Two months, two days
"I can't do this."
James looked away from the mirror, where he was carefully knotting his tie, to the closet, where Lily's voice had just come from. She was sitting down amongst a pile of black clothing, clutching a skirt in her hands so tightly that he thought she might rip it. She glanced up at him.
"I just can't," she said.
James sighed and crossed the room to sit down next to her. "Listen," he said. "I know—I know you don't want to. I don't want to."
"It's not that I don't want to," Lily replied flatly. "It's just that I don't think I can. Funerals are so…" She trailed off, unsure of what to do with that sentence. "They just make me feel worthless, you know? There's nothing I can do to make anyone feel better, and they make me miserable for days afterwards."
He knew this. He had been to funerals with Lily before.
But that didn't mean he knew what to say about it. Especially when he felt exactly the same way.
But he had to pretend like he was okay, for Lily's sake. Even if she knew otherwise, which she did.
"Look," James said. "No one…no one likes funerals. You know? But it's something you kinda have to do. You liked Gideon. You knew him, right? And you want to pay your respects. That's why you go. Not to make anyone feel better."
Lily stared at him for a good minute, which made him feel like he'd said something wrong, something to offend her.
"What?" he asked finally.
She cleared her throat. "Would you pick me out something to wear?" she questioned softly, hesitantly. "Nothing—nothing seems right to me."
James nodded slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, I can do that."
She nodded, too. "Thank you."
James stood up and offered her a hand to help her up as well. Once she was on her feet, she stood awkwardly off to the side, her fingernail in her mouth, watching him. "It's nothing," he told her, walking over to her side of the closet and starting to pick through her things.
"I don't mean just the clothes," Lily said.
James turned away from her sweaters.
"I mean everything," she said. "Thank you for everything."
He looked at her for a few moments before nodding again. "Yeah," he responded.
On some level—well, on a lot of levels—Remus knew that this was wrong. He knew that, years into the future, he would think back on this relationship and wish that he hadn't put his friendship with Sirius at risk for a girl—no matter how great she was. He knew that this would have to end, and that when it did, he would try to get Sirius's friendship back, but wouldn't be able to.
And all of this acknowledgement stemmed from Remus knowing that, no matter how much they all joked otherwise, Sirius was exceptionally smart.
In fact, if Remus were feeling particularly guilty—which he was—he'd even go as far as to say that Sirius was kinda brilliant.
Which was why Remus knew that it was only a matter of time before Sirius found out. And then Sirius would kill him, and that would be the end of that.
But it was hard to think about all that stuff when Hestia had him pinned against a wall in her apartment and was fumbling with the fastenings of his cloak.
He did not know why all of their romantic-type encounters occurred against walls. It just kind of happened that way, and it wasn't like he was going to interrupt her to ask if they could maybe move somewhere softer.
"So," she mumbled against his mouth, "does Sirius have any idea?"
Remus jerked away and, again, found himself slamming the back of his head against the door to Hestia's bedroom. "You're thinking about Sirius right now?" he asked, pretending to be hurt. Which really wasn't that much of a stretch, seeing as how the bump from last time hadn't really healed and he'd managed to hit his head this time in the exact same place so there were waves of pain radiating through his head. But he was pretending to be hurt in a different kind of way, of course.
"No," Hestia responded. "But you are. Is your head okay? You keep doing that."
"I'm not thinking about Sirius," Remus said, ignoring the bit about his head.
She sighed and stepped away from him. "Yes, you were."
"You don't know that."
"I asked you about seven times if you wanted to go in the bedroom and you didn't say anything."
Remus wet his lips, his cheeks burning a little at the mention of going into Hestia's bedroom. He pushed this aside, however, and muttered, "It's nothing, really. I'm fine."
She stared at him. "Are you sure?"
No, I'm not sure because I know I'm not fine. I'm a horrible sod of a person who should be thrown in prison. Or something similar. "Yes," he told her, nodding for emphasis.
Hestia swallowed, as if bracing herself, before she asked, "You're not…you're not regretting anything? This?"
"I wish it didn't have to happen this way," he allowed.
She nodded, looking down at the floor and gripping his hand. "Me, too," she said. "But if this is how it has to happen…"
It doesn't have to happen this way. I could tell him, but I'm too afraid to because I know it would absolutely kill him. And me. "Yeah. No, you're right."
Hestia stared at him for a few more moments—she really had a habit of doing that, he was beginning to notice—before saying, "Let's go fix your head, okay?"
Remus nodded and let her lead him into the kitchen.
They were avoiding things, and they knew it.
But ignorance is bliss.
At least, it is until you can't go on being ignorant anymore.
Then things pretty much suck.
It was, of course, raining.
Lily was successfully dressed, and so was James, and they were heading to the flower shop to buy something to throw on Gideon's casket. Lily was thinking carnations. Carnations were simple, but they were elegant and she liked the way the petals felt when she rubbed them between her fingers. They smelled kinda funny, but that wasn't important.
Lily tugged on her skirt, which was about two sizes too small and was beginning to suffocate her. She could only hold in her stomach for so long. The skirt also didn't really match the shoes that James had picked out for her, but she couldn't really care. She hadn't asked her boyfriend to pick her an outfit because of his outstanding fashion sense.
They stood at the street corner, waiting for all the people to pass so they could cross the street.
James was clutching her hand like she was four years old and still needed assistance crossing. He was staring straight at the flower shop, his jaw rigid and his back straight. She realized, for maybe the sixth or seventh time since she'd known him, how tall he was. He'd always been tall, of course, but Lily was fairly tall herself, and she never really noticed it like she noticed it now. She wondered if it was possible for him to have grown…overnight, really.
His hair was wet, a side effect of walking around in the rain for about twenty minutes. It was coming down pretty hard now, and his hair was plastered to his head and he had water droplets on his glasses. She didn't know how he could see like that, but she doubted he was seeing anything anyway.
"Hey," she said, softly.
He turned away from the flower store and looked down at her.
Lily squeezed his hand once. "It'll be fine," she told him.
James pushed some of his sopping hair out of his eyes and nodded. "I know." He looked away from her and she from him, both of them looking back toward the store.
They always did this. Whenever something terrible happened that could affect both of them, they sort of took turns comforting each other. And some of the time, it helped. Some of the time, it didn't. Neither of them were really sure which was the case this time. And it wasn't exactly the kind of thing they should've been analyzing at this point in time.
The street finally cleared.
James tightened his grip on her hand and stepped off the curb, sort of pulling her with him. They crossed to the flower shop and James held the door open for her. She entered the glowing warmth of the store first, mumbling a "Thank you" to him as he followed, letting the heavy glass door close on its own.
"Aren't you cold?" he asked her as she headed toward the vase of carnations on a counter on the left side of the room.
"What?" Lily returned, confused.
"Your clothes are completely soaked through," he said. "You've got to be freezing."
She smiled dimly at him, turning back to the flowers. "Look at yourself," she responded, fingering a pink carnation lightly.
He glanced down at himself and saw that, because he had been standing in the same place for a few minutes, he was creating a small puddle of water around his feet. The shop owner was watching him with an annoyed expression on her face as she arranged a bouquet for a customer.
"Sorry," James mumbled to her.
She clicked her tongue and returned to the flower arrangement.
James took out his wand and tapped himself, muttering a drying charm under his breath and heading towards Lily. He did the charm on her as well, and she jumped in surprise at the sudden warmth and lack of water. "Oh," she said, when she realized it was only him. She flashed him a smile of thanks before biting her lip and turning back to the flowers. "Carnations, I'm thinking," she told him.
"Whatever you want."
"I sincerely hope that you're not thinking of carnations for the wedding!"
Lily closed her eyes tightly at the sound of the patronizingly sugary voice behind her. Not now. Not on the day of Gideon's funeral. James gripped her elbow, but Lily turned anyway, opening her eyes to reveal Adeline standing in front of them, standing in front of a politely confused looking couple and holding a folder in one hand and a receipt in the other.
"Adeline," Lily said, her tone of voice causing James to realize that this was heading nowhere good. "What are you doing here?"
Adeline released a light, tinkly little laugh. "Shopping, of course!" she said cheerfully. "Miss Evans, Mr. Potter, this is Christine Betton," she motioned to the woman behind her, who smiled awkwardly, "and her fiancé, Nathan Hane. Christine, Nathan, these people are clients of mine—Lily Evans and James Potter."
James smiled at Nathan and Christine, who smiled back. Lily forced her own tiny smile before turning back to Adeline. "What's wrong with carnations?" she asked flatly.
Adeline laughed her false laugh again, and it suddenly reminded James of wind chimes. "Well, Miss Evans, carnations are entirely inappropriate for a wedding. They're more of…funeral flowers."
Lily's entire body went rigid; James could feel her tense up from where he held her elbow and he winced at this comment. "Funeral flowers," Lily repeated densely. "Really."
"Lily," James mumbled under his breath, hoping she would hear but no one else would.
She brushed off his warning and said, "Well, I'm glad you think carnations are funeral flowers, Adeline. Finally, something you and I agree on."
The tension in the air was as thick as unmixed cement. Adeline's smile wavered; clearly she knew that Lily would rather let a million tiny ants eat her alive than admit that she and Adeline had something in common.
"No carnations at the wedding, then?" Adeline asked jerkily, obviously unsure of what to say.
"No," Lily responded. "No carnations at the wedding. I think that I'll be rather put off by them after the funeral we're about to go to."
The ringing silence was making James's head hurt. "Okay," he said with false brightness, clapping his hands together. "I think Lily and I should be going, don't you, Lily?"
Today Peter would officially become a Death Eater.
He was terrified out of his mind. He'd already thrown up twice today, and after that sandwich he'd just had, he was beginning to feel like number three was just around the corner.
Peter sat on his bed, rubbing at his face and trying really hard not to cry. Surely crying wasn't allowed in Death Eater initiations. There was probably a test you had to go through before they even let you into the arena (because Peter was pretty sure they held these things in stadiums. It was a big event. And big events were usually held in stadiums. Well, unless they were being held at Hogwarts, but he didn't think that that particular venue was open to Voldemort and his henchmen) to make sure you weren't still…emotionally attached to your other life. They probably took pictures out of your wallet, they searched your house for the things that related you to other people—pictures, of course, and letters, and…Peter couldn't really think what else, but he was pretty sure that they would find other things and remove them from his house.
He lived with his mother, for God's sake. Would they take her, too?
He hadn't told her, of course. That would just be stupid. Not that she really understood what was going on in the outside world.
Mrs. Pettigrew was a kind of a hermit, and she had been ever since Peter's father died when Peter was nine. Peter didn't have any brothers or sisters, and he was kinda lonely in the house with just his mother, who was perennially depressed but tried to act like she wasn't. She sort of needed him to be around, so she could cook for him and do his laundry and tell him to clean his room. Peter had always worried about her when he went off to school, so he wrote her all the time, and she always said that his letters were the light of her life.
He couldn't just move out on her. She couldn't live without him, and that wasn't just Peter being conceited. He always got to the Prophet before she did so he could take out all the stories about the mysterious massacres and disappearances. She just couldn't handle that sort of bad news.
So he kept her in the dark.
Mrs. Pettigrew had no clue that the world was suffering a…a dark revolution or whatever it was that they were calling it now. She didn't know that men and women and children were murdered almost every night in their houses.
And she definitely didn't know that her son, her reason for living, was about to be a part of it.
Oh, God.
Peter could feel his stomach churning and he clapped his hand to his mouth and ran to the bathroom.
Sirius stood alone in the reception hall, pretending to be interested in the flower arrangements that sat on the tables that flanked either end of the hall. The scent coming away from the bouquets was too heady for Sirius's taste and was giving him a slight headache.
He hated funerals. But then, who really liked them?
He had yet to see anyone he knew well enough to start up a conversation with. Sirius had exchanged "Hello, how are you"s with a few people, but nothing more than that. He scratched his head absently and casually scanned the room again. There were at least sixty people here, but none that he knew well enough to talk to? That had certainly never happened before.
Sirius had always been something of a social butterfly. He liked people and people liked him, and that was just the way things went. And, sure, he still liked people. And, yeah, people still liked him because Sirius was a generally likeable person. He was charming, he was confident, he was exhaustingly funny, he was devastatingly good looking, he was a sparkling conversationalist…
But apparently, that wasn't enough to guarantee friends anymore.
Not that that was to say that Sirius didn't have friends.
He had a lot of friends.
Just…he had mostly the same friends he'd had for ten years.
"Hey."
Sirius jumped, startled. He turned to see Hestia and Remus, wearing identical expressions of amusement and concern.
"Are you okay?" Remus asked him.
"I'm fine. I was just…thinking. What are you guys doing here?"
"Funeral," Hestia replied quickly.
Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Really? Are you sure? Because I'm here for the cock fight."
Remus shook his head, glancing around the room in the same motion. "Seen James or Lily?" he questioned, stuffing his hands in his pockets and turning back to Sirius.
Sirius brushed some hair out of his face. "No. James says Lily's pretty upset, though."
"They were good friends, weren't they?" Hestia asked.
"James and Lily?" Sirius said, confused. "Yeah, they're…they're still pretty good friends, as far as I—"
"No," Hestia interrupted. "I meant…" She trailed off uncomfortably and Sirius knew exactly whom she was talking about.
"Oh," he said, stumbling over the words "Yeah, they were…they…she's taking it hard."
Hestia nodded gravely, the serious expression out of place on her usually lively face. It made her look older than she was.
"Did you come here together?" Sirius inquired, motioning loosely to the two of them.
They exchanged looks that Sirius couldn't read. "No," they said together.
"No, I came here—"
"I was standing outside—"
"Saw him—"
"Yeah, went inside—"
"Together, but not together."
Silence. Both Hestia and Remus flushed and looked away.
"So…what are you guys doing this weekend?" Sirius asked, mostly to break the uncomfortable silence.
Hestia and Remus both turned jerkily to Sirius, surely giving themselves whiplash. "Nothing," they chorused together.
"What we mean is," Remus said, clearing his throat and getting that weird, strained sort of look on his face that he was getting a lot lately, "I'm doing nothing, you know, and Hestia's not doing anything either, so we're both doing nothing but…doing that separately."
Hestia and Sirius stared at him.
"What is with you lately?" Sirius said after what seemed like an hour of staring. "Are you sick?"
Remus was saved from answering by the sudden appearance of James, who shuffled over to the group with his hands in his pockets, looking lost. It made Sirius uncomfortable, seeing his best friend looking so scared and confused and—more than anything—sad.
"Prongs!" Sirius greeted his friend, trying to cheer him up by using an obnoxiously bright tone of voice. "What are you up to?"
Remus and Hestia cast him the exact same sidelong glance. Sirius was beginning to think that the two of them were beginning to spend way too much time together; they were talking at the same time and shooting him simultaneous looks…yeah, he was definitely going to have to cut them off.
James didn't notice Remus and Hestia. He looked up from the floor and met Sirius's eyes. "I'm at a funeral," he replied, his voice flat. "What do you think I'm up to?"
Sirius's smile faltered slightly.
"Sorry," James mumbled, noticing this. "It's been…it's been a bad day."
Remus and Hestia nodded in time.
Seriously, it was getting annoying.
Sirius tried not to let the Closeness bother him, but it left a weird feeling in his stomach.
"Where's Lily?" Remus asked, interrupting Sirius's revelry.
James turned around to look, raking a hand through his hair. He motioned with his other hand across the room. "She's talking to Molly Weasley," he explained listlessly. "She was a relative."
"Of Lily's?" Hestia wanted to know, surprised.
James raised his eyebrow at her. "Of Gideon's."
Hestia looked down at the floor. "Right," she mumbled. "I'm sorry."
James waved it off. "I'm being a prat today, I'm sorry." He sighed. "Anyone seen Peter?"
Sirius shook his head. "He can't come," he replied softly. "His mother's sick."
James ruffled his hair again. "I'd think that the funeral of his fellow Order member would be more important than his mother being sick again, but—"
"Hey," Sirius interrupted sharply. "It's his mother, okay? You know she's…" He trailed off, acutely aware of Hestia's presence. "You know she's not well," he finished.
James nodded slowly. "Right," he muttered. He could not seem to get his hand out of his hair. Sirius knew that this tendency of his friend's had been reduced down to a sporadic habit over time, showing up only when he was especially nervous or annoyed, but Sirius was beginning to see why it had annoyed Lily so much. "I'm sorry, you guys, I'm just…" He tried to smile. "I'm really not good with funerals. And Lily's a mess and…I'm not concentrating. Maybe I should go be by myself or get drunk or something…"
"Ah, no drinking," Remus said lightly. "I don't think Drunk!James would be a very good person to have at a funeral."
"There's not any alcohol here anyway," Sirius told him. "I checked."
James winced. "That's a shame."
"Mm. At my funeral, there will be alcohol aplenty. Vodka spilling from fountains, kegs, those little mini-rum bottles attached to the programs…"
"Fun for the whole family," Remus commented dryly.
"I don't think you'll have much control over what's at your funeral, Sirius," Hestia said, smiling a small, indulgent smile.
"I'll write it in my will. That and my sing-along idea."
"Oh, God," Remus muttered, looking away from Sirius. "I'd completely forgotten about that."
"I haven't," James said.
"What's the sing-along idea?" Hestia inquired, becoming a little weary of always having to ask questions in order to understand conversations.
"I had this idea in fifth year," Sirius began excitedly, thrilled as he always was that someone was taking interest in his idea, "that before I died I'd make my friends write a song about the greatness of me. I'd lay there at my deathbed, supervising, of course. James could write the words because he's got a way with poetry—"
James flushed pink. "I do not have a way with poetry," he hissed.
"That's a lie," Sirius said cheerfully. "On your two-year dating anniversary you wrote Lily a song. I know you can write me a song. You've known me longer and everyone knows you love me more. You have brilliant material. Anyway, Wormtail can write the music 'cause he plays the xylophone—"
"The xylophone?" Hestia asked, amused.
"You can't make fun of it in front of him, though," Remus warned. "Peter's very…" He searched for the correct word to describe Peter's feelings towards his instrument, "touchy about the xylophone."
"He'll smack you if you tell him the xylophone is the lamest instrument ever," Sirius agreed. "And the boy's got a surprisingly strong backhand. Anyway, once Wormtail writes the music and Prongs writes the words, they'll distribute it to people at the funeral. And then, just as they're lowering my casket into the ground, everyone will start singing it—crying at the same time, producing a mellow, haunting sound—and Moony will release a cage of doves." He sighed. "It will be beautiful."
"But if everyone's drunk at your funeral," Remus pointed out, "I don't think they'll be able to sing very much."
"On the contrary," Sirius corrected brightly, "I myself have an atrocious singing voice, everyone knows that. But when I'm drunk, I have the same exact voice as Timmy Balton. It's extraordinary, really."
"And Timmy Balton would be?" Hestia questioned.
"Lead singer of the Spatulas," James offered. "Sirius's favorite band."
"Oh," Hestia said, unsure of what she should say to this. "What a…commendable talent."
Peter sat at the kitchen table, staring up at the clock above the calendar. It was 9:38. His initiation was at 11:30.
"Peter, dear," his mother said, entering the room with today's—censored—paper and a quill, "are you sure you wouldn't like some dinner? I think I've got some lamb in the pantry."
Oh, no. Food would be a definite mistake. He shook his head wordlessly as his mother sat down at the table across from him.
"Are you sick, dear?" she asked him. "You've hardly eaten all day."
Peter shook his head again and cleared his throat. "I'm just not hungry, Mum," he said, his voice coming out low and scratchy.
Peter's mother surveyed him carefully as she unfolded her paper, spreading it open to the page with the crossword puzzle. "This puzzle's a tricky one," she smiled. "What's a seven letter word for a lie under oath, dear?"
"Perjury," Peter replied absently, scratching at his head as he tried to suppress the contents of his stomach.
Mrs. Pettigrew beamed at him. "You're getting very good," she complimented him as she wrote down his answer. "It fits perfectly."
This broke his heart.
He bit his lip, watching her as she tried to work out a three-letter word for 'fruit or cream filled pastry' (which, of course, was 'pie'). He didn't know if he could do this to her.
But then he knew that he couldn't not.
If Peter refused to join the Death Eaters after all this time and pretend commitment, they would kill him.
But they would kill his family and his friends first.
And he couldn't do that to them. Peter couldn't let his mother and Sirius and Remus and James and Lily die just because he was a coward and because he couldn't go through with…being evil.
But Peter also had morals (of sorts) and he knew the difference between right and wrong (kinda) and he knew that what he was doing fell under the 'wrong' category….
Peter was twenty years old.
And he didn't really want to die.
He folded his arms on the table and dropped his head into them.
The ceremony started.
The church was full to the bursting. James, Lily, Sirius, Hestia, and Remus managed to sit on a bench with four other people and were pretty much sitting on top of each other.
The casket sat at the front of the room, topped with a spray of white flowers and surrounded by photographs of Gideon and his friends and family. Lily kept her eyes glued to these pictures as Dumbledore spoke in a soft, even voice about the courage that Gideon displayed, how he tried to protect his family, and what a wonderful person he was.
A little less than halfway through, silent tears started to slide down Lily's face. James, noticing, slid his hand into hers, but he didn't say anything.
What could he say?
When Dumbledore finished speaking, everyone stood and talked to each other in low voices. People hugged and shook hands and muttered condolences. Lily went straight to the casket, examining the pictures as James, Sirius, Remus, and Hestia talked amongst themselves.
After a few minutes, James went up to join her. He put a hand on the small of her back and she turned briefly to look at him before looking back to the pictures.
"That was his first girlfriend," she said softly, pointing to a picture of a much younger Prewett, blonde hair hanging in his eyes and the widest smile James had ever seen on him, with his arm around a girl with dark hair and serious gray eyes. The two of them waved up at James and Lily, beaming and laughing. "Her name was Nora. They were both fourteen and they dated for seven months before she was killed." She glanced up at James. "That's what made him decide he wanted to be an Auror. He said he couldn't stand for good, nice people like Nora to be killed for no reason other than their heritage."
"That's the reason most people go into the field," James acknowledged.
Lily nodded. She seemed to be thinking very hard; she was quiet and her eyes were clouded over.
"Are you okay?" James asked her softly.
"Yeah," she responded. "I'll be all right."
"Ready to go home?"
She nodded again, slowly. "I'd like that a lot."
It was eleven.
Peter was trembling all over. He was having difficulty breathing and his head was thick with thoughts of his mother and misty green skulls with snakes slipping out of the mouth and Lucius Malfoy sneering, saying it won't hurt a bit, Pettigrew, and James laughing so hard when Peter told a particularly good joke that he fell over on his bed at school and Sirius frowning over the chess board and hooded cloaks and Lily helping him with his Potions homework because he didn't understand chemical reactions and knives sharpened with spells and transformations at full moons…
He started to cry a little. He was still sitting at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in front of him that he'd made an hour ago in an attempt to calm his nerves and stay awake. Peter's mother had gone to bed an hour ago, and he tried to sob quietly, so as not to wake her up.
He imagined the day he'd been approached by Nott, a boy who had graduated four years before Peter, approached him in the alleyway two blocks from Peter's house.
He wore a hooded cloak so Peter couldn't see his face but Peter remembered his voice because on his third day of school Nott and a bunch of his friends thought it would be funny to levitate him above the lake. Peter was deathly afraid of deep water, and he screamed at them to let him down until his voice was hoarse and his throat dry and scratchy and sore and Nott just laughed and said, "Oh, but the fun has just started, boy."
And then James and Sirius had come and yelled at the bullies until Nott's concentration broke and he dropped Peter in the water.
Peter was terrified, but Sirius came in and got him and Peter stammered out his thanks and Sirius grinned and said, "It's no problem, I am an excellent swimmer."
So when Nott's voice emanated from that hood, Peter unintentionally started to shiver again, picturing the freezing cold water surrounding him and Sirius's calls of "I'm coming, don't drown."
But Nott only asked him if he had heard of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and Peter nodded because everyone had heard of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and Nott said that it had come to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's attention that Peter was a member of Dumbledore's Order.
And Peter immediately thought he was going to die.
But then Nott sneered, "We've got a proposition for you, Pettigrew."
Peter shuddered now and glanced at the clock.
11:16.
He would be late if he didn't leave now.
A/N: Not my favorite chapter by far, but it's kind of a connecting chapter…and you can't expect much of those.
I apologize for the lack of spacing in the last chapter; it wasn't intentional (I'm not daft; I'm not going to give you a bunch of scenes with no way to tell where one ends and another begins—on purpose, anyway) but ff.net seems to enjoy messing with my spacing.
It only took me six days to get this chapter out. That's a vast improvement over a month or two, don't you think? :) Oh, the joys of summer vacation.
Review please, I love them so much. The feedback for all my stuff has been overwhelmingly fantastic, and I get the hugest smile on my face when I read my reviews and I start talking to the computer. It's fun.