There was an old saying among Hogwarts students that went "the friends you make on the train are forever". When eleven year old Angela Zieger, ever so kind, first invited Fareeha Amari to her cabin in the Express, she had not yet learned of these words. When she bonded with the other girl over the fact that they both had non British ancestry, she didn't have any idea that they would, despite house differences, end up the best of friends.

She would never have imagined how, a few months later, she'd catch Fareeha knocking some kid's heads for making fun of her accent. She couldn't have predicted the amount of joy they'd end up sharing, even though Angela's definition of fun usually involved tea and books, whilst Fareeha's usually involved the breaking of rules, sometimes of bones also.

What the sixth-year Angela could and did predict was that her friend would seek her out before the match, as always, and try to talk her into going, as always. The stout Gryffindor was many things – tall, brave, a bit too reckless, of impressive moral strength and even somewhat adorable, though Angela would never voice that last one. One adjective that did not, however, apply to Fareeha in any way whatsoever was 'unpredictable'. Angela could always, always read her like an open book.

Speaking of which – putting a finger to mark the paragraph she was currently stuck, she absently flipped a page on her Herbology text, then another and another, until she reached the end of the chapter. Then, she flipped them back, counting, until she arrived back at her finger. Seven pages. Fifty-two paragraphs. She sighed.

And there came Fareeha, chatting excitedly with her friend and Quidditch seeker Lena 'the Tracer' Oxton. Angela had to admit, albeit reluctantly, that the girl was good, by far the best Hogwarts had seen in that position in years. The nickname wasn't for nothing; Lena had such impressive skill on spotting and catching the snitch, Gryffindor once won three matches in a row before a single goal could be scored. No one had any doubt that if someone was to go professional in the sport, it would be her – though Fareeha wasn't half-bad as a chaser, either.

Angela's eyes met her friend's across the room, and she quickly looked away, burying her face in the book, not really giving much thought to the medicinal properties of Mandrake – she already knew those, anyway. She began a mental countdown.

Ten, nine, eight –

She heard laughter and a voice loudly bidding someone goodbye.

Seven, six, five –

Footsteps approached. Angela did not take her eyes off the text.

Four, three, two, one –

"Hey, Angela!"

She didn't resist the half smile that graced her lips, though she did raise her book a little bit higher to hide it. Slowly, deliberately, she dragged her eyes to the side, displaying a perfectly impassive poker face.

"Faheera," she acknowledged.

The large woman straddled the bench next to her, eyes twinkling with excitement. "There's a quidditch game this weekend."

Angela arched a single eyebrow, staring at her friend's quidditch sweater, the quidditch sticker on her cape, the quidditch-themed dinner plates and glasses, the quidditch bag she carried, the Quidditch Cup fliers stuck on the dining table, the walls, the ground, delivered by the owls every morning –

"…I'm well aware." she stated in a monotone.

"You should come!" Faheera concluded, as per script.

The blonde raised the other eyebrow. "And why would I do that…?"

It wasn't that she didn't like the sport per se; she found the concept interesting and even had some fun analyzing the brainy part of the World Cup strategies and statistics – things she did, of course, because of her friend. Watching the games, though, was something else entirely. Angela wasn't a fan of crowds, of loud noises or of aggressive sport-cheering behavior, and she found the actual matches rather too brutish for her liking.

"Cause I'll be playing!" her friend finished, ever so cocky.

Closing her book, Angela sighed. "Faheera, have mercy."

Her friend's face fell, and the blonde felt a tightness squeeze her chest. "Awww c'mon– pretty please? We've hardly seen each other in the last two weeks, what with the games and your midterm finals and so –" she paused. " – I guess what I'm trying to say is, I miss you, Angela."

She felt a telltale warmth on her cheeks and cursed herself a million times over for being so goddamn softhearted. She felt genuinely guilty then; she knew she could be a bit obstinate with her studies and end up overlooking the important people in her life. Most people knew Angela wanted to be a healer; what few knew was that despite how she made it seem, she was by no means a natural in dealing with other humans. She had to work hard for those people skills of hers, damn it, she had to constantly remind herself to be gentle and attentive and kind, and sometimes, sometimes, she still ended up neglectful anyway.

Sighing, she pinched the bridge of her nose and gave her friend a sincere apologetic look.

"It's my house against yours, Fa, you know I can't very well cheer for you, I'll be ostracized. Besides, I already promised to lend a hand at the hospital wing – you know how messy it gets on game days. But hey – hey. " she paused at the heartbreaking look of disappointment she was getting. "Don't give me those puppy eyes. We can go for a butterbeer after the match, how about that?"

"Promise?" her friend lifted her pinky. Angela rolled her eyes at the undying childhood habit, but interlaced her finger with the other's anyway.

"Promise."

The hospital wing was remarkably peaceful – for a quidditch game day, that was – so much, she was left alone on the empty room whilst the actual responsible healer went to check on a sanitary complaint in the kitchens. That she'd have the patients for herself wasn't even uncommon anymore; with six years of flawless work on her record, the headmaster had actually even offered her a wage for her services.

She wasn't surprised, what with the ongoing match, when two teachers walked in, carrying a cursing student in a stretcher. Yet she did feel her stomach drop when she recognized the voice as her friend's, reassuring herself that the fact that she was well enough to swear was actually a good sign even as she made her way to the door to meet them.

"Oh, my head!" the woman wailed dramatically.

One eye at the forehead wound and she could tell her friend was grossly overreacting. Angela exchanged a few brief words with the teachers, reassuring them that she could handle the issue just fine before discharging them back to the field. Then, she grabbed a pair of tweezers, a flask of iodine and a ball of cotton and proceeded to clean Fareeha's cut.

"What happened?" she asked, rubbing grass and dirt off the cut with the cotton, leaving an orange stain on her friend's tan skin.

"I fell – Ow!Owowowow! This stings –"

"Mmh-hmm. Take off your shirt," the blonde commanded, discarding the cotton ball and taking another.

"Wh-what," Fareeha stammered. "I – I – uhhh –"

Angela frowned. It took her brain a full two seconds of loading to figure out what the other was awkward about, and when she did, she was positive she turned pink.

"God, Fareeha! I need to see where you got hit," she explained exasperated, half hiding her flushed face with her palm.

"Hit?" the other queried, puzzled.

Divinities above, grant me patience.

"Hit," she repeated. "By the Bludger, or – or by the other player, by whatever made you fall."

"Oh." The dark-skinned woman tilted her head sheepishly. "Nothin' hit me. I just…fell."

"…you just fell," Angela echoed, incredulously. There was something definitely fishy with that story. Her friend had been spending at least three daily hours on a broom ever since she was eleven; 'just fell' was not, by any means, an acceptable explanation.

"Yep." her friend nodded. "Sooo…will I survive?"

"You have a flesh wound. You'll definitely survive." She pondered, deciding to investigate further. "You know, it's a wonder you left your team in need…remember that one time you played forty minutes with a broken arm hanging off?" The last few words were matched with particularly rough wound cleaning.

"As if!" the chaser scoffed, as always blissfully oblivious. "Tracer was already with the snitch in hands –"

"So let me get this straight," Angela interrupted. "The game was already over. You spontaneously fell of your broom without being hit. Instead of celebrating victory with your team, you deemed a scratch on the forehead grave enough to come to the hospital wing."

"Ahhh…yes?"

The blonde couldn't help it. She covered her lips with her palm and burst out laughing. Dropping the tweezers on a metal tray, she shook her head, slowly, hopelessly.

"You. Are. Ridiculous." She punctuated every word with a hard poke on the shoulder.

"Ow. Ow. What did I do this time?" her clueless tone and frankly innocent expression almost had the hufflepuff laughing again.

"I want you to be very honest with me now." Angela made eye contact and the Gryffindor nodded, wide eyed. "Did you shove your face in the dirt on purpose so you could see me?"

"What?! No!" A pause. "…maybe. Um, yes. I mean! We promised that we'd see each other after the game! But then I knew you'd be here and you'd be busy and you might not remember and it didn't feel fair to ask you to because, because, you're always so overworked, and my teammates would want me to celebrate with them and –"

"Fareeha." The blonde interrupted the babbling. "I didn't forget."

"You…didn't?"

Angela grinned. "Well of course not. Everyone knows pinky promises are sacred. I just have to put those things away and close the place down; the responsible witch should be here any moment."

The twinkle in those chocolate eyes and the sheer pure happiness on that face had Angela smiling again, this time in a much softer manner.

" – Awesome! I wish you'd seen the game, Angel, it was so wicked! I scored five times, you should've seen those Hufflepuff's dumbstruck faces –"

"Have some respect," the blonde censored with no real bite while she put her instruments away. "That's my house you're talking about."

"Yeah, well, Hufflepuffs are fine and all, god knows you definitely are –"

"I'm…fine?" she half-teased, half-mused at that sentence, frowning.

" – yes. No! I mean! Way better than Slytherins, but Gryffindors are just another level entirely… I guess Hufflepuffs could come second, and I bet you could be a Gryffindor –"

"Faheera." Angela interrupted again, rolling her eyes.

"Yes?"

"Have mercy."