After returning to the line of students waiting their turn to attempt apparating Gretchen had managed to keep her head down for the remainder of the lesson and avoid making a fool of herself in front of her peers and him once again. (She was reasonably sure she was already excellent at apparating anyway and put her momentary lapse in direction entirely down to outside distractions which was certainly not her fault.)

Once they were finished - and Merlin if it didn't seem to take forever - she lingered a little while, trying to catch his eye. She had been unnerved by their last encounter, pleasant though it had been to begin with, largely because she couldn't be sure of his intentions. If indeed he even had any kind of intentions: since the boat she had begun to wonder what her own intentions were and whether bad behaviour was in fact an epidemic in her family.

Perhaps they were all just very good at covering things up?

"Mr Prewett," she hissed quietly as she came close towards him, catching his eye and nodding towards the doors. They couldn't be seen together with so many people around but perhaps they could find a quieter corner in the entrance hall while everyone else was distracted by Miss Farley's fainting spell or goggling at the minor splinching incident?

Hurrying away she waited for him to join her, pulse racing as she tried to wish away the few stragglers in the entrance hall so they could speak with a little more privacy. On the other hand perhaps it was best to be in company? Gretchen wasn't quite sure whether they would be safe to be alone...

Gretchen’s lip twitched as she fought a little smile. He was being charming again and paying a very rapt attention to her: she enjoyed it enormously when he did both of those things and almost enough to forget herself. Though she wouldn’t today, she knew, not here where there were eyes everywhere – eyes that included her cousin, sisters and potentially a matron around any corner.

How could she possibly excuse herself if any of them saw her behaving as she had in the ship cabin? Letting a man kiss her, and kissing him back as though she were a wanton hussy without any respect for her family name. (Not that she had any, not anymore, not since she had learned how insignificant she really was to them.)

“I thought it best to keep out of the way,” she said sheepishly. After she had apparated right in front of him she had begun to wonder whether anyone had guessed why her aim hadn’t been true…or rather had been true. Because being in front of him, as she was now, was exactly where she wanted to be. “I didn’t know you were an apparition tester.”

Although in fairness she didn’t know much about him at all, other than he was handsome and kissed young ladies - possibly plural, possibly not - in private.

Gretchen flushed at his claim – he wouldn’t have actually done that would he? Men did not change any aspect of their lives for a sake of a girl, at least not as far as she had ever known, so he was just flattering her but still…it was nice and so different to everyone else. Perhaps this was what all young men were like once one was a debutante? Should she become better at flattering him back?

Who could she ask? The matron? The etiquette instructor? Neither struck her as women who had ever been kissed by a handsome young man twice so she doubted they would be able to offer any advice. Waterford had been interesting at least, though not that much help, and she would sooner die than tell Frida or Sen. What if telling someone else – but someone proper, not Waterford, who didn’t count – utterly ruined it?

“Mr Prewett you shouldn’t say such things,” she replied, though the small smile she gave him most certainly did not back up her claim. “Someone might hear you and then you’d have to explain yourself.”

She most certainly did not think poorly of him – not at the moment anyway – and it was on the tip of Gretchen’s tongue to say so when she stopped herself. Would it be too forward to say such a thing? He didn’t seem too concerned with propriety, which was part of the reason she liked him in the first place, but if she knew anything at all it was that young men could get away with far more than girls.

It made Waterford’s strange life seem quite understandable really.

“Well, at least I didn’t do that I suppose,” she said gratefully. She was not the fainting type by any stretch of the imagination, but she had also never apparated directly in front of a man she wanted to kiss her so there was a first time for everything. Perhaps he would have swept in to catch her? He hadn’t caught Jemima but he hadn’t kissed her…or at least Gretchen sincerely hoped he had not!

“I think I could stand to improve my aim though," she added with a twisting smile as she glanced up at him through her lashes.

Hypnotized by his lips Gretchen unconsciously licked her own as the same hot and bothered sensation she had come to associate with Mr Prewett came over her all of a sudden. At a distance it had just about been manageable but being this close to him was making her recall with perfect clarity how warm and solid he felt against her when he held her tight.

And were all men’s lips as soft as his?

For the moment she truly didn’t want to find out.

“Maybe you’re right,” she replied coyly, glancing up through her eyelashes with renewed aplomb, wishing she were brave enough to invite him for a walk, take him to somewhere much more secluded and kiss him once again.

Perhaps if she saw him over the summer it might be possible? No one really minded what she did anyway and with Sen and Frida debuting they would be paying even less attention to her than normal. She could slip away and meet him – that was, if he wanted to meet?

“Where would you have preferred me to appear?”

A flush of pleasure went through Gretchen at his reply – he did want to see her! Had he been thinking about her as much as she had him? That seemed too much of a silly, feminine thing to ask him but she longed to nevertheless.

“I’ll be in Hogsmeade when term ends,” she said, already planning how she could get away from her sisters. She might manage to avoid Priam and Nephele’s supervision but it was much trickier to dodge Frida, who was too clever to fool, and Meta, who was incapable of keeping a secret.

Perhaps Kris might be her best bet? Yes, she could ask him to take her somewhere and he wouldn’t care enough if she told him to go away for a few hours. Hours. Could they really have that much time together without anyone knowing? What would they do for all that time?

“You could write to me until then? I…I’d like to hear from you.”

Was it possible that they had lived nearby all this time and never seen each other before? The touch of his hand, brief though it was, felt like electricity against her skin and Gretchen’s throat went dry. Her heart was beating like a jackrabbit in her chest and she longed to reach up and kiss him forever.

“Do you?” Gretchen replied guilelessly, having no notion what one might do in an empty house but a general sense that it was wrong for her to even wonder. It felt somehow dangerous to be in Mr Prewett’s home when they were alone. “How convenient,” she said eventually, not sure how she was supposed to respond to the information.

Licking her lips she glanced around them, taking a few steps back into the shadier corner of the entrance hall that was, almost miraculously, empty.

“I shouldn’t be caught alone with you, Mr Prewett,” she said, lips twitching into a small, teasing smile.

The briefest of kisses was not nearly enough, not after she had discovered how pleasurable it was to kiss properly, but Gretchen wasn’t quite reckless enough to kiss him here in the halls of Hogwarts, even though she had absolutely wanted him to be reckless enough for the both of them.

She brushed his hand with hers delicately, her fingertips faintly ghosting over his knuckles and she was struck by how warm he was. She always felt cold, whether it was the castle or just her own body temperature she couldn’t say, but at the lightest touch she felt warm all over in a most delicious way.

“I hope you don’t think badly of me,” she said in a half-whisper, voicing finally the concern she had about what he might think of her behaviour.

What on earth?

Connie rolled her eyes as she came upon the duo standing close together in a shadowy corner. Teenagers would never change it seemed, although…wasn’t he rather tall? Oh dear lord he was the apparition man.

“Mr Prewett, your colleague has been asking for you,” she lied, ignoring their blushes. For all she knew they were already betrothed – people like the Lestranges and Prewetts (and Scrimgeours, god help Holly) had very strange ideas – but that did not give them carte blanche to behave as they wished.

“Miss Lestrange, I believe you’re supposed to be with your class.”