"Hugo!" cried Lily, dashing through the corridor after her cousin, who was walking ahead of her with his friend Jerome.
"Hugo," she repeated, grabbing ahold of his arm and breathing heavily. "I've been looking for you. Can I talk to you about something?"
"Of course," said Hugo.
He gave Jerome a gesture to indicate he would only be a moment before following Lily to the window at the far side of the corridor. Lily gave Jerome a gesture to indicate that he should wait behind.
"What's wrong?" asked Hugo. "Has something bad happened?"
"No, nothing like that!" she said. "I just need to talk to you about Maude."
Hugo frowned.
"You chased me across the castle to talk to me about your friend who I barely know?"
"Yes," said Lily.
She began to explain herself, but suddenly felt Jerome appeared at her shoulder despite her perfectly clear gesture.
"Can I help you?" she asked Jerome.
"Keep going," said Jerome encouragingly. "I could do with some of your nonsense gossip to keep me entertained."
Ignoring Jerome, Lily leaned towards Hugo and said, in a hushed tone, "Maude gave me some very interesting information last night."
Hugo rolled his eyes.
"Lily," he said, "If this is about the questions on the Transfiguration test then I don't want to know! I told you I'd rather get an idea of what it's going to be like when I actually take me OWLs which means no cheating."
"No it's not about the Transfiguration test," scoffed Lily, a slight look of disgust on her face. "This is about who Maude fancies."
Jerome chuckled, "I knew it would be nonsense."
"Lily, why would I care who Maude fancies?" asked Hugo.
"Because it's you," she said seriously. Hugo blinked at her. Lily pressed on, "Maude wanted me to slip you some subtle hints that she's interested and see what your reaction was. I assume you're not interested in her at all because you two have absolutely nothing in common and I'm not even sure you're interested in romantic relationships, but I told her I'd check just in case. What do you think?"
Hugo blinked again.
"Do you need me to repeat myself?" asked Lily.
"Please don't," said Hugo, sinking to sit on the window sill.
Lily suddenly looked very embarrassed.
"I'm sorry to bother you about this, but Maude made me promise," she said.
A deliberate cough came from behind her. Whipping around, she saw Jerome looking smug.
"What?" she asked, giving in.
He grinned. "Well," said Jerome, "I just wanted to point out that in spite of your promise to be subtle you have just gone and told Hugo the entire plan."
"Well, I tell Hugo everything," said Lily.
"She really does," Hugo confirmed. "Too much sometimes. I wish I didn't know Maude fancied me. Now every time I said 'hello' to her in the corridor it's just going to be awkward."
"It sounds like it was awkward before," said Jerome. "But that wasn't my point. My point was that if Lily was going to break her promise of being subtle, why bother to keep the promise at all."
Lily narrowed her eyes at him, a mixture of confusion and loathing causing the folds in her forehead as she worked out the point he was making.
"Do you want me to use smaller words?" asked Jerome when Lily did not immediately reply.
"Could you use no words?"
"I could, but then you'd be a lost little lamb with no one to point the way," he said.
Hugo groaned, knowing full well that this conversation was going to lead to an argument that would make him late for dinner. He'd really been in the mood for mashed potatoes.
"I'm just saying," said Jerome, "It sort of takes the romance away, if you just blurt out the entire plan to Hugo."
"Please don't start talking about romance," said Lily.
"You think I don't know romance?"
"I think that if you say 'romance' one more time I'm going to throw up."
Jerome gave Lily a pitying look and rolled up his sleeves as though she had just suggested the sky was made of gravy.
"I think I know more about romance than you give me credit for," he said.
Lily's face went from an expression of nausea to one of pity.
"You think I don't know how to romance a lady?" asked Jerome.
She looked so sad for him, and yet, at the same time, looked as if she was trying her hardest to not laugh.
"Trust me, I know how to romance a lady," he cried.
"Please stop," she said in a strained voice.
"The first step in romance is to not be so obvious," said Jerome. "You can't just walk up to a person and announce a romantic interest."
"Do you know this from experience?" she asked.
"I know this because I'm clever," he said sharply.
"Well at least no poor girl has ever had to suffer through you declaring 'a romantic interest' in them to their face."
Hugo stood up suddenly and announced that he was going to dinner.
"I'll come with you," said Jerome.
"Thank Merlin," said Lily.
Before Hugo dragged him away, Jerome managed to mutter to Lily, "You know, you really need to work on your subtlety."