Louisa smiled widely as he set two extra lights, "That's smart. And they look beautiful," she stretched her hand to touch the jar carefully not to drop it. It was a smooth move from him, Louisa thought and smiled inwardly. Telling him that would send his ears on fire she was sure. And she liked his face unflushed.

"I love pumpkin juice!" She took the bottle from him, "Even in winter you see me drinking this. Our house-elves make sure they get the top quality, you know. The pumpkin juice at the three broomsticks is just too sour. I still like it, but it's not for every time." Louisa set the bottle beside her as she peered into the basket, listening to him talk.

Does she really study that much? Of course! "Yeah. I like to push myself to the limits. I don't want my name to drop off the top five students." You know, that board in their common room. A proud tone was not bad, right? Looking away from the basket and at Emrys, she added with a small smile, "I guess coming from my background motivates me too. My stepdad doesn't approve of my magic. He says it's untamed and prevents me from living with them until I graduate." So she had to study so hard to prove him wrong. Naturally.

"I don't know but I think you're doing fine." She chuckled blushing a bit, "I'm not very good with balance I guess. Hence the nail biting and face breaking out." The red blotches were invisible now, though. Makeup does miracles.

His response was not inviting and she didn't know what else to say. In fact, Hailey was about to suggest going back to the Great Hall so they could eat some more (she knew he would agree) but then--WHAT?!

Hailey was taken aback. What did Hunter just say? Michael Evans...her Mikey? Was...in love with her?

...


...


...


Annnd she still didn't know what to say. So Hailey stood there, her eyes looking like two huge blue gems and her mouth slightly hanging open, staring at her cousin.

"I think you need to get your head checked," She said finally.

Figures. Hunter placed his head in his hands and tried to think of a more sublte way to break this to her. "Hailey, when has my head even needed to be checked? He had common sense and a fairly good memory. He knew what he was saying. He stood up and tried to look away from her shocked eyes. "I'm serious. Mikey is in love with you. And he's not in denial either." He needed her to believe him. He needed her to stop being friends with Mikey.

Hailey stood there and shrugged--there was probably at least ONE time he needed to get his head checked. Like when he named his duck MILTON. She watched as he stood up and then averted his eyes. Ookay, now she was starting to feel uncomfortable. What would make Hunter say something as bizarre and stupid as that?!

And then he said it again. Mikey is in love with you. She didn't even know what that sentence meant. Maybe he meant he loved her like a best friend...which she was sure he did. And then the 'he's not in denial' part--what was all that about?

She was so confused. Reaching up to scratch her head, she looked helplessly at Hunter. "What do you mean he's in--in love with me?" She asked quietly.

She sort of didn't want to hear his answer.

Hailey was freaking, without doubt. He didn't really know what else to do other than continue talking and tell her the truth. She'd come to terms with it eventually.

"What I mean is...while he does love you as a friend, and I know you know that, he likes you more than that. From what I can tell, he has for a while." He wanted to mention that Mikey hates him partially because he'd been threatening to tell Hailey for a while now but he figured that wasn't all that important. "When I first spoke to Mikey he mentioned some girl he really liked and he called her Rose. I didn't know it was you until that time we met up and I called Mikey a liar." Surely she remembered that? He wanted to make everything as clear as possible so she could see the truth.

She was glad he was doing all the talking now, she didn't trust herself to speak at the moment. So Hailey listened.
He had for a while?! She was afraid to ask HOW long...and to think, he had never told her!
The part about Hunter calling Mikey a liar she remembered. She had gotten so upset. And it was all over...this?


No. No, it couldn't be. Hunter must be confused. Mikey probably meant some other girl and Hunter took it to mean her, but it really wasn't. It couldn't be her.

"H--" She coughed. In the time she had sat there and listened to him, her voice had apparently turned hoarse.
"Hunter," She tried again. "I think there's been a mistake," She said calmly. Or as calmly as she could. "You see, Mikey likes this girl named Violet. She's in our Herbology class. He's already told me."

Now THAT made much more sense.

Emrys smiled awkwardly as she took the pumpkin juice. Three.. broomsticks? That was that place in Hogsmeade, wasn't it? He didn't ask, lest he reveal himself to be even more antisocial and clueless than he appeared.

He reached into the basket, pulling out a bowl of fruit and setting it on the blanket, careful to not brush her arm or hand. Grabbing a pear from the top, he took a bite. Chewing thoughtfully, he swallowed. "He doesn't approve? Isn't that kind of like saying you don't approve of someone's height?" He sat up and crossed his legs. "I mean, it's not like you had any choice in the matter."

He took another bite of pear and leaned his chin in his hand, eyebrows furrowed in thought.

"Just don't.. well.. you know.." um, what was with the stammering all of the sudden? Emrys paused and tried again. "Don't work yourself too hard. I mean.. if you drive yourself crazy, then it won't have done any good to study all that much anyway, right?"

Violet. Why did that sound so familiar?

"Wait a minute...Violet from Herbology?" And as he said it, everything Mikey told him about Violet came back to him. "No. Hailey, that isn't it at all. He just wanted you to think that." He sat back down on the ground as Milton waddled towards him. "He told me....he said that....he was worried, but scared is more like it. He didn't want you to hate him and he didn't want you guys to stop being friends." He looked down at the duck and wondered if the duck could talk if he would tell Hailey everything in way she would understand. "But he LIED to you, Hailey."

"Yeahhh, you know her?" Hailey replied, though now she really didn't remember what Violet looked like. Hmm. She didn't particularly like this Violet chick either, for some reason.
But then Hunter was telling her...no? What?
"Stop being friends? Why would we stop being friends? Cause of him and Violet?" She asked stupidly. But Mikey had PROMISED! He had promised he would never leave her! Even for stupid Violet!

And then--that last sentence was, unfortunately the last straw.
No. Never. He wouldn't.

"Lied to me about what, exactly?" Hailey asked Hunter slowly but she was sure she already knew the answer to her question.
She was NOT liking this conversation.

Louisa laughed genuinely at his question. "Kind of. Well he thinks that we have that fairy tale kinda magic, maybe sometimes my fingers will electrocute him.." Her hands were inside the basket as she explained, "..or maybe my mouth would breathe fire and burn down the house. He's convinced that we're here to learn how to control our magic." She took something wrapped in a plastic bag and started examining it. "Like literally control it. He took away my wand this Christmas and I had to use my younger brother to get it back. Oh! It's a grilled cheese." Louisa said matter-of-factly first and then grew more enthusiastic at the sandwich. "Did you do it or was it the house-elves?" Munching on the grilled toast as she said that.

"Yeah. Easier said than done." Her attention was split between the awesomeness of the sandwich and Emrys. "I'm working on it though. It's why I'm here with you now." Beaaam as she took another bite into the sandwich. "You should really try this. It's fantastic." Or maybe she was just hungry.

Looking away at the pond, Louisa talked again "You know that someone tried to steal a duck from here once?" She met his eyes with a chuckle. "Younger students can be really fun. And the boy who tried to do it is really into ducks for inexplicable reason. He showed up to Astronomy class wearing duck feet slippers one day." Bahaha. Since Emrys kept to himself, Louisa might as well keep him up to date.

... unless he didn't find it funny. Then... ouch.

"Everything that matters in your friendship, in your relationship as two people." Hunter began to wonder if having this conversation was even really worth it. Mikey would just lie and that would be enough for Hailey because she was in denial. "Hailey, he told you things that weren't true. That's lying, isn't it? Withholding the truth from you is lying as well. You two were supposed to be best friends and he lied. He is in love with you and he couldn't even manage to tell you that." Why did people make things so complicated? He and Aria were smart enough to realize they didn't hate each other and they were happier than ever now. If a friend lies to another friend, is that person really considered a friend?

She didn't like that word, relationship. It sounded too...mature. As an almost-16-year-old, Hailey should be mature, of course, but most of the time she wasn't. And now that word was being applied to her and Mikey. Together.

The world was coming to an end. Clearly.

But she agreed with Hunter. Okay, so what if he lied about a few things? He's only human! She's lied plenty of times...
Withholding the truth...was that lying? She couldn't decide. She stared at her hands and let her curls fall over her face. She tried to think, to piece it all together.
He said he liked a girl who's name was a flower. Violet certainly fits. But now she wasn't sure if there really was a Violet in their Herbology class. He called her Rose...and that was a flower's name.

HOLY CRAP.

The truth dawned on her suddenly but she couldn't accept it. She just couldn't. Unless Mikey said it himself. She wouldn't believe it coming out of anyone else's mouth. Ever.

"I'm sorry, Hunter. But..." She sniffled. Damn tears. "...I think you're wrong. Mikey doesn't like me like that."

He wasn't exactly sure what to do now. Hailey was so quiet and he was almost sure that was all he had to say on the subject. Hailey had to know. They had been friends for far too long for her not to know. Yes, she was crying now, but that wasn't his fault. It was Mikey's fault. And yet, somehow, she still didn't want to admit that Mikey liked her "like that." "Why won't you believe me?" Did friends come before family now? Is that what was happening?

Standing up again, Milton still in his hands, he tried a different approach. "Dear, dear, cousin. If family isn't what you trust, than maybe you'll trust a duck." He put Milton up close in front of Hailey's face and, using the quackiest most American voice possible, "Milton" said, "Mikey loves you. I ttttthhhhhwear it!"

Now, in his own voice, Hunter whispered, "Ducks and cousins don't lie." Friends do.

Nothing. She guessed Hunter had no more to say. Maybe he had finally believed her.
Buuut, she was wrong. Now she had to look up.

"I don't believe you because...best friends don't lie to each other like that. So I know that Mikey wouldn't lie to me." Simply said.

And then he decided to shove Milton in her face and having him 'talk'. Hailey yanked her head back in surprise and listened to the duck. Well, she had to give him points for getting that voice right. But somehow, she would rather trust Hunter than his duck. Milton just didn't look that reliable, even with that adorable beak and yellow fur.

Hailey looked up at him when he whispered the last part about ducks and cousins not lying and tried not to looks skeptical. He was clearly trying to help her out.

"Okay. Okay fine," She said suddenly getting up.
"Say he is in love with me. How come he's afraid to tell me?" She asked.

Emrys let the hand holding the pear drop and come to rest on his leg as he burst into laughter. "Seriously?" He swayed back and forth as he laughed, picturing a man cowering before a fire-breathing Louisa.

He stopped, suddenly, looking ashamed. "Oh, gosh. I'm sorry.. I.. I just forget.. I mean.." His shoulders dropped. "I'm so used to being from a magic family that I forget that muggles don't really get it." He looked away, swiveling on the blanket so that he no longer faced her. "It's was mean of me to laugh. That's your family."

He shrugged when she asked about the sandwich. "House elves, mostly. I went down to the kitchen and asked them to help me put it together." He leaned forward and grabbed one out of the basket himself. Unwrapping it, he took a small bite, still beating himself up over the laughter.

He didn't notice her smile or the hint she dropped about being with him. And the duck story? It only registered a non-committal shrug.

Internally, he was beating himself up.

Hunter let out a sigh and kissed Milton on the head. Ducks come in handy after all, commotion causing or not. "I told you this already." He was slowly losing patience but he made sure not to let Hailey know because this was obviously hard for her. Losing a best friend was never easy but sometimes it was for the best. "He kept saying that you wouldn't want to be friends with him anymore if you knew. And that you wouldn't feel the same way and I don't blame you." He placed Milton on the ground and placed his hands on Hailey's shoulders. "He's scared of losing you." At this point Hunter felt like he was talking Mikey up instead of down.

She watched him kiss his duck as if it was the most normal thing in the world. And to think, he kissed malARIA with that mouth! EUGH!

He had already told her? Well, she didn't remember.
"How would he know how I feel," She said in a low voice, reaching down to pet Milton. It was a rhetorical question. In fact, she didn't know how she felt.

Okay, maybe she did know. But she certainly wasn't to tell Hunter. When he put his hands on her shoulder, Hailey was forced to look at him.

Ohmygawwsh, this was so confusing. "So apparently Mikey likes me but he never told me because he's afraid I won't like him back and then we'll never be best friends again or even friends for that matter and everything will be completely and utterly ruined?"

He was a smart kid to keep his mouth shut.

Louisa grinned as she watched him laugh his head off, the sandwich in her hands. She was in fact about to tell him more about Jason when he stopped abruptly making her face fall in alarm. Why did he-

Oh. Ooooh. She shook her head, "No, no. It's all right. I wasn't offended. I think it is kind of funny when I said it like that." not funny at all when she was forced to spend her days before graduation away from home though but that was ancient history. She grew used to that.

"Oh. Good." About the house-elf doing the sandwiches. How come they never cooperated with her? Maybe because of her bad timing when they had their hands full with a baby house-elf. Speaking of which! "Did you see the baby house-elf anywhere in the kitchen when you got the basket?" That was a genuinely curious question.

And why did he NOT laugh at her duck-stealing gossip? Maybe it was lame and childish. He must've thought she was one of those fake thinkers; they do the reading but it never gets into their minds leaving them immature forever. "Sorry, I'm rambling about a lot of unnecessary things. It's just that I'm really excited about bonding with someone new. I had a boyfriend for about five or six months and then lost him so it took me a lot to go out again and.. maybe I'm not the socialist I used to be." Her voice echoed her worry too.

Huh, what? Oh, crud. Had he been completely ignoring her? He turned to look at her, visibly embarrassed.

"I'm sorry, it's not anything you said, I promise." Though, that was an interesting tidbit about the boyfriend, yet he chose to ignore it. "I felt bad about what I said and I guess I just got stuck in my head about the laughing and.. and.."

He sighed and put down his sandwich, turning to face her again. "I'm not really good at this whole conversation thing, if you couldn't tell. I say the wrong thing all the time, or think I do, and then I don't talk, or I talk to much or I bumble over my words, or I do things like laugh in people's face about things that aren't really funny."

He took a deep breath, clearly winded. "See?" He shrugged.

"I'm sorry to hear about the trouble with.. well, whatever his name was." Emrys looked very intently at the pattern on the blanket. "You sh- shouldn't let it, let it get to you," he stammered. "H-h-his loss."

He coughed forcefully, fake clearing his throat. "So, did you say something about a baby elf?" He looked up, hoping she'd take the change-of-subject bait.

"Uh, yeah, basically...but...HE LIED. Remember? He lied to you, he can't be your friend anymore!" Hunter stared at her, hoping he could use his fake telepathic magic to convince her to never ever speak to him again. She could be best friends with Aria and then the world would be a happier place. All's well that ends well. He figured if the telepathy didn't work he could use some sort of spell or something with his REAL magic.

Hailey watched him with an arched eyebrow. Was it just her or was Hunter getting a bit too...edgy?

"Yeah, he lied, Hunter. People lie all the time. He was just scared..." She said with a sigh. But she seriously couldn't imagine a time when her and Mikey weren't friends anymore. It just wasn't possible.

"He's still my friend. BEST friend. It'll take more than a lie to stop me being friends with him," Hailey said confidently, her fists clenching.
"Why are you so upbeat about ruining my friendship with Mikey, anyway?" She asked out of curiosity. Or maybe she was imagining it.

"Oh,nothing much really.You?"Cardigan asked,monotonusly plucking the strings of her Violin.Eh.Probably not the wisest thing to do.But it did make a good sound!Well,not really that either.But whatever.Didn't really matter.Not yet anyways...

She nodded with a smile, swallowing the last bite of her sandwich. "And.. let's keep the apology thing to a minimum. We can act like friends now." Pause. "You know without the formality of apologizing for more than once in one hour," chuckling as she said that.

Louisa absently started eating red grapes from the fruit bowel he placed on the blanket before, listening to him as he talked more than one sentence which was quite a feat. At his 'See?' though, she raised her eyebrows. "It's really fine, Emrys." She wasn't getting how his mind worked in social life. "I don't mind the way you've held yourself with me so far." Even if he didn't shake paws with Viola or laugh at her duckie news, she didn't like being with a nodder.

Then he stammered and blurted out the baby house-elf question. She shrugged one shoulder, "Yeah, my friends told me that too. It's not easy. Being... attached to someone to an extent and then everything turns out to chaos and wounds." Dramatic last word but Louisa was a queen drama when it came to relationships anyway. Leaning her chin on her knees, she asked him "Did you ever have a girlfriend?" He was homeschooled and kept himself in a bubble, it was highly unlikely but you never know.

The baby house-elf could wait. They weren't here to just chat about school- well, they were but Louisa was determined to get to know him better.

Hunter hadn't realized that he was being too obvious with the whole thing. Subtlety wasn't for him. "I'm not upbeat about anything. I just...I want to make sure you know who you're friends with." And this was the truth. Sure, Mikey says he likes Hailey now but what if he just changes his mind? That's his cousin. After getting vocally abused by Mikey almost every single time he saw him, Hunter knew what Mikey could be capable of. "All I'm saying is that you should think about it. All of it. Don't just decide what you want to do right now. Deal?"

Make sure who she was friends with? He was trying to act like her brother again. -_- Good thing she didn't actually HAVE an older, overprotective brother. "I know who I'm friends with, Hunter. But thank you," She said with an eye roll. Even though knowing who she was friends with wasn't hard since she only had a handful of friends. Still.

She was about to say 'deal' when she couldn't help but think about it. The answer was already there. It had always been there but maybe it had taken this conversation to dig it out.
"What if I decided what I wanted a long time ago?"