Authors' Note: Part 2 of 4. Enjoy!

"Potter," says the stranger to the maitre d.

This sullen, attractive stranger, who has taken it upon himself to feed her.

Because this is happening.

To Lily.

Somehow.

She's been taken to dinner by a man she doesn't know. Mary would smack her for being so careless, if she were here.

Of course, if Mary were here in Beatrice's stead, Lily wouldn't have been abandoned for a quick shag in the first place. She wouldn't be in this situation, dining with a random and placing her life on the line, for all she knows.

Still, the resort has CCTV surveillance and she is intent upon watching her drinks closely, so it's unlikely that she'll wind up dead by the end of the night. This is fine, despite the fact that she is hearing his name for the first time in this moment, and a name is really a thing a girl should know about her companion for the evening. The first thing a girl ought to know, really. She knows that his friend's name is Remus but that doesn't count for anything, and she could be the bigger person and offer this stranger—this Potter—her own, but holding onto it for no good reason seems more principled, in a way. He hasn't ventured his to Lily. Why should she offer something that he isn't willing to give?

Still, there's something almost likeable about him.

There must be, since readily agreed to have dinner with the guy, and Lily's instincts rarely steer her wrong. Or she's just that hungry.

Time will tell.

"Potter," the smartly dressed maitre d murmurs in response, running his finger down the page of a leather-bound diary. Most restaurants have gone digital in this day and age, but the truly bourgeois approach involves a passionate commitment to outdated methods. "I saw it here a moment ago. For two, wasn't it?"

"Ye—"

"I didn't even know his name until just now," Lily tells the maitre d. It's an unusual thing to say, and will surely jog his memory if she winds up dead on tomorrow's evening news. "Met him about ten minutes ago, now look at us. Potter. Am I appropriately dressed, do you think?" The maitre d looks up in alarm, so Lily gestures to her jeans. "These are my good jeans; I was supposed to be having dinner with my friend so I was going for a smart-casual thing, but then she abandoned me to have sex with his friend and we came here, so now I feel as if I'm not dressed particularly nicely."

"The restaurant has no formal dress code, madam," says the maitre d.

"No formal dress code, but there are still unspoken rules. Is my top okay?" She's become quite aware of her cleavage in the past sixty seconds. "I always hear people say that redheads shouldn't wear red, which is nonsense, and honestly I think I look pretty good, but that's, like, good within the context of a Prezzo or something. This place is different. Although my shoes do work, I think. Am I appropriately dressed?" She looks to the stranger—no, Potter—for confirmation. "You'd know, if you often visit places like this."

"You're fine," he answers quickly, though he barely even spares her clothes an actual glance, instead smiling with over-politeness at the maitre d, who is looking increasingly less alarmed and decidedly more amused by this exchange. Lily feels a large hand drop to the small of her back, nudging lightly, and Potter leans close to her ear as the maitre d leans back over his book.

"Was that all necessary?" he whispers.

"About as necessary as it was for you to touch me," she responds with saccharine falseness, reaching behind her back to grab his wrist and wrench his hand away. "You can't take a second to answer an honest question about what I'm wearing?"

He tucks his hands into his trouser pockets, gives a heady sigh, then gives her outfit a proper look.

"You're fine," he confirms again, though he sounds bothered by it. "Very pretty."

I'm sorry I don't look worse, she almost retorts, given his sour puss, but the maitre d interrupts them with a clipped, "Your table is this way, madam."

Madam. Not sir. That gives Lily some satisfaction.

She throws Potter a look of deep disdain and strides ahead of him—she can simply imagine that she's wearing fancier clothes in this fancy, elegant place; that's precisely what Anne Shirley would do in this situation—following their host to a small table near the very back of the restaurant, tucked neatly away behind a large display of leafy plants. A waiter is already there, pouring out glasses of water from a rustic copper jug.

She may rescind her previous assessment. Perhaps the truly bourgeois approach involves a passionate commitment to outdated methods and impressive efficiency.

The maitre d pulls out Lily's chair and waits until she is seated before he lays their menus on the table and departs with the waiter, who promises to return shortly for their drink orders.

She looks up at Potter, who hasn't sat down yet.

He looks down at her.

The thought occurs to her that if she could have designed a man with whom she might spend an evening in a lavish restaurant like this, he'd probably look...well, exactly like him.

He's rather lush and beautiful, really.

And Lily is mentally undressing him like a mute, lascivious wench who hasn't been laid in far too long, so she picks up her menu and buries her face behind it.

She hears another weighty sigh, feels the table nudged slightly as her dinner mate untucks his own seat and slips into it. There's a delicate rustle of napkin and a brush of silverware, then his dry voice muttering, "I hope you're happy. Now we've been placed in the naughty corner."

"How do you know we're in the naughty corner?"

"Look how far we are from the nearest table. And all this leafery? Classic naughty table. All restaurants have them." He states it simply, declaratively. Lily can't see his face but can imagine an expression of mild disgust. "Trust me. We've officially been sequestered for the safety of other patrons."

"Why? Because someone might faint if they catch a glimpse of my proletarian jeans?"

"I think the larger concern is that you might abruptly decide to leap up shouting 'Stranger danger!' mid-meal," he replies, though he's sounding almost amused by it now. "Reckon you can manage to keep that one in?"

"Well now, I don't know," she remarks, and wants to laugh at that, but doesn't.

She almost does, in truth, but it doesn't really matter that she has to check herself. Her menu is raised too high for him to see the tucked-in corners of her lips.

Besides, the menu itself is a tad alarming—not the food, which seems delicious, but the cost of pretty much everything, from a glass of Coke to the price of a basic starter.

These are London prices. High-end London prices.

But they're in Kent.

Jesus.

Lily has one or two friends who are fortunate enough to have money, but she wouldn't feel happy to let them pay for her here and her companion is a stranger to whom she has, admittedly, been rather unkind from the moment he set foot out of his door. She isn't usually hard on people. She tries to be kind as a general rule of thumb. The trouble with this guy is that he caught her at the worst imaginable moment—as she'd been lied to, passed over, abandoned, while her stomach growled and she felt perfectly convinced that she'd be forced to spend the night curled up on a carpeted hotel corridor, at least until she was discovered by a porter and thrown from the hotel for loitering.

And it was her best friend who'd stuck the knife in her back, of all people. Lily is furious about the whole thing still, and fury doesn't marry well with genuine contrition. She is a person who does not enjoy admitting to a mistake at the very best of times, even when she does feel truly remorseful for her actions, and who is this guy to her? Not someone she knows, someone who matters, not someone she will ever need speak to again after tonight.

She doesn't feel particularly sorry. Not right now.

She'd flung that ice cube with naught but dramatic intent, expecting it to miss him by inches. He's the one who ducked towards it.

So was that really her fault?

Yes it was. She threw ice at another human being. That was shitty.

But.

But.

She'll take out some cash at the ATM later, she decides, stick it in an envelope and push it under his door. That will solve the problem of the expense he's sparing, even if the matter of her earlier behaviour looms ominously on the horizon. Thinking of it makes her stomach churn a bit, so she'd rather just pretend it's not there. Dismounting the high horse she rode in on with any pretense of grace seems too awkward and humiliating a task for her to attempt it now.

Start as one means to go on, she supposes.

"Question," she says, dropping her menu abruptly. Potter is already looking in her direction, his menu left untouched, as if he's been waiting for her to notice that he's still there. She tilts her head to one side, observing him for any signs of bloodlust, but sadly perceives nothing but his startlingly attractive bone structure and a whirlwind of black hair that she feels oddly compelled to touch. "Am I to be brutally murdered later?"

"I'm exclusively a Tuesday night brutal murderer," he returns immediately, and picks up his menu. "Good on you for catching me on a Wednesday."

"I reckon I could take you, even if you were out for blood."

"Maybe I ought to be the one shouting 'stranger danger', then?"

"Maybe," she sighs, "but moving on from my plans, what's the limit on this dinner offer? Bread and water? I'd like to know what's acceptable to order before I go ahead and order it."

"Order whatever you'd like." He lowers his menu enough to view her with suspiciously friendly aplomb. There's a tasteful candle set atop their table that lights an undoubtedly deceptive warmth in his eyes. "I fully intend to sue you for bodily negligence after that nice leg trip earlier, so it'll all come back around in the end."

"Go for it, you'll net yourself the cost of this meal and a few spare pennies once they've cleared out my life savings."

"It's really a matter of principle over profit," he declares, then gives a regal hand swipe. "So eat up. I'll claim victory in any case."

"Then I'll take the bread and water. Better that than adding more zeroes to the settlement amount."

"Follow your heart, though I'm quite serious about the carte blanche." His lips give a rueful sort of pinch, long and pursed and distracting. "You've replaced Remus, the most expensive dinner date on the planet, as the git only eats steak and has no qualms splurging for the most posh cut to be had, so you could order three different meals and likely still come out costing less than him."

This is so odd, and would be odd, from even the most objective standpoint. Especially from the most objective standpoint.

He seems really serious about this. About treating her.

Why?

"So he costs you a fortune and abandons you on a whim to have porn-style sex with my friend in what I hope is the bed she's been using, and not mine?" says Lily. "You ought to concoct a revenge plot."

"Like Inigo Montoya?"

"I mean… a little less stabby than Inigo Montoya's, if you can manage." She will not smile at this. She won't. "I've already got one, but I can't let you borrow it."

"Why not?"

"So, Beatrice—that's my friend—has booked us on winery tour in Tunbridge Wells for Friday that she's been raving about all week and basically wheedled me into because, y'know, this is a 'girls' holiday,' and we have to do things together," Lily explains, using her fingers to form the figurative quotation marks, "so after careful deliberation and abandonment of my usual principles, I've decided that I'm going to sexile her, and you can't borrow that because your mate hasn't booked a winery tour for Friday."

He seems to lose his grip on his menu, the finely-lined placard clattering noisily against his plate.

"You're going to...sorry?"

"To sexile her."

"What—"

"I'm going to find some guy and skip the tour to have dirty sex with him in our room."

He grabs back up the menu. Puts it down again. More plate clatter. Blinks.

"You're...right, then." He clears his throat, then drinks his water. His hands are moving rapidly around the table. "How very...eye for an eye. Or, er, some other body part, I suppose."

"I intend to put all the body parts to good use," she warns darkly, reaching for her own water glass. "I'm not throwing away my revenge for the sake of a twenty minute fumble with some prat who doesn't know where he's meant to put it. This has to last for hours, otherwise what's the point in doing it at all?"

"That's...thorough of you," he offers, and seems to have officially decided what he'd like to do with his menu, lifting it up and ducking neatly behind it. "And honest, y'know, considering we're little more than strangers."

"Twenty minutes ago, I'd never seen you before in my life. Now we're having dinner together," Lily reminds him. She takes a sip of her water and sets the glass down with a clunk. "A dinner you invited me to, by the way. That cow has been well and truly milked, don't you think?"

There's a coughing sound—or perhaps it might even be a chuckle—from behind the propped up menu, but Lily doesn't have time to figure it out before their waiter strolls over, and stops at their table expectantly.

"Are you ready to order drinks?" he asks, directing the question to Lily, as any good waiter should.

"I'm good with water, thank you," she responds.

The menu on the other side of the table drops, revealing her tablemate once more. He is smiling.

"Get a proper drink," he says. "Really. Revenge and lawsuits aside. Remus would."

"Then I'll have a glass of Azabache white rioja," she says immediately, directing her own smile to the waiter instead. It's fine. She has that ATM plan. "A large glass, please. It's been a very trying day and I've been recently betrayed."

Across the table, there comes a warm sound—by god, could that be a proper laugh?—before Potter says, "Let's make that a bottle then, thanks."

Perhaps the maitre d had warned the waiter to expect some drama, for a look of disappointment briefly crosses his face before he whisks away to fetch their drinks. Lily and her companion are left to enjoy the ornate silverware and flickering taper candles in peace, accompanied by the faint but discernible strains of You Should Be Having Sex In A Giant Bathtub by Beethoven-or-Mozart-or-similar (in the key of Just Slip That Diamond Ring Into Her Champagne Glass Already). The overall ambience is bent towards the romantic and the sublime with such shameless pomp and conviction that it paints their unique situation in a rather laughable shade of strange.

Not that it wasn't strange already, but she finds the juxtaposition quite amusing.

"Do you actually like that wine, or did you order it to make me feel more comfortable?" she asks him, rather than ruminate aloud upon this, or ask when he means to propose.

He toys with his water glass. "Bold of you to assume I'd care about your comfort."

"Bold of you to assume I care what you think about the wine."

"Why would you have asked if I liked it if you didn't care?"

"Why would you have asked me to dinner if you didn't care either?"

"You're right. I lied. This is definitely a brutal murder."

She shrugs at the revelation, feigning boredom, and traces the rim of her glass with her fingertip.

"Oh well," she laments, enjoying this immensely. "As long as I get a free meal before I go."

This time, he doesn't bother to hide the smile.

Lily does hide hers.

Barely.

It's officially been eleven minutes since James's dinner companion disappeared for the loo, and he's beginning to think he may have been ditched.

He fidgets in his seat, scraping up the last remains of his burrata appetizer with a single fork prong, trying to appear like this is all fine, everything's grand—people are often left at dinner tables alone to contemplate life and love and fate and fortune for extended periods of time, no problem, none at all, all brilliant here, many thanks, goodbye.

He eyes the spot where his dinner companion—it's all he can call her. She's never even told him her name, and he's been too much of a coward to ask so far after the fact—recently sat, devouring nearly all of her dumpling appetizer with the gusty speed of a high-performance vacuum, leaving just a single one left before she'd hopped to her feet, declared she was for the toilet, and disappeared around the overabundant leafery surrounding their table. James hadn't thought much of it at the time—she'd been guzzling ice cubes when he found her, and took heartily to the white rioja once he'd convinced her it was actually fine to order, so a trip to the toilet seemed a normal occurrence.

Then five minutes had passed.

Then ten.

James doesn't want to judge, but ten is probably not normal.

But it is likely normal for a woman who might have piled down her fill of wine and dumpling, tossed out an absent excuse, skirted around the shrubbery, then made a straight beeline for the restaurant exit, cackling about her victory in thwarting her nemesis at his own game.

James does, indeed, feel thwarted.

But does not, interestingly, feel like her nemesis.

Not anymore, anyway.

There's likely something terribly poetic in the fact that he might have officially been abandoned for the evening—again—just as he was actually beginning to genuinely like his date.

Not that she would call it a date.

He's not even convinced she likes him much.

In fact, he's almost certain she doesn't.

But James…

Well, he'd known she was funny, hadn't he? It's why he'd made the mad decision to invite her to dinner in the first place, because even though she was rude and dramatic and had a penchant for generally unprovoked ice cube launching, she was also quick and clever and, yes, his mother had always teased him about his thing for redheads—but that's not what had made him ask her. Mostly. Probably. Even though it is some of the nicest, silkiest, most tempting-looking hair he's ever encountered, with sloping waves draping over her shoulders and bits and pieces she'd absently tuck and twirl like an active taunt.

Not that she likely thought that she was taunting him. And he hadn't known he'd think of it as such when he'd invited her to dinner. But sitting across the table from her, watching her animated expressions, trading teasing barbs like swinging fencing épées...well, James had always been a sucker for a sense of humour. And she got such delight out of besting him, emerald eyes glittering in the table's dim candlelight, her entire face glowing with the cleverness of it.

It was...distracting.

And this was her being mean to him. Honestly, he ought to be counting his blessings that she didn't like him. If she had abruptly decided to be kind, he'd be a bloody goner.

Might be a bloody goner, anyway, sadly.

James isn't certain. It's probably best not to think too much of it. Especially considering there's a terribly high probability that she's gone, in the literal sense, escaped from this terrible encounter, and the horrible man she's been forced to converse with, not even willing to stay and finish her meal, he's so terribly and indisputably repugnant—

And then, suddenly, she's back.

"So I owe you about a million heartfelt apologies," she declares, with a loud, barked abruptness that makes him jump as she clatters back into her seat. He's nearly startled himself out of his, but she keeps talking. "I was sitting there in the toilet just now, thinking about life, the way you do when you're in the loo, y'know?"

God, James thinks, his heart still pounding in surprise.

Surprise or...something.

"As you do," he repeats, blinking.

"Yeah, and I'm just—so, I'm at the sink washing my hands and trying not to glare at the hot towels in the basket by the half-empty bottles of Chanel No. 5 because I can afford to stay in this hotel too and not all rich people are a source of infinite evil—"

"Infinite—"

"—and I'm thinking about how I acted and all of a sudden, I find myself—and I mean, literally, I'm completely overcome with remorse," she finishes, with the gesticulations to boot, hands swirling in the air and coming to land, one above the other, in the centre of her chest. "Awash with it, as I was washing my hands! Isn't that poetic and also really cheesy and a terrible pun? But the point is, Potter—I don't know your first name, sorry—I've treated you horribly and I'm very, very sorry and so grateful for the dinner because I was so bloody hungry and it was a very kind thing to do for a total stranger who you found on a hotel floor, especially since I hit you with an ice cube," she tacks on, with a slight strain on the last few words, because she's professing her overwhelming remorse in a single breath, "which I honestly didn't mean to do, but I still shouldn't have thrown it and you seem like a really good person and I'm truly very sorry."

It's an apology in approximately nine different parts—more stream of conscious than James is used to in his remorseful speeches, with twists and turns and an unlikely heroine in the form of his previously antagonistic dinner mate.

It's a lot to take in—her jumble of words, her genuinely earnest expression, extensive talk about thoughts on the toilet—and he finds himself grappling for balance within the tide of contrition.

Also, the fact that she's being kind.

Fuck, she's being kind.

"That bit was my own fault, to be fair," is all he can think to say, right at that moment, still digesting all this. "The ice, that is. I ducked."

"Ducking is an instinctive response. I chose to throw that ice."

"Both of our 'fight or flight' instincts seem to be on point, then," James replies, finding himself smiling, even as he worries about kindness and goneness, and she looks vaguely distressed across the table, the delayed sense of ice projectile regret seeming to serve as a strange tipping point for her. "And it's James, by the way," he adds. "I'm called James. And it's fine. Really. You don't need to apologise—"

"No, I do!" she eagerly interrupts, and leans across the table to clap her hand on his forearm, paying no attention to the salt shaker she disrupts in the process. "This was all my fault and you've been so nice to me in return, buying dinner and all—unless you really are trying to kill me, but I don't think you are because you've got kind eyes, and I know a lot of serial killers have traditionally been attractive, charismatic men, but not one of them has ever had kind eyes."

Quite suddenly, James feels a bit like flushing.

"Thanks?" He laughs, or perhaps beams. He rights the fallen salt shaker, and tries not to stare at her hand on his arm. "You have nice eyes, too—kind eyes," he corrects quickly, and coughs. "You've got kind eyes, too."

By some miracle, the slipped compliment sails directly over her head. "But can you forgive me?"

He shakes his head. "There's nothing to forgive."

"Yes there is. Forgive me."

"No, honestly, it's fine—"

She removes her hand from his arm and straightens up in her seat, posture correct, chin lifted in defiance.

"I won't tell you my name until you do," she declares. "I know you don't know what it is."

Now he does laugh, genuinely.

"What's this, a hostage situation?" He cocks an eyebrow at her, growing steadily more used to how revved he feels by the easy back and forth. By her. "One name for one needlessly accepted apology?"

"The alternative means you'll have to sit here and guess until you get it right."

"Well, that ploy didn't work too well for Eric in The Little Mermaid. Haven't you any helpful crustaceans to hiss the right answer at me?"

"He won't get out of bed for anything less than a moonlit boat ride."

James slaps absently at his pockets. "Damn. Seems I've left my boat in my other trousers." Her lifted lips and quirked chin imply amusement at this, but she still remains unrelenting. His hands drop back to his sides and he shakes his head again. "Really, it's fine. You saved me, after all. I hate eating alone."

"I came here for a free dinner, not to save you from your own company. Accidental good deeds don't count."

"And I brought you dinner to gain myself company, not out of tragic sympathy for the ice-eating floor hazard blocking my door. So we're still square there."

"I threw an ice cube at you," she reminds him again. "That was wretched. Forgive me."

"It's—"

"James," she cuts in, sounding stern and decided, as if she's about to turn him over her knee and spank him. It's a silly and...well, complex image, but even that is overshadowed by the heady spike of warming pleasure he feels at hearing her say his name. James. He wants to bathe in the sound of it. "I'm dead serious. Forgive me."

Suddenly, there's only one thing he urgently cares about.

"Tell me your name," he says quietly. "Then I'll forgive you."

She chews on the inside of her cheek for a moment, contemplating the offer, perhaps wondering if he'll stick to his end of the bargain, but then… "It's Lily."

"Lily." The light ls slip easily off his tongue, and he eyes her for a moment, thinking yes, that fits. He smiles. Lily. "I forgive you for trying to maim me with ice. Thank you for coming to dinner anyway."

"No, thank you for the forgiveness," she returns, and smiles—a bright, beautiful, dazzling, heartfelt, thwack, you're done for, killer of a smile—before she jabs her fork into her last remaining dumpling and lifts it into the air. "That was all I needed to hear."

It's all James needs to hear, too.

Gone.

He's gone.

Shit.