CXVI. BOND OF BROTHERS
21:79 ─❁────────── 31:80
◁ Ⅱ ▷
❝Though we don't share the same blood
You're my brother and I love you that's the truth❞
༻───────────────༺
THE HORCRUX WAS STILL SWINGING from Ron's hand. The locket was twitching slightly, making Lucia's stomach twist in a bad way; it was mad. Agitate even. It had sensed the presence of the sword and most likely had tried to kill Harry because of that. Now was not the time for long discussions; now was the moment to destroy the locket once and for all. Lucia was getting quite giddy for finally being able to get rid of the horrid thing.
As Harry held Hermione's wand high, they finally found a place to do the deed: a flattish rock lying in the shadow of a sycamore tree.
He brushed snow from the rock's surface, and held out his hand for the Horcrux. When Ron offered the sword, however, Harry shook his head.
"No, you should do it."
"Me?" said Ron, looking shocked. "Why?"
"That's self-explanatory isn't it?" retorted Lucia.
"Actually, no it isn't," rebutted Ron.
"Well you got the sword out of the pool. I think it's supposed to be you."
Lucia wasn't sure that Harry was anywhere being kind or generous, but talking like the way Hermione would: A tone filled with facts. And she believed that Ron was the current true wielder of the sword, because truthfully it cannot be Hermione nor could it be Harry, and especially not herself. Ron was the one that had successfully got the sword out, undoubtedly he was the one that had been chosen by the sword.
"I'm going to open it," said Harry, "and you stab it. Straightaway, okay? Because whatever's in there will put up a fight. The bit of Riddle in the diary tried to kill me."
"How are you going to open it?" asked Ron. He looked terrified.
"I'm going to ask it to open, using Parseltongue," said Harry. The answer came so readily to his lips that he thought that he had always known it deep down: Perhaps it had taken his recent encounter with Nagini to make him realize it. He looked at the serpentine S, inlaid with glittering green stones: It was easy to visualize it as a minuscule snake, curled upon the cold rock.
"No!" said Ron. "No, don't open it! I'm serious!"
"Why not?" asked Harry. "Let's get rid of the damn thing, it's been months —"
"I can't, Harry, I'm serious — you do it —"
"But why?"
"Because that thing's bad for me!" said Ron, backing away from the locket on the rock. "I can't handle it! I'm not making excuses, Harry, for what I was like, but it affects me worse than it affected you and Hermione and probably Lucia if she've worn it before!"
"I've had!" Lucia yelled from behind the tree she was hiding in. "It didn't feel good!"
"It made me think stuff — stuff I was thinking anyway, but it made everything worse, I can't explain it, and then I'd take it off and I'd get my head on straight again, and then I'd have to put the effing thing back on — I can't do it, Harry!"
He had backed away, the sword dragging at his side, shaking his head.
"Don't say that about yourself!" said Lucia. "You can do it. You got the sword when Harry couldn't, and not to mention diving into freezing cold water to save your best friend without even thinking twice about it. If that doesn't prove you can face this thing head on, than I don't know what does,"
"I know it's supposed to be you who uses it," said Harry. "Please, just get rid of it, Ron."
The sound of his name seemed to act like a stimulant. Ron swallowed, then, still breathing hard through his long nose, moved back toward the rock.
"Tell me when," he croaked.
Harry turned to Lucia, who nodded at him. He took a deep breath.
"On three," he said, looking back down at the locket and narrowing his eyes, concentrating on the letter S, imagining a serpent, while the contents of the locket rattled like a trapped cockroach. It would have been easy to pity it, except that the cut around Harry's neck still burned.
"One... two... three..." And the last word came as a hiss and a snarl and the golden doors of the locket swung wide with a little click.
Behind both of the glass windows within blinked a living eye, dark and handsome as Tom Riddle's eyes had been before he turned them scarlet and slit-pupiled.
"Stab," said Harry, holding the locket steady on the rock.
Ron raised the sword in his shaking hands: The point dangled over the frantically swiveling eyes, and Harry gripped the locket tightly, bracing himself, already imagining blood pouring from the empty windows.
Then a voice hissed from out of the Horcrux.
"I have seen your heart, and it is mine."
"Stab it, Ron!" Lucia said loudly. "Don't listen to it, cuckoo tricks on you!"
"I have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley, and I have seen your fears. All you desire is possible, but all that you dread is also possible..."
"Stab!" shouted Harry; his voice echoed off the surrounding trees, the sword point trembled, and Ron gazed down into Riddle's eyes.
"Least loved, always, by the mother who craved a daughter... Least loved, now, by the girl who prefers your friend... Second best, always, eternally overshadowed..."
"Easy finish; stabbity stab stab it!" exclaimed Lucia.
"Ron, stab it now!" Harry bellowed: He could feel the locket quivering in his grip and was scared of what was coming.
Lucia's gaze softened. Of course. Of course the Horcrux would use his insecurities against him, just like how it tried on her but failed miserably. She clenched her fist together and countered the Horcrux, "Don't believe it. I've seen how Harry and Hermione look without you, and they were absolutely miserable! Terrible! Horrifyingly —"
"I think he got the point!" yelled Harry from the other side.
"My point still stands: They need you — we need you! You're much more important than you think!"
Ron raised the sword still higher, and as he did so, Riddle's eyes gleamed scarlet.
Out of the locket's two windows, out of the eyes, there bloomed, like two grotesque bubbles, the heads of Harry and Hermione, weirdly distorted.
Ron yelled in shock and backed away, bumping into Lucia, who was just as shock, in the midst as the figures blossomed out of the locket, first chests, then waists, then legs, until they stood in the locket, side by side like trees with a common root, swaying over Ron, Lucia, and the real Harry, who had snatched his fingers away from the locket as it burned, suddenly, white-hot
"Ron!" he shouted, but the Riddle-Harry was now speaking with Voldemort's voice and both Ron and Lucia was gazing, mesmerized, into its face.
"Why return? We were better without you, happier without you, glad of your absence... We laughed at your stupidity, your cowardice, your presumption —"
"Presumption!" echoed the Riddle-Hermione, who was more beautiful and yet more terrible than the real Hermione: She swayed, cackling, before Ron, who looked horrified yet transfixed, the sword hanging pointlessly at his side. "Who could look at you, who would ever look at you, beside Harry Potter? What have you ever done, compared with the Chosen One? What are you, compared with the Boy Who Lived?"
"Ron, stab it, STAB IT!" Harry yelled, but Ron did not move: His eyes were wide, and the Riddle-Harry and the Riddle-Hermione were reflected in them, their hair swirling like flames, their eyes shining red, their voices lifted in an evil duet.
"Your mother confessed," sneered Riddle-Harry, while Riddle-Hermione jeered, "that she would have preferred me as a son, would be glad to exchange..."
"That's a lie, Ron!" Lucia said loud enough for Ron to snap his head at her. She held the tree tightly, eyes flaring with anger. "After you left, your family was as devastated as I was. Your mum and dad did everything to distract themselves and everything related to you would make them cry because they have no idea what and how their son was doing. They love you!"
"Lies!" hissed Riddle-Harry at Lucia, who did not cower and merely looked as though she wanted to punch him. "She would be glad to exchange..."
"Who wouldn't prefer him, what woman would take you, you are nothing, nothing, nothing to him," crooned Riddle-Hermione, and she stretched like a snake and entwined herself around Riddle-Harry, wrapping him in a close embrace: Their lips met.
Lucia let out a coherent whimper at the sight. She tried to tear her eyes away but couldn't. It was as though she was compelled to watch every single moment, like a dark cloud in her mind began to form. She tried to remind herself over and over again that it was merely the Horcrux, and the real Harry and Hermione would never do that. If this was what had darkly roamed around Ron's head, she could not imagine if it was her going against the Horcrux...
Ron's face filled with anguish, he raised the sword high, but his arms were shaking.
"Do it, Ron!" Harry yelled.
Ron looked at Lucia briefly and saw the gaping girl had a small stray tear running down her cheek. He turned to Harry, who thought he had seen a trace of scarlet in his eyes.
"Ron — ?"
The sword flashed, plunged: Harry threw himself out of the way, there was a clang of metal and a long, drawn-out scream that snapped Lucia back to the land of reality. She fell to her knees with her hand over her heart, looking around for the disgusting scene, yet there was nothing but snow all around.
The monstrous versions of Harry and Hermione were gone: There was only Ron, standing there with the sword held slackly in his hand, looking down at the shattered remains of the locket on the flat rock.
"Well," Lucia swallowed hard. "I hated that,"
"I think we all did," mumbled Harry, helping her up. He then noticed the abnormally pale complexion she had and asked at once, "Are you okay?"
"Y-Yeah, just glad that was over," said Lucia, casting a small but weak smile.
Slowly, the pair walked back to Ron, hardly knowing what to say or do. Ron was breathing heavily: His eyes were no longer red at all, but their normal blue; they were also wet.
Harry stooped, pretending he had not seen, and picked up the broken Horcrux. Ron had pierced the glass in both windows: Riddle's eyes were gone, and the stained silk lining of the locket was smoking slightly. The thing that had lived in the Horcrux had vanished; torturing Ron had been its final act.
The sword clanged as Ron dropped it. He had sunk to his knees, his head in his arms. He was shaking, but not from the cold, that was for sure. Lucia crouched down beside the tall boy and rubbed his back comfortingly, Harry knelt and placed a hand cautiously on his shoulder. He took it as a good sign that Ron did not throw it off.
"After you left," he said in a low voice, grateful for the fact that Ron's face was hidden, "she cried for a week. Probably longer, only she didn't want either of us to see. There were loads of nights when we never even spoke to each other. With you gone..."
He could not finish; it was only now that Ron was here again that Harry fully realized how much his absence had cost them.
"She's like my sister," Harry added softly. "I love her like a sister, and I reckon she feels the same way about me, because if she didn't then I'm sure she wouldn't have been so repulse by me and Lucia breaking up," he briefly glanced at Lucia, who reciprocate with a tender smile, "I thought you knew that..."
Ron did not respond but turned his face away from Harry and Lucia and wiped his nose noisily on his sleeve. Harry got to his feet again and walked to where Ron's enormous rucksack lay yards away, discarded as Ron had run toward the pool to save Harry from drowning. He hoisted it onto his own back and walked back to Ron and Lucia, who helped the former clambered to his feet as Harry approached, eyes bloodshot but otherwise composed.
"I'm sorry," he said in a thick voice. "I'm sorry I left. I know I was a — a —"
He looked around at the darkness, as if hoping a bad enough word would swoop down upon him and claim him.
"You've sort of made up for it tonight," said Harry. "Getting the sword. Finishing off the Horcrux. Saving my life."
"That makes me sound a lot cooler than I was," Ron mumbled.
"Stuff like that always sounds cooler than it really was," said Harry.
"Hmm, you would know that won't you?" mused Lucia.
"A little too much," Harry smirked tiredly.
Lucia watched with amusement as the two best friends walked forward and hugged each other, Harry gripping the still-sopping back of Ron's jacket.
"Aww," They turned to face the third wheel of the relationship. Lucia had mixed emotions about his; she was glad that the group was now whole, but it also meant that she would have to watch for Ron. Ron was a rather touchy person, especially with Harry.
"Jealous?" mocked Ron, not letting Harry go.
Lucia scoffed. "You'll be eating those words when we get back to the tent, Weasley. Relish your bromance while you still can," she said — or, well, threatened before turning her heel and began walking.
Ron turned to Harry with a brow raised. "Did she just threaten me,"
"No," snorted Harry.
"Really?'
"Yeah, no, you have to watch your arse from now on," Harry laughed clapping the flaming redhead's back and walking away from him.
"You're not helping!"
"Was never trying to!"
Finding the tent wasn't as difficult as they thought. Though the walk through the dark forest during her search for Harry had seemed lengthy, it was much more enjoyable now that she wasn't alone, making the journey short. Lucia couldn't wait to return to camp, but at the same she felt frightened. Hermione, though kind, was also a very scary individual. And fear merely tenfold when she and Harry entered the tent, Ron lagging behind.
It was gloriously warmer than it was when she had trekked through the forest and stuck her head into the freezing water with the bluebell flames that was still shimmering in the bowl on the floor just like how they had left it being the only illumination. Hermione was fast asleep, curled up under her blankets, and did not move until Harry had said her name several times.
"Stop it!" Lucia flicked Harry's forehead, hissing. "We have to approach this lightly,"
"What, she would be delighted to see him!" Lucia went to protest, but Harry had already called her, "Hermione!"
She stirred, then sat up quickly, pushing her hair out of her face.
"What's wrong? Harry? Are you all right? Is Lucia all right? Did something happen?"
This was where Lucia took a few steps away from Ron and more to the bunk bed in which she shared with Hermione.
"It's okay, everything's fine. More than fine. I'm great. We're great. There's someone here."
"What do you mean? Who — ?"
She saw Ron, who stood there holding the sword and dripping onto the threadbare carpet. Harry backed into a shadowy corner, slipped off Ron's rucksack, and attempted to blend in with the canvas.
Hermione slid out of her bunk and moved like a sleepwalker toward Ron, her eyes upon his pale face. She stopped right in front of him, her lips slightly parted, her eyes wide. Ron gave a weak, hopeful smile and half raised his arms.
Hermione launched herself forward and started punching every inch of him that she could reach.
"Ouch — ow — gerroff! What the — ? Hermione — OW!"
"I told you to approach lightly!" Lucia, who had moved to where the horrified and betrayed Harry was standing, said.
"You — complete — arse — Ronald — Weasley!" She punctuated every word with a blow: Ron backed away, shielding his head as Hermione advanced.
"I didn't imagine it would be like this!" Harry said, not able to tear his eyes away from the scene. He was quite sure that Hermione would've been all delighted than Ron had return rather than attacking him.
"You — crawl — back — here — after — weeks — and — weeks — oh, where's my wand?"
"Uh oh," Lucia blinked, hiding behind Harry instantly when Hermione had looked as though ready to wrestle it out of Harry's hands and he reacted instinctively.
"Protego!"
The invisible shield erupted between Ron and Hermione: The force of it knocked her backward onto the floor. Spitting hair out of her mouth, she leapt up again.
"Hermione!" said Harry. "Calm —"
"I will not calm down!" she screamed. Never before had he seen her lose control like this; she looked quite demented. "Give me back my wand! Give it back to me!"
"J-Just give it b-back to her," said the scared Lucia, urging him to give Hermione her wand back with each hit of his arm.
"Hermione, will you please —"
"Don't you tell me what to do, Harry Potter!" she screeched. "Don't you dare! Give it back now! And YOU!"
She was pointing at Ron in dire accusation: It was like a malediction, and neither of the pair that was watching the whole thing unravel before their eyes could blame Ron for retreating several steps.
"I came running after you! I called you! I begged you to come back!"
"I know," Ron said, "Hermione, I'm sorry, I'm really —"
"Oh, you're sorry!"
She laughed, a high-pitched, out-of-control sound; Ron looked at Harry and Lucia for help, but they merely grimaced his helplessness.
"You come back after weeks — weeks — and you think it's all going to be all right if you just say sorry?"
"Well, what else can I say?" Ron shouted, and Harry was glad that Ron was fighting back.
"Oh, I don't know!" yelled Hermione with awful sarcasm. "Rack your brains, Ron, that should only take a couple of seconds —"
"Hermione," interjected Harry, who considered this a low blow.
Lucia began pinching his arm and gave him a warning look. She loved Ron, but in no way was she going to get herself in trouble with Hermione. But Harry merely sent her a look and proceed to say, "he just saved my —"
"I don't care!" she screamed. "I don't care what he's done! Weeks and weeks, we could have been dead for all he knew —"
"I knew you weren't dead!" bellowed Ron, drowning her voice for the first time, and approaching as close as he could with the Shield Charm between them. "Harry's all over the Prophet, all over the radio, they're looking for you everywhere, all these rumors and mental stories, I knew I'd hear straight off if you were dead, you don't know what it's been like —"
"What it's been like for you?"
Her voice was now so shrill only bats would be able to hear it soon, but she had reached a level of indignation that rendered her temporarily speechless, and Ron seized his opportunity.
"I wanted to come back the minute I'd Disapparated, but I walked straight into a gang of Snatchers, Hermione, and I couldn't go anywhere!"
"You saw a gang of Snatchers?" Lucia gaped at his words, eyes widened.
"A gang of what?" asked Harry, as Hermione threw herself down into a chair with her arms and legs crossed so tightly it seemed unlikely that she would unravel them for several years.
"Snatchers," said Ron. "They're everywhere — gangs trying to earn gold by rounding up Muggle-borns and blood traitors, there's a reward from the Ministry for everyone captured. I was on my own and I look like I might be school age; they got really excited; thought I was a Muggle-born in hiding. I had to talk fast to get out of being dragged to the Ministry."
"What did you say to them?"
"Told them I was Stan Shunpike. First person I could think of."
"Well that's stupid of you," Lucia crossed her arms together, "Are they stupid enough to believe you though?"
"They weren't the brightest. One of them was definitely part troll, the smell off him..."
Ron glanced at Hermione, clearly hopeful she might soften at this small instance of humor, but her expression remained stony above her tightly knotted limbs.
"Anyway, they had a row about whether I was Stan or not. It was a bit pathetic to be honest, but there were still five of them and only one of me and they'd taken my wand. Then two of them got into a fight and while the others were distracted, I managed to hit the one holding me in the stomach, grabbed his wand, Disarmed the bloke holding mine, and Disapparated. I didn't do it so well, Splinched myself again" — Ron held up his right hand to show two missing fingernails; Hermione raised her eyebrows coldly — "and I came out miles from where you were. By the time I got back to that bit of riverbank where we'd been... you'd gone."
"Gosh, what a gripping story," Hermione said in the lofty voice she adopted when wishing to wound. "You must have been simply terrified. Meanwhile we went to Godric's Hollow and let's think, what happened there, Harry? Lucia?"
"Don't bring me into this," said Lucia immediately, but Hermione did not heed.
"Oh yes! You-Know-Who's snake turned up, it nearly killed the two of us if not for Lucia's arrival to the scene when You-Know-Who himself arrived and missed us by about a second."
"I boy-slammed him!" chimed Lucia.
"What — ?" Ron said, gaping from her to Lucia and then to Harry, but Hermione ignored him.
"Imagine losing fingernails, guys! That really puts our sufferings into perspective, doesn't it?"
Lucia blew a low whistle.
Yikes.
"Hermione," said Harry quietly, "Ron just saved my life."
She appeared not to have heard him.
"One thing I would like to know, though," she said, fixing her eyes on a spot a foot over Ron's head. "How exactly did you find us tonight? That's important. Once we know, we'll be able to make sure we're not visited by anyone else we don't want to see."
Ron glared at her, then pulled a small silver object from his jeans pocket.
"This."
She had to look at Ron to see what he was showing them.
"The Deluminator?" she asked, so surprised she forgot to look cold and fierce.
"It doesn't just turn the lights on and off," said Ron. "I don't know how it works or why it happened then and not any other time, because I've been wanting to come back ever since I left. But I was listening to the radio really early on Christmas morning and I heard... I heard you."
He was looking at Hermione.
If Hermione wasn't so angry at Ron, Lucia and Harry would've thought it was cute. Alas, it was not time.
"You heard me on the radio?" she asked incredulously.
"No, I heard you coming out of my pocket. Your voice," he held up the Deluminator again, "came out of this."
"And what exactly did I say?" asked Hermione, her tone somewhere between skepticism and curiosity.
"My name. 'Ron.' And you said... something about a wand..."
Hermione turned a fiery shade of scarlet. Lucia tilted her head, she thought neither spoke of his name the entirety of the time he was gone?
She turned Hermione. How suspicious...
"So, I took it out," Ron went on, looking at the Deluminator, "and it didn't seem different or anything, but I was sure I'd heard you. So, I clicked it. And the light went out in my room, but another light appeared right outside the window."
Ron raised his empty hand and pointed in front of him, his eyes focused on something neither of the three could see.
"It was a ball of light, kind of pulsing, and bluish, like that light you get around a Portkey, you know?"
"Yeah," said Harry and Hermione together automatically.
"Kind of...?" Portkey travel was a bit of foggy memory to Lucia.
"I knew this was it," said Ron. "I grabbed my stuff and packed it, then I put on my rucksack and went out into the garden."
She wasn't all that sure where this was going...
"The little ball of light was hovering there, waiting for me, and when I came out it bobbed along a bit and I followed it behind the shed and then it... well, it went inside me."
"Sorry?" said Harry, sure he had not heard correctly.
"It went inside of you?" Lucia repeated his words, getting worried. Did he eat some poisonous mushrooms on the way here? "Like, inside inside?! INSIDE —"
"It sort of floated toward me," said Ron, illustrating the movement with his free index finger, "right to my chest, and then — it just went straight through. It was here," he touched a point close to his heart, "I could feel it, it was hot. And once it was inside me I knew what I was supposed to do, I knew it would take me where I needed to go. So I Disapparated and came out on the side of a hill. There was snow everywhere..."
"We were there," said Harry. "We spent two nights there, and the second night I kept thinking I could hear someone moving around in the dark and calling out!"
"Yeah, well, that would've been me," said Ron. "Your protective spells work, anyway, because I couldn't see you and I couldn't hear you. I was sure you were around, though, so in the end I got in my sleeping bag and waited for one of you to appear. I thought you'd have to show yourselves when you packed up the tent."
"No, actually," said Hermione. "We've been Disapparating under the Invisibility Cloak as an extra precaution. And we left really early, because, as Harry says, we'd heard somebody blundering around."
"That's not really something you would want to hear when you're on the run, you know?" said Lucia.
"Well, I stayed on that hill all day," said Ron. "I kept hoping you'd appear. But when it started to get dark I knew I must have missed you, so I clicked the Deluminator again, the blue light came out and went inside me, and I Disapparated and arrived here in these woods. I still couldn't see you, so I just had to hope one of you would show yourselves in the end — and Harry did. Well, I saw the doe first, obviously."
"You saw the what?" said Hermione sharply.
They explained what had happened, and as the story of the silver doe and the sword in the pool unfolded, Hermione frowned from one to the other of them, concentrating so hard she forgot to keep her limbs locked together.
"But it must have been a Patronus!" she said.
"I said that before this wanker went off on his own!" Lucia pinched Harry, who whined an 'Ow' at her, glaring. She mocked a glare back.
"Couldn't you see who was casting it? Didn't you see anyone? And it led you to the sword! I can't believe this! Then what happened?"
Ron explained how he had saw Lucia undressing herself (earning himself a reproachful look from not only Hermione, but as well as Harry) after coming back from submerging her head in the pool. He waited for Harry to resurface, but the moment he heard her sobs he knew something was wrong. He couldn't wait any longer, dived in, and saved Harry, then returned for the sword. He got as far as the opening of the locket, then hesitated, and Harry cut in.
"— and Ron stabbed it with the sword."
"And... and it went? Just like that?" she whispered.
"Well, it did make this really ugly scream," Lucia tried to imitate the scream, only for her to choke on her own spit. "Yup, nope. I'll save it for the professional instead. Go ahead, Harry,"
"Ha ha," Harry rolled his eyes at her indirect insult his way. "Here," He threw the locket into her lap; gingerly Hermione picked it up and examined its punctured windows.
Deciding that it was at last safe to do so, Harry removed the Shield Charm with a wave of Hermione's wand and turned to Ron.
"Did you just say you got away from the Snatchers with a spare wand?"
"What?" said Ron, who had been watching Hermione examining the locket. "Oh — oh yeah."
He tugged open a buckle on his rucksack and pulled a short, dark wand out of its pocket. "Here. I figured it's always handy to have a backup."
"You were right," said Harry, holding out his hand. "Mine's broken."
"You're kidding?" Ron said, but at that moment Hermione got to her feet, and he looked apprehensive again.
Hermione put the vanquished Horcrux into the beaded bag, then climbed back into her bed and settled down without another word. Ron passed Harry the new wand.
"I've told you," sang Lucia, grabbing the sword, eager to see its details. The last time she held the sword was back when she and the others in Hogwarts infiltrated Snape's office. And like she remembered, the history books certainly did not do it justice.
"That was what you meant back there?" questioned Ron.
"'Course," said Lucia, falling back in the armchair and curling with the sword. "What did you think I meant?"
Ron was as red as his own hair. "Nothing."
Harry knew exactly what he thought it meant.
"Could've been worse," Ron tried to find the bright side of Hermione beginning of shunning him, "Remember those birds she set on me?"
"I still haven't ruled it out," came Hermione's muffled voice from beneath her blankets, but Ron smiled slightly as he pulled his maroon pajamas out of his rucksack.
"Cheers,"
"Are you going to just sleep with that sword?" mused Harry, plopping himself in the armchair beside her.
"Oh, definitely," grinned Lucia. "The last time I saw this sword was way back when me and the others tried to smuggle it away from Snape's office before we got miserably caught. You can't blame, right? I'm never going to let this baby go."
"Pretty, isn't it?"
"Not as pretty as you," she jested with a wink.
He rolled his eyes. "Charming, DiFiore."
"I always try," she smirked.
"Insufferable,"
"You love me, don't deny it."
He sighed. "Fortunately."