(A/N): Slightly longer chapter, just over 1,500 words. Lily's reaction to Mary asking Elaine whether she would mind her flirting with Leo, plus slightly more info on Mary, and the girls learning some stuff about Leo and Elaine's relationship.

Lily

I can't believe that Leo and Elaine had kept such a major development of their relationship from the rest of us for so long! Not only were they both aware that the other held feelings for them, but they were openly confessing that they loved each other- and were in love with each other, in Leo's case.

It was clear that Elaine felt the same way, and she would undoubtedly divulge such to me- and now that I had seen her reaction to what Leo had written in his letter, I was about ninety nine percent sure she had admitted that the feeling was mutual in her reply- but I had never expected that Leo would be the one to say it first.

Then again... maybe it wasn't as surprising as I had originally thought. Leo had let it slip to me that he loved Elaine when I had asked him whether he felt the same way about Brooke as he did for Elaine- which, now that I think about it, must have been only a little while before Elaine had found out, if James had still been being a prick about Leo and Brooke's fledgling relationship at the time.

I was almost sure that Elaine had never actually admitted- at least to me- that she loved Leo- at least in the romantic sense- so maybe Leo had simply been experiencing that level of feelings longer, and it had boiled over onto the parchment- the inked words now forever imprinted in Elaine's heart, as well as the letter.

Leo typically wasn't the type to acknowledge his feelings- let alone admit them- but maybe he had turned over a new leaf. Or maybe, his feelings for Elaine surpassed his infuriating necessity for tight lipped secrecy. If anything could, it was that.

I was almost debilitatingly curious as to how Leo and Elaine had come to be aware of their... situation, but I couldn't try to pester it out of her until we were away from the other girls- and Mary in particular was making that way more difficult than I felt it had to be.

"So Leo's single?" Dread filled my stomach, and I monitored Elaine's reaction, but she just looked confused- and wary.

"...Yes? I really don't understand what-" Mary cut her off yet again, and I felt like screaming at her. Was she not entertained enough traipsing around the castle with Sirius, or Preston Jennings from Hufflepuff, and whatever other boy caught her eye that week? Even if Leo wasn't all caught up in Elaine, I doubted he would be interested in what Mary was offering- Leo didn't seem like the kind of guy that could do 'no strings attached'- not like Sirius could, and how Mary preferred, anyway.

"So, you wouldn't mind if I tried to make a pass at him?" Realization dawned on Elaine's face, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise, and I expected her to explode in anger, or collapse in on herself in sorrow, but instead, when she opened her mouth, she burst out laughing- shocking not only me, but the rest of the girls, as well.

"Oh- Please! Please do, I would love to see that!"...What? Either Elaine was telling the truth, and was really fine with it, or she was the best liar I had ever met.

"I- what?" Clearly, Mary was just as confused by her response as I was. "You're laughing at me- Why are you laughing at me?" Elaine's grin was so maniacal, I almost felt the need to take a step back to distance myself from the danger.

"This is Leo we're talking about. Even if he actually notices that you're trying to get in his pants, can you imagine how awkward his reaction that would be?" Oh. That was a good point. Not one I thought would exceed Elaine's bone deep longing for him, but I wasn't going to dwell on that. "Every time I mention that he's cute, he becomes a flustered mess- so I'd love to see how much worse he gets when someone else does it." Did... Did she tell him he was cute often? The other girls seemed just as bemused by this as I was.

"Sound like Elaine's been trying to make a pass at Leo." Marlene teased, and the girl in question flushed bright red- but she was still smiling. She had barely stopped smiling since she had read the letter, and it made my chest ache to see her so happy. It made perfect sense to me that Leo had been the one to make her so happy.

"For like four years now, yeah." The other girls were surprised that Elaine admitted this, and I'm sure that before she had shown me the letter, I would have been, too.

"And has he responded? Like, at all?" Mary asked, and I knew, despite her requesting permission to flirt with him, her curiosity was purely for Elaine's benefit.

"That-" She turned redder than I had ever seen her. "That depends on your definition of 'responding'." My eyebrows shot up. I knew- now, anyway- that they said 'I love you' in private, but I hadn't thought about whether it might have gone beyond that.

"Have you kissed him?" Even before everything with the letter, I had known that Leo had been Elaine's first kiss- and I'm almost certain the opposite was also true. She had let that slip at The Three Broomsticks back before Leo and Brooke had started officially dating- which, coincidentally, had been right before Remus had let it slip to us that Leo had admitted to him that he liked Elaine. The fact that Elaine somehow managed to turned even redder, however, made it clear to me that that instance was not the only time their lips had connected.

"I- Once or twice." Oh my god. By the fake-nonchalant way she said it, I was certain it was a lot more than twice.

"Is he good?" Of course this was Mary's question- I would expect nothing less.

"I... I don't exactly have much of a frame of reference." That was fair. It also wasn't something I particularly wanted to know about my best friend- best friends, even- no matter how much I craved the gossip.

"You kissed Remus though, right?" Marlene pointed out, and Elaine's blush returned with force. Clearly, at least Marlene had been present that day Remus had kissed Elaine in the Great Hall, while we had been trying to convince her to find someone else to focus her romantic impulses on.

"Once or twice." Once or twice? She had kissed Remus more than once?

"Oh, we are so having a long talk about this later." I told her pointedly, and she flashed me a sheepish grin as she crossed over to her bed again.

The other girls voiced their disappointment in not being included in this future conversation while we were finishing our last minute preparations for the day, so that we could head down to breakfast, and out of the corner of my eye, I watched Elaine hesitate before she slipped Leo's letter beneath her pillow- wearing the dopiest of smiles on her face the whole time.

I made sure I was carefully not looking at her when she turned back around, and a plan formed in my head- right as we were about to take the stairs down to the common room, I gasped, pretending I had remembered something.

"Lily... You alright?" Alice inquired with a concerned look on her face, and I shook my head.

"I just realised I left that book on duplication charms in my trunk- I need to take it back to the library before lunch, or Pince said she's going to deduct me ten house points!" Alice's eyebrows furrowed, but Marlene waved a hand at me.

"Go get it, then. We'll go down to the common room in the mean time- I can hear the boys down there, and I wanted to talk to James about that feint from practice yesterday, anyway." And Sirius would undoubtedly be enough to distract Mary- the issue was keeping Elaine from waiting for me, like I could tell she wanted to do.

"Yeah. And maybe while you're at it, you can ask Remus when the other times he and Elaine tangled tongues was." I ducked back into the dorm and swung the door shut before Elaine could punish me for that comment, but I could still hear Mary's laughter through it, and used that sound to judge when I thought it was safe enough that maybe I wouldn't get caught.

Immediately, I crossed to Elaine's bed, and snatched the neatly folded letter from beneath her pillow, quickly slipping it into my school bag- between the charms book I had used as an excuse, and my copy of Pride and Prejudice. I righted Elaine's pillow as best as I could, and headed to catch up with her, the other girls, and the Marauders, down in the common room.

Hopefully, she wouldn't hate me too much for stealing the letter- but honestly, what else was I supposed to do? It's not like they'd given me a lot of options.

(A/N): Mary: 'So, is Leo a good kisser?'

Elaine: 'Yes.'

Elaine: 'Um, I don't know. I don't have much to compare him to.'

Marlene: 'What about when Remus snogged you in front of the whole school?'

Elaine: 'Oh. Yes. That was good too.'

Lily: :(

Lily: 'Elaine, we're going to talk about this, later.'

Elaine: *heavy sigh* 'I figured.'

What is Lily up to?