"Yeah..." Alfie opened his mouth to admit to it, but the words didn't come at first and so he snapped it shut again, and then closed his eyes. It wasn't supposed to take like... bravery. to be able to admit things to your sister. "You know that bloke in Ravenclaw? Dorny?" He said it in a rush, voice dropping lower, but he was sure that his sister could decipher for him. "I've been hanging about a lot with him lately. Like, I met him at Brixton market over the summer when he came up to granddad's grocer stall, and then we've been talking a little and hanging about..."
Was he changing the subject? No, she didn't think he'd do that. So Dorny had to have something to do with whatever it was he was trying to tell her. She cast her mind as she tried to put a face with the name and it came to her. Now that she thought on it more she was pretty sure she'd noticed comments between the two in the journals. "I know him, yeah. Not well, granted, but I know him. Did he do something?" If he'd done something mean to Alfie she wouldn't forgive him.
"Yeah," Alfie said again, then he frowned and shook his head. "No. Yeah... I don't..."
And he knew he wasn't making any sense, he could hear himself after all. For some reason he thought suddenly of learning to swim, and his dad telling him that the only way to get used to the water was to jump in.
For a second his eyes closed again, and then... well, it was easier to say it all with his eyes closed Again, everything came out in a rush, words in his admission tumbling over each other. "We were just talking and he trying to make me feel better about mum and all but then he moved and I - or he - I'm pretty sure it was me and I kissed him and I hadn't even thought about doing something like that before, but then it was really bloody amazing and I wanted but how wrong is that, right? He was right to have pushed me away, but then I ran off and he won't... We're not mates anymore."
He knew he still hadn't made much sense, but he did slowly open his eyes to see his sister's reaction.