all my fame for a pot of ale [elias]

july 2001

“Last call.”

Edith Holthouse groaned as she looked down at her watch. It was only a quarter ’til eleven but she remembered with a sudden pang that they weren’t in London and things definitely weren’t running on London hours. Honestly, she wasn’t sure how she could have possibly forgotten that she had just spent the evening in Lunt, having successfully convinced Elias — her new whatever — to join her for the weekend trip home for Lunt’s annual Shakespeare Festival.

Actually, calling it a ‘festival’ was a bit of an overstatement. First, most festivals that celebrated the bard took place in April, around his birthday. But Edith’s parents, the curators of this particular one, felt that a festival in July would have less competition for visitors. Still, the nearly three hundred people they had managed to attract was a pretty impressive turnout. Just some of the various attractions of the festival included: a Shakespeare lookalike contest, staged duels,  and a Shakespearean insult contest. But by far the most enjoyable events were the plays.

Herbie and Tillie Holthouse were the directors, producers, stage managers, costumers, and lead actors of a very small, very horrible, but very proud theatre troupe. They had performed Macbeth earlier in the evening, and no amount of information she could have shared with Elias could have prepared him for just how awful everything was going to be. They had created what they called ‘The Round’, their much smaller, shabbier, and less impressive version of the circular Globe Theatre. And for the Festival, they had gone all out.

Edith and Elias had arrived after work that Friday, just in time to catch the opening act of Macbeth. She had correctly assumed that her father would be playing the title role, her mother Lady Macbeth. She had also correctly assumed that The Round would continue their tradition of unlimited wine with ticket purchase. Her last and favorite correct assumption was that she needed to constantly lean in close and explain how things on the stage were progressing, especially when the English got a little out of control.

Needless to say, by the time they were joining the cast and their families at the one village pub, Edith was just the slightest bit intoxicated and regretting her decision to join the party, rather than just going to find a dark corner with Elias. But the acting troupe hadn’t given a sober performance in the past thirty or so years and they certainly didn’t start tonight; they weren’t going to let them back out of the fun that easily.

Edith grinned as she watched him from across the table, trying to figure out which part of the evening was making him the most uncomfortable: the terrible play he hadn’t been warned about, her seventy-year-old father making dirty jokes about her mother to him all while wiggling his eyebrows, the sheer amount of muggles around him, or how Edith had been right when she had convinced him to dress down for the occasion. They had somehow managed to get separated in the kerfuffle for seats and more alcohol and she hardly had the chance to warn Elias about how much of a hugger her mother was or how openly her parents and their friends would insinuate that there was something more going on between them than there already was.

She had never mentioned having an interest in anyone, let alone bring anyone home to meet them and basically, everyone was a fair combination of thrilled and skeptical. But Elias was handling himself well enough, or so it seemed, and Edith had nothing to offer but supportive glances over the rim of her glass and the occasional apologetic shrug in between laughs.

But the last call at the pub, instead of triggering everyone to order another round, merely convinced everyone that it was time to move the party to the Holthouse residence down the lane. Edith jumped at the chance for another beer, however, with the added bonus of a few minutes alone with Elias. “We’ll catch up,” she promised as she gave her mother a small wave goodbye, feeling her cheeks grow warm as she winked and made a crude gesture in return.

Edith brought two beers back to the table, her best attempt at an apology for not fully preparing Elias for the weekend ahead of him. She took the seat next to him this time, scooting it as close as she could possibly get without having to climb on top of him. “I completely understand if you want to go back to London right now,” she said, attempting to be quiet as the volume in the pub had decreased dramatically as all the actors had filed out. “But you should know that you’ll miss out on the cake and ale eating contest tomorrow,” she continued, forgetting that she might have needed to explain the significance of the choice. “And it’s especially brilliant because it’s right after the lookalike contest, so there’s just a dozen Shakespeares eating cake.”

@Elias Dörfler

Elias had been crammed into the corner of a wooden booth in a pub for the last hour and a half. Though an evening out with a large group, drinking beer and socializing, was hardly an unusual occurrence for Elias, it wasn’t often that he found himself in a room packed exclusively with muggles, two of them the parents of Edith. It hadn’t taken much convincing from Edith to get him to come North with her; after all, he was curious about Edith’s family and childhood and the opportunity to see her home was tempting. What he had not realized when agreeing, however, was that he was signing up for a weekend of socialization with people he really had no idea how to interact with.

What was more, it was only after they had arrived and the questions and comments about the nature of their relationship had started coming in that Elias had realized he didn’t know how to answer them. He and Edith had spent much of the last four weeks finding short times to meet between their conflicting work schedules, sharing meals, telling stories from their days, and snuggling up on the sofa, but they hadn’t spent much time on the more serious conversations: when was Elias planning to talk to his family, what ought they to tell their friends, and were they together, together now? Bringing him home to meet her parents certainly seemed like a boyfriend-girlfriend type thing, but the best Elias could do without having actually discussed the matter with Edith was to smile awkwardly and nod along to whatever her relatives and their friends were going on about.

Even though they were only a few hours into an entire weekend of time in Lunt, Elias was relieved when Edith waved the rest of their group off, promising they’d follow behind in a bit. He welcomed Edith as she scooted into the now-vacant spot next to him, wrapping his arm around her shoulders lightly so she could slide in close to him. It wasn’t often that they were affectionate in public, but Elias had a feeling that after the rowdy group of thespians who had been dominating the pub scene, they would hardly be of interest to anyone.

“Thank you,” he said, lifting the glass of beer she had brought over for him. Although there had been unlimited wine at the performance of Macbeth earlier in the evening, he was really more of a beer-drinker and hadn’t had much. Edith had been much more relaxed than he would have expected, but he supposed that could be because she was several drinks ahead of him, and not because she was actually completely comfortable with the ‘bringing a boy home’ situation. “That I couldn’t miss,” he replied, bending down to kiss her affectionately on the hair. “Besides, I have not seen your house or your school yet. There is still plenty for us to do, that I could not miss.”

“Are you going to be performing for me at all this weekend?” He asked teasingly, wondering whether Edith was as much into theater as her parents were. She must have at least done plays as a child; she knew enough about Shakespeare to be providing all the narration for the events thus far for him. He took another long sip of his drink as he lightly poked the girl under his arm, trying to tease an answer out of her. “I bet you would be great up there.”

It was easy to forget that anyone else was around, and he jumped when the barkeep walked past their table to collect all the abandoned glasses from the recently-vacated table. Elias nodded at his reminder that they were closing up, taking another large swallow of his beer. There was no way he was going to catch up to Edith in number of drinks, but that might have been a good thing. The last time they’d had too much to drink, on her birthday, his inhibitions had been quite lowered and he’d gotten a bit carried away. Though the result had been alright in the end, it had taken them several months to bounce back from the encounter and he would prefer to keep his wits about him, especially given that he was about to head back to her home to spend more time with her parents.

“You ready to go?”

This was nice. She felt a bit stupid that was the only word she could come up with for the situation, but it did describe it perfectly. It hadn't taken Edith very long for her to realize that now she was allowed, it was near impossible to be around Elias without some sort of physical contact: smashing herself right up against him, holding hands, kissing, etc. It was new and it was fun and it was totally inappropriate for the workplace. And when the majority of their mutual friends were also colleagues that showed up to pubs uninvited, it was hard to find just the right opportunity for anything outside of the confines of their apartments. And even then, they both had roommates who Edith didn't really feel like including in her happiness.

So, yes. 'Nice' was a good word for it.

She needed no encouragement to settle in next to him, taking a healthy sip of her beer after she had made herself comfortable. "It'll be brilliant," she agreed, even though she had just said that mere seconds ago. She nodded as he mentioned her house, as she had so far neglected to fully prepare him for the situation he would find there. It was very cozy, a word which here means 'small', and she had yet to consider just where, exactly, they would be sleeping. But that was absolutely something to worry about at another time; the important situation at hand was finishing her beer before the pub closed up.

"I don't think so, no." She laughed, clearly recalling the last time she had been forced on stage during the school play (kindly sponsored by The Round, of course) and completely forgot every single line, even though she had recited them all perfectly in the living room at home. She had even tried once without her glasses, hoping that she would be able to trick herself into thinking there was no one there if everyone was a blur, but it was no use. But now that drinking was an option? Maybe. "If my alcohol consumption continues like this, then there is a very real possibility." She attempted to shrug, like it was an every day thing for her to soliloquize in public, but her serious face was lacking. She grinned over the rim of her glass before she took another gulp of her beer, being sure to keep up as Elias drank his own. "But it's the 'up there' part that's a little iffy. Maybe if everyone could promise to close their eyes."

There would probably be some sort of sad excuse for a workshop during the festival, where attendees could put on the costumes, hold props, read from a script, and have their photo taken. Edith chanced a glance sideways as she wondered how much alcohol it would take to get Elias to participate in something so exceedingly humiliating. Hopefully not too much. She really didn't want to have to try that hard.

Her beer was only half empty when he asked if she was ready to leave. The clear answer, by looking solely at her beer, was 'no', but then there was the prospect of taking the long way round to her house and that was all the motivation she needed. Lunt didn't have too many streetlights, so there were plenty of dark corners for them to explore. She nodded wordlessly in response to his question, picking up her beer and quickly finishing what was left. Now she was ready.

She scooted out of the booth and offered her hand, rather unnecessarily, to Elias to help him do the same. She didn't think twice before snaking her arm around his waist as they walked out, the summer evening air feeling quite nice after the stuffy pub. "Let's walk?" she half asked, half insisted, setting them off in the direction of the bigger loop that would lead back to her house.

"So for the lookalike contest, I've always thought about entering," she said with an enthusiastic nod, "Maybe 'cheating' a little." She made quotation marks in the air with her free hand, implying that she would be using magic to cheat. "The prize is only two quid, because apparently that would have been a lot of money for the real Shakespeare." She could hardly believe how ridiculous it sounded now that she was trying to explain it to someone, but there was also something a little great about how absolutely absurd it all was.

“No?” he teased in response, smiling down at her in return. Although she was denying any interest in the stage, Elias couldn’t help but wonder if she might still surprise him before the weekend was over. One of his favorite things about her was her tendency to be a bit unpredictable, getting excited about odd things or chasing sudden whims to try something new. She kept him on his toes, something that made him a little nervous in just the right way. “Well, maybe a private performance then,” he suggested, only half-joking.

Elias took Edith’s hand happily, leaving his not-quite-empty glass on the table behind him as she pulled him up. After a farewell nod to the barkeeper, Elias held the door open for Edith to lead him out of the pub and toward her home. As they began to walk, Elias restored his arm to its position around her shoulders, not minding the extra time it would take to get them back in the least. He had always been a fan of apparition, but he was in no hurry to rejoin the crowd of drunken muggles waiting for them at the house.

“I could not allow that,” Elias replied sternly at her suggestion of magicking herself into an old man. Ethical standards and magical law aside, the thought of Edith with a mustache was quite unappealing. “I think you would be rather less kissable as an old Englishman. What if you got stuck?” He dipped his chin down to kiss her briefly on top of her head again, not wanting her to think he found her unkissable now.

They were approaching a playground, empty of children due to the late hour, and Elias steered them off the sidewalk, hoping Edith wouldn’t mind a little detour. “I think the way to victory could be in your Shakespeare knowledge and impersonation,” he continued with a smile. “Have you considered preparing something of that nature?” He slid his arm back, catching her hand in his instead, as he sat carefully on a swing. He looked up at her from his seat, face expectant. “How about a recitation of a sonnet?”

Edith rolled her eyes dramatically, not really confident that he would be able to stop her if she had actually wanted to magic herself into looking like Shakespeare. She had only been partially serious when she had suggested it, though now that he wouldn’t allow her? It was a good thing there would be at least a dozen other Shakespeares that she could blend in with. And if she got stuck, that would make the both of them look magically incompetent, and she was fairly certain Elias wouldn’t be able to stand for that.

They were at the playground across the street from her primary school now and she didn’t hesitate to follow him in through the gate. “I don’t think you understand the concept of a lookalike contest,” she pointed out, unsure of when she had voiced actually wanting to join the contest. She stayed standing as Elias found a swing, rearranging the placement of her hand in his so that their fingers were intertwined.

Edith grinned before she knew what she was doing, her eyebrows raised as she considered what Elias was asking. She was pretty sure she remembered at least one whole sonnet, even though her parents had emphasized the plays more than the poetry. But then the thought of actually following through and probably completely embarrassing herself by waxing poetic, literally, about lost love occurred to her; she could feel herself blushing and she was forever grateful for the lack of light on the playground.

“Er,” she started, slowly moving their hands from side to side as she determined her best exit strategy. “Remember that ‘being very drunk’ thing we were talking about earlier?” She nodded enthusiastically, quite pleased with herself for recalling a conversation they had ten minutes ago. “I’m not even close.” Edith dropped his hand, placing both of hers on either side of his face, smiling at the now familiar feeling of his facial hair under her fingers. She kissed him swiftly, not lingering too long before taking a step back and finding his hand again.

She tugged to pull him up, wrapping her arms around his waist and offering him a very serious “We could be drinking right now.” Her parents and their friends were most likely in the back garden and she would be damned if they didn’t have a grand assortment of alcohol in the house. “You were the one who wanted to see the house anyway,” she reminded him, stretching up to kiss him again, nearly distracting herself from her original plan to drink.

"Don't I?" he asked, running his thumb in gentle circles over her palm as he rocked himself gently on the swing, shifting his weight easily from heels to toes as he swung back and forth in front of her, careful never to lose contact. "Why don't you enlighten me?" If he was being honest, he was much more interested in the tingling sensation that touching her was sending up his arm than in the specific rules and procedures of the lookalike contest, but if Edith kept talking, then that meant he got to keep listening to her. And that was all that really mattered in the moment.

As he finally looked away from the patterns he was tracing on her skin and caught her eye, he spotted the grin spreading across her face and it gave him hope that she might actually have something up her sleeve to recite for him. Edith was full of exciting surprises, and a prepared Shakespeare library stored in her mind would be just another wonderful element of Edith for him to discover. But then she was shifting awkwardly, blushing and swinging their hands side-to-side. Elias knew she had changed her mind before she even voiced her excuses, and he was already preparing his next words of encouragement before she distracted him. Her soft palms were on either side of his face now and everything else was forgotten.

"Mm," he replied generically, not minding much what he was agreeing with and more concerned with the way she was pulling away from him and resuming only their simple hand-holding. He allowed himself to swing a bit closer, catching her hips in his hands instead and pulling her a step closer to him, unwilling to relinquish the feeling of her closeness so easily. Edith completed the gesture by pulling him up and out of the swing, and he drew her tight up against his front as she wrapped her arms around him.

"There are all kinds of other things we could be doing," he agreed. Drinking wasn't the number one activity he had in mind at the moment, especially since it seemed like Edith had already had plenty for the evening, but he didn't want to argue. Instead, he leaned into her kiss, tightening his grip ever so slightly on her just to make sure that this one lasted a bit longer than the previous one had. Despite the frequency of such occurences over the last few weeks, the novelty hadn't worn off. She was still soft and warm and he was still filled with wonder at the fact that somehow he had been upgraded from the position of mere best friend and given the additional permissions of touching and kissing her.

"Right," he agreed eventually, "the house." He managed to work in a few more gentle kisses along her cheek bone before she pulled away, and he contented himself with resuming hand-holding for now. They hadn't spent much time in the pub alone before moving to the park, and now they were already leaving again before he had had the chance to properly explore what it was like to sit with Edith on the muggle slide or push her on the swings. He supposed that was the point of a town tour, though, and seeing too much of any one location defeated the purpose.

He walked along side her, completely unaware of the layout of the town and simply trusting that Edith was taking them where they wanted to go. "I haven't forgotten that sonnet," he reminded her after a while, not wanting her to think she had gotten off the hook so easily. If he had to wait until the next time they got properly plastered, so be it. As they walked, she pointed out various locations and he asked questions accordingly, taking note of anything that Edith deemed worthy of his notice. The town was small and admittedly unimpressive, but it held bits of Edith that were as of yet unknown to him, so every scrap of information was valuable.

Eventually they came upon a rather unimpressive and shabbily-built house, where Edith pulled him up short. "What is this, then?" he asked, a bit confused why they might be stopping in front of such a small and old residential building after she had just shown him her favorite restaurants, the schools, and the post office.

Elias was distracting, to say the least. But there was village to see and alcohol to drink and plenty of time to smooch each others' faces later. She pulled away from him reluctantly, tugging him along by the hand as the left the playground. She pointed at the school across the street, launching into unnecessary stories about her primary school teachers and how she used to be in the advanced reading class. All the details about her life that really and truly mattered, clearly. There were a few more things she pointed to along the way, not because they were anything worthwhile, but mostly because she was running out of things to show him. Lunt wasn't exactly a big place.

The walk back to her house was quick, mostly because she was now determined to drink more, maybe follow through on the sonnet, definitely follow through on additional kissing. The house was a couple hundred yards down the lane from the main road, and fairly small. The bricks were well worn, the hedges overgrown, the paint on the front door and window panes peeling in what her mother called ‘an ideal pattern’. It wasn’t grand, but it was at least bigger than her current apartment, though not by much. The front lawn was littered with garden gnomes, and while it wasn't visible from the street, the most impressive part of all was the back garden, which was littered with fairy lights, a stone fire pit, plenty of trees, and hammocks galore, simply so her parents could host plenty of parties.

“Er,” Edith started, nearly tempted to lie and go find a nicer, empty house to show him to. She could find some way to explain why neither she nor her parents were in any of the family photos. Not to mention she was an obliviator, so... No, Edith was sure her parents had alcohol, so the truth was worth it. Never mind that she was slightly offended about his reaction to what she had previously thought was a very cozy home. “This is my house.” Well, she didn’t exactly live here anymore, but still. It was more home than London was.

She pushed the short, front gate open, out of habit more than anything else considering that the fence immediately to the left of the gate had been down for almost a decade now and they were completely capable of walking around the gate. She could hear noise coming from behind the house and she was immediately grateful that there was less of a chance of running into anyone inside the house since they all seemed to be gathered out back. The front door was unlocked and she pushed it open, the stuffy, warm air hitting her face as her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting.

The front room was a combination sitting room, dining room, library, and knick knack shelf. The walls were littered with photos, the majority being of her parents and all their plays, though one wall was solely dedicated to Edith's primary school photos and a few they had managed to take during her summers home from Hogwarts. There was a considerably small amount of photos of the whole family together.

She didn't want to linger long in the room, though. Edith pulled Elias into the kitchen, which was relatively large compared to the size of the whole house. They didn't do much cooking, any of them, so there was plenty of counter space available for bottles and bottles of different beers and liquors. She grabbed a room temperature bottle of a nondescript ale and handed it over, her eyes searching for the bottle of gin she knew had to be somewhere.

"How about," she started, dropping Elias's hand to make herself a gin and tonic, “You take a drink, you get a line of a sonnet." She wanted to distract him from commenting on her house, yet was slowly starting to realize that they were standing in her house and her childhood bedroom was upstairs and at some point he would probably want to see it and that wouldn't be weird at all. She took a healthy sip of her own drink before raising an eyebrow at him. "Deal?”

He regretted the words instantly when he caught sight of the look on her face, reflecting in Elias’ mind a mixture of annoyance and embarrassment. There was little he could say to save either of their dignity now, but he did his best by giving her a gentle squeeze and bending down to murmur just loud enough for her to hear, “I can’t wait to see it.” That much was true. Elias was hardly from a wealthy family, but he had grown up in a decent enough home in a bustling city. Looking at this worn-down and small house that was situated a bit in the middle of nowhere was difficult to comprehend as the place that Edith grew up, but that didn’t make him want to see it less. He wanted to know everything about her, to truly understand her, and seeing bits of her childhood was a part of that.

Passing through the gate and by the garden gnomes, Elias kept Edith close the whole way up to the front door. Having her by his side was becoming a habit, and it wasn’t one he was willing to break when they were already so far away from everyone that knew them together.

He couldn’t help but smile as he took it all in: the dining table where she must have had meals as a child, the small television on which he could picture her watching the Manchester United matches. And the Edith shrine: an entire wall of photos, documenting her growth over the last twenty-odd years. Of course, they weren’t moving like his own baby photos did, but they had their own kind of magic. Before he could make his way over to examine them more closely, Edith was pulling him away.

Voices were spilling into the room from the back yard, which Elias could spot through the screen door that led out onto the porch, but Edith pulled him away from the noise and into the kitchen. He had thought they were coming back to the house to rejoin the party and do more parent bonding, but apparently she had plans in mind for them that involved being alone.

Memories of the first time he and Edith had walked into her kitchen, though it was the one in her apartment rather than her childhood home, washed over him as he waited for her to mix her drink. Only a few weeks ago everything had seemed so unsure -- whether she felt the same way toward him, how he felt toward her at all, whether he was allowed to kiss her when he pleased. Elias was more confident now in his feelings toward her, but at times he still wondered how she saw him. There were still times when he would feel himself getting caught up in the moment but she would pull away or change the subject. He expected part of it was nerves (neither of them really knew what they were doing with all of this relationship stuff, after all), but it was hard when he could see she didn’t want to talk to him. He wanted to take care of her, make her feel comfortable and safe.

“Deal,” Elias agreed after a moment. He had been hoping this evening might inspire her to open up to him a bit more, what with all the awkward questions from her parents and their friends, and drinking hadn’t been a part of that plan. But there was still a whole weekend ahead of them to maybe get a real conversation in, and she just seemed happy. He didn’t want to ruin that now.

Elias lifted the bottle to his lips with a smile, and tipped it back gently. It was some kind of summer ale, citrusy and caramelly and not really to his taste, but not the worst thing he’d had either. And it came with the added bonus of a private performance.

“Alright, Edith, a deal is a deal,” he reminded her. She owed him already the opening line of the sonnet. He set the bottle down on the counter next to her and lifted her easily so that she could sit on the counter in front of him. A performance required more than a regular standing position, after all. He reached past her to take the bottle again, but didn’t bother to back away. Might as well take advantage of what could be their last few parent-free minutes. “Let’s hear the first line.”

Edith rolled her eyes, already wanting to renegotiate the terms of this agreement. Why hadn’t she set the rules to be that she drinks and he recites Shakespeare? Surely that would have been more enjoyable for the both of them. She was about to argue her side a bit, but she forgot all she wanted to say as his hands found her hips and helped her on to the counter. Elias stayed put in front of her and she couldn’t stop herself from grinning as he leaned his weight into her. She might actually be okay with this if he stayed this close to her.

She raised an eyebrow at him, unsure if what he had just done had counted as a drink worthy of a line. “Fine,” she finally settled, lifting her glass to her lips and draining half of its contents. She hadn’t bothered to pick the sonnet ahead of time, so she needed to stall for a bit of time as she made her selection. She knew at least twenty whole ones by heart, and half of many more than that. Not to mention that she was pretty sure she would be able to make something up and Elias would be none the wiser.

Of course, most of the sonnets she had memorized were a bit on the sad and miserable side, and even at her current level of sobriety Edith thought they would be mood killers. She didn’t mean to go straight for what could possibly be considered the most romantic sonnet, but rational decisions were for people with a lot less gin in their systems.

She set her glass down beside her and cleared her throat, doing her best to arrange her face in the most serious look she could manage. She clasped her hands together behind his neck and pulled him the slightest bit closer, unable to stifle a smile as she did so. “Shall I,” she started, pausing for a dramatic effect. “Compare thee,” she continued slowly. “To a summer’s day?” She finished it quickly, holding up her end of the deal. She felt herself blushing, though she wasn’t sure why; she hadn’t even gotten to the most embarrassing part of the sonnet yet.


Still, she grinned and pulled an arm back so she could tip up his beer just a bit. “Your turn.” Edith reached down and picked up her own drink, finishing the glass in two swallows. The noise outside was getting louder, but Edith was nearing that point in her drunkeness that she wouldn’t be completely traumatized if her parents walked into the kitchen right now.

A grin split across his face as Edith reluctantly agreed to the game, though it transformed almost immediately as Elias bit his lip and slightly crumpled his brow in response to her downing half her drink in one go. He knew she would say it wasn’t his business, but she had already had plenty to drink in his opinion, and the game was supposed to be about him drinking, not her. With an inaudible sigh, Elias righted his expression and prepared himself for Edith’s performance.

He blinked. Elias wasn’t sure if it was the distraction from Edith pulling him close, but it took him a moment to comprehend what she had said. The play had been manageable enough to follow, with the gestures and Edith muttering in his ear all the while, but without any context he could tell already that this was going to be a challenge. Her cheeks were warming and he wanted to lean in and lightly kiss one, curious what had caused her to suddenly flush, but was worried he might interrupt the performance.

“Lovely,” he managed, before she had bumped the beer back toward his mouth and cut him off. He obliged, tipping the beer back to take several swallows, emphasizing each one so she could keep track of how much she owed him. How many drinks would it take to complete the sonnet? He thought it might be 12, but maybe it was 14. He hadn’t studied Shakespeare. Either way, there was a long way to go.

Once he felt he had taken a good turn, he set the beer back down again so that he might scoot even closer to the girl sitting on the counter. His hands rested on her hips and he hoped the contact might encourage her to return her own hands to his neck. After a moment of hesitation, wondering if it was really worth it to delay further kissing with the poem, he prompted her. “A summer’s day?”

"Thank you," Edith took as dramatic a bow as possible in her confined space, keeping a careful eye on Elias to make sure he wasn't faking his drinking. She set her glass down so she could run her fingers through his hair for a brief moment, not minding too much that she had mussed it up the slightest bit. She resumed her position from before, quite pleased that she didn't have to politely request they move a bit closer to each other.

"Yes a summer's day." She agreed with a fervent nod. "Stop interrupting me," she added with a grin, though it was really the first interruption and not even a real one at that. "Thou art more lovely and temperate." She fed him the next line of the sonnet without any ceremony, not drawing it out like she had the last line. She knew that eventually, those loitering outside would reach the bottom of their bottle and this kitchen rendezvous would be rudely cut short. Edith wanted to get this out of the way before they had to evacuate, needing the alcohol close at hand.

But it was hard to focus when Elias was this close. It was particularly difficult to pick one part of his face to focus on. At what point did eye contact become excessive? How many times could she flick her gaze down to his lips without getting distracted? Suddenly it was very obvious where they were, how their bodies were situated, how making out in this kitchen would be drastically different than doing the same thing in her own apartment. It was almost as if she was intruding on her childhood, and that thought really had no place in this situation.

Edith tipped up Elias's bottle again, though this time towards her own mouth. Her own glass was empty and she wasn't about to move to fix herself another. "Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May," she offered, unprompted, figuring that she had just taken his drinking turn for him. But now she was finding a sort of groove, her cheeks reaching their saturation point for warmth, and she might as well finish the damn thing, right?

But before she could move on to telling Elias more things about summer, she heard her mother's voice travel inside from the garden. "Eddie dear, we are coming inside now." Her voice had a sing-song quality to it, and it was obvious that she was overpronunciating her words to emphasize the point that she didn't really want to intrude on anything. What a nice mum.

Edith dropped her hands to the chest in front of her and pushed Elias back, giving herself just enough room to slide off the counter and find her balance. "Let's go upstairs," she suggested before she could reconsider. They were closer now than when Edith had been sitting on the counter, having not pushed Elias back very far, and she could feel her cheeks going warm once again.

The sonnet was continuing but Elias was more interested in Edith than her performance. They were close and she was warm and the second drink was pushing some of his worries to the side in favor of focusing on the present moment. He would have all weekend to impress her parents, who were conveniently out in the yard, and the serious conversations could be saved for a time when they were back in London.

“Lovely,” Elias repeated, not ready to admit that he didn’t know every word of the sonnet. He allowed her to remove his drink from his hands, not terribly upset about the loss of a sip of beer but a bit put out that she was stalling the performance to keep drinking. It was really amazing how much Edith could handle; he was ashamed to admit that she could probably drink him under the table.

Before he could urge her to continue, whether by drinking more himself or other means of convincing, their intimate moment was rudely interrupted. Eddie, she called her, and Elias only had a moment to show his surprise before Edith was pushing him away. He was on the verge of protesting, trying to find a good excuse to maintain their closeness even with her parents and the company about to enter the kitchen, but Edith solved the problem for him.

“Okay,” he agreed immediately without even registering what she had said for a moment. He was feeling a little light-headed, but took her hand and allowed her to lead him out of the kitchen and back through the front room. The wall of Edith was less interesting now than the real-life version who was pulling him upstairs and away from everyone else.

Her room seemed smaller than it really was, the ceiling angled and low and the piles of books and boxes along the walls. Every visible surface seemed to be inundated with Gryffindor and Manchester United paraphernalia, the various reds clashing rather horribly but in a way he was sure Edith must love. Elias hesitated by the door, not following her in at once. It wasn’t that they were never alone together, but she had never expressly invited him into her bedroom before, and it somehow felt like an invasion of privacy. Not something just friends would do, not that he really saw them that way anymore. He had signed on for something more when he had shown up on her doorstep a few weeks ago.

“Are you sure your parents wouldn’t mind us up here? They don’t expect us to join them below?”

“Okay,” she repeated, finding his hand with one of hers, her other grabbing two more bottles of beer from the counter. She pulled him behind her and out of the kitchen, crossing the living room to the stairs, moving quickly to avoid being intercepted. The stairs were creaky, made more obvious by the speed with which she was walking, past the landing that led to her parents’ room and on up to the landing that opened into hers, passing more old family photos along the way.

Her room was much the same as she had left it; thankfully she had the forethought a few years ago to take down the David Beckham posters, the ones with little hearts drawn on them. Now it was just old fliers, old ads, old schedules, a ticket stub form that one match she actually attended, pinned up haphazardly on the walls, interspersed with much of the same but with a Hogwarts or a Gryffindor crest on it.

“I’m sure,” she said quickly, ignoring his second question. Honestly, they probably would expect them to join at some point, but by the time their absence would be conspicuous, everyone outside would have had a lot more to drink and wouldn’t notice as easily. Win, win. Her bed was crammed into the far corner of the room, the desk beside it being the only available surface to set the bottles of beer on. She moved a stack of papers aside, old notes long neglected and gathering dust, left behind in Lunt with the other non-essential things Edith owned.

She magicked the bottles open, figuring that up two flights of stairs was a safe enough distance from all the muggles gathered outside. And if not.. thank goodness she could obliviate. She turned back to Elias, a bit taken aback to find him hovering by the door. “Er,” she started, the gravity of the situation dawning on her and setting her cheeks on fire. “You can come in,” she said, nearly making it sound like a question. It wasn’t like this was the room she lived in, anymore. This room didn’t really reflect who she was as a person these days, had none of the things she really liked, like the record player and a few photos and her favorite books.

Or maybe that made it even more embarrassing. But instead of focusing on those thoughts or feelings or anything that wasn’t simply being with Elias, Edith picked up a beer and perched on the edge of her bed, kicking her shoes off as she took a sip from her bottle. She scooted herself back, leaning back against the wall behind her as she pat the open space beside her with an open palm, for what she hoped was a clear invitation for Elias to join her.

“My mum said she likes you,” she started, a grin spreading across her face as she recalled the earlier conversation with her mother. She figured she would leave out the things she had also said about his jawline and big hands, among some other wild insinuations she had made, but he could know the gist of things. “So, thanks for that, I guess.” She took another drink, smiling through the sip.

The burn in Edith’s cheeks kept the novelty of their situation at the front of Elias’ mind. He supposed she saw too the slightly odd circumstances before them. Perhaps to another couple, such a moment might have been exciting, but Elias was concerned mostly with how Edith was feeling. Her invitation into the room wasn’t as sure as he might have liked, so he stepped in but moved directly over toward the desk where she was standing rather than seating himself straight away.

He held the beer to give himself something to do, feeling a bit nervous about direct eye contact. He was forced to meet her eye, though, when he lifted the beer to toast before taking the first sip.

“Cheers.” He was speaking a bit more softly now, the sounds from the party nearly inaudible two stories away. Edith made herself comfortable on the bed, and Elias was finally able to relax a bit and smile when she wordlessly invited him closer. He seated himself sideways, one foot still on the ground, so that he could easily face her. One hand occupied with the beer, his other found a comfortable place to rest on her knee.

“Really?” he asked, pleased in spite of himself at the compliment. He had hardly spoken to Edith’s mother, so he wasn’t sure on what she could be basing her assessment. “What did you say to her about me? About -- us?” He hesitated over the last word, wondering if Edith would mind divulging the contents of a private conversation concerning him. The truth was, he was dying to know. He had ideas in his mind about what he might say to his parents about the girl he was seeing, but their circumstances were vastly different.

“Really.” She nodded a few times, like it should have been the most obvious thing in the world that he was well liked. Yet even just reiterating the fact that he was well liked, even alluding to the fact that she, was enough to make her blush as red as a beet; her beer bottle wasn’t big enough to hide her face so she just shrugged as casually as she could. “Really,” she said again.

Edith wanted to distract him, take advantage of their close proximity, their privacy, and the alcohol, but apparently Elias had other things in mind, like more talking. But not the easy stuff from before, the sonnets she could recite from memory without a second thought even if she protested the idea. She raised her eyebrows at the question, specifically at his use of the word ‘us’. “Er,” she started, trying to fill the silence as she gathered her memories of what she actually had told her parents and tried to figure out if that aligned well with what she thought Elias would have wanted her to say.

“Well,” she started again, making eye contact just long enough for her cheeks to grow warm again. “I told her I knew you from work,” she was talking slowly, trying to gauge Elias’s reaction as she spoke. “I think she sort of just,” she paused to shrug and take a drink, “figured everything else out.” She bit her lip, suddenly feeling bad for not having talked him up more. “I haven’t exactly invited anyone here. Ever.” She caught his gaze again but this time she held it, wanting him to understand just how serious the invitation had been.

She swallowed hard, feeling extra honest for no reason other than the alcohol, and added quickly and quietly: “I didn’t correct her when she called you my boyfriend.” The word hung in the air. She was sure it was the first time she had ever spoken it aloud when talking about Elias, and it seemed so much more dramatic when it wasn’t a word that was solely being thought about. “Hope that’s okay.”