[south kensington] strangeness & charm. [tag; harri]

He should have asked if this was a date.

That was the overriding thought that kept on bouncing around his head for the past week. He'd like it to be a date but he didn't know where he stood. He'd be churlish and immature to think that she'd been holding a torch for him over the past five years or so. He also wasn't thick enough to think that she wasn't on anyone's radar.

Harri was a beautiful girl but that wasn't just it; she was a beautiful soul. She'd been through so much that she didn't deserve. While Luke hoped things would progress, he wasn't sure he'd be able to look her mother in the eye after what she'd put her daughter through.

But that wasn't the point. Today was supposed to be a celebration. Angie was now a free woman, well, as free as she could be at the moment. The heels of his smart brown shoes click-clacked along the broken pavement as he strode down the street with hands in the pockets of his dark jeans. The entire thing was ridiculous. They were celebrating something that was so basic and so normal, it seemed bloody ridiculous. She was allowed to get a job now, rent a home, be out in public without stigma. While he wanted to relish in her getting the life she should have always had back, there was a niggling feeling in his stomach; guilt.

He hadn't told her so much but he was sure that she was aware. They were like that, like two peas in a pod. And he wanted to do something fun. Dinner was stuffy and what if they ran out of things to say? Stilted awkwardness wasn't really something he was good at overcoming.

Summer in London was a marvellous thing. People here were usually so sullen, so grey and drawn and rude but the hot weather changed everything. People were smiling, couples holding hands, children shrieking with laughter as they splashed in and out of the city's numerous fountains. It was a scorcher of a day. The sun was high and bright in a cloudless blue sky, the sunlight glinting off the glass windows in high rise offices. It was early, around eleven o'clock or so but the heat was already rising in the stuffy, airless capital.

And Luke was nervous. He wanted to blame his clammy palms on the summer weather but he wasn't stupid. He ducked into the Natural History Museum, the cool air hitting him and he let out a sigh of relief. His big dark eyes looked around absently as people milled around, his attention diverted by the gaggle of kids on a school trip, laughing and pointing at the gigantic skeleton of a Diplodocus that was standing pride of place.

Inside the museum was cool and quiet. The café was full of tourists and tour groups alike, all tucking into sandwiches and he couldn't help but smile he heard someone ask as to what piccalilli was. All he really wanted to do was see her. He wanted to squeeze her, to tell her things were going to be fine. That she didn't have to hide if she didn't want to. That she could go back to living and that he'd be here as long as she wanted him to be.

Lucas heaved a heavy sigh as he looked up at the dinosaur's skeleton, his hands in his pockets and his head tilted backwards. They'd been here before, years ago and that had been a date. While it hadn't slipped his mind, his intention of bringing her back here wasn't to rekindle what they'd once had. They'd had fun, doing silly teenage things. They'd gone to the planetarium and giggled when the narrator said "Uranus". They'd held hands, had a mess about with the interactive displays and handled broken gemstones like they were priceless objects. It was easy back then, before everything changed, before it had happened.

He hoped she'd come to meet him. Even if things weren't the same, he hoped they could at least be friends. "Friends" was such a horrible word. It was meant to be light and breezy but it was loaded with "what-ifs" and "could-have-beens". He didn't want that. He needed to tell her but he didn't think it was such a good idea to throw that at her as soon as she arrived. Lucas' left leg twitched anxiously as he waited and he wished he hadn't had drunk three coffees because now he was shaking and he really needed to pee.

@Angharad Hughes

What was this? Were they friends now? Or was this just the precursor to trying to be friends again? It had been nice, definitely, to receive Luke’s owl shortly after The Daily Prophet ran a story on the new regulation on werewolf labour rights. It seemed that telling him hadn’t – amazingly – sent him running in the opposite direction. The fact he’d bothered to write, to think about her at all, had stirred an old feeling in her chest. She wasn’t sure what it meant yet, but she’d replied, naturally, and then a couple of weeks later had followed her owl up with another to let him know she had a job interview with Gringott’s – seemed only polite to do so.

That had been a few days ago, and she was looking forward to surprising him with the good news today. The achievement of getting an interview in itself had been a cause for celebration, apparently, as Lucas had invited her out for the afternoon – though she had to admit his choice of meeting place had given her pause for thought; usually people met for coffee, or a glass of wine, or dinner. They’d been to the Natural History Museum a long time ago, on a date. But this didn’t seem like one, or she had convinced herself of as much.

She’d toyed with dressing casual (for a day at the museum) or a little fancier (for dinner or drinks – wasn’t there a café inside? What if they went somewhere afterwards?), and ended up trying to meet somewhere in the middle; she was wearing a peachy-pink floral tea dress with pale mint t-bar heels. Summery, breezy. It was warm out, so she apparated the short distance from her apartment in Diagon Alley to a lane near the Museum – she didn’t want to turn up looking like a sweaty mess.

She climbed the steps to the museum and passed through the large doors to be immediately greeted by the cooler air and a gigantic skeleton – a dinosaur, she knew, though she couldn’t help but picture a dragon when she saw it. She wondered if muggle archaeologists had ever ‘discovered’ dragon bones by mistake, and how the Ministry might have to cover that up.

Her eyes dragged down over the shape slowly as she walked forward, until they fell upon the familiar back of Lucas Benett. She smiled to herself and snuck up behind him quietly, careful to not let her heels clack too loudly on the hard stone floor, and tapped on his shoulder, “Excuse me, do you know the way to the planetarium?”