Kiera comes in late after her little misadventure with everybody’s favorite or least favorite Gryffindor. Liesel is in bed, with a candle burning on her end table, actually reading the book Kiera gave her. “So she isn’t illiterate after all.”
“This girl, Dolly Haze...I feel for her,” says Liesel, looking up. Kiera can kind of tell the truth serum in the punch hasn’t worn off. “Who were you off blowing?”
“Merlin, Lise, we barely kissed!” Kiera retorts. “It was nice, though...I’ll bet he wouldn’t have looked in my vague direction back when I was about four stone heavier though.”
“Oh, come now, you’ve always been a pretty girl,” says Liesel. “A pretty girl with a horrible fashion sense."
Kiera sits down on her bed and pours herself a shot of Firewhiskey from the handle under her dresser. “That’s what you say. Though, I can’t help but feel...the new attention from boys is nice, but I feel like I’ve lost a part of my identity.”
“How so?”
Kiera gave her a disbelieving look. “Oh, come on. What’s the first thing you noticed about me when we first met, if not the extra padding?”
Liesel thought for a moment. At last, she said, “Your voice.”
“My...my voice?”
“You’re a soprano, you sound soft and sweet. At the time, I thought you were someone I could use. And so I did.”
Kiera chewed on her fingernail. “And now?”
“You’ve come a long way. You’ve become one of my most trusted confidantes,” said Liesel. “And whoever this bloke is, I hope he knows he’s damn lucky to have you.” Kiera was going to say something else, but that’s when Liesel took a big swig of Firewhiskey from the handle by her bed, took a big hit of opium, closed her book and went to sleep.