Lessons not Learned

“No, flick-point-arch,” Amelia repeated, exasperated. “Flick-point-arch. Not point-arch-flick. You have to do it in this exact order, or it will not work.”

“If you aren’t nice to me, you won’t work either,” the snide little blonde thing sitting across the table sneered at her, “My daddy will make sure of it.”

Amelia wanted to reach across the table and strangle the girl who had given her so much grief ever since they started meeting three months ago. But if there really was a chance Amelia Lyons would ever snap that way, she certainly wouldn’t do it when her livelihood was at stake. So instead, Amelia pressed her lips into a thin line, took a slow breath in and out through her nose, and tried not to snap her own wand as she demonstrated yet again.

“Flick-point-arch,” she said through gritted teeth, watching the dead flower in front of her turn vibrant and green again as it returned to its former glory.

“Now you try,” Amelia said, hoping to give herself a few minutes retreat into her own mind as this little fool tried –and would probably fail – again to perform a simple spell.

This is what I have been reduced to… Amelia thought for the hundredth time since starting this miserable tutoring business.

It had taken Amelia months to get over the pure-blood illness that had put her in the hospital, cost her the headmistress position, and separated her from the few people she did care to talk to. When she had finally gotten out, there was nothing waiting for her. It was the first time in her life she didn’t have a set task to do, something to be good at.

It hadn’t taken her parents very long to find her something to do, especially when Amelia mentioned possibly going down to the ministry and inquiring about auror positions. Her mother, finding this completely inappropriate, started farming Amelia out to all her society friends as a personal tutor for their bratty kids. These were the kids who were too rich for class, too important to study like all the other lowly beings. So over the summer, they got Amelia Lyons, tutor extraordinaire.

So despite her many protestations, here Amelia sat in the local library, across from a little girl who despised her and hadn't gained a single thing from Amelia’s lessons.

This can’t be all there is… Amelia thought miserably, rolling her eyes as the little girl point-arch-flicked again and again, the wilted flower on the table looking like a physical manifestation of how Amelia was feeling about this whole situation.

The streets were slick still with an overnight rain that had turned to dew as the temperature had faired and heightened. Cars that jostled past each other in the road each took turns to spray a great wealth of moisture from the puddles it had gathered together into, onto the pedestrians ambling or striding with their own respective motives towards their, again, respective destinations which housed their walking-based motives. Naturally, such ambling or striding depending on your respective motive and/or destination with regards to said motive was, inevitably, interrupted by the rudeness of motor vehicle drivers. Unless of course, you happened to be a wizard.

Now, a public library would never be a place of sanctuary with anyone who bore quite a history like the Deputy Minister for Magic did. No, his type of sanctuary included a string of call girls and his body’s weight, vertical size and girth in alcohol. He had very little time for the dusty stacks which teenagers rampantly attempted to make love in, spurred on by the thrill of being caught and the idea that many Muggle movies portrayed: that sex in a public place, more specifically a library, was in fact sexy. Or...or something.

Much had changed for the man who strode with purpose down the road. Once he would have called himself a family man. A lover. A fighter. Something honourable and delightfully pleasant to incur the company of. Once upon a time he would have expressed his desire to bed every and all ladies that crossed his path and leave them in the morning without the slightest hint of regret or remorse. At one point in time he would’ve been talking candidly about his love for one Chastity Moor and his intention to marry her and make legitimate the child that had been born to them: Katherine.

Of course, that changed. He crawled back to Mira Anderson. He made her a Krum in all but a few words, the wedding having yet to have truly happened - or had it, he couldn’t recall. He found himself embroiled with his old friends. He cleared murderers of their charges. Gave opportunity and means for others to, in fact, murder. He, himself, murdered anyone who stood in his way, anyone who presented a difficulty for him. He was all but Death Eater in name. In philosophy, perhaps not, but in intention and acts - very much so.

And yet, he still called himself a family man. A lover. A fighter. Something or someone, rather, that was honourable and delightfully pleasant company to incur.

The steps of the library were as slick as the street that they ascended from and Elijah was careful not to slip as he made his way up. Once there, he took special care to step through the revolving door especially for wizards and, like that, he was in the wizarding portion of the library with a few steps, drenched in over a hundred years’ worth of expertise and particulates of human, magical intelligence.

Taking off his gloves, Elijah rubbed his hands together. He lifted his gaze up around the library, feeling an odd kinship with the place despite his adversity to such things in his youth. In fact, newly he had begun to take a deep interest in the literary world and had over the course of a handful of months garnered quite a collection for himself.

His reverie was burst like the frantic clap of a child’s hand around a bubble determined to escape on the back of a warm breeze and he dropped his gaze to a young witch with dank, bedraggled hair and a truly tatty choice in robes.

“Mr Deputy Minister, is there anything particular you were looking for?”

Elijah’s hands found the front of his robes and he ran his fingers over the blockade of purple embroidered with golden fleurs-de-lis. He smiled tightly before assuring her quietly that there was nothing for him that she could do, “nothing at all.”

The woman nodded and scuttled away, leaving Elijah to his thoughts and to his musings as he traipsed through the aisles with little more purpose than anyone else ambling along lazily, as though they had all the time in the world to spare and a lifetime to waste in the walls. But of course, not everyone led such a harried existence as he did and Elijah Krum had the misfortune of, yes indeed, incurring pleasurable company but in the same breath seemingly inviting into his life a world of unpleasantness and, inevitably, death.

Charlotte Topez being, of course, the newest and more... directly his own problem and therefore causing his own, palpable guilt.

Still, c’est la vie. Life, as ever, went on.

The silence of the library was cut through rather unceremoniously, too unceremoniously for his liking.

The voice was familiar - but weren’t they all? Still, there was only one woman who owned such a voice and she came into sight within three footsteps and a slight twist of the hips around a corner. There she was, in all her golden glory: Amelia Lyons. She had aged not a day in his mind but perhaps that happened when one idealised the past and forgot quite what it was in all its exactness - it helped him not be quite so...disappointed with the present and the ever encroaching future.

His heart quickened in his chest, as it had always done, and he found himself reliving the night in the Owlery and then the following morning at the Ravenclaw tower. Then the ball and all of the other instances that had inevitably ended badly. But didn’t it always? Chase had. Mira would follow. She would no doubt leave him for some promising youth and who was he to blame her when he took his pleasure in the nether regions of a simpering Dolohov who, when one muted her, was far easier to enjoy. It was all rather tragic, really - yet not. No, it was all his own making.

“Shouldn’t you be breaking curses or hunting Dark Wizards, Madam Lyons?” He called out, feeling rather like the fifteen year old boy stupefied by her beauty and entranced by her elusiveness. Yet he wasn’t, he remembered far easier than he would have thought. No, much had changed since then.

Much had changed.

It almost wasn’t worth it to try to correct the girl again. Amelia had toiled over this infantile creature in front of her for months, and no amount of coaching could get her to do it correctly. It was as though all the pampering and coddling she had had since birth had prevented her from being able to do anything at all on her own. And now, when her parents couldn’t hire someone to wave her wand for her – they couldn’t, right? – she was failing at this tiniest taste of real world problems.

Sighing, Amelia twirled her wand between her fingers, the willow still as springy as the day she first bought it. She knew so much more now than when this wand had first chosen her: a great number of spells, magical history, potions, and, unfortunately, a great deal more about how tough life in general could be. No matter how fantastic she was at the aforementioned things, the latter always got in the way.

Amelia’s father had always told her that a sharp mind contained a solution to every problem. For at least a little while, Amelia had believed that. She had worked hard to hone her mind, to learn as much as possible, and to be the best student Hogwarts had ever seen. But despite her perfect grades and glowing reviews from all her professors, Amelia’s sharp mind hadn’t been able to solve everything. There were no books for relationships that failed before they had started because she didn’t ever know the right thing to say. There had been no incantation to cure the loneliness Amelia had felt since the day her best friend, her brother Raoul, had run away from home and left her to shoulder her parent’s expectations on her own.

And certainly none of the teachers she had had at Hogwarts had ever taught her about handling failure. Perhaps they never believed she would have cause to need that particular skill set.

In retrospect, Amelia had never believed she would either. And why should she? She had been successful at nearly every endeavor she had ever attempted (she didn’t count the relationships… most of those had been unintended anyway). She had been, albeit briefly, the youngest headmistress of Hogwarts in the history of the school. She was destined for greatness.

But just when you get comfortable with your trajectory, life, it seemed, brings you down a few pegs. She had lost nearly everything to the pureblood pox – a third of her body weight, track of where she stood with Jack or Arthur or Peter or any of the others, and her sense of direction. She didn’t know where to go from here.

She certainly wouldn’t have chosen this path on her own, but as always seemed to happen to Amelia, she simply did what her parents said. And look where it had stuck her this time. Instead of being at a prim ball in yet another couture gown her mother had picked out for her, she was wasting “the brightest mind of today’s young wizards” teaching brats things they ought to already have learned.

Lost in her own thoughts, Amelia wasn’t really paying attention to her surroundings until a voice in the otherwise silent library broke her train of thought. Despite the years since she had last heard it, Amelia recognized the voice immediately, and although her better judgment begged her not to look toward the sound, her body betrayed her and turned her long neck to let her eyes confirm what she already knew.

Elijah Krum.

Funny how she was sitting reflecting on the things her mind couldn’t control, and in walked the primary example. Elijah Krum was the first person to ever break through her shell at school, the first boy she ever had feelings for, and also the first and only boy to break her heart.

Seeing him standing there in his purple-robed glory, Amelia felt like that same 15-year-old who had first fallen for his charms. He was older now, but in a regal way, making him appear more mature and sure of himself. She hadn’t seen or heard from him in over a year, but she couldn’t have forgotten what he looked like: his face had covered every newspaper a few months back when he was appointed Deputy Minister, and he had always been popular in the tabloids for his various antics in the bedrooms of important women.

That last thought stung Amelia, though she hid it well. Elijah had moved on almost immediately after getting Amelia comfortable enough to feel close to him; it was so far in the past that she ought to be over it, but the sight of him made it feel like a fresh hurt. His comment was playful, like there was no bad history between them, but she realized, as she had every time they had interacted since their “relations”, that to him, there wasn’t. He had been on the favourable side of that coin, already with a new girl, and it had only been Amelia who was left hurting.

You’re better off, Amelia’s subconscious tried to tell her to keep her features unreadable, but in the present setting, the thought almost made her laugh. He was the Deputy Minister. She was a tutor for 12-year-olds. It wasn’t hard to see who had come out on top of this one.

“And shouldn’t you be off gallivanting in the south of France with the latest future-Mrs.-Krum?” Amelia sent back to him with a sickly-sweet smile, realizing it sounded harsh but not caring, “It’s a wonder you can go anywhere alone considering how long that line of hopefuls must be by now.”

“Amelia,” Sophie snapped, the little girl narrowing her eyes at her tutor, “My daddy isn’t paying you to flirt. Fix my flower.”

“The point is for you to fix it,” Amelia bit back, “Now work on that and I’ll be back in a minute. If you don’t, I’ll give your daddy a real report of your skills rather than the nonsense I usually make up for you.”

The girl looked like she was going to retort with something snide, but decided better of it and instead gave Amelia an icy stare and went back to her flower, leaving Amelia free to slip out of her chair and cross to where Elijah was standing.

“Can I help you find something, or are you just here as a sanctuary from your adoring fans? I doubt very much many of them can read, so you are likely safe here,” Amelia said, keeping her voice down to avoid the ire of the librarian. Being so close to Elijah was difficult, especially when she got a whiff of his usual pine-y scent, but if she could keep up this angry front long enough, that could be enough to keep her from saying or doing anything she would regret.

There had always been two sides to Elijah Krum: the one you had the misfortune of meeting and the one that you were lucky if you did see.

The latter appeared in the bleary eyes of the fatigued body that slumped back into boyhood, a glass of Firewhisky hanging limply on the tips of his fingers. The latter was found in the secret smiles, the soft whispers and the smallest of touches, the clutches of his fingers around another’s or the slightest brush of his lips against their temple. The latter was found in Elijah, in the smallest of crevices that spilled its contents and left his heart bear, a bowl of preciousness that he had patched up with art, the aforementioned alcohol and a string of lovers. Was he happy? Just look at what it had cost him.

Now, what was left? The first. The former. The one you had the misfortune of meeting. But of course, it was a coping mechanism. What else was there than the chilly reception he greeted people with that he neither trusted nor truly liked? What else was there when it came to greeting his charming wife? What else was there when he had to converse with his father, deal with his fathers ... do anything he didn’t want to do? He was still a child really, in that respect.

Of course in Paris it had been all a bit of fun - coming of age if you will. What it left for him was a few pretty pictures, a drinking problem and more money than sense. He’d enjoyed the women, the alcohol, the bread, the cheese and the chocolate. He’d enjoyed the Parisian way of life. But after that, tucked up in the domesticity he both loved and loathed, he found himself restless and buried himself into the business with the Dolohov woman for the sake of having something to do. Politics, after meeting his own ends, was dry and boring. In that sense, in what marriage had caused to him, he and Mira had never been more akin to each other. It was too bad, then, that it was only a matter of time before they parted ways. As ever.

Exhaling a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding in, Elijah allowed an impish smile to drift onto his features - the old, teenage smile of old before his forehead had crinkled with guilt and anxiety and the nightmares that murder and torture brought into the fold. Amelia, regrettably, did make him feel young again and that was an incredibly difficult thing for him to contain with. It wasn’t the fact that it was Amelia - it was the fact that, on the cusp of twenty-one years of age, he was dreaming of what it was like to be young again.

Oh, how politics ages you.

“Sweetheart, I’ve already been to France this summer. You’re a month behind.” He retorted quickly with an accompanying chuckle.

Elijah cast a look over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows. Sure enough, as he expected, a grand total of zero people were looming behind him unless of course you counted the furtive librarian that must’ve thought Elijah had Death Eaters in his pocket or something by the way she was looking at him. Strictly speaking, he did but not quite as literally as the librarian must’ve imagined.

“No....no... I don’t see anyone. My retinue must’ve gone for lunch. I guess you’ll just have to keep me company, eh?” He grinned at her doggedly and closed his mouth into a smirk before glancing at the child Amelia was sat with who managed to ruin his good mood - though, only slightly.

Thankfully, Elijah didn’t have to try much harder and Amelia surprisingly came willingly.

His smile softened to a more private quirk of the lips that was more for her benefit than that of anyone listening in. He wasn’t baiting her now, much more interested in actually looking at the still beautiful blonde before him. Her hair still had that sweet, strawberry edge to it and while she had this sickly paleness to her, he felt almost foolish for imagining the worst - that she’d gained a wart somewhere awful like her nose or the middle of her forehead during the, well, six years or so since they had really, really spoken.

“You know I like my women smart, Amelia.” He murmured in reply. “It’s objective, whether or not you find them sexy.” He smirked.

Elijah decided then and there what his best course of action was. Selfishly, he wanted to look at Amelia that little bit longer and if that meant abandoning the brat of a witch then Elijah was all for it. There was nothing more that he abhorred than the sense of entitlement in children when they had no need to bear such a trait. He had it as a youth, he was sure, but that didn’t mean anyone else had to put the world and his wife through the same punishment.

“Come on. Ditch Verruca Salt and come and have lunch with me.” He offered. “Or, better yet. How about I help Little Miss Salt fix her flower, you floo her home and then we go for lunch? There’s an Italian place near Diagon Alley I’ve been meaning to try. We can catch up. I’m buying.”

His offer had been negotiable. The amendment made it more preferable. The food made it promising. Him taking the cheque? Well, that was priceless. How could she say no? Easily, probably.

That smirk. That self-appreciating grin. It made Amelia’s blood boil to see him so self-satisfied. It was the same smile that once would have made her swoon (and likely still would now if she wasn’t so intent on avoiding it), but with anger coursing through her veins, every flicker on those handsome features just made her more irate.

I’ve already been to France this summer… Amelia’s subconscious mocked him in a sickeningly high pitched voice. Wish he would have stayed there. I think I’ll spend the rest of my life avoiding Paris just on the off chance of running into Elijah there.

Awfully childish of you, don’t you think? Another part of Amelia’s mind chimed in, perhaps the more adult kind that prodded her when she was still acting like a teenager. And she had to admit, crossing an entire city off her list of places to be on account of a boy she had dated years ago did seem very immature.

But when Elijah had to make jokes about her keeping him company, it didn’t seem so immature. It seemed perfectly reasonable. It seemed every interaction she had had with Elijah since their relationship ended had been an exercise in frustration. Mental frustration because he always seemed to have a better quip than her, emotional frustration because he had found so much success in lust (if not in love) and she was still alone, and sexual frustration because, damn it all to hell, her body still wanted to be near him even if her mind and heart wanted nothing of the sort.

It had only gotten worse over the years of being alone. Before Elijah, Amelia hadn’t known what it was to long for another person’s body. It seemed completely irrational, especially to a 15-year-old girl who had yet to fully encounter puberty. But when Elijah got close to her, her body reacted, betraying her at every turn.

Then, once he had done it, Amelia hadn’t been able to turn her body off. There was Marcus in the quidditch shop, then Peter with his bright blue eyes and impish sense of humor. Neither situation had brought Amelia particularly far in the realm of sexual experience, but even then her body had wanted it. And being alone for all this time since then had made her body long even more forcefully to be near to someone.

The problem was, her nether regions had no ability to discriminate who was merely attractive from people who were both attractive and worthwhile.

Case in point: Elijah.


“I know you like your women,” Amelia retorted to his comment about intelligence, “I have never deigned it important to distinguish it beyond that. And, come to think of it, I don’t think you spend much time discerning whose bed you enter, either,” Amelia snapped, though keeping her voice down to avoid Sophie overhearing.

The strawberry blond would have thought that would be enough to make Elijah crystal clear on how she felt about him and extinguish his attempt to insert himself into this situation. He could go entertain himself with someone more interested: and merlin knew, there were plenty of interested women out there. And probably some men, for that matter.

But as usual, Amelia had underestimated Elijah’s ability to completely ignore everything she said or did.

Amelia’s first response was unintentional – her mouth dropped open in utter shock. Her. Have lunch with him. Oh yeah. Because that is what she had been hoping for through all these acidic comments. What did he think he was doing?

But the flabbergasted sputtering she was doing now was unattractive, and unbecoming of a woman with her vocabulary, so she closed her mouth into a thin-lipped line, trying to find words fast enough and harsh enough to make her stance crystal clear.

“I am working, Elijah Krum,” Amelia said sternly, being very careful not to allow her temper to get the better of her and make her sound foolish, “And I am also not one of your girls you can just call on to be your company whenever it pleases you. In fact, I am probably one of the only girls you can’t do that with. So why don’t you make this easier on both yourself and me and go take one of them to your Italian restaurant?”

Mental note: stop inflating his ego every time you try to insult him, Amelia’s subconscious commented after she had said her piece, He already knows every girl on the planet wants him. He doesn’t need you reminding him. And you don’t really need the reminder, either.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I am going to go back to my student,” Amelia said curtly, turning on the spot with every intention of going back to the futile task of getting through Sophie’s skull (with her teaching, not with her fist… she hoped), but when she turned to the table she had been sitting at, Sophie was no longer alone, but was accompanied by a tall, bald man Amelia had no trouble recognizing as Sophie’s father.

“Mr. Pasalic,” Amelia said, hurrying herself over to the pair of them, “You’re early. Is there something wrong?”

“We’ve decided to take Sophie horseback riding today,” the taller man said with an easy authority. “I’m sure by now you’ve had time to teach our Sophie all of today’s material,” he added weightily, indicating both that Sophie was clearly smart enough to have learned it all already (she wasn’t) and that Amelia better have done it (she hadn’t).

“Yes, of course. We were almost done,” Amelia lied, nodding politely. She didn’t approve of lying in general – she preferred vague answers that weren’t lies, but didn’t give much away, either – but in this situation, everyone really wanted a lie. Sophie wanted her to lie so she would be allowed to go horseback riding, Mr. Pasalic wanted her to lie so he could continue to be deluded about his daughter’s lack of actual talent, and Amelia wanted to lie so she wouldn’t lose the only job she had, no matter how pitiful it was.

“Wonderful. Sophie will see you on Thursday at 4:00pm, then,” Mr. Pasalic said authoritatively. “Come Sophie, we’re going,” he said, reaching down for his daughter’s hand.

“I’ll see you Thursday, Sophie,” Amelia said, reaching for the flower on the table and turning it to life quickly before handing it to the little girl, who took it pompously and tucked it into the waistband of her dress.

“Daddy, can we go horseback riding on Thursday, too?” Amelia heard Sophie asking just before her father turned and apparated the two of them out of the library, leaving Amelia standing alone by the table.

Heaving a sigh, Amelia looked up to the ceiling, not knowing what she was looking for there, but knowing she didn’t want to turn around and see Elijah still standing there. She had lost her perfect excuse, but that didn’t mean she had to go to dinner with him. She didn’t owe him anything, and she certainly didn’t need his charity.

Instead of forcing herself to find something else to say to him, she busied herself with cleaning up her textbooks, parchment, and quills, hoping he would just leave before she did. The universe had to smile on her eventually, right?

The smell of libraries was always the same. It was as though the old muddled indiscriminately with the new, burrowing into the pages like a snuffling mole into the soft, pliable earth, making them its home until it was thrust from the surface by a gust of hot, human breath and the brush of fingers against its spine. Elijah understood, for a fleeting moment, why it was that Ravenclaws loved such places. He understood, for a moment, why any person had the potential to love a place so ardently and wish to disappear within its shelves.

The smell wasn’t age, though that was undeniably present. No, the scent was wit, wisdom, learning, ingrained intelligence and a way with words that was so sumptuously lyrical that even the poorest of strung up words fitted into a sentence was enviable. It was what Ravenclaw’s smelt like. As a younger man he thought arrogantly that it was evidence of just how boring and antisocial they were. When really, they had more to offer the world than he ever did and yet, where was he? He was in a seat of power. But Amelia...now Amelia, she had so much more to offer - particularly so - much more than tutoring some rich twit of a girl.

So why had it ended up like this? He should’ve been tutoring. She should’ve been doing good in power. She should’ve been doing something. Something amazing. Something that would’ve made ‘Miss Amelia Lyons’ famous for all the right reasons.

Elijah quirked an eyebrow upwards at Amelia’s flustered response and he opened his mouth to reply, only finding that, really, there was nothing to say to differ from her assessment. He could’ve claimed to have been picky but he wasn’t really - not when all he needed was the carnal satisfaction of another body against his own. When it came to someone he wanted to be with...he had his reasons, his desires, his needs. When it came to Amelia, he didn’t have a long enough bit of parchment to list them all. Most of the time, though, it was some sort of coping mechanism - a new woman for each new feeling, if you will.

“You offering, Lyons?” He asked with a crooked smile before he could stifle himself. She wouldn’t take that well.

Elijah rolled his eyes. She was always so restrained, uptight and ... well, her knickers were in a twist, weren’t they? Untwisting them featured on his list of things he wanted to do to Amelia but, as ever, it wasn’t exactly appropriate.

“Oh come on, Amelia.” He scoffed. “You know I don’t think about you like that. I’m offering to take you to lunch. It’s not a booty call. There’s nothing untoward in it. I don’t actually want to jump in bed with you...not that I’m saying there’s anything wrong with you but you know what I mean. It’s lunch. There’s not nearly enough time to ravish you.” Elijah grinned impishly. “No, that’d have to be a few dinners.” He conceded. “But that’s not my point! It’s just lunch. And I’m paying!”

Thankfully, the saviour came in the form of Mr. Salt and Elijah leaned against the side of the bookshelf, watching idly as Amelia lied smoothly and the girl was ferried off with her father. There was no way on Merlin’s green earth that the girl had done any of what she was meant to do. It wasn’t that Amelia was a poor tutor but the fact that with children like that, bashing them over the head with a broom wouldn’t knock any sense into them - let alone anything else. But that meant, of course, that lunch with Elijah was her option and that in itself, made Eli beam.

Moving off of the shelf, Elijah crossed the room to the table and helped Amelia, raking in some of the bits and pieces that were out of her reach. Once they were gathered up, Elijah set them down by the bits that Amelia had done herself and he reached out, his fingers trickling against her arm as a softer, more intimate smile played at his lips.

“I really just want to catch up, Mia.” He murmured gently as he retracted his hand. “I’ve missed you, believe it or not. It’s been a long, long time. I think I owe you at least lunch - perhaps even a few lunches.” He smiled a little more before adding, “They do some fantastic ice cream, by the way.”

If there was a god out there, Amelia must have done something a long time ago to really piss him off. Because he wasn’t doing her any favors.

As Amelia was cleaning up her things, making large, deliberate gestures so there would be no mistaking what she was doing, she heard footsteps coming up behind her and didn’t even have enough denial left in her to pretend it might be the librarian. She didn’t turn around at first, hoping he would get the hint, but Elijah never waited for an invitation. That was the problem. His confidence – something she had admired about him when she was first getting to know him – meant he didn’t need her approval. In fact, her generally more silent demeanor just gave him more openings.

He was talking rapid speed, and Amelia was able to tune most of it out, even the part where he referred to the lunch as “not a booty call”. But when he got to the part where he felt the need to tell her that there “wasn’t anything wrong with her”, Amelia was annoyed to the point of turning to face him, inhaling sharply in a way that made her nostrils flare as she stared him down with a face that read anything but amusement. At this point, he was detailing how exactly the pair of them would get to the point of him “ravishing” her, and Amelia nearly gagged on her own tongue. She rolled her eyes heavily at him, letting out the breath she had inhaled in a slow, impatient way, either unable or unwilling to pretend for Elijah’s benefit, even if he was the Deputy Minister.

Perhaps because he sensed the anger rolling off of her in waves, Elijah stopped his endless barrage of words and moved past her to help clean up some of the remaining supplies that lay sprawled across the table. She could hear him shuffling things behind her and turned to tell him to stop, that she could handle it herself, but when she spun to interrupt him, he was already done and before she could flinch away, his fingers were brushing her bare arm.

“I really just want to catch up, Mia.” That smile. The name only Elijah ever called her. He almost sounded sincere.

He’s a practiced liar, Amelia’s subconscious interrupted as Amelia’s eyes darted between Elijah’s hand on her arm and his eyes, so focused on her. Of course he sounds sincere. He could also sound sad, elated, or German if he was so inclined. Stop letting him manipulate you.

He’s not manipulating me, the other half of her mind bit back, offended at the thought that it wasn’t in complete control of the situation.

You don’t actually believe he has missed you, do you?

Of course not. He’s had so much other company.

Exactly. So just get your stuff and get out of here.

I think we could both use some closure here.

You have closure. It happened when you closed that rather unfortunate chapter of your life.

We both know that’s not true.

Even if it isn’t, you know lunch will only make things more complicated, not less.

I don’t know that.

Yes you do.

Not unless I try it.

It was stupid, irresponsible, and completely illogical, but Amelia knew in that moment she would do it anyway. She had seen this happen before, where the part of her that wanted there to be good in Elijah, that wanted him to be the 15 year old who had been so kind to ‘the Ice Queen’, took over and gave him a second chance. And a third. And a fifteenth. There was nothing she could do to stop it, because when it came to relationships, she was still just as hopeless as she had been when she was 15. Particularly where Elijah was concerned.

“Fine,” Amelia said with a shake of her head, the word coming out exasperated. If she was going to do this stupid thing, she was going to do it on her terms.

“Fine,” she repeated, “We will go to your Italian restaurant and we will eat lunch. But we will split the check. And when lunch is over, so is this,” Amelia added, pointing between the two of them to make it very clear what she meant.

Picking her wand up off the table, Amelia pointed it at all of her things and they compressed themselves down into her bag, which she picked up and swung over her shoulder.

“Now let’s go before I change my mind,” Amelia said, managing to sound assertive despite the fact that she knew she had already lost any control she had of the situation as soon as she agreed to go with him. But still, she could leave any time she wanted if things didn’t turn out as planned.

Or at least she told herself she would.

There was only limited satisfaction in knowing that despite the obstacles, the hurdles that Amelia had painstakingly put up for him, Elijah Krum still, essentially, won the battle that had begun the moment he’d clapped eyes on the pretty, strawberry blonde that, really, had not changed much at all from when he’d last seen her. Perhaps she was a little ropier, less full in her body and skinnier, but that had happened to all of the Purebloods who had come down with the Welsh Green Itch.

Elijah had been lucky in the point of fact that he elected to depart abroad during the time it was going on But really, luck had very little to do with it. It was selfish self-preservation. To see how Amelia had suffered though, even if now the evidence was cheap and circumstantial, Elijah couldn’t help but feel a twinge of regret and wondered whether it would’ve been prudent of him to remove from the country also, those he loved and cared for. Still, it was in the past now and at the time, he would’ve had to have bundled her into a post bag and shipped her out of the country first class on a freight ship.

It just wouldn’t have happened. Such a struggle had been building but had been narrowly avoided this time, in this instance, and as Elijah had told Amelia: it was only lunch, nothing more. Anything else he’d merely been joking about, a faint effort to put her at ease even though he knew it to be fruitless.

“Alright,” Elijah nodded brightly. “Italian, I’ll pay. Then we’ll figure out between us what ‘this’ is over lunch tomorrow.” Elijah grinned cheekily and ducked away before she had a chance to entertain the idea of thwacking him in the stomach with her fist.

Holding out his arm, Elijah waited for her to take it before slipping his other hand into his pocket. Then, grabbing onto his wand, he closed his eyes and felt the familiar pull and stifling tube-like feeling of Apparation. He kept his breath, his lips pinned closed as his robes and his hair whirled about around him. As quickly as the magic began, it was over, and his murky trail of Apparation slipped down into an alleyway between a post office and a tobacconist. They appeared all in one piece as they’d been in the library and Elijah smiled at Amelia, half-glad she was with him, half-glad he hadn’t splinched her.

It was still known to happen, after all.

Gesturing for them to press on, Elijah led Amelia down through the alleyway and out onto the bright and bustling streets of London. Thankfully, lunch time meant that they could disappear amongst the crowd, letting the river of people wind along the pavement and lead them down the road. Elijah was content there, merely shuffling along while he was dragged this way and that. It felt rather like a Portkey in that respect. Nevertheless, soon enough they had to disentangle themselves from the crowd and did so lithely, arriving at the porch of a classic Italian taverna, juxtaposed between a dingy bar and sport’s shop.

Opening the door for Amelia, Elijah let the smell of basil, tomato-based sauces, pasta and pizza wash over him. He entered behind her and immediately, Elijah caught the eye of a young waiter who hurried over, a genuine smile lighting up his features as he put his pencil behind his ear.

“Bonjourno!” He enthused, clapping one hand on Elijah’s upper arm and reaching with his other to shake his hand. He then diverted his attention to Amelia from whom he took a sneaky kiss off of her cheek. He then turned to Elijah and gestured for them to follow him through the restaurants to one of the booths.

Elijah thanked him and slipped into the booth opposite Amelia before inquiring after the wine list. The waiter hurried off and while they waited, Elijah reached into the inside pocket of his robes and removed the silver cigarette case he liked to keep with him. He opened it up, removed one of the items and tapped it on the tabletop before slipping it behind his ear, saving it for later on. Then, he replaced the case back into his pocket and looked at Amelia expectantly.

“How have you been then?” He asked for starters. Goodness only knows what the main and dessert will be.

Amelia narrowed her eyes at Elijah when he deliberately summarized the exact opposite of what she had just said, but she did not give him the pleasure of a retort. That was the only reason he had done it – to get a rise out of her. Amelia actually presumed that most of what Elijah did and said in her presence was meant to get a rise out of her.

So why exactly are we joining that person for lunch? Amelia’s subconscious demanded, irritated that the part of her brain who still thought there might be something redeeming about Eiljah had won out again.

To put an end to all of this once and for all, Amelia retorted mentally as she put her arm on top of Elijah’s, intentionally making the motion as stiff as possible to avoid the temptation to eat her words as she thought them.

Sure it iiiiiiiiisssssssssss…. Amelia’s subconscious was saying just as they were sucked through the familiar spin of apparition, and for a few seconds, she had the relief of thinking nothing at all.

When her feet found firm ground again, Amelia was able to steady herself on Eiljah’s arm, which she quickly dropped and busied herself with brushing invisible lint from the front of her dress so she wouldn’t have to give Elijah any ideas if she held onto his arm a fraction of a second too long.

When he gestured, Amelia followed, at first keeping a decent distance between them, but as they made it out onto the busy streets, Amelia was forced to keep closer to him or risk being lost amongst the crowd. Places with this many people always made Amelia feel claustrophobic – brushing elbows and shoulders and legs with complete strangers. But in a way, it was also perfect for the anonymity she so often craved. She could lose herself in the bustle and focus on something as concrete as trying not to run into the people walking the other direction.

She was so focused on avoiding the feet of the other lunch-goers that Amelia almost missed it when Elijah began to turn off toward the Italian restaurant, but he grabbed her hand at the last moment and she took it, letting him pull her from the tide of people and onto the porch of a small restaurant. As soon as they were safely out of traffic, Amelia dropped Elijah’s hand, her fingers opening and closing nervously.

Stop fidgeting. She could hear her mother’s voice in her head. And she did, for the moment.

Although she didn’t care for many other aspects of Elijah’s persona, she had to admit he had manners, and she nodded her thanks as she passed through the door of the restaurant that he held open for her, coming up too quickly on a hostess stand and a young man dressed in the black and white of waiter garb. He had a stain of red pasta sauce on the sleeve of his otherwise pristine shirt, and Amelia was looking at this while he was greeting Elijah, which is how he managed to be kissing her cheek before she could back away from him. Her eyes widened obviously as he went for the other cheek and she side-stepped him before he could get to her. It didn’t even faze him, and he turned happily to Elijah, completely oblivious to how uncomfortable Amelia was at the attack on her bubble space.

“Now I see why he likes this place,” Amelia muttered to herself as they snaked through the restaurant to their table. The staff here is as free with their kisses as he is.

Reaching the booth, Amelia slid thankfully into the seat and watched the waiter hurry off after the wine list Elijah had asked for. Amelia wasn’t planning to drink anything alcoholic at this lunch. Alcohol was never good for her self-control (or anyone’s self-control, for that matter) and she didn’t need anything greasing the wheels of her screwing up in Elijah’s presence. That would probably happen all on its own.

Elijah was reaching for something in his pocket and pulled out his old cigarette case, pulling one of the death sticks from the case and putting it behind his ear. The cigarette sitting there among the brown waves made him look young again. It was something she had seen him to at Hogwarts all those years ago. He really hadn’t changed all that much, at least physically. She couldn’t say beyond that, having intentionally avoided him for so long.

“I’ve been fine,” Amelia said briskly in response to his question, “Keeping busy with tutoring. Trying to get everyone ready before classes resume again in a few weeks,” she added, keeping this as strictly business as she could. It would help her keep her thoughts off the fact that Elijah’s legs had brushed against hers as he slid into the booth, and the way his brown hair was falling down over his eye on one side.

“And how have you been?” Amelia asked, making the mandatory return volley of the question.