บท 36: C036 - The date

I took great pleasure in teasing Harry all week because he had really irrational fears about the upcoming double date. I followed it all up with supportive messages to build up his courage because I wanted to be a good wingman - but I could only be so supportive.

At one point, Harry asked how to find out if food had garlic in it because he didn't want his breath to stink of garlic for the date because of something he ate the day before. The night before, he asked me if there were magical belts that made sure his pants wouldn't drop for any reason mid-walk.

The morning of, he asked me for a cure for boils potion in a flask he could carry because he feared he had a pimple just about ready to pop out, which made me ask him if he wanted to bring a second flask with mouthwash because the potion left you with a breath reminiscent of wet dirt for a good while if you didn't rinse your mouth.

Personally, I simply dressed in some of my nicer clothes I got during Christmas break and used some spells from Tatum Andrews to groom myself perfectly or as close as I could come personally. A ridiculously expensive muggle cologne from Calvin Klein, since the wizarding perfumes were all outlandish and a nice unassuming yet elegant ensemble of clothes later, I was rather proud of the image I gave others.

"Can I get some perfume, too?" Harry asked with red cheeks as he entered the room and looked like he rather liked how I smelled.

"Wow, not going for broom polish like you usually do?"

"Like you don't smell like broom polish! You're an idiot, mate. We polish our brooms after practice together every single time."

"Hey, don't say something so ambiguous!"

Harry blushed fiercely and threw a pillow at me.

"I regret not asking Professor Flitwick for another room," he spat with a playful scoff.

"In any case, here. I got like three to choose from if you don't want to smell like me," I said as I eventually yielded the childish game we were playing and threw over the pack with my hygiene products.

"I'll have to ask one of the elves to get me some," Harry whispered to himself as he rummaged through the bag. "Hey, Talion. Can you send elves on errands in the muggle world?"

"You can, but with caveats. They can not expose themselves, so you need to send a smart one. They can not inherently disadvantage law-abiding muggles, so no ordering them to rob a bank or something equally dangerous. Instead, pay them if the elves compel them to do something in your stead. And lastly, have your elves interact with muggles in private settings and not in the middle of a public place to avoid the need for obliviators."

"That came surprisingly fast... does Patrick do a lot for you in the muggle world?"

"He's become a vigilante who robs criminals and then reports their unlawful activities to the proper muggle authorities. I get to keep his ill-gotten loot and became a millionaire in British pounds before Christmas," I answered with a shrug.

Harry narrowed his eyes for a moment while smelling one of the perfumes and judging to go for another still and said, "Fine. Don't tell me. Why make up something so ridiculous?"

I scoffed but still didn't reiterate that I was telling the truth.

"Don't overdo it. You want to smell nice, not be the only thing she can smell," I said as I watched him pour the cologne into his hand with an unsure look.

"Dab it on places where blood runs through. Like the jugular on your neck and your wrist. When you get excited, more blood will pump through, and you get warmer. If you get warmer, the smell gets released from your skin, and you smell nicer, drastically improving your image in her subconscious mind. For a similar reason, dab some near the hairline behind your ear. Hugs make you excited. Excited means warm. Her face will be at the back of your head. You will smell nice."

Harry looked at me like I grew a second head for a whole while before he sagged his shoulders and looked dejected while calmly heeding my advice and placing the cologne pooled in his cupped hand at the places I suggested.

"How do you know so much? The orphanage couldn't have taught you that..."

"Where'd you think I bought this stuff? At some mom and pop corner store, where hobos go for beer and smokes? The sales lady in that luxury boutique wouldn't shut up after I casually asked her for tips," I lamented with a scoff.

"Wait, how'd you pay for that if it was a muggle boutique? Did you exchange some galleons for pounds with the goblins?"

"Who would ever exchange currency with those greedy bloodsuckers? I already told you I had Patrick decimate criminal gangs and loot their operations."

"Yeah, right," Harry said as he went to wash his hands after sneakily trying to apply it into his hair by fixing his messy mop of hair with his palms.

When he was done in the bathroom, he walked out and looked at me incredulously, "Wait, you were serious?"

"As serious as your godfather," I said with a shrug, and Harry looked at me in suspicion for the entirety of our trip down to the carriages that would drive us closer to Hogsmeade.

"Hey girls, Isobel, you look fantastic," I praised once they walked over and I saw with great pleasure that she was wearing my christmas gift - the dark purple scarf I had chosen for her that really brought out the slight purple tint of her pale blue eyes.

"Thank you. You don't look too shabby either, Talion," Isobel said with a smile and walked over to me as she gave me an appreciative look up and down. "Yeah, you clean up nice."

I didn't know if I should be offended because in this cold weather I was simply wearing a form fitting but still bulky beige muggle coat that covered just as much as the school robes and looked therefore almost the same as every other day, but I didn't want to spoil the mood either so I simply took the compliment. Because underneath this coat, I did indeed wear nice clothes that fit perfectly.

As Isobel finally hooked her arm into mine, we both watched Harry and Lisa try to compliment each other as well and fail miserably as they both turned tomato red after they started talking at the same time and almost shout out their 'you look really pretty/handsome'.

I really hoped that Harry would at the very least learn that he was worth loving today to start healing some more emotional scars... but I was kind of lost in getting those two to loosen up a little.

With a shake of my head, I ushered the four of us to McGonagall, who was taking attendance for the Hogsmeade weekend and got us on a carriage under the wistful smile of our aged Transfiguration professor.

I didn't want to suffer in the awkward silence Harry and Lisa were creating, so I decided to make some small-talk with my date in carriage.

"Isobel, you smell particularly nice today. Is that rose scent?"

"Indeed, it's rose and lily," she admitted with a graceful smile.

"How fitting. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a kind of rose named the same as your beautiful name?"

"Ah? Is there such a thing?" She asked with an intrigued look.

"Oh? You didn't know? It depends who you ask, of course, but a florist did sell my little helper this carmine-pink rose and told him it came from an Isobel Rose bush," I explained and took out a single rose from my breast pocket and handed it to my date with an exaggerated flourish.

I might have overdone it with that when I sneaked out of Hogwarts and bothered Patrick with this task after breakfast, but I didn't want to slack either. Not because I already fell in love with Isobel or wanted her to fall for me but because despite having Lavender as my first girlfriend for a short while, this was my first date and I didn't want to regret anything.

As I noticed Lisa look at the rose with envy, I kicked Harry in the shin. He thought it was terribly embarrassing and wanted to refuse it, but I did have Patrick buy a lily flower from the 'Lisa' genus, too. A bittersweet revelation to the boy-who-lived for obvious reasons as it hit quite close to home that his first date was with a girl whose name was so closely linked to his mother's... if you just considered flowers.

Lisa Turpin, Merlin bless her tender heart, didn't stop squealing in delight when Harry handed the flower over awkwardly, and messed up the entire series of explanations on why this flower was chosen for her. I only hoped that Lisa already knew her name was given to this family of lilies...

Contrary to what Harry Potter canon would have you believe, there were actually more than two inns and one café in Hogsmeade and not just Madam Puddifoot's, Three Broomsticks and the seedy Hog's Head Inn run by Dumbledore's brother. After a brief stop at a bookshop - because where else would us four Ravenclaw nerds stop during a date - I took the lead and ushered us into a café that was much easier on my eyes than the date-hotspot that was the pink monstrosity Madam Puddifoot's.

We sat down in a secluded booth with a window that wasn't see-through from the outside and calmly ordered a platter of different fruit cakes and whatever tea each of us wanted. We were British, after all.

"Okay, we've had enough silence," I eventually said as I put down the cup, and nobody had said a word since we ordered our drinks and got them served. "Isobel, find out the lie in these three statements."

The girl perked up and looked intrigued. I personally rather wanted to do something easy like truth or dare but after the huge misunderstanding with Lavender I didn't want to risk it with a pureblood witch again, not that the outcome was so bad technically.

"I'll attend the under 18 dueling tournament in Rome after this school year ends. I sleep on top of my blanket like a starfish. And, my favorite number is three. Now tell me when I lied and I'll answer a question truthfully if you get it in one go."

Isobel thought for a moment and looked toward Harry for a moment which made me look to him to see if he was giving her subtle tips, but she merely blushed a little, likely thinking that if two was correct, Harry would see me half naked constantly. Pureblood witches were really repressed...

"I've seen your Firebolt up close, and I've seen you talk to Professor Flitwick constantly... so I'll choose two."

"Correct!" I answered with a pleased nod. "What do you want to know?"

"Hmmm," Isobel thought as she tapped her chin in deep thought for a moment. "If you have a favorite color, which one is it?"

"Oh, that's something I haven't thought about much... I guess I'm partial to a calm blue. Like the dark blue hues in the sky just before a cloudless summer night becomes completely dark."

"That's a nice answer," Isobel complimented with a contend smile.

"Okay, anybody else want to do a round? Harry?"

The boy was put on the spot immediately and looked like a deer in headlights, so I took over for him so I wouldn't be the first and only player of the game.

"Okay, Lisa. Find out the true statement among these two lies and one truth. Harry requires a kick to the bed every morning to wake up in time. Harry reads books until close to midnight every second day at minimum. Harry used to think there was a faster version of the broom in the form of a magical flying vacuum cleaner."

I had several things I could say, but I was very mindful not to mess with the boys shaky body image problems from the years of malnutrition and abuse and I was even more mindful not to touch any embarrassing subjects that went along with his monsters disguised as relatives. Those secrets were his own to tell, and I didn't want to put him on the spot more than I was already doing.

Lisa giggled for a moment, likely from the image of a flying vacuum cleaner, as I explained to Isobel what it was exactly. Thankfully, my date was aware what an electrical appliance was, so the explanation wasn't too hard.

"The third is obviously a lie... and I think Harry is very diligent. So the first one is also very unlikely to be the truth. I'd say the second one is the truth."

Harry gained a silly smile for a moment, but his eyes widened when I interjected, "Correct. Ask him a question for your efforts."

"Uhm, do you have a type of girls you like?" The girl whispered in a tone so high-pitched I wondered if I was a dog in my last life and could therefore still hear it.

Harry began to stutter and splutter for a moment before I wanted to grow a third thumb to give him a super-thumbs-up as he managed to say, "Someone kind like you, I guess."

From there on, we played the game a few more times and learned more about each other's likes and quirks. It really served us well as a successful icebreaker for a first date, I praised myself inwardly.

I learned that Isobel combed her hair for twenty minutes by hand every night as she browsed her notes for the day. I learned that she was deathly afraid of garden gnomes because of a prank played by her cousin. I learned that she would have had a magically betrothed marriage partner lined up for her since before her birth if the McKinnon line didn't die out in the war with Voldemort because one of the last McKinnons saved Isobel's father thrice in the war.

I learned that Lisa didn't know she was a witch like her mother until she was 7 and had planned to become a stewardess so that she could spend more time with her father. I wanted to ask why she didn't want to become a co-pilot for him but refrained from doing that. I reckoned there were very few female pilots out there, so a stewardess job seemed more attainable to a little girl. It was a little sad, but now, as a witch, the world was her oyster, and she could do whatever she wanted... if she studied hard enough and didn't fall victim to a pureblood asshole's scheme.

We all collectively learned that Harry really wanted to become an auror initially but was getting more and more discouraged the more he learned about politics over the course of the school year. We also learned that his favorite food was actually pizza now that the elves served it to him after I told him to just ask.

If the elves weren't worried for his health and gave him something else to eat more often than not, Harry would apprently have pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner most days.

With Lisa and Harry now talking to each other more freely like they would before classes, my job as a wingman seemed done. I gave Isobel a discreet signal and got up from my seat.

"I've already admitted to Professor Flitwick teaching me dueling in his and mine spare time, so I'll freely admit that he wiped the floor with me yesterday and I actually have a bit of a headache. It was a very lovely evening with all of you, so I'll excuse myself and leave you to it."

Isobel stood up with a worried look despite knowing this signal was discussed beforehand and said, "I can't let you leave alone, so I'll accompany you. I don't want to be a bothersome third wheel either."

"Did I say that, right? Third wheel is a muggle expression for someone intruding on a social interaction that would be nicer in the presence of just two people?"

I allowed Isobel to hook her arm under mine and dragged her away from the table after giving Harry a discreet wink, "Just right, Isobel. I'll go pay, it's the least I can do."

I walked over to the counter with my date and settled our tab thus far. Isobel had asked me why I did that a little later since Harry should be quite loaded with the Potter vaults, but I could only shrug. Not only was I quite flush with cash, twelve sickles, including my generous three sickle tip for the perfect, quiet service from the stern-looking older woman working the café would hardly put a dent in my finances.

And, it wasn't like Harry couldn't pay me back later if he truly wanted.