Cam and mystery Diggory were there at King's Cross to collect her. Cam was wearing a stylish Muggle coat, and Diggory—obviously not used to Muggle gear—was itching his neck as if he had fleas because he had donned a black trench and large woolen muffler. If Eglantine knew her sister, the itching wasn't because a man's Muggle coat and scarf were all that different from winter robes: it was because Cam had found them on a discount at a thrift shop and they actually did have fleas.
He was attractive, Eglantine had to admit. In a beefy, thick-necked sort of way. He had wavy brown hair and warm dark brown eyes. She was actually proud of Cam, in a way. She'd only ever been out with rather weedy fellows, the sort that were named things like Herb and Gene, who had opinions on accounting methods and herbology.
"Wonderful to meet you, Eglantine. Heard so much about you," he said, tugging on the muffler. "I heard you drive cars. However did you learn?"
"Amos!" said Cam. "Can you dial down the amazement? Most people in this train station drive cars, you know."
"Ah, right. Yes. I meant—er—you're a girl, Eglantine. Awfully…hard going, all that…turning."
She laughed—he wasn't very bright. He didn't really need to be, though, did he? "Terribly difficult."
"Darling, why don't you go on back to the house?" said Cam to Diggory. "Eglantine and I are going shopping, and I'm sure you don't want to come."
"You'd be right about that. I'll go back and have a scrimmage with Carlisle. Not every day you get to practice Quidditch with a professional!" He kissed her goodbye and adjourned to the men's room, where, presumably, he Disapparated. Eglantine and Cam started walking in the direction of Diagon Alley.
Cam sighed. "I love Amos, but I do wish he'd leave off stalking Carlisle. I'd no idea he was such a fan of Quidditch. He keeps asking him to play. Carlisle is supposed to be resting. He bruised his tailbonejust flying for a charity show of some kind. He was telling me that at work, he's got to sit on this pillow shaped like a doughnut."
"I'm sure Carlisle likes the attention. He's always wanted to be famous."
"You shouldn't have to put up with being famous at your own house, though. Home should be a fame-free zone."
"I suppose." Eglantine didn't think that if she happened to be famous, she'd want her family to just ignore it. She'd want people to at least be interested. "Why are we going shopping?"
"Because you're my sister, and I want to have some time to just talk to you before we get swallowed up by Christmas. I want to tell you how amazing Amos is, so you don't think he's some sort of dodgy spy. And I need to find a present for Mum."
"I haven't got her anything. She doesn't need anything."
"She needs to mind her own business," said Cam. "Apart from that, you're right, she doesn't need anything."
"What do you mean, mind her own business?"
"Bloody Amos! She won't stop asking him questions! Where did we meet? How did we meet? What does he do? What do his parents do? Is he in favor of the coming legislation against werewolves? Does he fancy knitted hats or crocheted? I mean, you'd think she's writing a book!"
"She can't stop being a gossip columnist. She's probably composing his Which Witch profile in her head."
"Amos Diggory, chiseled jaw set confidently, strides into the interview room," said Cam, in a perfect imitation of their mother's newscaster purr. "He's my future husband, not a celebrity."
"There are worse things for Mum to do. At least she's not Alya."
"True. She's not going to kill anyone in their sleep." A passing Muggle gave her a strange look.
"So why do you really want to go shopping? You hate shopping, unless it's for pens. You think that if a person has more than one pair of black shoes, they're a decadent hoarder. You think that people who have various hats are akin to Grindelwald."
Cam glared at her. "You're my sister and I want to spend time with you."
"Can't you just admit that you're taking me because you either have to tell me something or because you want to subtly ask me a question, and you think that because we're shopping I'll just answer it without noticing?"
"Honestly. Can't a person just want to shop with her sister?"
Eglantine gave her a withering look.
"Ugh. Don't. You look just like Mum when you do that; it's creepy."
"Then tell me the truth."
"It's both. Question and a thing to tell you."
"I knew it. You probably aren't even going to buy anything. Couldn't you have picked a better location to have this chat?"
"Believe it or not, there really is a reason for us to be here."
They were approaching the Leaky Cauldron, which was crammed with last-minute holiday shoppers. They squeezed through the crowd and made their way into the back garden, and rejoined a frenzied mass of people in thick winter robes and hats, bustling to and fro with frowns on their faces and bags adorning their arms. Wreaths and garlands and trees abounded, and every storefront glittered with fairy lights.
"What's the thing? The thing to tell me? Just get that out of the way, because I doubt that I'll want to answer the question."
Cam sighed. "All right. We're trying for a baby. And we've moved the wedding up."
"How 'up'?"
"New Year's Day. Right at midnight—after the clock strikes."
"Wow." This had actually surprised Eglantine. She'd thought that Cam had gotten a promotion, or, on the opposite side of the coin, had finally gotten fed up with Mel and had quit (possibly slapping her on her way out, but that was too out-of-character). "Awfully rapid, isn't it? I mean, you scarcely know the man. All of a sudden you want to have his babies and be his wife forever?"
"It's just—I mean, how do I know what 'forever' is going to be? After Crevan, I…I started to look at things differently. I mean, I already had, after Bertie, but…Eglantine, it could've been any of us. I know he'd got dodgy connections, and—and everything—but even so, just because he was into that sort of thing, it was—I mean, we've all got enemies, in a sense, haven't we? And if they can just sneak up on you like that… And Amos thinks the same way. The first time we went out without Mel…we sat there for hours in a park, just talking. His dad had been killed by a Death Eater years ago—one of the first casualties, he said, when You-Know-Who appeared. We…we had a lot in common; we looked at things the same way. And we just…we fell in love so quickly, Tina, and we don't want to waste any time, because there might not be time to waste."
"Well—er. I hope you've got my dress already." Her head was spinning. She hadn't thought about things that way herself, at least not in depth. To her, there had always been a sense of wanting to live life on her own terms, remaining free and unfettered: if pressed, she would have said something to the effect of, "I am afraid of a living death, of living a boring life, of saying 'yes' to something that means I have to say 'no' to all other things." Cam had seen the same things that Eglantine had, and Cam was rushing headlong into commitment; Eglantine wanted nothing to do with even snogging the same boy multiple times. (Except Dave. Dave was all right, because Dave wasn't commitment. He was a reliable amusement.) She didn't think she'd regret it, even if Voldemort did find her tomorrow and blast her sky-high. She would (she thought) think, at least I never boxed myself in, and at least when I die I can say I've lived.
"It's at Twilfitt and Tattings'," said Cam. "We're picking it up today. I just wanted a chance to talk with you first, in person, you know. It's a sort of gown thing. Rather nice, I think. It's purple—purple suits you."
Eglantine hated purple, but she didn't mention it. She was surprised to find that she wasn't even the slightest bit annoyed that Cam hadn't told her about the pushed-forward wedding. After all, there were things she hadn't told Cam: she hadn't mentioned the Legilimency, or trying to track down Crevan's murderer. Cam was allowed to have secrets.
"Well, I just hope…I mean, he seems decent. I just hope you don't get bored."
"Bored? You get bored with the opposite sex, not me. I mean, if I didn't get bored with Barry Bugston, I wouldn't even get bored with a Kneazle."
Eglantine resented that. She didn't get bored. She just didn't get interested.
"So…" said Cam. "Mum invited Sirius for Christmas Eve." She had officially entered the About to Ask A Question phase, and somehow expected Eglantine not to know.
"I know."
Cam looked surprised. "Oh! She—she told you, did she?"
"No. He did."
"Oh."
"Why did she?"
"Well, she knows that the Potters are…older, and that even with James there… See, the thing with Mum is, she doesn't seem like the sort, but she's very traditional. She thinks everybody wants to keep on doing the same thing, because that's what they do. That's why every year she still gets me a pair of bedroom slippers—because she thinks I still need them, even though I have twenty pairs piled in my trunk. She said to me that she imagined that Sirius probably would miss going to Crevan's, and doing Christmasy things with the same people, and so on."
"He hadn't been to Crevan's for ages. None of us had. I think she just wants to ask him all sorts of questions about why he left home."
"His parents still brought him for a few hours, I think. Anyway, that was Mum's philosophy. I wouldn't have thought he wanted to come. I'd have thought that he'd be having too much fun causing trouble with James."
"He wants to come, evidently. He's lying to James about it."
Cam raised her eyebrows. "Just to come visit us, hm? I do wonder what the draw is."
"Oh, God, Cam. You don't think he fancies me, do you? I can tell you that he doesn't. He's been snogging girls left and right."
"Are you completely stupid? Of course he does! He's fancied you for years."
"No, he hasn't."
"Yes he has! You're daft! He's always looking at you. And I don't think he'd ever tormented poor Regulus so much in his life as when you two used to tease him together. It was almost like he saved up his bullying just so he could share it with you. You two are like those Muggle bank robbers from America. Cletus and Barbara."
"Bonnie and Clyde? We are not Bonnie and Clyde! They were horrible people—murderers and thieves. All we did was harass Regulus, who, by the way, completely deserved it because he's just a little twerpy prat."
Cam gave her a sideways look. "I talked to him this summer. While you were at Lily's one time."
"You what?" Cam had talked to Sirius plenty of times, obviously, although not when he had been hiding (supposedly in secret) in her closet. And bloody Cam had said that she knew he was there, although she'd failed to mention this part.
"He does fancy you, Tina. I don't know why you don't see it."
"Well, maybe I don't want to! Maybe I don't want to be fancied! Not by him, anyway. I don't want him being all moony over me. What good would ever come of that?"
"Love, of course."
"Love? Really, Cam? Your wedding and all notwithstanding, I can't say I believe in love. Not for me. I just don't think I can feel it, not romantically." Oh, like anybody's going to buy that, she thought. "And even if I could feel romantic love, I wouldn't feel it for Sirius. We've known each other forever. It'd be weird."
"You can too feel romantic love. What about that Dave bloke you'd been talking about? You seemed fairly keen on him, even though I still think you'd be better off with Sirius and that you secretly fancy him because I can see it, your face is all red, and you can't lie to your sister."
"My face is red because I'm aggravated."
"You're always aggravated with me. I know the face of Aggravated Tina. You turn slightly pink and your face gets all expressive, and your hands start shaking. Absolutely Furious Tina yells and is a darker pink and looks absolutely mad, because Absolutely Furious Tina usually is absolutely mad. But your face just now—" Cam looked positively gleeful. It was so annoying. "You were red, right down to your ears. It was most definitely the face of a secret Sirius fancier."
"Isn't."
"Is so, liar. Come on, let's get you fitted. Shall I have her poke you until you admit it?"
"Sadist."
"I'm simply a person who knows when she's right."
Twilfitt and Tattings' was packed to the gills with people getting fitted for dress robes. Narcissa was there, standing on a pedestal as pins flew around her. She was draped in a sky blue silk that Eglantine had to admit looked rather amazing on her. One of the Yaxley matrons was on the neighboring pedestal, being sewn into a red number that made her look like a ruffled sea slug. Cam and Narcissa shrieked briefly over Cam's ring, but Narcissa seemed rather absorbed in her conversation with Mrs. Yaxley, and for once didn't seem keen on bragging to Cam about her latest social extravaganza. Eglantine tried to eavesdrop on them (she remembered a sinister-looking male Yaxley from Crevan's—maybe another Death Eater) when she and Cam were upstairs being fitted, but they didn't talk about anything but their manor homes and their clothing and Narcissa's wedding plans. Mrs. Yaxley was droning on about how Narcissa oughtn't leave the food up to the house elves. Then a torrent of abuse against magical creatures seemed to last forever, and Eglantine—between the tedium of the women's conversation and the heat of the upstairs room at Twilfitt's—nearly fell asleep.
Cam was still looking at her periodically, almost giggling. Eglantine hoped that it was just because Cam was excited about her upcoming wedding, but she didn't think so. Nothing but thinking she was right about something could make Cam that happy.
"Still no leads on Crevan, eh?" said Eglantine.
"Oh…no. According to Dad, Alya's stopped the investigation. Said that it was wasting everybody's time."
"Wasting everybody's time? He was murdered in their house. It was probably because they started sniffing round her."
"I'm sure she knows at this point who did it. Maybe she's protecting them. I don't know. Does it even matter which Death Eater it was?"
"Well, yes."
"Why? You never liked him."
"Like you said. Could've been any of us. I don't think it's a coincidence that Bertie and Crevan are both dead. One of the Death Eaters is trying to, like, pick us all off or something."
"They're trying to pick off everybody they don't like, Eglantine. I don't think we're special. I think everybody is equally vulnerable. They don't like Mum's relatives either."
"Neither does Mum. I think I've only met Aunt Amelia once. And that was only because someone else I barely knew bit the dust."
"Amelia's not our aunt, she's Mum's cousin."
"See? I don't even know she's not our aunt! Mum's relatives are irrelevant. But as loathsome as Uncle Crevan was, he was Dad's only brother and he only lives about five miles away. You know how close we were to…him. I can feel there's something about it, and I want to know the answer."
Cam rolled her eyes. "All right, Sherlock Holmes."
That was the end of it.