Plates clattered. Bench legs scraped stone. Somewhere down the Hufflepuff table, a first-year shrieked as a jug of pumpkin juice overturned itself mid-pour.

You sat with your back to the Slytherin table's center, which meant you heard the laugh before you saw the reason for it.

Pansy's laugh. The loud, unguarded one she only used when she thought no one interesting was listening.

Then Daphne's — lower, a half-second behind, like she'd tried to hold it in and failed.

Then a chorus of them. Four voices. A table's worth of private jokes.

You turned slightly.

Pansy had her phone angled over her plate, screen bright against the candlelight, and the four of them were hunched around it — Pansy, Daphne, Astoria, Imogen — dark heads and pale heads and one bright honey-brown one, all tipped together like they were reading something forbidden.

You knew the shape of your own life by now. You were the text at 11:47 p.m. You were the seat that got filled when something better fell through. You were sweet, and kind, and funny, and honest to a fault — and none of it had ever been enough to make anyone think of you first.

Your phone buzzed against your thigh.

You pulled it out under the table, already knowing, somehow, that it wouldn't be an invitation.

The message hadn't been sent to bring you over. It had been sent so no one could ever say you weren't asked.

Across the Hall, a different kind of noise cut through everything else — Ron Weasley's unmistakable laugh, erupting from the far end of the Gryffindor table, where Harry Potter was grinning with his head down and Fred Weasley was very obviously pretending he hadn't done anything.

Three chairs on that side had bags and cloaks slung over the bench, saving seats. One of the empties had a spare plate pushed up against the table's edge.

It looked, objectively, like it had been waiting for someone.