Four years later, Lily still remembers Sev's poetry word for word. No, not that kind of poetry, but everyone is disturbed anyway.


warnings: More Gryffindors, sorry 'bout that. Lots of sneaky manipulation and plot-forwarding next time, I promise.

Q&A: I'm not 100% sure anyone asked any questions about daily life per se. That's ok, you'll get Severus's opinion on Weetabix later (I have no idea what Weetabix tastes like, but Severus definitely has an opinion).

Let's try this, then: Ask a character a ridiculous internet-quiz type question!
(Not ones about other fandoms, please; I would probably waste writing time on the research if I allowed that.)

And do keep in mind that while characters will answer meta-truthfully if at all, they will reply in character. So giving Severus a sex-related quiz might be amusing but is not likely to be informative. And along those lines... sorry 'bout that, LittleBabyDamien... n,n;;;


Back room, Whizz Hard Books, Diagon Alley/Nelson, Lancashire

"You," Remus said reproachfully, folding his arms, "should not be here."

Lily stuck out her tongue at him and closed the door, bells jangling cheerfully behind her.

"I mean it!" Remus insisted, pulling up the stepstool people used for the high shelves and transfiguring it into something resembling a comfortable chair for her. "You're, what, three weeks to due?"

"Maaaaaybe," she said innocently, doing a reasonable approximation of the torso-waggle she did when she was faking innocent ignorance like a fake thing and wasn't gravid.

"And there's all dust. What if you sneezed and the baby just," he waved his hands frantically, "popped out or something?"

"It really doesn't work like that, Rey," she said, looking at him like he was the only person she knew who ought to have known better and was grievously disappointing her. Since she didn't bother to sit down, either the basket on her arm wasn't to be shared with him or, more likely, he was about to be cheerfully kidnapped. "Though if it did, it might save some trouble. How bad a time is this? Is this volunteer work?"

He appreciated her asking it that way. It sounded better to say 'yes, volunteer,' than 'no, not paid.' "No," he said cheerfully, "not a library. They have to actually pay their shelving serfs, even for pick-up shifts." That was one thing about a company like Whizz Hard Publications; they might have only thought they had a sense of humor, but it meant they wanted to think they were good people and salt of the earth and all. So they did try to act like it. Not bad people to work for, even if he couldn't get them to hire him in any steady sort of way. "Since you timed your visit for lunch, though…" It would be an early lunch, but he wasn't complaining.

"But I'm not eating here, it's all dusty," she said firmly. "Step smartly, it's on Jamie."

"That has less force in the taking advantage-of-him department now that you're married to him," he pointed out. If he passed up the chance to bring home leftovers, though, Sirius would accuse him of Exercising Uselessly Selfish Morality At The Expense Of The Firm. Remus knew this because he'd done it before. And it was an accusation that was so weird that there was just no answer to it. So he meekly wrote an on-break note and joined Lily at the door.

They didn't go to any of the places she'd dragged him to before. Instead, she took his arm without leaving the shop and apparated them to a deserted and rather dirty playground, the chains on the swings all rusted and creaking. In the distance, a few massive chimneys belched smoked, and more didn't. Remus could feel every single witty, incredulous comment Sirius would have wanted to make pushing up under his tongue. He just looked at Lily inquiringly.

She was looking around sadly. "I always wanted to clean this place up," she murmured. "You don't think people would ask too many questions, do you?"

He thought about it. "They wouldn't get answers," he said finally. "If we just cleaned, it wouldn't be obvious that the ninja Samaritans had had magic, would it? And that rust's got to be a tetanus hazard."

She looked at him gratefully. It was only a moment's work, and another for her to pull out and unshrink a picnic basket and cushion, set them up on the forlorn bench under the parched tree.

"You didn't grow up here?" he asked dubiously. It just seemed so unlikely.

"No-oo," she drew out. "We spent our summers nearby, though."

Summers. Remus had heard all about Lily's summers. Not even just from Lily, or from James at the top of his lungs. There had been those few cold, warming months early in '76, when he and Snape had been cautiously spiraling in around each other, before Sirius had sent it all to hell.

Should he comment? He wanted to, wanted to ask, Lily, you know you can't clean him up, right? Is there some reason you suddenly want to again?

But she was avoiding his eyes, rubbing a fallen hornbeam leaf between her fingers. Okay, then, she knew he wanted to say it. Best not to, then. At least for now.

He silently helped her unpack the basket, went through the ritual of Examining The Finger Sandwiches And Speculating On Their Dubious Contents. It was a commercial basket, not one she'd made herself, so even though it was a good commercial basket this was good for a few minutes' tension relief, without even making her bristle about her cooking skills.

The fact that it was a commercial hamper made him wonder how much of an impulse gathering him up for this little picnic had been. Not much of one at all, he suspected, looking at her face, although it might have looked that way to someone who didn't know her. A decision she'd wrestled with for a while, rather, and had come to a very sudden conclusion on. As she did. If it had been a real impulse she would have spent time on it, and showed up all harried and proud around twelve-thirty or one.

Eventually, though, when she'd gone through three sausage rolls without saying a word, he decided she needed a kick. Not just because he wanted a chance at the rolls before they disappeared, either.

"So," he asked, careful to sound idle, "s'there something you particularly wanted to talk about?" That would have been a mistake with almost anybody else under the sun, of course, but Lily and Subtle had never been even nodding acquaintances.

It was about the only thing that had kept Remus from sitting James down and talking to him about her in private, some days. She'd been fully capable of telling him to sod off when she'd wanted to, and Remus had always had a sneaking suspicion that she was about the only person in the world who was even capable of developing an appreciation for Jaime's over-the-top heart-on-his-sleeve style (although he didn't have that many close girl friends and apparently it was normal to be baffled when anyone was attracted to a brother, so he could be wrong about how strange her tastes were). Normal people would have assumed he was being sarcastic.

Especially as Prongs was actually quite good at sarcasm. Or at least at being drawlingly cruel in a way that resembled sarcasm if you didn't examine it too closely and realize he meant every word.

Lily thought he was silly and embarrassing, but the idea that he didn't mean it had never occurred to her. Well, not once she'd started to care whether he meant it or not. Before that she'd been fairly well convinced he hadn't, and fairly well disgusted about it.

"Yes," she said, in an admitting-it tone, "but I'm not supposed to tell you."

He blinked at her, and then started laughing, and informed her, "I love you, Lils."

She threw a gherkin at him with a scowl. Padfoot would probably have caught it neatly in even his human mouth. And then leered suggestively and bounced his eyebrows like a double-sized Groucho Marx. Remus did catch it in his mouth, but only after it had bounced off his nose.

When he'd wiped his face off, he said, "Go on, then. Tell me what you feel you can tell me. Or talk around it. Or," he waved a hand, "so on."

Being Lily, Lily took a good couple of minutes to try and work out how to do that. Remus ate an orange and very civilly did not spell circumlocution for her. Eventually, she said, "I was telling Professor Dumbledore something very important when the attack happened, and he'd just told me to sit on it until he decided what to do, but now it's been a while and it might be time-sensitive but he's probably really busy…"

"Is there an oxygen tank in here?" Remus wondered, peeking into the hamper.

"What?"

"Breathe," he suggested, and raised his eyebrows at her.

She didn't throw another pickle, which was moderately alarming. Instead, she aarghed, "I just don't know what to do. I mean, he's probably really busy. The British mugwumps have been overseeing the cleanup in the Orkneys and working with the Aurors to reinforce the border wards, and the Wizengamot already holds the Assizes during the holidays so he won't be called away for trials while classes are in session, there's a real buildup over the summer, Moody says. And he must have things to do at the school…"

"Lily," Remus said practically. "How old is Dumbledore?"

She frowned, and went into her purse. After a bit of rooting, she came out with her Albus Dumbledore Chocolate Frog card. The picture on it looked at her in gentle inquiry, but drifted off to the side when she just smiled and shook her head. They were only supposed to use the cards to contact Dumbledore in an emergency. Looking at the back, she said, "It doesn't say. I don't know."

"Probably over seventeen, though, I expect?" he suggested.

She eyed him, eyes rather brighter than the parched leaves overhead. "If not, he's a real magician with spirit gum and a fake beard."

"He can probably decide for himself how busy he is, then, don't you think?"

"Well, that's what I was thinking," she said earnestly, stealing a wedge of his orange. "Since I haven't heard back from him, doesn't that probably mean—"

"Lily." He shoved his eyes into his hands, and then yelped and scrambled to flush the orange juice sting away. Not that he didn't get worse on a calendar-regular basis, but that he was expecting. "Yow!"

"Baby," she noted, smiling, and handed him a wet handkerchief.

"Thanks," he said, wiping his eyes, and then gave her a very serious tired look. "But stop."

"Stop what?"

"You know what," he said direly. "You're doing it again."

"…I'm not trying to read his mind," she protested, shifting uncomfortably with her arms wrapped around her belly, keeping her balance on the narrow bench. "I just thought, since—"

"You 'just thought, since,' when you thought Jamie and Marlene were seeing each other behind your back in seventh year, too," he reminded her.

"Be fair, Marlene was trying to make me think—"

"And you fell for it. But they were actually?" he prompted.

She sighed, and grumbled, "Planning my surprise party…"

"And when you thought you were going to catch Padfoot's cousin selling the answer sheet to McGonagall's midterms?"

"It was still mean," she insisted.

"Maybe," he allowed, "but a poetry reading isn't actually against the rules." And it hadn't actually been all that mean, as roasts of authority figures went. Particularly roasts by Slytherin girls who could get away with just about anything. No criminal or even really slanderous allegations, and the musing over who on the faculty or in the Ministry its subject had been pulling had alternated between delicate and playful. Said subject had reputedly been rather tickled by it (although the Tartan had nearly blown a blood vessel or three).

Remus believed that, although not that he'd given Slytherin points for it or had the parchment framed and put up in his office. Narcissa had probably calculated how nasty she could be without getting into trouble down to the syllable, if you could believe what Padfoot said about her. What Remus had wondered was how much of it she'd written on her own (one word? Two?) and whether she knew that the poem 'she'd' satirized was muggle. Probably not, since Snape was still alive.

"And I'd bet you anything she didn't write it herself," Lily went on darkly, in harmony with his thoughts but evidently still rankled. "'What shaggy tassels fray about thy limbs,' ha. Don't tell me that's not Sev all over."

"…Er?" Remus frowned. He started to rub a fold of his trouser-leg between his fingers nervously, and stopped.

"'What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape,'" she stormed on. "Was the original line. He got both Ls, the SH, the S, an AY sound, and the FR in. And suggested hairy legs. The whole thing was like that. Ode on a Sequined Robe by Narcissa Black, my eye."

Remus paused. Stepped discretely over the tangle of lurking obsessions. "I mean," he said carefully, "since when is Snape 'Sev' again?"

She went still, surprised, as if she hadn't really heard herself.

"Lily, why are we here?"

She curved a little over her stomach, wrapping her arms around its great curve again. "He'd know what to do, and I can't exactly go ask him," she said miserably, staring at the ground, and Remus breathed again. "Or Tuney. She wouldn't even want to see me. I told you she had her baby, didn't I?" He nodded. She didn't sigh, exactly, but her breath out was very unhappy. "I could talk to Mum and Dad, but they'd want me to explain everything. Even if Dumbledore hadn't told me to sit on it, if they knew how things were getting they'd be worried…"

"Well, I know what to do," Remus said firmly. One always did, when it was someone else's problem. "Owl him and say there must be a lot of demands on his time since the attack, so is there anything you can do on your own until he can spare a moment."

She looked at him, pained. "Rey, that's so… passive-aggressive."

He blinked. "I thought it was polite."

"Well, yes," she allowed, her voice adding, BUT.

"Well, what would Snape tell you to do, then?" he asked, a bit peeved.

"Not bother about him and work on it myself," she said promptly. "Or go bang on his door and say, 'HELLO, this is important, TOO, let me kindly assume you've just forgotten and punish you by educating you at length about all the thirty-odd potions against age-related memory deterioration I can think of off the top of my head.'" She paused. "Well, I don't know if he'd tell me to say that, exactly, but it's about what he'd say. —What?"

"What?"

"You look really disturbed."

"I am really disturbed," he admitted. "If you'd stopped before the sarcasm, those would have sounded exactly like what Sirius would tell you."

"…Thank you," she glowered, "now I'm really disturbed, too."

"What will you do, then?"

"See if Mum still has Tuney's old copy of Debrett's Guide to Correspondence," she grumbled. "He's older than dirt, he should appreciate that."

"O…kay," said Remus in a backing away slowly voice. He could, actually, work out what that was from context, and assumed also that it was Muggle, and really did not want further details.

He took another sandwich, and looked at his watch while he ate it. There was plenty of time before he had to get back, so he asked, "Lily, I am right in thinking that you and Snape used to spend a lot of time here when you were kids?"

"…Some," she said warily. "Why are you using Apologetic Voice #5?"

"…You have my apologetic voices numbered?" he asked, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

"No, Rosier and Ben did them," she said. "Instead of listening to the other years' prefects' reports. It wasn't just you, either. They had about thirty of Lovegood's Not Seeing What's In Front Of Him faces. Number Five for you was Probably Actually Sort Of Regretful But Definitely Stubborn."

"All right, fair cop," he agreed, not surprised that Evan Rosier, their year's male Slytherin prefect, hadn't been paying attention in meetings or that Ben Goldstein, the Ravenclaw one, had defaulted to making lists when he was bored. They must have started that in sixth year, after James had taken over for him, though. They would have included him at least occasionally if it had been a thing before Sirius had blown everyone's lives up, and for the rest of that year Rosier hadn't been relaxed and fooling around in prefect meetings.

Oh, he'd sprawled all over his chair looking, to the casual eye, half-asleep, very nearly as usual. On closer examination, though, his eyes and Narcissa Black's had both been cool and hard, barely ever lifting off Remus and Lily. They hadn't looked like they knew, not exactly knew. Still, they'd made Remus very nervous, waiting for the thumbscrews and hot pokers to come out.

"It's just," he went on, "if Snape would consider this holy ground—"

"Holy ground?" she scoffed. "We played here sometimes as kids."

"—Then I have a contractual obligation to desecrate it and send him pictures," he finished, apologetically again, and added, "Sorry."

She shot him are-you-mental eyebrows, and asked, "What do you mean, a contractual obligation?" in a voice to match.

"It's in my lease," he apologized.

Lily stared. "In your lease," she repeated flatly.

He shrugged lamely. "Well, I'm subletting from Padfoot, technically, and he's really being extremely reasonable about the rent, and… you know those contracts he does, where you'd swear they were a joke and he was just playing around when he wrote them, but then if you agreed in the first place you're stuck because he actually never stops thinking they're funny, and you always do agree because he gets so caught up in it you get caught up too and forget that jokes aren't a joke to him?"

"…Oh, god."

"Look, I didn't ever expect to be in a position to meet any of his stupid conditions. But here we are."

She went on staring. Flatly. You know, Remus, her eyes said, I do NOT always agree, I NEVER agree, because rolling over for the excited-puppy eyes is not mandatory, so STOP.

Instead of answering directly, he kept up the meekish-but-firm tone and said, "I'm thinking psychedelic art… and I do have to get back, so probably something simple. Apparently-spray-paint, I guess. What do you think, tie-dye? Fractals? Flowers and peace signs? Nothing that'll upset the local parents too much, obviously."

"I don't know you," Lily said, shaking her head, and apparated away. She couldn't have completely stopped him now that he'd been here, and she knew it, could only have delayed him for the moment. Her lack of trying didn't mean it wasn't a real rebuke: she'd taken the hamper with her.

He didn't have a choice, though, not really. Sirius knew when he felt guilty, and would know if he was telling the truth about what he felt guilty about, and the idiotic thing was actually in his bloody lease.


Next: Albus may be Supreme High Banana of the This-That, the Whatnot, and the Whoozit, but that doesn't mean he gets taken seriously. There is a reason for that. Filius will explain, using words of a length suitable for Gryffindors. Of course, intelligent does not mean immune to shameless manipulation...

Q&A!

LittleBabyDamien: I want to ask the same questions of several of our characters, each one relating to Muggle culture in a specific decade. Tom, focus on the fifties, Severus, on the sixties, and Peter, on the seventies. One: what music typifies the era for you? Any specific songs that stand out to you? Two: What car would you drive, if you had no limitations or restrictions? Three: what major news event, political for preference, stands out from that era? Or, if you prefer, what was the first international event that you remember, regardless of decade?

Tom (1950s):
1. (loathing) Christmas music. Sometimes one couldn't get it out of one's head in June. And that loathsome treacly crooner Sinatra. I think he took lessons from Binns, I'd swear his every song went on quite as long as one of those lectures.
2. CRUCIO! As if Lord Voldemort would stoop to filthy Muggle transportation!
3. Whether you call it World War II or the climax of the long Grindelwald War, the first international event I remember is almost certainly the same one everyone my age does. The Blitz made quite an impression, particularly on London in my third and fourth years at Hogwarts. So thoughtful of the school to insist on sending us 'home' every summer, when children with parents were being sent to the countryside in droves, to carefully check afterwards to ensure there was a shelter and full table to return in summer to.

again, sorry about that. Did not intend cursing the readers to be a possibility, but that was his response...

Peter (1970s):

1. I guess it's not very creative, but everyone in Gryffindor listened to the Beatles a lot. Later on Sirius got into The Who and the Rolling Stones and the Sex Pistols, er, really anything he thought would annoy his mum, I think, especially if they had good t-shirts, so we heard a lot of hair band stuff. But if you want to ask about typifies, I'd have to say sitting around stoned trying to sing Hey Jude in the same key.
2. Um, I don't know a lot about cars. Sorry. Sirius is the one who likes engines and things. Sometimes he says something is the Ferrari of whatever kind of thing it is, though, like it's a really good thing to be, so I guess maybe that?
3. The Indian Emergency. Everyone was talking about it, because it wasn't voluntary for squibs to get sterilized like it was for muggles, and they were sterilizing kids who hadn't shown magic yet but still had a few years before other countries would have written them off.

Severus (1960s):

1. There was a local band, A Glass Menagerie. It mostly did covers, but they had a few of their own songs, and Bowie may have heard one or two of them, it's thought. If there was one thing the other boys in the area thought I was good for, it was sneaking them into cinemas and concerts and the like, so I ended up hearing a lot of them, and Lily liked them. I didn't think about whether I liked them or not, but I liked going, at least with her. I listened to one of their songs, I Say Goodbye To Me, an embarrassing number of times a few years later, when I was... coming to some conclusions. They released it in '69, so I suppose you could say that stands out from the decade. But I think really I'd say... Da knew a lot of music hall songs from his mam, he used to whistle them when things were good. When he was in a quite good mood he'd sing Two Lovely Black Eyes at Mam. It was about the inevitability of getting hit in the face over politics if one chooses to be loud about one's views, in fact, but she knew what he meant.
2. I'm quite attached to my Silver Arrow, thank you. If I were to choose one, though, I suppose I'd be hard-pressed to choose between whichever was safest, with blind-spot coverage and that computer that tells you if you're going to hit something low behind you, and a Tesla. One of the benefits of being a wizard is knowing you're not adding to the pollution problem.
3. There may not have been one particular news event so much as being constantly aware of the Troubles and the murders over Manchester way... although Da (rolls eyes) really did not ever shut up about Neil Armstrong or the heart transplant success in South Africa for about five years.

Very Small Prophet: After reading Lily's answer, I have a question for James: DID you change? If so, in what way? And why?

James: I guess I must have, as I'm not going to completely blow that off. (g)
(Crickets)
J: (annoyed no one is amused) I dunno if people really change, but you know how it is. You get older, the adults hide less of the problems from you and you realize more and more that they're your problems, and... they start to feel difference. Frexample, Mum and Dad raised me to hate the Dark Arts and I always did, but you hear about things happening to your friends' families, so you start to read the newspapers, and... hating them was always real, but you start to know why, and it gets stronger, sort of deeper. And you realize things like your friends are having problems that are easy solves, no problem, all you have to do is throw money at it and poof, only nobody would accept that so you've got to treat the life problems like they're targets you want to prank and be clever about it, not get caught. And the other part of growing up where you have to accept that even your best friends, even your wife who's ordinarily brilliant, isn't going to agree with you about everything because she's stubborn, and actually you like that about her so you have to live with it, so you have to find ways to work around the disagreements if you're not going to change your mind either, being right.
Author: Actually, James, when people ask you that what they mostly want to know is did you stop going after Snape.
J: (disgusted noise) I don't know why everyone's thinking about him all the time. I mean, I do because I'm keeping an eye on him because he's dangerous, but he's not interesting. Fine, mostly, yeah. Well, less. Like I said, I keep an eye on him, and sometimes I make sure he knows it so he doesn't think he can sneak around and get away with anything, but not like at school. If I kept a really tight leash on him Padfoot would want in, and one of those problems I mentioned earlier is that it's sort of my job to keep him from going overboard. He gets, er, enthused about things. I try to encourage him about his bike.

Hwyla: I think I may have commented on this before (and it doesn't really 'fit' 'everyday life), but has Lily ever been informed about the 'Werewolf Incident' = specifically how the reason Sev went there (in your story) was because he thought she was there? I'm not even sure she knows Remus is a werewolf in this story. I feel pretty sure that she didn't know in canon.

Author: The answer to your question as asked is a straightforward 'no,' and therefore Lily can't hear that question to answer it because her brain would explode. However, she can answer the rest of the comment.

Lily: I do know he's a werewolf now. They told me as a sort of early wedding present, sort of the way witches and wizards tell muggles they're going to marry that they have magic. As a trust thing, although it's not really all that much of a trust thing when you know obliviate, is it? But I'm sure Sev didn't know at school. I know he guessed, but he couldn't have known. If he'd known he would have told me. I mean, obviously Remus would bite his tongue and kill himself before he hurt a fly, but Sev didn't think that, so he would have thought Remus was really, really dangerous. And if he knew and he didn't tell me, well... I know we were rocky and he was hanging out with people who were trying to convince him I was less human than, well, werewolves, but I'm sure he was never that bad a friend to me, right?
Severus: I... what... no... that's just... TOO MANY KINDS OF NO. (bangs head repeatedly on wall)
Sirius: Nice one, Buttercup! (takes picture for posterity)
Remus: (tries to sidle away to possibly Calcutta where no one has ever met him)

Louise: I do have a question for Peter and Severus (and the Blacks, I suppose). Which of you lot knew that Peter was seeing Voldemort during the first war? If not then, when did you find out?
Author: LOL, I'm gonna blame the cold medicine for you just asked me to, you know, tell you the rest of the plot... but insofar as we can answer...
Peter: What? I'd never have anything to do with You Know Who! I mean, other than (gulp) if Dumbledore sent me on a mission, I guess.
Reg: I know I had to soften him up for Lucy Wilkes, but no one actually tells me anything. (not quite a sulk)
Evan: You're not supposed to need people to tell you things, kitten. No one tells me or Narcissa anything, either, we had to figure it out from how Lucy brought him along to your dinner party.
Severus: What about the overfed muskrat?
Evan: NOTHING LALALALALALALALA!
Severus: ...riiiiight... (eyes Evan suspiciously but goes back to potions journal. Someone will allow him to know when he ought to.)
Evan: Phew! (imagines the tantrums if Severus knew a Marauder was nosing into his circle and sweats)

Louise: Severus, how did you manage to not, ah, accidentally dispose of Peter when he was placed as your roommate, now knowing his role in Lily's murder?
Severus: Despite popular opinion, that is, more or less, what Occlumency is for. At least that's how I use it. In any case, Pettigrew may have thought that he was there to spy on me, but it was entirely clear to me that he was placed with me at least in part, if not primarily, for genteel and prolonged torture as punishment for being irritating. He may be unusually successful as a sneak for a Gryffindor, but that doesn't mean he understands Slytherin. I wasn't allowed to actually drown him in the fondue pot, of course, as he was theoretically in moderate favor and that would have made it look as though being in favor was worthless. However, the day I have to resort to physical pain to distribute the death of a thousand cuts to a wet, fumbling Gryff who already despises himself and knows the feeling is universal...
Narcissa: (pats his hand) In other words, he's a marshmallow.
Severus: (annoyed) In other words, I think death is an end to pain.

Louise: Also - I just read the notes, and I'm confused - did I miss a major plot point? Who has given whom a love potion? (Lips pursed and eyes preemptively brimming over with disillusioned tears.)
E: (rolls eyes) No one has given anyone a love potion, for Merlin's sake.
S: (brightly) Although I wouldn't put it past Narcissa to have slipped us both one to make sure we didn't break up her support system attaching ourselves to Other People.
E: (glares) You. Would. Have. Noticed.
S: (grinning) Maybe I didn't dare cross her.
E: Not! Funny! Since when do you think love potions are less than monstrous?!
S: Since never. But the idea that they can be blamed or credited for relationships that a pensieve would prove to have built up naturally over time based on pre-existing liking and trust proven justified is beyond laughable. They provide affectionate obsession and/or lust, with mooning and/or stalking. The signs of a potion-induced relationship are very obvious and do not include you thumping me all the time as if we were still adolescents in the Slytherin dorms, or the affected party being able to hold down a job if continually dosed over time, or anybody insulting anybody on a regular basis or blithely ignoring anyone's strongly-felt opinions and expressed desires in important matters like rent. Tyrannosaurus Musclehead.
E: (g) You lost, Spike, get over it.
S: (makes face) Lockhart just assumes what many people probably do assume because he, like them but more so, is an idiot, and may never have been in contact with reality or human-person emotion in his life. Furthermore, I strongly suspect he's not above using them himself and may even have had them used on him, and he's certainly been slapped down by enough mothers to be baffled by the fact that yours tolerates me. He cannot understand it as a natural happenstance and therefore assumes dark magic.
E: I don't actually understand that, either. Not that I'm complaining. Did you just admit you like and trust me? Out loud? In public? :D
S: (sniff) I said no such thing. No nouns or pronouns were used. Obviously I meant you.
E: I know you did! :D
S: (glare) You know what I mean.
E: Yes, I do. :D
S: ...(sigh) Yes, I suppose you do.
E: ^_^