She Said What?

Chapter 43: I Can't Evade It Anymore

A/N: You guys are epic winners. I swear, you are. I've been blushing and smiling foolishly ever since I last posted. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, you're what's keeping me going at the moment. Other than House on Mondays, I have nothing to look forward to except working my ass off. Not fun.

This chapter was going to come out a certain way, but then it felt wrong to me and I decided to take it in a completely different direction that actually gels quite perfectly with what I told you before, about 44 being a big one and 46 being the bigger one. With these next few chapters, I've been finicky and changing my outline every ten minutes, so...I think I've got it now. And I got a nice bit of thought-organizing done during Spanish for the ending I want. (Right now, I have mapped out everything until early May.)

So...enjoy yourselves. Maybe?

February 20

10:45 PM
Status: Nervous

After tonight's patrol, I have come to a rather disconcerting conclusion:

I am indeed going completely bloody mad.

If I had any doubts up until nine o'clock this evening, they are now officially gone.

Allow me to explain.

It all started off innocently enough. James and I were wandering, as ever, and talking about how hungry we were, and how taking another night off of patrolling to go down to the kitchens was quite an appealing idea.

"I could really use some ice cream," James said dreamily. "Double chocolate with extra fudge."

"Are you kidding?" I asked incredulously. "Double chocolate with extra fudge is my favorite ice cream dessert!"

James considered. "Okay. I'll take chocolate chips with my extra fudge, then."

I laughed. "Wow," I said. "I didn't know we liked the same ice cream."

"My mum and dad are witnesses – I'm an ice cream addict," he informed me quite proudly. "And Sirius is addicted to whipped cream, while my mum loves peanuts and my dad eats vanilla like it's going out of style. So between the four of us, we never have any dessert in the house when we need it."

I chuckled again, imagining this mental picture, but it didn't escape my notice how affectionately he spoke of Sirius – how inclusive he was of his best friend, speaking of him as though he was truly part of the family. I don't know why it struck me so particularly tonight as we talked about dessert, but it did; and I was going to say something, but I didn't. Too much room to have a potentially awkward conversation.

"That's interesting," I said. "I would've pegged you more as the mint chocolate chip fan, rather than the chocoholic."

"Mint chocolate chip?" This seemed to amuse him. "Do explain, Lils."

"You're...I dunno, it's silly," I said, blushing. "There's no reason for it. Never mind."

"No, I want to hear it!" protested James. "You can't just...say something and expect me to let you go when you change your mind halfway through! It's unfair!"

"It's...I don't even know what I was going to say," I somewhat-lied. "There's no point in interrogating me."

James put on an ominous grin. "I'm friends with Sirius Black," he reminded me. "Never underestimate the power of interrogation."

"I don't like that smile of yours," I said, stepping slowly away from him.

He only widened the grin. "Tell me what you were going to say," he said, deadly calm.