The slightly panicked feeling Alfie had been nursing in his gut quickly turned to a familiar, and still quite beguiling sense of fluttering that seemed to accompany Miss Simpson wherever she appeared. True he had been filled with adrenaline on one of those occasions, and it was not the first time they had been trapped together, but this was outside of the familiar comfort of the Hogwarts kitchens and there was no guarantee they would be found by a house elf eventually.

And then she had looked like all the other girls really: tiny in stance compared to him and mostly swaddled in the cloaks that had been their constant armour, now she looked beautiful in her colourful gown, the cold night air lending her cheeks a charming pinkness that was almost enough to distract him. Oh Merlin, she was a girl and he had never noticed!

Flushing with awkwardness Alfie tried to form words but they were momentarily lost to him so instead he grimaced and gestured upwards to the mistletoe, the leafy menace that had entrapped them both.

“I rather think it’s the same genus that Peeves used,” he said, the blush on his cheek not even slightly diminishing and leaving his grateful for the dim light and cold air.