A/N: Things have been hectic recently, and all of the suggestions I've gotten have been fabulous; I just haven't thought up anything good for them yet. Be thankful that this is not a turkey chapter, because I really did try to write one and it turned out absolute horrible. Happy Early Thanksgiving to everyone who celebrates it!

Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans

nine: popcorn

He loves her because she believes in happy endings.

On his first venture into the Muggle world with her, she persuades him to go to a movie theater. He doesn't understand why Muggles waste their time and pay money to see moving pictures when wizards get to see them for free all the time; all he knows is that the chairs are uncomfortably hard and the two guys next to them talk in obnoxiously loud voices the entire time and the whole theater smells of stale popcorn and she loves every moment of it.

He doesn't get it at first.

He entertains himself with the idea that the emotions lighting up her face are because she is finally with him; that she, like him, recognizes this important milestone in both their lives. But then, and maybe it breaks another piece of his ego apart, he really gets it; he gets that, for once, this isn't about him.

He sees the expression in her eyes, and he sees what he saw in her at their first lesson in Hogwarts: greed, envy, and a stubborn desire to achieve greatness. She wanted to learn magic, to excel at it, if only to prove to everyone else that being Muggleborn meant absolutely nothing. And gazing hungrily at the moving pictures who were finally gaining their happiness, she wanted hers too.

He knows the unlikeliness of this happening for either of them, and he knows it would break her heart to hear it.

So he doesn't say anything, because she's Lily Evans and her desperate optimistic belief that they'll get a happy ending keeps him going some days and he loves her for it.