me is disgusted in you too! But not the K lmfao.[/blockquote]

[HORACE JOHN SLUGHORN]

” You… you said you didn’t want to be my friend…“

For a moment Horace just stared blankly at Billie, trying to figure out if he’d heard right. The words ‘I don’t want to be your friend, Billie’ had never left his mouth. He’d thrown plenty of harsh remarks and petty jabs her way, but not those words. Never those words. It was better to be stuck in an awkward friendship (not that he would ever admit that their friendship was awkward) with Billie than not have Billie in his life at all. And even if friendship wasn’t what he wanted, even if he wanted more…(Not that he did – he definitely didn’t. Friendship, that’s all Horace Slughorn wanted. Yep. Just friendship and if you think anything else you’re off your head, mate.) Well, he never said that is the point. He never would have said that. He’d never even thought of saying that.

And so, understandably, he was very confused by her accusation. His jaw worked as he watched her and his lips moved as if to speak, though no sound came out. His eyes shifted about the room as if maybe a clue might be written on the wall. He’d not been drunk recently, so it wasn’t as if he’d showed up at the hospital wing shouting about not wanting to be her friend and now just couldn’t remember – and anyways, even if he had been drunk, his drunken declarations to Billie tended to be more along the lines of ‘you’re beautiful and your hair smells nice, like cleaning product, I like that’ than anything else.

He wondered briefly if maybe this was her way of telling him that she didn’t want to be friends with him… But no, if he knew Billie, and he liked to think he did, she would never go about something like that in such a strange manner. If she didn’t want to be his friend, he was sure she would just tell him so, not go about playing games. Besides, looking at her where she stood, staring out the window instead of meeting his gaze, she looked so dejected that he knew, she really did believe he’d said he didn’t want to be her friend.

Which he hadn’t.

So he was back to where he started, wasn’t he?

He thoughts drifted about like this for another moment before he focused his attention on Billie once more.

Billie. Lovely Billie Tyler who had just told him he’d said he didn’t want to be her friend and that was why she was being so stroppy. Billie who had looked so very hurt by his not wanting to be her friend and what was she doing now?

Cleaning. She was cleaning.

Horace narrowed his eyes at her where she was now kneeling on the floor, scrubbing very purposefully at a stain on the floor. He wanted very much to point out that for all she nagged him about obsession with inanimate objects, she was just as obsessed with cleaning, but a little voice in the back of his head reminded him that she was already upset with him and for once he decided the voice in his head was probably right.

Instead of saying anything about her cleaning, Horace let out a long breath through his lips and rubbed both hands over his face and through his hair. Billie was speaking again by then, talking about the stain and how it had been there since she started. He ignored the talk of the stain and ran his hands through his hair once more before dropping them to his sides. It wasn’t long before Billie stopped scrubbing entirely and threw her cloth down. She seemed to be sulking and any other day he might have found that endearing.

He gave her a minute, hoping she might say something else that would help him work everything out.

Unfortunately, she didn’t speak at all, so Horace sighed again and took two long strides so that he was standing mere inches from where Billie knelt.

Taking a deep breath as if to prepare himself – for what, he didn’t know – he bent so that he was at her level. Somehow he managed to lose his balance just slightly and ended up down on one knee in front of her and when he thought about it, that seemed a bit funny, because no one would believe that Horace Slughorn would ever end up on one knee in front of a woman. Context, he thought as he steadied himself and dropped his other leg so that he was in a similar position to the one she was in.

As if out of habit, he reached out to take her hand and then hesitated, his hand hovering over hers for a moment before dropping into his own lap. And really that was quite sad, wasn’t it? Cause there was a time he’d have taken her hand with no hesitation, taken it and held it like it was nothing, he was just holding his best friend’s hand, because it made him feel better, or because he thought she needed comforting, or simply to remind him that she was there and yes, when it came right down to it, she was his best friend, and maybe that was bad or sad or pathetic or something because he was sure that he was not her best friend, but it didn’t matter, did it? That was what she was. He didn’t have anyone else. No one else was her.

Fingers curling and uncurling in his own lap, Horace met Billie’s eyes. And then, finally, he spoke. ”I never said that.” He said, and there was a funny sort of passion in his voice that caught him off guard. It felt like he’d just admitted something he hadn’t meant to admit, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. ”I never would say that.” He went on, raising his eyebrows at her in an attempt to make her understand.

He hesitated and then – ”Billie, I…“ He cut himself off abruptly, unsure of what he’d been about to say. Something he would regret later, he imagined, and so he shut his mouth, shook his head once and then he tried again. ”I would never say that.”

WHO: Alice, Billie, and now Slughorn.
WHEN: Whenever.
WHAT: Consequences of Alice's revenge now, I suppose.
WORD COUNT: 1,045.
NOTES: Sooooo it's 9 o'clock and I didn't sleep last night, because for some reason I couldn't sleep {I blame Tennant's kneecaps for this} and I thought, hey, you know what sounds like a good idea? Replying to K! I'd like to apologize in advance for this, because I'm fairly certain I've done a rubbish job of it, but my word count ends with a 5 and I think I used the word mate in there somewhere, so it'll do. Also, simultaneously laughing and wanting to cry at Billie feeling trapped in an alternate universe. *dead* Hurts so good, K. ANYWAYS I don't think I beat your word count, because I didn't beat mine from my post before this, but you know what? I do not care. Bugger you forever, K, and I will promise you right now the next time I post something to you it will be way more quality.

p.s. I blame any typos on RTD, because naturally everything is his fault.