"Any plans for the weekend?" Eli asks casually. She's sitting at the kitchen table, looking at herself in a mirror. One of her hands is held over half of her face firmly, pulling down. The eyebrow of her exposed side is making small twitchy movements and it seems to be costing her a great effort.

Taking the opportunity to sidestep her inquiry, I ask the obvious question. "What are you doing?"

"Strengthening my eyebrow muscles," she replies as if it should've been obvious.

"And why are you strengthening your eyebrow muscles?"

"So I can raise one eyebrow at a time, duh. I think I should be able to teach myself." Eli drops her hand and relaxes her scrunched-up face for a moment. "It's an important skill. I need to be able to do this for times when I correct someone's grammar or make a sexually suggestive comment."

I chuckle lightly. "You're going to be raising your eyebrow after everything you say."

"That's the plan." She goes back to her exercise as Des walks into the room. He opens the fridge, stares at the food, or lack thereof, and closes the door. "Speaking of plans," Eli continues, "this weekend?"

"Oh, I was gonna go to Hogsmeade to visit my mum."

Eli and Des share a quick but not so subtle glance. Des looks nervous, Eli smug.

"You told her," I conclude, shaking my head at Des and folding my arms.

He sighs. "You know what—I did tell her—"

"Obviously."

"—and I'm glad I did! Because you, Bri, are a masochist."

I raise an eyebrow and Eli looks jealous. "Come again?"

"You're a masochist!" he repeats. "Who goes to lunch with the guy she's in love with and his girlfriend?"

"I'm not 'in love' with him," I scoff.

"Oh, get real," Eli says, rolling the eye that's not covered by one hand.

"I mean, who does that?" Des continues. "What do you think is going to happen? Nothing good could possibly come out of this!"

"Look, guys," I say, a bit startled by his intensity. "Teddy invited me and I'm going. He wouldn't have invited me if he didn't want me to be there and we're friends, so what's the big deal?"

"You could've said no and I really doubt he would've minded," Des says. "Think of all the possible excuses. It would've been fun to come up with a really good one!"

"Why do you care so much? It's one Saturday. No problem."

"It's never just one Saturday," Eli mutters, her eyebrow still moving erratically up and down.

"Exactly," Des agrees. "You always mope for, like, weeks afterwards."

"Not weeks," I protest quietly.

Eli drops her hand and tries to raise a single eyebrow. Both of them shoot up.

"Keep working at it," Des says.

"Damn it." Eli claps her hand back over her eye.

Thoroughly annoyed at this point, I throw my hands up in the air. "Well, sorry, but my friend asked me to meet him in Hogsmeade, and I told him I would. I'll try to keep the moping to a minimum. See ya."

I arrive in Hogmseade among throngs of Hogwarts student, bright-eyed and meandering around the streets much too slowly for my taste. I shove my way through to the Three Broomsticks and go inside. My response when I see Teddy alone at a booth is equal parts delight and trepidation.

Harshly, I remind myself that I'm being stupid and I slide in across from him in the booth.

"Hey, Bri." I can't detect a trace of disappointment in his voice that his part-Veela girlfriend is running late. His sapphire-blue eyes are literally sparkling, as they crinkle under the effect of his warm smile.

Merlin, they really are meant for each other. The Veela and the Metamorphmagus. A match made in heaven by, presumably, an extremely attractive god.

"How're you, Teddy?" I ask, slipping out of my jacket.

"Good. I'm working now." He leans over the booth when he talks to me, looking up into my face. "Thought you'd be proud of me."

"I am! Where do you work?"

"Il Giardino."

My mouth is suspended in a slightly open position as I decide which question to ask first. He spares me the trouble.

"It's an Italian restaurant in London. I'm one of the main chefs."

Of course he is. "Is it a Muggle restaurant?"

"Yeah, it's really good and gets great reviews."

I decide against pursuing an explanation for his unwillingness to get a job in the Wizarding world for the time being.

"You should eat there sometime."

"Yeah, maybe. Is it expensive?"

"It's worth it. I promise."

I shake my head, laughing. "You don't understand—I'm not getting paid. At all. I don't have enough money to splurge on fancy Italian food."

"Right. How's all that going?"

As soon as I start telling him about life as an intern at St. Mungo's, he appears disinterested, craning his neck to check the door every few seconds, and look out the window. He doesn't notice when I stop talking altogether because Victoire has arrived.

Teddy hops up and greets her with a kiss that at first seems appropriately reserved—until he doesn't pull away. I look away quickly, twisting two strands of my brown hair together. When they join me at the table, Victoire sits with her back against the wall and rests her legs across Teddy's lap, who is happy enough to massage her feet and occasionally tickle her under her knees, which she responds to by whacking him playfully with the menu. After a while I guess even they get tired of their flirty banter, dripping with suggestiveness, and they order some drinks and start to chat more seriously about school and Teddy's work.

"Italian food!" Victoire gushes, her huge Veela-eyes glowing. "I didn't know you could cook!"

"Oh, baby," he whispers in a voice that's not as low as he thinks it is, "I can do anything with my wand."

"Mm." Victoire pulls him in for another kiss, but their smiles are too uncontrollable to keep it up for long. I think that makes it worse, actually.

"I just want this year to be over," Teddy whines. "You'll be out of Hogwarts and we'll be together… and Bri will be a Healer!"

I nearly drop my consoling friend, a glass of some kind of burning alcohol, at the sudden mention. "Uh, yeah," I stutter, wiping up the bit that sloshed out onto the table with a wad of napkins. "Yep, I'll get paid… finally."

Victoire smiles so supportively at me that I almost forget why she makes me want to jump in front of the Hogwarts Express. Then Teddy inexplicably plants a kiss on her perfectly pointed nose. Oh, right. That's why.

Thinking that maybe Des and Eli were right, I place a hand over my slightly nauseas stomach and announce that I think it's time for me to leave. They both initially protest, but the second I repeat myself they're happy enough to accept it and wish me on my way. I quickly decide that returning home early would just give Eli one more reason to be smug, so I pop into my mum's little place in town.

She's as thrilled as always to see me, and spends the first half hour that I'm there dashing about the kitchen, throwing together something for me to eat—even though I make it very clear that I'm not hungry. Once she's satisfied with a plate of cookies, bars and candy, she sits me down on the couch and plops it in my lap.

"Thanks, Mum," I've just barely said when she pops back up to get me something to drink. She returns with a glass of milk and delivers it straight to my hand. "Do you want anything?" I ask after taking an appreciative sip.

"Oh, no, I'm fine! How are you? How's work going? What brings you to Hogsmeade?"

My head spins with questions as she piles them on. I cut her off before she can continue with a quick summary of the past few weeks. Once I start talking she's all ears. I don't risk this by stopping, even if it's to eat some of those admittedly delicious-looking cookies. I tell her about the night shift that Des and I did a couple days ago, and about the surgery that Eli helped with during the past week.

"Are you going to do a surgery soon?" she asks me, her eyes excited.

I cram a cookie into my mouth giving me some time to chew and think. "Very good cookies, thanks," I say before taking a long drink of my milk. "Yeah, I don't know, most second-year interns don't assist in surgeries, like Eli did—she just assisted, she didn't actually perform one—but maybe I will before the year's over. Who knows?" Thinking I sidestepped it well enough, I continue on, "I was in Hogsmeade today with Teddy… and Victoire."

"Oh, is he still with her?"

"Yep…" I sigh, wondering how much time I surrendered to my mum and her relentless line of questioning when I knocked on her door.

"They've been together for a while then, haven't they?"

"You're telling me…"

"She's a nice girl, though, when I've seen her."

I give her a look that very pointedly asks which side she's on, and then demands that she be on mine. It's really not much to expect from your own mother!

"Oh, I'm sorry, Bri. You still fancy him?"

I'm glad she didn't say "in love with" but I don't think "fancy" is better; it sounds silly, like a crush.

"Yeah, I do, but…" I shake my head. "I don't know, it's stupid."

"Oh, honey…" She pulls my legs across her lap, looking like she would take the weight of the world off my shoulders if she could.

"It's just… if I had half as much Veela blood in me as Victoire I'd have him wrapped around my finger!"

"Of course you would," my mum says, stroking my hair. "But maybe it's good that you don't… maybe you two aren't meant to be.

I groan. "I don't care about 'meant to be'! Teddy is…"

"Perfect?" she supplies with a bittersweet smile. "I know that he's always as handsome as he wants to be, but… what's he been doing since he graduated beside writing his girlfriend and bleeding his grandma's retirement fund dry?"

I laugh despite myself. "That's… pretty much it, actually. Ooh, and he's working in a Muggle restaurant."

"He must get nice tips."

"He's a chef, actually."

She shakes her head, chuckling. "That's my point, though: you're on the fast-track to becoming a Healer. You're way out of his league."

I smile, nestling against her shoulder.

"Now, I've been hearing about Teddy nonstop for the past seven or eight years. There must be someone else!"

A little embarrassed by this, I try to think of someone—anyone—else. I can't.

My mum begins guessing. "What about Destin? You two have been friends for so long…"

"We live together," I point out, shaking my head fervently. "Not gonna happen."

"Gabryle? He's always been so nice."

"But he's… Gabe."

"Rafael? He's a handsome young man."

"He's too nice, almost."

My mum sighs and pats my knee. "Maybe you should just take a chance. It can't hurt."

"Maybe I'm fine with my life how it is now."

She raises an eyebrow, not needing to say anything for her message to be loud and clear.

"Well, I'm busy! Focusing on work."

"Not too busy to be a third-wheel on Teddy's dates."

"Mum, you sound like Eli! I don't need this from you."

"I'm sorry, you're right, sweetie." Her face lights up with a sudden though. "Eli's such a pretty girl, is she seeing anyone?"

Returning home I think that even the company of my meddling roommates will be better than that of my own mother. I find the two of them in the kitchen; Des seems to be on defense, backed into a corner, while Eli stands a few paces away from him, grinning smugly. This is nothing unusual, so I jump right into it.

"I have to get Teddy out of my head. This kid is going to kill me."

Eli nods in a way that implies I didn't say anything she didn't already know. "So, how'd third-wheeling it go?"

Why am I best friends with a less polite and more selfish version of my mother? "I didn't stay very long," I admit. "Nothing really happened."

"Oh!" Eli exclaims theatrically. "Nothing happened? Nothing happened… at all?" She takes a few slow steps toward Des as she says this. He looks past her to shoot me an apologetic look.

"Wait a second…" I rapidly glance between Eli and Des, putting it together. "Des, you told?"

"I'm sorry, but you know how Eli is… She's ruthless!"

"He snapped like a twig," Eli coos with malicious enjoyment. "I caught him on the details of the alleged Hinkypunk attack."

"You're not mentally healthy," I comment, annoyed that this is taking time away from my much-needed venting.

"Me? You guys lied to me! Why would you lie about something like that? I don't get it."

Her voice is a little too loud. I have no doubt in my mind that she knows exactly why we lied about the content of our first night shift; she just wants to hear us admit it. Neither Des nor I will give her that pleasure. The three of us have never had the most stable relationship.

A/N: Thanks for reading and please leave a review!