Chapter 2. Coffee is Casual, Coffee is Cool

The following Saturday, Louis' fingers drummed on the table, tapping out anxious beats as he waited for the barista to bring over his coffee. He'd picked out a little table and brought along a book, just in case one of his dates didn't show. The entire option of "one of" made him cringe. Fred had assured him this was the standard means of beginning to date outside of Hogwarts. You go out on a few dates with a few people, given the understanding that they're doing the same. No one dives in head first and gets emotionally attached immediately. No one puts all their eggs in one basket, coming up empty handed when it doesn't work out.

So, having signed his decision-making over to his cousin, Louis was now at a coffee shop in Diagon Alley, waiting on the first woman of his triple-date day. Fred had poured over the website with him throughout the week, schooling him on his interactions with the women who had contacted him. If Louis were being quite honest, he'd been pleased with the number of responses he'd gotten from his (read: Fred's) tentative messages to them. Fred wanted him to be meeting these women as soon as possible. When he'd tried to protest, wanting more time to chat with them online or on the phone, Fred sent the invitations to coffee immediately. Apparently, waiting for a friendship to pick up before getting together let a woman's mind resolve to friendship or high expectations of love before the ever-important first meeting. This surprised Louis.

"Do you believe in love at first sight, Fred?" he had wondered.

"Not at all, you ponce. When you meet that woman, all the mystery and excitement of a new acquaintance is at the front of her mind. Is he as handsome as his photo? Is he going to be tall enough for me? When I meet a lady," Fred went on, "I know within the first few minutes if I'm attracted to her and if it's going to be worth pursuing any sort of friendship or relationship."

"That's absurd!"

"It isn't, Louis. How are you going to see a woman if you don't want to get her into bed the first night? Now, I'm not saying you do sleep with her the very first night, but you want the desire to be there. You need the attraction. You need to see whether she reciprocates."

Louis hadn't voiced his concerns about the women not being interested, and he hadn't offered the possibility of being friends. He knew Fred was only going to cut him in on some payment as "principal researcher" if he followed directions and stuck to the plan. This venture wasn't about making new friends; it was about getting a woman to fall for him.

Louis smiled at the barista, thanking her for his black coffee. He didn't know much about the drink, just ordered it mechanically when he came in. How did anyone choose flavors, know how much cream or sugar to add? He didn't want to embarrass himself – better to just ask for a small coffee and pretend that was his usual.

Another five minutes passed, and Louis was splitting his time between staring blankly at the third page of his book and looking up at the door every time the bell jingled to announce a customer coming or going. Another jingle. His eyes darted to the door.

A woman entered, smiling as she took a glance around the room. When her eyes landed on Louis, her smile widened and she approached him.

"Are you Louis?" she dared, extending her hand out for a shake as he rose to greet her.

"Yeah, that's me. You must be Amelia."

"You got it!" She winked. "I'm just going to go grab a latte."

Louis was quick to apologize about having already gotten his, but Amelia waved it off. He watched her in line, smiling at everyone. Her heels poked out from the bottom of her trousers and made her close to his height. She looked well professional in her blazer, her brown hair pinned back very precisely. She was attractive, Louis mused, and exuded confidence. He felt outmatched.

"So," Amelia returned, plopping into the seat across his, "how's your day going?"

"Well, I stepped into Flourish and Blotts just before coming here and bought a new book."

"Let's take a look then, where is it?"

Louis blinked at her, thrown off by her forwardness. He held it up to her all the same.

"A biography of Cornelius Fudge?" she asked in disbelief.

"It was in their new releases," Louis supplied, fidgeting uncomfortably. "I grabbed the first thing I saw, and biographies are a new branch I'm trying to get into."

"Sure, whatever you like. So, what are you hoping to get out of this?"

"Pardon?"

She smirked. "Why did you sign up for Amortentia Potential?"

Louis panicked. There was no way she could know about the deal. He'd supervised Fred's responses to the women and he wouldn't have told Amelia and had her meet Louis as a trick, would he? No, no, he was being daft.

"I suppose I was just hoping to meet a few people, see where things go…" Perfect. Casual. Fred wanted him to be casual about things.

"Perfect."

Amelia led the discussion into her job as a publicist for the late Celestina Warbeck's great grand-niece, a rising star in the world of cheesy ballads. She traveled, she mingled with the famous of the UK and abroad, and she liked to keep things casual.

"My last boyfriend was furious about the time I spent with Orlando Thruston at the parties."

"Who?" Louis asked, quite confused.

She let out a giggle. "You know, the son of the drummer of The Weird Sisters!"

He nodded slightly.

"Oh, Orlando is simply gorgeous, don't get me wrong. His mum's Italian and he grew up in Tuscany. When he speaks, I melt. But my ex, he was jealous. You wouldn't be jealous of the time I spend with other men, would you?"

The way she was smiling coyly at him and the fluttering, mascara-thick eyelashes worried him. Louis shook his head.

"Good," she went on, "because I spend a lot of time with powerful, attractive men so often. They get tiresome." It was clear from the way in which she spoke about them that she didn't find that to be the case at all. "I mean, the last thing I want is to come home to someone who throws a tantrum when he finds out about my networking at parties. It's all for Millie, you know? She needs someone confident and straightforward to help make deals and set up collaborations. It's a hard job."

Louis found himself nodding along, a bit startled by her constant chatter about the successes of her life and the mentions of her past relationships. She was heading into a speech about the pigheadedness of her fourth ex-boyfriend when Louis awkwardly touched her hand across the table to interrupt.

"I hope you'll excuse me, but I have to get going."

Amelia jumped and stood up. "Oh! Oh, of course. I need to run to the record store to book a signing for Millie!" Her blazer was back on in seconds, and she held her hand out for another shake. "Do let me know when you'd like to get together again, Louis. I had a wonderful time getting to know you."

She smiled widely again and was out the door before Louis had gotten out any sort of his own goodbye. Well, that was one of three down.

The bell jangled as he walked out the front doors and ran his hand over his face. There were a multitude of reasons that Fred had required the first meeting to be in a coffee shop. Coffee wasn't meant to drag on for hours on end like a dinner date would. The traditional trip to the cinema didn't offer much in the way of opportunities for conversation, and should be done once the couple is comfortable with their time spent together. The cafes hold a certain ambiance, Fred had said, that can be just right for getting to know someone. Having a coffee gives you something to do with your hands and gives you a pause or two to think as you take a sip. You don't want to build great expectations, just a casual meeting between two people. Test out the waters. And while tea is comforting, coffee is trendy.

Louis rolled his eyes a bit as he remembered Fred, grinning at him like a madman the day before, giving him his finest piece of advice to date: "You want to be like coffee, Louis. Coffee is casual, coffee is cool."

"So, on the days that I don't do research for a case, I am stuck in an office that I share with five other clerks," Louis said, fumbling to come up with more conversation topics.

He sat in a second coffee shop in London, completely across town from Diagon Alley .This, too, had been part of Fred's machinations – meeting three girls at three different coffee shops. He couldn't meet them all at the same place in case of overlap.

This meeting hadn't been going any better than the first. Rhiannon, the witch he was meant to be wooing, had rushed in ten minutes late and looked around the room for a good five minutes before she finally noticed Louis waving at her a bit uncomfortably. She didn't seem to like giving any conversation without Louis first having provided three times the amount of chat. Thus far, he'd learned she had been in Hufflepuff and graduated just a year ago and she was now a receptionist at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.

Rhiannon was beautiful, all blonde waves, long legs, and brown doe eyes, but Merlin was it painstaking to get her to talk. While he thought she might have entertained James or Fred in terms of an evening's date and one night stand, Louis couldn't find himself interested in pursuing that with her either. For as much as Louis found himself buttoned up around everyone these days, he truly valued striking conversationalists.

"Do you like your job, Rhiannon?"

"Yes," came the meek response.

Then nothing more.

"What else do you like to do?" No response. "Do you like the cinema?" A shake of the head. "Theatre?" Another shake. "Cooking?" A third. "What about …Quidditch?"

"Oh yes!"

Silence. Louis bit back a groan – no wonder his family were miffed with him. Having to deal with a surly conversation partner refusing to engage was frustrating. He didn't know where to go next with his topics.

"It's raining. Do you like the rain?"

"I prefer the sun," she replied, after an eternity.

Grand. He couldn't even keep up a conversation about the weather.

Rhiannon, for her part, appeared to be having an alright time. Her smile never left her face. She even ordered a second drink and extended their painfully one-sided conversation by another half-hour. When she'd finished her second drink, she graciously took her leave.

"Thank you for meeting me, Louis. I had a lovely time. I hope you'll be in touch again soon." She leaned over to kiss his cheek, which made him blush, and then sashayed out of the room, catching the eye of a few other blokes who'd been looking up from their papers.

Sighing, Louis stood and headed out to another coffee shop, hunched in his jacket as the rain picked up. It seemed the London weather had picked up on his discouraged mood. Fred would be well disappointed if he finished the day as a complete strike-out.

Louis relished walking into his final meeting with his date already there, an experience he had missed out on earlier in the day. She was sitting in a plush seat by the windows, looking as nervous as he had been at the start of his slew of dates. He recognized her from the picture – dark curls, a pouty, pink mouth, and blue eyes. He stole some glances at her, appreciating her sensible flat shoes and her light sundress and empathizing with her anxiety. Her oversized mug was steaming and cupped in her hands as she tapped her painted nails against the porcelain.

The first two coffee dates had been interesting, Louis supposed. They hadn't been horrendous, by any account. Amelia was a motivated career woman, engaged in her busy, upscale lifestyle. Rhiannon, well, he hadn't learned much about her at all. When she did speak and in her goodbye, she seemed sweet enough. Trying to make a dating match was draining, and after the first two forays into the world of modern, casual meet-ups in coffee shops, Louis wasn't particularly excited about the final one. He took his cup of black coffee with a bit of a frown, even less excited about having another mug of the bitter drink.

He coughed lightly to announce his presence and made to sit in the seat across from the woman. She must have recognized him too; her eyes lit up and she smiled at him, a blush already gracing her cheeks. Louis felt himself smiling back reflexively, his frustrations about his previous encounters disappearing.

"Please," she offered. "I'd be happy for you to join me, assuming you're Louis Weasley." The sides of her eyes crinkled, highlighting her teasing.

"That's me, indeed. It's nice to meet you, Isla."

"You too, Mr. Weasley. What did you get to drink?"

"Coffee." He didn't miss her raised eyebrow. "Aren't…aren't you supposed to get coffee at a coffee shop?"

"If that's what you like, of course you are, yes. But it's a coffee shop, Louis, there's so many different flavors, different processes! You like plain black coffee best?"

He felt his face warming. "Do you want the truth?"

Now her other eyebrow was up in the air. She looked so innocent. She looked so sweet.

"I don't have much experience with coffee. If I'm being entirely truthful, Isla, I must admit that I feel too flummoxed by the lists of flavors and the styles…can I call them styles?"

Isla giggled. "I couldn't tell you what to call them in order to sound like an expert, but I will tell you a secret." She leaned forward, whispering conspiratorially. "I had the same problem. Didn't know a mocha from a latte from a drip coffee. Do you know what I did?" He was leaning in to hear, listening to her whispers. He could smell her perfume, floral and airy. "I started going to every coffee shop I could find and ordering a different drink at each one. I don't get overwhelmed by the variety. Instead I just select a drink at random at each place. Here at the Londracino I get a mocha."

He let out his breath in light laughter, surprised by her secret. Her blue eyes sparkled as she smiled at him.

"No," he breathed. "Why?"

She pulled back from the table a bit, a look of consternation on her face. "Well, to match your honesty, I'd have to say because I needed to challenge myself. It sounds silly, coffee being a challenge. But I needed to prove to myself that I could navigate through a world I find a bit scary, but so exciting."

"The exciting world of coffee?" Louis found himself grinning, wanting to catch her eye.

Her blush intensified. "I did say it was silly! I've just got this whole image built up in my mind, you know? Successful, put together young professionals who know what they want in life and how to get it. And it starts with coffee somehow, in my silly little head. And so I thought to myself, 'Isla, if you want to conquer the casual, trendy world of coffee shops, you just need to do it!'" Another laugh. "I find myself drawn to more and more situations that make me uncomfortable. The experiences that others pursue, but that I've always found intimidating. I don't…" she paused, but Louis was caught on her every word. "I don't want to hide away or feel scared of different parts of life anymore. I'm going to conquer my fears and get over my anxieties, Louis."

He knew Fred had said to keep conversation flowing on inconsequential topics, but he felt as if Isla had let him in on something more important.

"Funnily enough, I've been on the receiving end of some advice from my very kind cousins and they seem to share the same hopes for me. If it's as easy a start as coffee…"

Isla laughed as she fought off another blush. Louis Weasley was a goner.