Love comes from the most unexpected places,
In someone's eyes you've never met,
In someone's smile you can't forget.

And if the music plays on in your mind.
Take all the love that you can find,
And if love takes you in,
Take all the love that you can find,
And hope it comes again.


When the “French boy” joined his best friend, twenty minutes later, he looked as if he had suffered a mild heart attack - at the very least. His hands seemed hard after all that manual labour [John River had never been asked to push someone's luggage on to a train, before. Rich hunks don't that, of course not. So believed John] and he had made little to no progress on the Ariel front.

Taking the seat right beside the half-open window, the French boy sat down, hair falling elegantly in his eyes, and the said eyes looking rather uncharacteristically grumpy as he stared at the green that rushed past the train. [It was actually the train rushing past, but John had no time to think about that.]

“Not chirping today, old man?” Rylon Mahogany grinned, as he reached for a chocolate frog card [only because said chocolate frog card bore the picture of a super-thing, super blonde witch who kept winking at the boys] and then looked up to see John staring outside. “Don't tell me you've proven me wrong - I thought you would have tripped into a pretty girl, by now.”

Pretty girl. Girls. That kind of thing made John look up, as fast as lighting. He did not look up this time round, however [and that was enough to tell Rylon that something serious had been cooking up, recently] as he spoke.

“I don’t care about pretty girls.”

Understatement of the year would be calling this statement the joke of the day. Or century. If you knew John River [even from afaaar] you knew he did care about pretty girls. In a 'be my girlfriend before I find another, next week' kind of fashion. “Good joke," Rylon said, as he grinned at the blonde on his chocolate frog card. "Do you know you seem to be losing your sense of humour? Because I bet there isn’t any even remotely pretty fourth to seventh year yhat you haven’t flirted with, left. Even Eva Mora.” Rylon added the last sentence on purpose to annoy his friend, and right on cue, John shot him a look that could have scorched the sun.

Eva Mora.

Eva Mora.

Not tall, but certainly gorgeous. Dark-eyed, black-haired, long-legged, tanned, Mexican to the core [and aware of it] and full of mischievous smiles that could melt a stone, and a resistant stone at that. Eva Mora, the one fifth year John had had the misfortune to meet, the day he had arrived at Hogwarts and stepped into the Great Hall.

To cut a long [and unhappy] story short, the French boy had happily kissed her in the middle of a crowded Ravenclaw common room two days later [John liked to make a show of his lady-attracting skills], only to retire to the hospital wing with a broken nose and fractured arm, fifteen minutes later, courtesy her 6.3" boyfriend who had been present at the place [and – let’s be fair – of whose existence John had been ignorant till the boyfriend's fist had come in contact with John's face for the second time.]

“That wasn’t my fault,” John said defensively, still glowering all over. He did not like to be reminded of the things that could, and had, gone wrong in his romantic endeavours. “How was I supposed to know she had a boyfriend twice the muscle that I am?”

“You could have at least gotten to know her before snogging her,” Rylon pointed out cheerfully. The memory always made him laugh – try as he would, he could not help grinning whenever the subject was brought up [and it was always brought up by him, too] - though this time, he stopped laughing after several moments [that seemed like houuuurs to John] because the blonde on the card scowled at not being paid proper attention, and Rylong didn't have a mind to offend her.

John did not reply, only settled further back in his seat and Rylon, sensing something had happened, tossed a chocolate frog at him - no, not the chocolate frog he, Rylon, had picked up earlier. “Come on, mate, what’s wrong? Someone steal your new girlfriend or something?”

“I can’t bear it anymore, Ry!” John blurted out.

Rylon [and the blodne on the card] both looked highly taken aback at this sudden outburst. "Bear what?" Both asked [though of course, John didn't hear the blonde speak.]

John sighed. “I –” he hesitated, fully aware that there was no turning back now: if he did not tell Rylon the complete story, the guy would not let him rest peace until John spilled, even if it meant lying to Eva Mora's boyfriend about how John had been kissing his girlfriend behind the boy's back. “I think I’m in..." Love? No, that sounded alien to John. "I think I like someone."

Rylon frowned, and he and the blonde exchanged a confused look. "The pretty but taken kind?" He asked. Then his pupils expanded visibly. "It's Eva Mora, isn't it?" He asked, all breathlessly. Darn it, how could John act such a fool and fall for her? "Listen, John, that's pretty serious. I heard she and her boyfriend's gotten engaged." They hadn't, but Rylon knew he had to make sure John did not bother that girl again. "They -"

"Rylon -"

"They're probably going to end up married, next year, and then they'll have -"

"Rylon -"

"Have babies, and there's nothing you can do about it. She's not the kind of girl it's right to fall for, she's committed and -"

"RYLON."

Rylon stopped, mouth open in mid-sentence. "Committed and dangerous?" He offered lamely.

“Forget Eva Mora,” John scowled. Then his face fell, rather dramatically. “She – not Mora, the girl *I* like - she’s not committed. In fact...” he hesitated, and Rylon and the blonde looked at each other, shrugged and then looked at John. "She's not even near being committed."

“Then?” Rylon and the blonde exchanged confused glances. Both agreed that girls, in their heart of hearts, love to shop and buy pretty things and shiny ponies and unncessary high heels, all at the expense of some rich and handsome lad, and since John happened to be rich, handsome and willing to spend money, neither of them could understand how someone could refuse John River.

“It’s –”

“Listen, mate. It's no use tormenting yourself. Spill, already."

John said it so fast, the whole sentence seemed like one, long word:
“I-think-I’ve-fallen-for-Ariel-Bonanza.”

Rylon Mahogany put down his chocolate frog card.



Reference:

[] "Love comes from the most unexpected places -" Lyrics of Love Comes From Unexpected Places by Barbara Streisand.

When the road looks rough ahead,
And you're miles and miles,
From your nice warm bed,
Just remember what your old pal said:
You've got a friend in me.

You've got troubles, well I've got 'em too,
There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you,
We stick together and we see it through,
You've got a friend in me.


OOF.

The moment Ruby Sarden slid open the glass door of the last compartment on the Express, a pair of fair arms flung itself upon her, pulling her down and landing her in a heap on the floor. The said arms belonged to the owner of a luscious crop of red hair and bright, blue eyes.

“I see your sense of style has gotten even shorter,” the petite newcomer grinned, as she disentangled herself from the redhead's grip and [in a manner that happened to be just a little over-graceful] took a seat, one long leg crossed over the other, eyes noting that an important person that ought to have been in the compartment, did not happen to be there. “Isn't Philippine her yet?”

“Her brother stooole her pygmy puff. She's gone to sneakily bring it back," Ariel supplied happily [the real story? Philippine and her brother had accidentally grabbed each other's pygmy puff's cages, and Philippine had gone to let him know] and would have supplied more - perhaps an account of exactly how shiftily Philippine intended to bring the cage back - if the door had not opened once again, at that moment, and Philippine herself had not stepped in.

Philippine herself - a rather average-looking girl, not tall, not dazzlingly stunning like Ruby, not innocent or permanently bright like Ariel, but intelligent-looking, rimless glasses perched on her nose, and extremely proud of the dark black hair that cascaded down her shoulders to reach her waist, and made more than one girl envious.

“There you are,” Ariel said brightly, chucking a pack of Bertie Bott's Every-Flavour Beans at the dark-haired arrival. “Talked to Dot, have you?”

Dot being Philippine's brother, and his name not being Dot but Cam. Ariel had called him Dot since he had been eleven and [i]not[/] handsome though, because her first impression had been of a goofy, dotty, tantrum-throwing kind of kid. Seven years later, she still called the poor guy Dot, even now when he was a head taller than her, and certainly not dotty.

Philippine nodded [she had gotten used to her friend calling her brother that odd nickname] as she brushed back the bangs that had settled on her glasses. “I have, but –” she bit her lip, and suddenly hesitated. This happened each time they met, and both Ruby and Ariel knew the rest of Philippine's unfinished sentence [it was the only major problem in Philippine's life, and had been for a couple of years now] but both pretended to look highly interested.

“Something happen?" Ruby asked, encouraging Philippine to tell them [and inwardly sighing and thinking, not again maaan, not again.]

Philippine sighed, bit her lip and looked dramatically huge-eyed. “I still don’t have the courage to talk to Rylon,” she said, tones all a-whisper.

Ruby gasped, in an oh-my-how-terrible manner, and proceeded to offer advice [the same advice that she offered each time] at once. "You’ve known him for seven years, you’re neighbours, you share the same common room, you’re even pals, Philippine. I'm sure he can't mind if you ask him out on a date, as friends. In fact, I think it should be easier for you to talk to Rylon, of all people, since you know him so well."

Philippine hung her head, manner still all this-is-terrible-so-I'm-going-to-whisper. “I don’t mean talking like that,” she clarified. “I'm always talking to him like that, as friends. I mean... you know -" Her voice got even less audible - "I want to talk to him like that.”

Ruby blinked, shrugged, gave up.

Philippine looked like that made matters even worse [and for her, it did]. "Do you think he thinks I'm pretty?" She asked. "I mean, I know I study a lot -" She happened to have a huuuge Runes dictionary tucked under one arm, even now - "But I have nice hair. Do you think he likes my hair?"

Ruby coughed rather skeptically, but before she could think of a response [that she hadn't already given Philippine in the past God-knows-how-many-months of Rylon problems] Ariel had decided to take matters in her hands.

“I don’t get either of you,” she declared most unhelpfully. “First there’s Ruby Sander. She goes around declaring love is stuppppid, after she has a huge, messy breakup with her twenty-seventh boyfriend, and then I catch her snogging that Slythie prefect the next day. Then there’s Philippine Andrew. She's been telling everyone in the universe - I bet even the Martians know by now - for the past five years, that she likes her neighbor and doesn’t have the courage to tell him." She paused, found both her friends looking completely outrages, and said all happily, "You two -- SUCK."

“He was not my seventy-second boyfriend!” Ruby flared up.

“He isn’t my neighbour – he lives next to the guy-and-cats next door!” Philippine protested.

Ariel snorted. The one time she tried to help her friends out, they had all sorts of excuses to ensure she didn't. “Fine,” she said coolly, though not offended. “Fine. But you know what?”

“What?” Ruby asked the question, since Philippine had slunk into a corner and was now staring at her feet, looking as if her Prince Charming had fallen into a bottomless pit full of mermaids faaaar more gorgeous than her, and all hopes for a happily-ever-after been brutally extinguished.

“I said twenty-seventh, not seventy-second,” Ariel replied brightly.

Ruby had not blushed this hard in ages.



Reference:

[] "When the road looks rough ahead -" Lyrics of You've Got a Friend in Me from the soundtrack of Toy Story 3.