AN: Sorry for yet another delay last week, and ending the chapter in a weird place! NaNo prep took a lot of me, as it happened. I'm part-working on this fic for NaNo, and already have a few chapters in my back pocket that I've written now, so that should be the only disruption in the foreseeable future!
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.
"I'm going to buy us some Heating Humbugs, to stop us freezing our butts off. Then we'll go for a walk. You leave now, turning right, and I'll catch up."
He didn't sound quite as angry as she might have thought, but there was a hint of hardness in his voice that she hadn't personally experienced before — though she'd heard it employed before, especially on some of the more silly members of the Slug Club.
She was cowed by his look and tone for as long as it took for her to exit into the bracing winter air. But then as the door slammed shut behind her, she began to frown. She still followed his instructions, trudging through the powdery snow that had fallen overnight, but she pulled her scarf over her mouth so she could properly grimace to prevent any Hogwarts students — the scant few who already in Hogsmeade — from seeing it. Not that her scowling or grimacing was a rare sight given the students she shared a Common Room with, but she couldn't take anyone coming over to ask how she was doing. Luckily, no one she recognised passed her.
She stuffed her hands in her pocket as she past the last shop, and kept going past the houses. It was extremely cold, but her stomping her way down the lane was definitely helping. She didn't hazard a look back to see if Lucius was following, so she startled slightly when she felt his warmth near her shoulder, and then he was keeping pace beside her.
"Here," he said, and held out a humbug for her.
She thought about not taking it — but she was annoyed, that was all, and certainly she wasn't going to petulant about it. She swallowed it down, and immediately felt her insides getting a bit toastier. She let out a sigh.
"Sorry," Lucius said quietly, "about being annoying."
The only other time she had walked this far away from the Hogsmeade high street was when her ex had taken her to Madam Puddifoot's — she had broken up with him shortly thereafter, because he clearly hadn't paid enough attention to her to realise that was not the kind of date she would enjoy. She wondered where Lucius was leading her.
She looked up at him. He was facing straight ahead, cold grey eyes focused on the road. She hesitated, and then slipped an arm through his.
"I'm sorry too," she said. "For being annoyed."
He didn't look down at her, but she watched as his lips quirked into a smile. She let out a breath.
"I'm not ashamed of you," he said. The way he said it, quick and certain, made it obvious that here too, just like their first walk together, he had been thinking about what he was going to say to her. "I hope you know that isn't the case. But… our Houses, our friends, our lives. There's just a lot to account for. You know we'd never be able to say a word to each other without the rest of the castle finding out."
"I know you're that popular, but I don't think anyone'd care about what I had to say," Lily said, nudging him in the ribs. She was trying to make light, but he just grimaced.
"You are, though, people would notice," he said, then he sighed. "And yes, I'm well known. Not just here. My family is very established."
Lily had to hold herself back from rolling her eyes, knowing what established truly meant. Rich beyond measure, and old and probably a bit racist.
"I get it," she said. She squeezed his arm. "I do."
He looked at her now, and his eyes were full of trepidation.
"Do you? You don't have to pretend you're okay with it," Lucius said. He stopped them, swivelled to face her. "It's just — this is very complicated, for me. And I suspect it would be for you, too. I like this, I like doing this with you, and not because I like sneaking around. But because I get to look forward something that is just between you and I and has nothing to do with Slytherin politics, or, worse yet, the politics outside of Hogwarts. But you don't have to pretend it doesn't hurt your feelings, if it does. I just thought you knew what we were doing, but if I was unclear at any point, or anything like that, that's entirely my fault."
Lily looked away from his intense stare, and twisted her mouth. She stared up the houses to the side of them, ramshackle as the rest of Hogsmeade's architecture. There was a little hand-painted sign in the window that advertised a room for rent within. In the back of her mind, she wandered who would rent a room in Hogsmeade, and whether it was a sure sign of arrested development, not being able to move out from Hogwarts' shadow.
"Can I think about this?" she said at last. She looked back at him, and he still had that soft, attentive look on his face that made it very hard for her not to reach up and kiss him. She resisted, and instead concentrated on the little nodule of guilt in her chest that she had even brought this up, that she'd let Remus' words get to her. This was always going to be casual. Wasn't that what she had wanted too? She sighed again. "Or — I am okay with it. I just, perhaps, want some time to respond where I'm not freezing my tits off."
This time he cracked a real grin.
"Classy as always, Evans," he said, and swung back round to walk besides her. "We're almost there, anyway."
"Are you taking me somewhere to rob me?" Lily said, looking around again. "There's honestly nothing around here!"
"I was actually going to go for a little murder, but you've spoilt it now," he said with a mock sigh. "Come on, round this bend."
He directed them round the corner, and Lily blinked up at the building in front of them.
"It's a barn," she said flatly.
"Keen observant," he said, grinning.
It was a big barn at that, taking up the space of at least three houses, though she couldn't tell how far back it went. Lily looked up and down the lane they were now on; every other building was a house, and she couldn't see anywhere that might let out to a field. So it was utterly perplexing that there might be a secret barn in the middle of Hogsmeade.
"Come on," Lucius said, walking towards the door. "Let's go in."
Lily hesitated.
"Were you being serious about murdering me?" Lily said. "Because this seems like the perfect place to."
"You won't find out if you don't come with me," Lucius said. He held out a gloved hand towards herself, and wiggled his fingers. "Come on."
She took another glance about her, and then, knowing that the curiosity alone would kill her, she grabbed a hold of Lucius' hand. He opened the door and led her in.
She didn't know what she was expecting, but the barn turned out to be, in fact, a stables, with a large sliding door at the other end that was half open, presenting a patch of grass that might, if a person was feeling generous, be called a paddock.
"Where are all the horses?" Lily asked. She stepped further into the dimly lit building, hay squeaking beneath her wet feet. It didn't even smell that strongly of animals. She walked all the way along, to halfway down, but she could see from there that every single stable was empty. She turned back to Lucius.
He was frowning.
"Can't you — do you not see them?" Lucius asked. He walked over to the nearest stable, and began to stroke the air.
Lily suddenly wandered if he had indeed gone a little mad.
"See what?" She looked around again. Was it some kind of magic concealment?
His cocked his head at her, but she still wasn't sure what the heck he was on about. She walked closer to him, looked at where his hand was. It seemed very much like a magical concealment.
Her hand trembled a little as she held it out, and it connected with something warm. It felt like silk under her fingers, until she let her fingers move more across the surface, and realised it was skin. Her eyes widened, and she pulled her hand back with a yelp.
"What the hell, Lucius?!" she gasped, holding her hand to her chest like it had been burnt. What earthly creature was covered in skin, and was as big as a horse? "What is that?"
"Thestrals!" he said. He reached out and took her hand in his. "It's alright, they won't hurt you. I thought — I thought you'd be able to see them."
"Are they charmed? What are they?" she said. Her breathing had slowed again. Now, she was aware of the noise she had somehow failed to notice at first; the clomping of hooves further down in the stables, and the gentle huffs of air coming from all around her. Clearly, none of these stables were empty after all.
"They're what pull the chariots," Lucius said, and he had a small, apologetic smile on his face now. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."
Lily looked about her again. "Like, the ones that bring us in from the station?"
Lucius nodded.
"Oh, I thought the chariots were just charmed to fly… Are the — what did you say? Thestrals? Are they invisible? What do they look like?"
Lucius' cheeks were pink now, though whether from the cold or from embarrassment, it was hard to tell. Lily hadn't been paying enough attention to his face when they entered the barn.
"They're not invisible, exactly. You can only see them — well, you can only see them if you've seen someone die. And I just assumed, I don't know…"
Lily stared at him for several moments, and he didn't flinch away from her gaze. Then she felt laughter bubbling up, and while she tried to contain it, she didn't last very long. It started as a cackle, and then seconds later she was laughing so hard that she had to double over.
"What? What is it?!" Lucius asked, his voice coloured with a hint of panic.
But Lily had to splutter for a few moments more before she could manage to get it out.
"You took me to see these weird things that are associated with death, Lucius. As a date. You thought this would be romantic!" she said, still giggling. "This is truly the least romantic thing anyone has ever done, in the history of the world."
Lucius was definitely turning red now, and he looked away from her, to the thestrals, before looking back at her.
"Shit," he said, biting his lip. His cheeks were definitely red with embarrassment now, but the ghost of a smile was on his face.
"Are they cute at least?" she said.
Lucius laughed.
"They're actually horrendous. If you imagine winged horses but covered in skin, not hair."
Lily laughed again.
"Why on earth did you think this would be a good idea?"
Lucius shrugged, eyes cast down to the hay beneath them, clearly embarrassed still.
"I just thought — well, it would be different, and I was kind of showing off that I knew where they kept them."
"Oh, Lucius," she sighed. She got up on her tiptoes and pecked him on the lips. "It's pretty hard to stay made at you when you're such an almighty idiot."
Lucius gave her a sideways glance. "It sounds like a compliment, and yet…"
"Let's go back to the castle," she said. "I'm starting to lose feeling in my toes, and honestly hearing these buggers and not being able to see them is creeping me out."
"I think you'd be more creeped out if you could see them. Yes, let's get out of here and pretend I didn't think this would be sweet, shall we?"
She shook her head, grinning, and followed him out in the barn. The barn had protected them from the worst of the wind, and now Lily shuddered, pulling her coat tight around her. Lucius slipped her another Heating Humbug, and she gratefully gobbled it up, relishing the warmth that immediately stopped her from chattering her teeth.
They walked back through the village, which was even more deserted now that a fine snow had started falling. Lily grinned up at the sky, enjoying the cold kisses of snowflakes.
"Can I hold your hand?" she said to Lucius, having to practically shout to be heard over the wind.
In response, he took her hand in his, and squeezed it. It felt nice, but Lily was cautious of how worried she'd been that he'd refuse. That wasn't like her, to be bashful and anxious about how someone would respond to her.
But she shook her head. Better to just enjoy what they had while the Christmas holidays were on. Things would only get vastly more complicated once everyone returned to the castle, so she needn't overcomplicate it now.
She leaned into Lucius, and shouted up to him: "By the way, next time, I'm in charge of the date."
He didn't argue.
AN: Sorry to two author notes but, um, here we are. I don't know about this chapter - it was an idea I had, but I'm not sure I managed to get it to work. Sorry! Next week's is a bit more solid, in my opinion.
Also, sorry for the terrible pun in the chapter title. I always have so much trouble with chapter titles!