AN: I slightly overbooked myself this week, so this ends a bit abruptly - I'll be picking up where I left off next week, but apologies!

Much to Lily's surprise the next morning, when she slid onto the bench in the Great Hall opposite Remus, a Hufflepuff boy approached her. He couldn't have been older than a Second Year, and looked nervous as he spoke her name. She smiled gently to him.

"Um, I was given this, to give to you," he said, and slid a piece of paper into her hand.

She looked past him, catching Lucius' eye. He was watching her, a small smirk on his face. It was easier to spot him in the mornings, though infinitely harder to spy on him, since most of the student body of Hogwarts took the holidays quite seriously and didn't wake until noon.

"Thanks, uh…"

But the boy didn't supply his name, only nodded once and hotfooted it back to his table, whispering to the girl he went to sit next to.

"What's all that about?" Remus asked, craning his neck to see the note over the stack of toast between them.

"Merlin if I know," she said, with a shrug.

"So from your loverboy, I take it?" Remus said, grinning. She nodded, but slipped the note, unread, into the pocket of her trousers. "Fine, if you do insist on keeping me in the dark."

"And I do, I very much do, Remus," she said. She spread marmalade on some toast, took a bite. She just hoped the note wasn't urgent enough that Lucius would be annoyed she hadn't read it straight away. He'd taken a big risk, passing her note, even if he had been smart enough to ask someone from a different House, and so much younger than them. Hopefully, he'd given the boy something for his trouble.

"Were you off with him last night? Just answer me that, won't you? It's such an innocent question!" Remus was at it again, fluttering his eyelashes and looking like butter wouldn't melt.

"Maybe…" she said, her tone lilting.

"Ooh, was it a nighttime tumble in the Lake, or a very sexy snogging sesh near Dumbledore's office?"

Lily wrinkled her nose up.

"Neither, thank you very much," she said. "It was actually…a date."

Remus' eyes went wide.

"Hang about, Lily, I thought you said this guy was not dating material."

Lily pulled her mouth to the side. She had almost completely forgotten that she'd said that to Remus.

"Well, you know… Things change. My estimation has changed. I got to know him. He turned out to be better than I expected."

"And your not all moon-eyed just because he's a fantastic kisser?"

She swatted at Remus. "No! What do you take me for? I'm not that shallow!"

"Hey now! A really good kiss can really do wonders. Actually, so can a bad kiss. Did I ever tell you about the times I kissed Sammy Wainsworth? Oh, it was a nightmare, like snogging a toad, all closed-mouth. I asked her, almost every time we kissed, if she just didn't like me, or like kissing, but she assured me she likes them both. Sometimes she even initiated them, but would just lean in, like this!"

He did an impression; closing his eyes, he moving his head side-to-side as if he were kissing, but his mouth remained a hard line, with no expression or movement. Lily shuddered.

"Yeah, I can imagine that changed your mind about dating her."

"It did! And really good kissers, they really can deplete you of all your rational instincts, can't they?"

Lily sighed. It was actually quite true. If Lucius hadn't kissed her quite so well, she was pretty sure she'd have been able to keep it in her knickers…for at least a little longer than she had, at least.

"It just moved quite fast," Lily explained, polishing off her slice of toast. "And we decided to take it slower. So we had a small little date. That's all. I'm not becoming his girlfriend anytime soon."

"I'll ask again in three days," Remus said, "for when to save the date for your wedding."

She fixed Remus with a glare. "Don't exaggerate. This is a passing fancy."

"And are you just saying that because you think it might be for him and your hedging your bets to save your emotions the turmoil?"

Lily wanted to refute it strongly and quickly, but she also felt her face heat to a million degrees celsius in just a few seconds.

"Alright Remus, you don't have to be so on-the-nose about it," she said finally. She brushed some crumbs off her jumper. "It's depressing to hear that said out loud."

Remus shrugged. "What are friends for, if not to tell you what you absolutely do not want to hear?"

"Sadly true," she said with a sigh. She clambered back over the bench. "Well, I better get going."

"Have fun with your man, though you'll at least let me see if he's written really terrible poetry for you, right?"

"As if I'd keep that from you."

She took long strides to exit the Great Hall faster, not looking at Lucius, and then took the stairs up to the dorm two at a time. As soon as she was through Fat Lady and had ensured no one else was back from breakfast yet, she fished the note out of her trousers, and read:

L,

Meet me in Hogsmeade at noon, back aisle of Honeydukes

- L

Lily smiled. Lucius' handwriting was a disaster: loping and sloping. She thought of jokes her mother used to make, that her dad's handwriting was like a doctor's. Lucius' would put his to shame, especially with the ink blots all over the page. It was so incongruous with his usual demeanour: smooth, slick as an oiled fish, and always, always ready with a biting remark.

But the reason the discovery of his atrocious handwriting made her smile was that it was in keeping with what she saw in him, in their private meetings: hesitant, sometimes even silly, and eager. She mentally checked herself as the word "frightened" came to mind, but then she thought again. It was true, he did seem frightened sometimes, but she couldn't put her finger on what. She would have to be more attentive in their next tete-to-tete, which was apparently going to be at noon.

She put the note away just as Remus appeared from the doors.

"Still hanging about are we?" he said brightly. "If I stand here long enough, might I catch a glimpse of your mystery man?"

"No," she said. "We're not meeting."

"Oh dear, has love boat cancelled over note, not even hand-delivered, how boarish," he said, but he was still smiling. "Do you want me to go beat the stuffing out of him?"

Lily cocked an eyebrow. "I don't think you'd win in a fight against Seph's toad, let alone —"

She went bright red, but managed to stuff the words "Lucius Malfoy" back into her gob. Remus was watching her with interest, but she cleared her throat and carried on.

"Anyway, no, it's for good reason."

"And does this reason mean we can spend some time together today?"

"Oh, I don't think so, I actually fancy a walk, sorry," she said, looking as apologetic as she could muster. She did feel bad, especially lying to Remus, but what could be done?

"I'll join you if you wait for me to get my boots on—"

"Uh, no, it's okay! I'm going to be gone for a while and," she started to say but Remus held a hand up.

"Hang about. When you say you're not meeting him, you mean here don't you? You're just going to find somewhere else to shack up?"

Lily closed her eyes a moment.

"Please don't use the term shack off, but yes, pretty much."

"Well, I do insist that at some point I meet the guy who would have Lily keeping secrets and looking sheepish. You weren't like this with that other guy — what was his name? Oh it doesn't matter, he was so boring I'll forget as soon as you say it. Hopefully, this guy is a bit better quality, as you deserve. I'll leave you to it, anyway," Remus said. His smile was smaller than it usually was when he was chiding her over her 'mystery man', and Lily's blush got deeper as she watched him walk up the stairs, back towards his room.

While it was quite exciting to be sneaking around with Lucius Malfoy of all people, it was all a bit silly too. Remus made her feel like she was Petunia sneaking out of her parent's house to meet up with a boy. Except here, Remus was her parent and she'd been caught before she'd even opened a window.

She sighed. There was nothing to be done about that now. After all, she did want to sneak off and meet Lucius in Hogsmeade, especially as she hadn't left the grounds since Christmas holiday began. She ran up to her room to change into some warm winter clothes, and took off only ten minutes later towards Hogsmeade.

Honeydukes always smelt so strongly of sugar that even being in there gave Lily toothache. There were scant few aisles in Honeydukes, just the one near the back of the shop, in which rows upon rows of Chocolate Frogs sat on display, clearly their bestseller. Behind it, on the back wall, seemed to be the less loved and very much less bought sweets. She wrinkled her nose at the Toothflossing Stringmints, and wondered, idly, who in their right minds would ever knowingly eat a Cockroach Cluster. Clearly Honeyduke's owner, Ambrosius Flume, was losing his damn marbles if this was what he was coming up with.

"Oh, Clusters, I've been looking for these," came a smooth voice from behind her.

Lily took a look around, but no one else seemed to be in the shop with them, other than Ambrosius himself, who was restocking the window display of Christmas-themed chocolate.

"If you so much as think of eating one of those, I will never kiss you again," Lily whispered.

She laughed at the speed in which Lucius returned the package to the shelf, almost knocking some nearby fudges onto the floor.

"Don't have to tell me twice," he said.

"So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this surreptitious meeting?" she said, pretending to look interested in blood-flavoured lollipops.

"I thought it might be nice to take a walk together in the snow," he said. "Now that it's finally decided to snow. I thought at first the Grounds, but the Forbidden Forest seemed like a bad bet to make."

"Is that right? And where might we be walking in Hogsmeade, if you are so eager to hide us from public eye?"

He gave a glance that looked somewhere between sarcastic and pissed off.