Vesper considered her options. Alice seemed oblivious to everything, which was weird to the Ravenclaw...considering. But she had been able to see Ves' annoyed looks. Apparently, Alice really wasn't very self-aware.

...

This was probably going to be bad...but again, she wasn't exercising the appropriate amount of caution. Adrenaline was a funny thing.

"You know this is about West, don't you?" Her voice was nearly a whisper.

Her expression went from small to confused in an instant. West? ".... um.. no?" Why would Ves dislike her because of him? "I.. what? What about him? Do you like him?"

... naturally, that was the first thing that came to mind. What? It was a valid question, considering how popular he was and how often girls hit on him. Wouldn't surprise her if he'd caught Vesper's eye, too. Girls were suckers for musicians and all that something something.

........SQUINT...

Though, okay...Vesper did like him...but this wasn't about that.

Gosh.

"You really are clueless, aren't you?" The words were out before she could stop herself...probably sounding meaner than she intended. Yea, Ves was referring to other things...Not just the scope of...Ugh, someone else likes/wants West...because she was pretty sure that was also a real frustration.

Her face had that look on it again...The sour one.

At her tone, Alice had to look away from the sushi, now taking the shape of a question mark. Sure, she could deal with Vesper's glares and her opinions or whatever, but if the other girl planned to just stand there and make it seem like she was incredibly stupid for not knowing already... was there really a point to this? Really?

She looked her in eye, meeting the sour look with a blank one of her own. "Apparently so. Enlighten me?"

Well, this explained A LOT.

"First, can I ask you an extremely honest question?" Vesper met her look, her annoyance fueling her bravery. Alice was a dangerous girl...and usually, Ves would not have been standing here, having this sort of talk...with this sort of girl. Whatevs, though.

"Would you say you're in love with West?" Yea, Alice probably thought she had some nerve asking this...but Ves didn't care. She wanted the answer.

"You haven't answered my question yet," she pointed out. And Alice didn't do that. The giving answers before receiving answers thing. Nope.

But... if she wanted an explanation.... sigh. Fine. Whatever.

'Cept that was a weird inquisition. It was easy saying stuff to West, but her feelings weren't anyone else's business, especially not Vesper's. Alice seriously doubted that the Ravenclaw held any regard for her emotions, so what was it to her? She paused for a very long moment before nodding, so small it was barely visible, but there. Could have been puppy love for all Ves knew.

Was that a nod? Vesper stepped a little closer, not wanting ANYONE to hear what she was about to say...because it wasn't her intention to embarrass Alice. She wasn't that type of person. She knew West loved this girl...and that hurting her would only hurt him.

"You have a poor way of showing it." Her voice had dropped to a near whisper again, trying to keep this as private as possible. "I knew West before you happened to him..." Yea, that probably sounded accusing...but once again, she had zero sense in the moment. "...and it bothers me that you, who are supposedly in love with him...can't see the mess he is at the moment."

Her cheeks flushed on their own accord, a sign that Ves was rather passionate about this current topic. "Since I met him, what do you think has been the one thing...to change in his life?"

...

......

A million ways of tossing Vesper's words back in twisted ways and verbally shredding the girl to pieces crossed her mind, but she bit her tongue. It wasn't about arguing or winning or... anything, really. She'd asked for an answer. This was it. This...... was it?

The stuff she was saying definitely hurt though, considering they were things that so often crossed her mind anyway. No comment.

".... I don't know." Or maybe she did and it wasn't coming to mind.

"I'm not saying this to hurt your feelings...but you are what changed." Vesper wanted to cross her arms, mostly to protect her own self from what she was saying...but that would've appeared confrontational to outsiders...and she didn't want anyone to know that she was having this conversation. In fact, she was mildly embarrassed about this...but Alice had insisted. It wasn't smart on so many levels...but Gryffindors. Ves was starting to understand about them...

Sigh.

"I..." She paused to breathe. "I...hate the way he sees himself because of you...and no, he hasn't told me anything, before you ask." It was important for Alice to know that. Vesper would NOT have been comfortable talking abut his girl, anyway. No. "...but I watch him. I watch him all the time because I care..." Mostly because of that, anyway. "...and he's so sad."

Frown.

She subconsciously shrank a little, sort of drawing into herself. Mental turtle shell of sorts. It didn't matter that Alice had already noticed everything Vesper mentioned or that she'd already being trying to fix stuff, obviously to no avail, or that she already knew she was a horrid girlfriend. Had two boys to remind her of that.

But the answer completed. Her gaze had been directed back to the sushi a while ago, and she remained fixated on it as she spoke.

"... thanks for being honest with me."

Stuff was winding down. Marigold hadn't danced with Mitchell OR Ralphie for that matter, but she had had a good time. She grinned at Mitch's confused face. DAWW IT WAS SQUISHABLE, and she poked him in the cheek for it. Right above his defined jawline. GAH.

Her clapping for the band was a but delayed, but GOODJOBEVERYONE! Woot. #1groupie right here.

And then she grinned. "I didn't because she's being a poo like me and withdrawing herself from her Romeo - wait asdfgh." BLUSH. Had she actually just said that? She averted her eyes and tried to ignore the rising heat in her cheeks. Look away, farmer boy. "I did, uh, bring a picture of my grandad. So he could hear the music. He's a muggle, after all, and he liked the songs."

Did Alice think she was finished? No...No, she was not.

Vesper remained as soft-spoken as she possibly could...but things might have been diffusing into her tone; anger...definitely being one of them. How could Alice not have seen these things? Surely if Ves had, Alice....who loved him, had, as well. Or maybe she just didn't care? Maybe she was content with being a catalyst to West's issues.

"I hope you know...how amazing he is. I really hope you do...and how lucky you are...." Vesper might have been glaring again...because she was certain the Gryffindor did know all this, yes...Yet, she was still saying it. Ves needed to get this out.

"I know you don't care what I say...but that doesn't bother me. I care about West. You need to do better because with how things are right now, I don't think you deserve him."......."This is why I was glaring at you."

There. That was it...

"Sorry this sounds so rude...but it's the truth."

In that particular moment at least, oblivious West was in a GREAT mood. Music, y'know? He sat down on the edge of the stage with his water bottle and just chilled. They were gonna do requests soon, that'd be fun. And interesting. Did anyone wanna come chat to him though? Because he wouldn't mind. Also treats. People could bring him treats, right? He gave everyone hopeful smiles.

Feed me smiles, y'know.

All Vesper's words sank in sort of slowly, and Alice winced at a lot of parts. But she didn't say anything in her defense or in acknowledgement, just nodded periodically and stared at the food. Wasn't really anything to say, was there?

"S'fine. You're... you're fine." She'd asked and all. Yeah.

Was Vesper going to go? Alice sort of needed a moment to... regroup.

Yes...that was it. Vesper didn't have anything else to say.

Busying herself with more food, because her hunger was a real thing, she grabbed an extra water bottle and set off, relocating herself from the Gryffindor Captain. Yep, she'd go...stand in a corner and think about she'd just done. West would be mad with her if he knew...and Vesper was sure Alice would tell him.

Welp.

Someone needed to say it...and it couldn't be taken back now.

Looking down at her plate, she was pleased to see she'd grabbed a few chocolate chip cookies. Cookies were a must right now...since now that she thought more about it, that had been a severely terrifying exchange.

After a few minutes of staring at her sushi, Alice placed a side of the plate between her teeth and took a cup in each hand. It made the food all tip to one side, but her teeth were the least brittle of all her bones, luckily, and she managed to make it over to Dora without dropping anything.

Was she going to take the plate? It'd be a big help.

Ah, good, the band were clearly taking a break again. Good. That meant that people might disperse a little and she could actually...

...yeah, no, she STILL couldn't see anything. Or anyone. Or someone.

Olly frowned at nothing and no one in particular and made her way over to one of the things she COULD see, the stage. Ah, there was West. "Hi." She set down her glass of lemonade down next to him and turned to look for steps that would lead up the stage. Because she didn't exactly trust herself to be strong enough to push herself up there. So steps it was.

Ah there you go.

Once on stage Olly moved back right behind West and looked around to see where Schuyler had gone off to. After a couple of seconds she gave up though, all that squinting making her head hurt. Oh well, she'd just stay here then. No big deal. So that was what she did. Sit down next to West with a small sigh.

Okay, distraction though. "You look great up here." Playing, obviously. In general too.

Alice was taking a while, and Dora had gotten to wondering if she was trying to bring all the food back over when she glanced over and saw that wasn't the case. She was talking to Vesper.... right. The sixth year instantly went back to her solo dancing, patiently waiting for Alice to finish up and not bothering to seek out someone else to dance with just yet. Still had one more.

When the older girl finally did return, she looked up and took the plate out of her mouth and cup from her hand. "You didn't have to bring back this much."

She shrugged a little. "Didn't know how hungry you were." And she'd been famished before, but her appetite had kind of gone. Reasons.

Still, she selected a piece of sushi from the plate and took a small bite out of it. Their house elves were talented, huh? Heart-shaped fish rolls must have been difficult to make for sure. Pity that Alice couldn't appreciate their efforts a bit more tonight, but she was sure that there would be leftovers in the kitchens for when she was hungrier.

But anyway, she owed Dora another dance, didn't she?

Lily was starting to rethink the idea of getting a sandwich or something, if only because it would provide her a better distraction from what she felt was about to be a bad situation. Maybe even worse than the one back when she’d been talking to West. It probably wasn’t as bad as what had happened to her at the beginning of last summer, but then, Austin hadn’t technically been involved then. Back then she’d just thought of him as a friend, but now it was more and she felt horrible for making him feel so upset that he’d stuttered. She could pick at a sandwich easier than she could berries, but then she also didn’t want to get up and make him think she was leaving. Plus, he hadn’t apparently either heard her comment about how he’d never stuttered around Astrid or he just wasn’t responding. It was all weird and even the music wasn’t helping. “But you aren’t explaining. You said not here,” she said softly. It sort of felt like he was still hiding the truth, and she wasn’t sure if there was anywhere in the school where he would have felt safe enough to really explain. Obviously she wasn’t planning on going around telling everyone, either. It was all just complicated and making her even rethink the berries. Not eating would be better when she felt this bad.

Then the band announced yet another break, and that meant she didn’t even have that distraction. It was just her thoughts, since the background music wasn’t enough to help her feel any better. She’d continued just poking at what was left in the bowl, her green eyes more trained on that than anything else just because she didn’t want to look up and see him trying to convince her she wasn’t at fault. It didn’t matter what he said. She knew what had happened. She’d been there, and it had been what she’d said that had caused all of this. She’d glanced at his hand as it had reached over and taken hers, stopping her berry poking for the time being, but otherwise still didn’t look up. “You weren’t upset until I’d gotten irritated at you. It is my fault,” she said, just as quietly as the previous sentence she’d spoken. She knew he’d hear her now, without the live music playing in the background. He couldn’t convince her otherwise, not when she knew he was just trying to make her feel better. She didn’t want a lie just because it would make her think she wasn’t horrible. She’d peeked up at him as he’d made another effort, though. “That’s why it exists, not what caused it this time.”

Yeah.. Delilah wasn't hungry anymore. Not at all. Like, where did that even come from though? She'd certainly been thinking about the alley a lot lately and miiiight have wanted it to happen again but she had NO idea that he did too. Heh.

.... "Now." Delilah stood up, offering him a hand. What were they waiting for anyway? She had wanted to dance with him more but later.. maybe. Or whenever. They had more interesting things to do now.

It was easy to tell that Alice's cheerful demeanor had diminished substantially, and even easier to guess why, but it was painfully difficult to go about asking about it without actually talking about one of the few things in life she preferred to ignore. Sigh.

"Only as hungry as you are." So when Alice took one so did she, with her mouth since her hands were full, and eating it whole. "It's good." She watched her best carefully before giving her a gentle nudge. "..... We don't have to do the last dance. I liked the last two well enough."

She wasn't all that hungry, but took another piece just so Dora would eat something. Nourishment and all.

"I promised you three." And Alice kept promises no matter what. Her best would get three dances if both her legs were broken, and that was that. If she didn't want to at the current moment in time, she could wait until the band went back on. Whatever Dora wanted.

Dora was only eating when Alice ate, and only then, so when she picked up another so did she, chasing it with her lemonade.

"Doesn't have to be three right now if you don't want. We can sit and watch the rest of the band's sets." Anytime with Alice was good with her, and it wasn't like the couldn't dance later, it just wouldn't be to the band which she really didn't care if it weren't or not.

Apparently at this point, talking was only making things worse because Austin could tell that Lily had been feeling really upset and that was never his intention, he didn’t want her to feel that way which now somehow needed to be fixed before it caused any problems in their relationship; it was hard enough telling her how he felt last summer and wondering if there had been any point especially considering they had been friends for the longest time. There was that whole risk of being friendzoned though, definitely something that he never wanted to occur since things would have become immensely frustrating to the point where any conversation would have made him feel uncomfortable. At least that wasn’t the case. Unfortunately the current situation seemed to mimic those feelings and he only wanted to make things better, not complicate them even more. “Okay you’re right, I’m not explaining. Maybe I should though because clearly I’m not helping anything right now.” he said, taking a pause to consider his words before speaking again. “The stuttering itself, it comes from something that happened when I was younger, I don’t remember what. Then again, I don’t even remember who my other parents were so that might have something to do with it. It actually continued on for a while, even before I met you since I managed to get it under control but there’s another way that causes it to reappear at times. But I will tell you that when we’re at the lake another day. I promise.” he explained. Or at least attempted to explain. It remained to be seen whether or not she believed his words.

Since the music disappeared once again, he really needed to focus all of his attention on what was going on since distractions were few and far between; there was no point in making her upset and not apologizing for it. Especially when he just felt bad now. “You know you’re right, I know you’re right too but I don’t want you to blame yourself. I can’t.. I can’t just sit by and watch you be sad. That’s why I’ve been trying to deny it, but evidently that’s only making it worse. I’m still sorry for interrupting earlier, since that definitely was what started all of this.” he said, his brown eyes only looking down at the table because he didn’t want her to see the sadness written all over his face. She didn’t deserve that. Maybe it was like, he actually didn’t deserve her or something; like Lily needed to be with someone who didn’t end up causing a scene that led to a big mess that could have been avoided to begin with. Or maybe that was just crazy.