Chapter 18

Posters, Popcorn, and Pleasantries

Twenty minutes later, Harry and Cassie left her house, heading to the Underground station that was not terribly far away. It was only 7:15 but Cassie told him they should get to the theater early because there would probably be large crowds. Harry would have begged off right then but reminded himself that chances were extremely slim that wizards would be attending a Muggle movie. After all, in all of his time he had spent in the wizarding world, he had never heard anyone mention going to the movies as a possible entertainment. Of course, he knew there was no theater in Hogsmeade so maybe it just wasn't an option at school.

They didn't say much as they walked along, feeling perfectly happy just to be together. The sun was still up even though the shadows were getting longer. Harry was quite nervous about the evening ahead, hoping that he would not do anything that made him stand out in this large crowd of people and hoping if he did, Cassie would cover for him. Cassie reached over and took his hand. He relaxed a bit. His fingers slipped between hers and he tugged her a little closer.

"Tonight was really great. I love your family. Your brother Matthew is quite the jokester, isn't he?" Cassie nodded and blushed a little bit at the reminder of Matthew's antics before dinner. Harry still wanted to know what it was that she had said before he got there. However, he decided he would wait and ask that later. So he moved onto a safer subject. "Your mum really is a fantastic cook, Cassie. You come by it naturally." She laughed.

"You've never eaten a single thing I've ever cooked. So you don't know if I'm a good cook or not."

"True."

"But sometime I could cook for you. My mum doesn't know, but I make really wicked chocolate biscuits."

"Ah. Sure, that sounds great." Harry smiled to himself. She apparently had gotten over her campaign to see that he ate only healthy items and had even hinted that she would be eating junk food with him at the theater later. He hoped he had enough money with him. She had never really answered his question about the money but there was nothing he could do about it now. They reached the station and bought the tickets for the train. It was fairly crowded as they descended to the platform, and Harry hoped they wouldn't have to wait too long.

"Looks like it will be about five minutes," Cassie said, glancing at the electronic signs by the tracks. "Good. That should get us to the theater in plenty of time." She paused. "Harry," her voice was a little hesitant, "Now that I think about it, I kind of feel like maybe I forced you into this tonight." Harry was just trying to formulate an answer to that when a crowd of people forced their way past the two of them and pushed her right into him. He let his arms slide around her waist and pulled her back against him. He decided right then that maybe being in crowded places was not such a bad idea after all. She leaned into him, her hands on his. "We sure seem destined to be pushed together all the time. I must have a target on me or something."

Harry laughed. "Well, I'm not going to complain. I like being close to you." She smelled really good, as always. He wasn't sure if it was her shampoo or the soap that she used. He bent his head to her neck, intent on finding out if it was just her hair or if it was on her skin, also. But before he could really get close enough to tell, she moved.

"I like being close to you, too." She separated a little bit from him, though, and turned so that she was looking up into his face. "You have never told me what this is. Are you ever planning to?" Her hand had once again sought out and found his wand. Harry moved her hand quickly, but she would not be deterred, twisting her hand from his and once again laying it over the handle of his wand right under his heart. Her eyes were very blue and big as they looked into his and he realized he probably could not put it off any longer.

"I'm sorry, Cassie. I'll tell you. I really will. Just not now. I can't really talk about it now."

"Why not? No one is paying any attention to us."

"Well, it's . . .Well, it's kind of complicated." Harry was feeling very nervous now. Who knew what sort of people were around them on this crowded platform? "I promise, Cassie, we'll talk about it soon. Really. As soon as we're somewhere with a little more privacy." He was grateful the train arrived right then and they pushed through the crowd of people to get onto one of the cars. The train was as crowded as the platform had been, and Harry felt rather aggravated they could not sit down somewhere.

Cassie had to yell pretty loudly to be heard over the roar of the train moving through the tunnel. "It's only about 15 minutes to our stop! Let's just stand!" They both grabbed a pole a little further up the car, and he made sure his fingers were overlaying hers as they hurtled along. There was really no way to have a conversation so Harry spent his time watching her. She looked fantastic in that red dress and he was glad she hadn't changed out of it. Her mum had suggested that she change into more casual clothes to go to the movies, but she had decided not to because Harry had to stay dressed up. A few bits of hair had fallen out of the ponytail and were curling around her face. He reached out to her and tucked one of the thicker ones behind her ear. She smiled up at him gratefully and he noticed that she was once again worrying her lower lip with her teeth. Apparently, she did this when she was thinking hard about something or distressed. He squeezed her hand a little on the pole and let his other hand brush her cheek. She smiled.

Their stop came up very quickly, and they got off the train. This station was a lot quieter and Harry was grateful for the silence as they exited the platform, heading for street level. Cassie did not bring up the subject of his wand again immediately, and he was glad. On the street, there were quite a few people walking toward the brightly lit theater ahead. His watch gave a time of 7:40 so he thought they would have plenty of time to get into the movie before it started. There was a little bit of a line as they queued up in front of the ticket booth and Harry listened carefully as the people in front of him bought their tickets. "Two, please, for the 8:15 Bond."

"Read the sign, pal. That one's sold out."

Harry looked at Cassie with a little panicked expression. He had no idea what he should do now. She smiled reassuringly at him, "It's okay. Let's just do the 8:45."

"Uh, alright. 8:45, then," he said to the teenager. This seemed to do the trick because two tickets got pushed under the window after Harry sent in his money. He realized he really had been foolish to worry about the money. He had plenty. He took Cassie's hand again as they entered the theater. She led him over to a wall on the far side of the lobby where there was yet another queue. "We'll have to wait here a while before we can actually get in to sit down." They talked for a few minutes as they waited.

"So, Cassie, I've been dying to ask you, ever since Matthew brought it up. . ." Harry raised an eyebrow at her and she flushed immediately. As he suspected, she knew exactly what it was he wanted to know. She shook her head.

"I'm not going to say. I can't be forced to incriminate myself." She was literally about the color of her dress. Harry decided that this must be worth pursuing. He crowded her a little, and bent close.

"Come on, you can tell me."

She shook her head again. "My lips are sealed. I won't talk."

"Well, I guess I could always ask Matthew when we get back to your house tonight."

"He'll be in bed by then."

"You're being awfully stubborn about this." Harry thought for a minute. He was in a public place and didn't want to draw attention to himself, so he backed off a bit. She relaxed and he decided that this was the moment to make his move. He grabbed her hand, and brought it up to his chest. He took his index finger and started running it across her palm, carefully tracing her lifeline as he had been taught to do in Trelawney's class. As he suspected, she was a little ticklish there and before too long, she was squirming, trying to pull her hand away, laughing.

"All right, I'll talk. I'll talk. Just stop that."

"So, talk." He stopped tickling her hand and held it in his instead.

"I just said . . ." She flushed again and he moved his finger to encourage her to keep talking.

She said the next sentence very quickly, like if she got it out fast in wouldn't be as embarrassing. "I just said I think you are really cute and that I hoped that maybe we could, uh, well, date. And I hoped that you would think I was cute, too." He laughed quietly.

"Well, and here we are on an official date. And I do think you are very pretty. So all your wishes have come true at once, kind of like Christmas." She flushed and relaxed against him. He held her weight for a few minutes as she buried her face against his shoulder.

"I think this is even better than Christmas." Harry smiled above her head. He had to agree. They stood there for a few minutes, marveling at how lucky they both were to be there together. After a minute, Harry remembered that he wanted to ask her something else.

"Cassie, can I ask you a question?"

"Sure, what?"

"Well, I assumed that the movie was going to be longer than 30 minutes. I thought it was more like a couple hours or something." She started laughing, and Harry realized he had probably said something really stupid. But, as always, her laugh did strange things to his insides and he knew she didn't mind even when he did sound like a fool.

"They are showing it on different screens, Harry. This theater has the movie going on right now that probably started at about 6:00 or so. When that film gets out, we'll go in. The movie is about two hours."

"Oh, sorry. I just. . . ."

"It's okay. I don't mind. It's obvious that you haven't been to many movies."

"Yeah. I think this might be the first, actually. I certainly don't remember ever going to one before. Not in the theater."

"You have got to be kidding me." The line started moving before Harry could assure her that he was completely serious. They stood for a couple moments in front of a wall advertising all the movies playing at that time.

"Here, Harry. This is the poster for the movie. Tomorrow Never Dies. It looks great, doesn't it?" Harry let his eyes wander all over the poster. It did look fairly exciting. The hero, Bond, he assumed, looked suitably daring and the two women on the poster looked very attractive. "Of course," Cassie continued, "I've always thought Pierce Brosnan would make the perfect Bond. I was so glad when he started doing the films. He's dreamy." Harry assumed that this Brosnan character was the tall, dark, handsome man on the poster. He felt a stab of irrational jealousy at Cassie's praise for him. Then his eyes focused on the words across the top of the poster, right under the title and he felt a sudden thrill on the back of his neck.

"Who's James?"

"What?" Cassie had not followed his sudden shift of conversation.

"James. It says here, 'Watch as James once again saves the world.'"

"Well, James Bond, of course. Bond, James Bond." She looked at him and Harry tried hard to regain some composure. It had just come as such a shock.

"That was my dad's name."

"What?" She asked again.

"James. My dad's name was James."

"Oh. I'm sorry . . . I guess I just assumed. . . . Well, I mean everybody knows James Bond, don't they?"

"Not me. I've never heard of him before." Harry was tired of bluffing his way around this. He had enough stuff that he was going to have to lie to her about. He was going to at least be honest about this.

"Okay." She paused, "I guess if you really don't want to see . . . . We could just . . ." She truly looked distraught and Harry felt immediately like the biggest prat in the world. After all, it wasn't like the name James was copyrighted or anything. It was a very common name.

"No. Cassie. I'm sorry. I didn't want to admit how stupid I am about all this sort of stuff. I just thought it would be easier to go along with your brother when he started talking about it, and then I didn't want to admit . . . how stupid I can be about these things. But I do really want to go to the movie with you. It looks fantastic. It really does."

They made their way into the theater where the movie would be starting in about 45 minutes and found seats in the middle of a row about a third of the way from the back of the theater. "Is this all right?" Cassie asked as they sat down. He nodded vaguely because he had no idea. "Just tell me one thing, Harry." He looked over at her and saw she was smiling again. He was glad because her next words came as truly a shock. "Are you an alien from outer space or something? Sometimes you seem like you have absolutely no clue about normal everyday things. Like someone told you how to act human, but didn't fill in all the details." Harry thought this was a pretty accurate description of how he felt. Of course, he couldn't really tell her the reason for this complete detachment from what she would consider normal.

"No, I am definitely not an alien." Harry could not believe she had actually asked him that. But, then he thought, he might be getting suspicious, also, if the situation were reversed. He realized they were alone in the row and that the other people in the theater were a distance away. "I'm not an alien, Cassie. It's just that my school is a little isolated and the curriculum is a little, um, peculiar so I don't have a chance to do what you might think are normal things." She seemed to be accepting of this explanation, so he pressed forward. "And my aunt had a policy that if she could do anything to make me happy, that thing was to be avoided at all costs." She grinned a little lopsided grin like she always did when he said something like that. He had given up trying to convince her that this was actually truly how Petunia and Vernon had thought. "Anyway, so she never took me places or had me do things with her and as a result, I don't really know a whole lot about, uh, well, you know cultural sorts of things."

Cassie was nodding. "I guess that makes sense." There was a slight pause and then she shifted gears completely. "Your school really must be kind of odd. Did you really take three years of astronomy?"

Oh, great. She remembered that. The girl had a mind like a trap. Nothing passed her by and Harry felt an irrational surge of pleasure to think about how bright she was. "Yes. Well, okay, actually five years of it. But I'm done now. Haven't taken it this last year and won't again."

"Wow. You must be an expert. That's incredible. Maybe sometime we could look at my constellation. You said that you could find it easily." Harry nodded. That sounded really nice. They settled into their chairs a little and Harry suddenly remembered that she had mentioned something about popcorn.

"Did you want some popcorn or something?" Harry hoped he was not going to have to get it himself. He did not know exactly what he was doing here, either. But she willingly went with him to the snack counter and they got a decent sized popcorn (although Harry was still full from dinner and told her as much) a couple of drinks, and Harry even splurged and got a package of candy that he had not had for years. Cassie seemed fairly enthused about the candy and Harry remembered the chips a few days before and teased that he would have to buy another package of candy just for her, but she promised, eyes flashing, that she would share this time. When they got back into the theater, their seats were still available and amazingly still fairly isolated from the rest of the people.

"I guess this show isn't going to sell out tonight." Cassie said, looked around in surprise. "I guess we could have stayed home a little longer."

"That's all right. It's a little easier to talk here, anyway." Harry leaned back against his chair and reached for her hand again, staring unseeingly at the curtains that covered what he supposed was the movie screen. He supposed it was time, now, to deal with the subject of his wand. "I promised we would talk about this." He indicated his shirt and the wand underneath it. "What do you think it is, Cassie?"

"I . . . Well, I think you, . . . well, it sounds stupid, . . .but it's like it gives you protection or something."

"Yeah, that's kind of what it is." Harry sighed. "I really can't explain the whole thing. It's just too complicated. I can only tell you that I need to keep it with me all the time or something bad could happen. I honestly can't explain anything more than that." He glanced sideways at her. She was just looking at him with a slight smile. "You are just going to have to know that I have it and that you aren't going to know what it's for. Can you live with that?" He closed his eyes. If she got up and left him now, he would really not blame her. To his surprise, though, rather than leave, she just raised their interlocked fingers to her mouth and pressed a kiss against his knuckles.

He felt lightning shoot from his knuckles down his arm and right to his lungs. He caught his breath. "So, Harry, I basically have a choice. I can either be with you and not know why you carry a stick around with you or not be with you at all." She spoke slowly like she was weighing every word before she said it.

"Yeah." His voice came out a bit croaky.

"Oh." She didn't say anything for a minute. "I'd already decided that I would rather get to know you with all your secrets - and you do have a lot of secrets, Harry - than not know you at all. I'll take what I can get." Harry sat there, absolutely flattened by what she had just said. The amount of trust in her eyes was incredible. "I just ask one thing. Don't lie to me. If you can't answer a question or can't explain something, than just tell me and I won't ask again. But I want to know that what you do tell me I can believe." Harry thought about this for a minute.

"I think I can agree to that."

"Good." She reached out and touched his face. "I really think you're wonderful. Have I told you that?"

Harry sat there, trying to absorb her words. He hoped that she would never have cause to regret knowing him. He knew that he would never regret knowing her even if he could never see her again after tonight. At that point, Cassie leaned over and picked up the box of popcorn and offered it to him. Harry tried some and was very surprised at how good it was. They sat there for a few minutes, munching on the popcorn and just enjoying watching the people coming in to the theater.

"Tell me about your friends, Harry. You do have friends, don't you?"

"I have two of the very best friends in the world." Harry answered her truthfully. "I have a lot of other people who I like and who like me but there are two who I just . . ." He stopped. He missed them so much. It was hard to talk about them without choking up and that would make him sound like a total prat. He continued, swallowing hard. "Ron. He is very funny and tries to do anything he can to get out of schoolwork. He has five older brothers and one younger sister. He . .. . Well. He's Ron." He didn't know what else he could say. "And then there's Hermione, the smartest girl by far in our year." He felt rather than heard her indrawn breath. He smiled. " Ron and Hermione are in love with each other. They just won't admit it to themselves. We are all just waiting for them to see the obvious." He chuckled in a low voice. It was true those two had dated a little but they constantly seemed to be at each other's throats, and every week someone else in the common room was making a betting pool as to when they would finally stop arguing and start kissing. So far, Harry was refusing to put in any bets. It felt too disloyal.

"Tell me about Her . . . Hermi . . ." She stumbled over the name, like almost everyone did when they first heard it.

"Her- my-own- knee. Well, she has a motto and that is, 'When in doubt, go to the library.' She always does her homework weeks ahead of time and likes to nag Ron and me into studying for our tests. I don't know if we would have passed last year if it weren't . . ." Again, Harry broke off. This year, he wouldn't be there for end-of-term exams. He could picture both Ron and Hermione studying for the exams without him, crying like Sir Lionel had said. He hoped they both passed their tests. If they didn't, it was possible that Hermione would kill him, this time for real.

"Tell me about Ron, then." Harry thought for a few moments before he answered. It was a little hard to sum his friendship with Ron up in just a few words. He could go on for hours about their various adventures. After all, it had been Ron who had gone into the Forbidden Forest with him, all those years ago, Ron who had stood on a broken leg in the Shrieking Shack and told Sirius that he would have to kill him before he could kill Harry, Ron who had sat by his hospital bed after Cedric, Ron who . . . Well, it had always been Ron, hadn't it?

"I guess the thing with Ron is . . . . Well, I guess Ron. . . . I think that the funny thing about Ron is that he has and is everything I have ever wanted to have or be. And he looks at me and wishes that he could trade it all in for what I've got. We would both give anything to be the other. It's kind of strange, but somehow, . . . I don't know. It's like somehow we work together and we're better than either of us is separate. Does that sound too melodramatic?"

Cassie shook her head. "I think that sounds wonderful." She, too, was silent for a minute. "Do you have a girlfriend at your school?" Her question was quiet, hesitant, like she almost did not want to hear the answer.

"No. I mean, I've dated a little. Some different girls." Harry was not surprised the face that immediately came to his mind was that of Ron's little sister, Ginny. "There is one girl, Ron's little sister. Ginny is her name. She's liked me forever, since she was 10 and I was 11. But then about two years ago, I think she gave up on me. When I finally realized that I would like to try to see if our relationship could go anywhere, she wasn't available anymore. She's dating other boys pretty seriously now and I don't know if . . . . Well. Some people think we are destined to be together. I don't know if I believe in that, though." Harry suddenly realized that he was doing all the talking, and probably not being very sensitive to the fact that he was here, on a date, with this beautiful girl, talking about someone else. He wanted to kick himself. "Oh, Cassie. I'm sorry."

"No, it's all right. I didn't think that knowing me for a week or two would really change your life. You are going back to school far, far away from here and me, and you will just pick up your life again." Harry looked at her. She really was such an amazing girl.

"Tell me about all the boys that you have dated. You must have a boyfriend." Harry teased her gently, trying to change the subject from this rather awkward line of questioning.

"Well, I have dated a little bit, but most of the guys in my school are such creeps. I don't really like any of them in particular." They chatted for a few more minutes about some of her friends and then finally, the curtains opened and the music started.

Harry took a deep breath. He had no idea what to expect. He hoped this was enjoyable. He really was taking a tremendous risk but when he was with her, it was hard to feel too threatened. The realities of Voldemort and his minions seemed vague and distant. His fingers tightened around hers as the previews of coming attractions started.