Who: Grayson Wilkes and Ophelia Llewellyn
What: It's not a date. Really.
Where: Nello's (in Hogsmeade) ... May 1978
When: Saturday Evening
Rating: PG-ish?

Don't judge her. So what if she actually wanted to take Grayson up on his dinner... thing (she was determined not to think of it as a date because that was wrong and--) and get out of the castle? So what if she'd told Smeth that it was her uncle she was going to go see? In all honestly, she didn't want to be around her boyfriend on her birthday, because if they started to argue today, she would just--it wouldn't be good. And she should get to do what she wanted today and what she wanted was to see her ex-fiancée for dinner.Yeah, it was a little messed up.As Lia came up on the restaurant, wearing the dress he'd bought her (and Merlin, it was gorgeous), she spotted Grayson just outside. She took a visible deep breath, halting for a second, before approaching him. This was not a date. "Good evening, Mister Wilkes."

Of course it wasn't a date. It wasn't a date because Grayson offered his arm to her in order to take her into the restaurant and even managed a mostly-sincere smile when he caught sight of her. She looked lovely in the dress, but that was only because it had been expensive and all expensive things looked nice on reasonably fit women, right? Right. "Good evening, Miss Llewellyn." Once the reservations had been cleared up at the front of the restaurant, they were led to a table. Yes, it was one of those restaurants where the woman's menu didn't have prices. "I trust you fare well."

"As well as can be expected," she replied. They dripped with high class, the menus--but she wouldn't expect anything less from him. She looked around a moment... the whole restaurant was beautiful, and reminded her vaguely of a place in Wales that she and her family frequented; or at least up until four months ago. "And you?"

The conversation was stiffly formal, but it was better that way, she told herself. It was better to be uncomfortable than to actually be insinuating that this was something that it wasn't--because it totally wasn't. This was not not not a date. Still.

Despite the fact that when he went to order wine, he looked expectantly over to Ophelia. "What would you care for?" It wasn't often that he asked someone else what they might like, but he supposed since it was her birthday he should offer. Yes, that was the reason. He kept her present in his pocket for the moment, feeling as if he should leave that for later. True, their conversation was awkward, but that was largely because he didn't want to rush into anything ridiculous. "I certainly cannot complain."

Ophelia thought for a moment, calling upon her recollection of types of wines, and had on the tip of her tongue quickly a less-than-expensive, less-than-fancy name. Like one she'd order with Smeth... but Grayson would not appreciate that--actually, she figured he probably could complain. You didn't just drink any old wine when you had the money not to. Instead, a hardly concealed smirk playing on her lips, she decided to test him a bit. "The Chateau Margaux," she said, her voice complete with pretentiousness.

To think that Grayson wouldn't know his bottles of wine was an atrocity! He dipped his chin and gave her a rather pleased smirk, tapping a fingertip on the edge of the table. "My, you are trying to give the waiter a heart attack, aren't you? Will we be having the cabernet sauvignon, the merlot, the petit verdot or the cabernet franc? So that I might completely terrify the man."

"Cabernet sauvignon, I think," she replied. She was looking down into her menu, but it was clear that she was still watching him. Lia made a dismissive gesture with her hand. "By all means, proceed with the terrifying." She noticed that the mood had relaxed all of a sudden, but didn't comment on it. If she didn't, maybe it would go away.

If she preferred the tension come back, she could always bring up her boyfriend. As it was, Grayson flagged the waiter over sharply and ignored the way his eyes widened and he swallowed when he ordered the bottle of Margaux. He was immensely pleased by the turn of events, and it showed in the slight relaxation of his shoulders. He skimmed the menu while the man brought the wine.

Lia sipped the expensive wine quietly from her glass after placing her order--on which she did not let him get off any easier, but it just wouldn't be fun if she didn't mess with him a little mo--no, why in the world was she being playful? Why was she letting herself be amused now? This was so wrong, but--and he just--it was like she couldn't help it and... she felt more relaxed around him than she had felt around her boyfriend for upwards of a month and it was hard to say no to that feeling of being stress-free for once.

Underneath the table, she fiddled with her hands just a bit, her fingers unconsciously going to a band of cold metal. Ah, right. She had almost forgotten. Pulling the ring off her right hand--she'd just put it there so she wouldn't lose it, of course--Ophelia hesitated for only a split second before setting it on the table and sliding it towards Grayson. "To offset the cost of my amusement," she said quietly.

Or there was that. He hadn't expected her to give back the ring tonight, but the fact that she had been wearing it made him smirk just a little bit. That meant that Lia had been thinking about him more than she let on - he'd been expecting that, at least. Grayson was surprisingly calm when she handed the ring back to him, and he merely tucked it into a nearby pocket. "I hardly plan to return it, but the effort is appreciated." He paused a moment, however, and slipped a black box out of his pocket in return, sliding it over to her.

"A real birthday present was in order, I thought."

He said it as if he hadn't done enough already, Merlin. But as she took the box tentatively and opened it to find the bracelet (this man had the best taste in jewlery that she had ever encountered in her life), she still let a small, pleased smile slip past her defenses. "It's beautiful," she said, as if he wouldn't already know that. "Thank you." Oy, all these presents and you'd think he still cared or something. Yeah--right.

Well, it wasn't as if he'd done anything large for a woman in the past few months as he'd been rather distracted and busy slitting his wrists at night, lolol eager to focus his attention on work. He did note the smile, however, and was a bit puzzled by how it brought his mood up. Grayson had three sisters and a very picky mother to thank for his excellent taste in jewlery. "You're welcome." He wondered absently just how much his gift overshadowed her 'boyfriend's'. He wouldn't ask, but he would think about it.

Of course the gift far overshadowed any gift she had ever gotten from Smeth, but that didn't matter. Their relationship wasn't based on material things... which, if she was completely truthful, neither was hers with Grayson... ah, not that they had a relationship--but before--when they were... Totally besides the point, and not something she should have been thinking about at all. "Not just for the gift, either. For getting me out of the castle, too--I needed it."

Grayson pursed his lips and took a sip from his wine glass while she spoke. "I do remember writing exams in my last year." Daniella had taken him out for dinner - not that he would say so, lest Ophelia get any awkward but likely true ideas about himself and his sister. "And getting out of the castle was one of the best things I could have done. If he was honest with himself, too, he would have admitted he'd spent a considerable amount of time planning the dinner, more compared to the bracelet he'd purchased. Still. That didn't mean he cared.

She certainly hoped he didn't care. Of couse, that didn't mean she didn't appreciate it greatly. And that didn't mean that she wasn't having a good time. But she still hoped he didn't care at all. In the very least. "It's not just the exams, truthfully." She hid behind her glass as she drank the wine as she chose carefully how to word her next sentence. "The people--it's becoming very hard to be around a lot off people and not get ideas of doing something rash. There's some that I would just rather not be around."

He was going to try to be understanding. Because if he could speak tolerably with her that meant that he could move on, right? Not that he hadn't moved on physically, but he hadn't seen Cam in weeks ... and wasn't too bothered by that fact. He nodded minutely, noting she was hiding behind the glass. All right, so she was nervous about something. "Do you dislike your schoolmates so much?"

"Dislike is probably the wrong word. I don't dislike any one of them at all... I have a difficult time tolerating them, however. When stress is running high, things get worse and... it was something I didn't need to be around tonight," she explained carefully.

Grayson couldn't help the smirk that drifted across his lips. And people thought that he was antisocial? "Tolerating people is an unfortunate but necessary skill, I'm afraid. It certainly makes dinner parties that much easier if you have it, but I do understand the irritation of ... intolerable people." What was this? They were agreeing?

Just the fact that she had somehow managed to coax a smile out of Grayson gave Ophelia a great soaring of triumph inside herself that she couldn't quite understand, especially seeing as she didn't care at all whether she could make him smile or not. "I tolerate them on normal days. Just not now.." she explained. "The circumstances are, unfortunately, not too ripe for tolerating people."

"Certainly not. High-stress situations are hardly helped by idiots," he murmured with a shake of his head, taking a sip of his wine and then swirling his drink in his glass. "Have you decided what you'll have?" As much as he liked to drink, he didn't want them to finish the bottle before they even ordered their meal.

As if on cue, the server rushed up to their table (oh, he had been made nervous, certainly nervous) and she turned to him indifferently. "I'll have the Vitellina al Marsala," she told him, the whole pretentious act put right back on. She was not completely over her sense of high-class that she had lived off for the first seventeen years of her life.

Grayson thought that it was rather attractive, that pretentious act that she put on. Especially because he knew it wasn't at all the truth - she was good at it, as much as he hated to admit it. He ordered red meat for himself. "I think we've made him nervous, Ophelia." Not that he minded - a little intimidation always seemed to help the service.

Lia leaned forward on the table just slightly as if they were in confidences, glancing once at the server's retreating back. "I don't think that there's any reason to think about it. We have absolutely made him nervous."

"That's the best way to make sure that a meal is given efficiently, however." He shrugged faintly and then took another sip of his wine, glad that she'd at least picked a red. White wasn't exactly his cup of tea. The fact he was comfortable enough with Ophelia to joke (or as much joking as he could really do) was ... something that came as a slight shock.

"So..." she said, sitting back and crossing her arms casually over her chest. Truth was, Lia wasn't really sure how to deal with the fact that Grayson was acting and sounding like a normal, decent- (if not good-) humored person. So small talk. She should make small talk... less of him being nice and happy and she could be less attracted to him, right? "...how's your family been?"

Grayson snorted faintly. "I haven't any real idea how Louisa is doing, but that's nothing unusual. Juliana seems to be lacking proper men in her life, since she was the reason that I was attending that horrid gala ..." He trailed off, newly incensed by the fact that Smeth was at the gala with Ophelia - he jaw tightened slightly, "...and Daniella is wonderful as always." That about summed up his family in a nutshell. He had just enough tact not to ask about Ophelia's family, but who else could he ask about? "And your ... friends?" He quirked a brow with a slight smirk.

"You can ask about my family if you like," Ophelia said with a smirk, not necessairly reading his mind or features, but his words instead. It was better that she spoke of her family, as he already knew friends were a sore spot at the moment. "Obviously I neither know or care about my parents and because of them I have not a clue on Gwendolyn--but Ioan is well, and excited because Caitlin is nearing her due date. Winnie, also, is well, although she somewhat wishes to forget and/or get rid of me."

"I hardly think it will be easy for your Winnie to forget or get rid of you, especially considering Ioan." All right, the man was still a bit of a sore spot for him, if only because he had to resist the urge to punch him whenever they crossed paths. Although he supposed that now, since he wasn't exactly seeing Ophelia anymore ... if he were to come upon him it wouldn't be strictly pertinent to be polite. Grayson gave her a tense smirk. "But that is all well." He let his mind wander to a chance run-in with Ophelia's brother and the wonderful things he could do to make him bleed.

"Ah, but that will not stop her from trying. She's in Slytherin for a reason," Lia said with a shake of her head, a slight feeling of regret to the movement. After all, it wasn't as if she had ever hated her sister--it hurt to find that that sister could learn to despise her so quickly. For one thing. One thing that had had next to nothing to do with her. "If it's in her ambitions, she will do it or die trying, and it is most definitely in her ambitions."

Grayson bit back the urge to offer to help her along with that 'die trying' bit, since Ophelia didn't seem to hate her sister with equal ferocity. Besides, he had enough on his plate in that department for now, with Sebastian and all. He couldn't play sympathetic, so he merely gave another nod. "Well, at least you will be free from seeing her ignore you daily once you leave Hogwarts." That was helpful, right?

It was helpful, actually. Not seeing people seemed to solve a lot of her problems lately... however, seeing people always brought up new problems. Like now. Like how she couldn't stop bloody thinking about how much she missed her ex-fiancée as he sat in front of her at this table. She couldn't even deny it anymore, the ignoring that she was still attracted to Grayson Wilkes was not helping her.

Fuck, she thought, and involuntarily made the nervous gesture of scratching her temple with her forefinger. And yet it was her own fault--she had chosen to go tonight, knowing that she was still--"I'm sorry. I don't know what I'm doing, I shouldn't have agreed to come here," she blurted suddenly.

He couldn't help but think that Lia's mind was wandering in very inappropriate places when she blurted out those words. Grayson took another sip of his wine and glanced to her steadily. "I assure you that you are here because you need to relax at least a little, and I happened to suggest a dinner for your upcoming birthday. I assume you feel as if you're betraying your boyfriend, but of course ... we're only having dinner." Right. Right.

She could hardly believe that he was saying this, holy crap, was he completely oblivious? "Okay, you know what? That may be all that it is to you--fine, fine, that's all it is to you," she said, trying very hard to keep her voice lowered but still conveying all the frustration she was feeling at him and herself. "But that's not all it is to me and I think you know that and I can't relax while I'm sitting here in the same room with you, acting like this is something I can relax about."

Grayson was actually rather surprised that she was admitting this to him. He took another sip of his wine and looked to her with a smirk that was vaguely amused, "I had not been planning to bring it up, if you wished to continue to pretend this was merely a dinner. But is is so terrible to be on a date?" Aside from the fact that she had a boyfriend, but that hadn't stopped her before, for a short spell.

Oh, so now he was admitting it? Why did it only frustrate her more? Because it took her getting uppity to get him to say it? "It's terrible that if it ever gets back to Smeth--who already despises you enough, I might add--it is going to stab him straight in the heart, and that's something he doesn't deserve."

Lia sighed and rested her forehead in her hand for a moment. "I've done it to him too much in the past few months. Even if the whole bloody thing is falling apart anyway."

It was the first time she'd admitted that to anyone.

He shifted forward when she spoke, even more shocked. And Grayson didn't like not knowing where emotions were coming from, especially when it came to himself. He finished up his glass of wine and set it down, folding his hands over the table and watching her carefully. "Then would it not make sense to simply end things as opposed to letting them ... drag on?" Even if he had his own selfish reasons for the advice, he really wanted -- well, no. He just had his own selfish reasons for the advice.

She shook her head. "I don't know. I don't know why we don't," she said. "I--I still like him--I just don't know. I guess I'm afraid to let it go." Ophelia was more speaking to herself than she was to Grayson. "I sacrificed... everything for this relationship and I don't want it to end becauuse then it means I've done it for nothing and if I lose Smeth there's nothing else--when you sacrifice what you sacrifice for, what do you have left?"

"If you honestly think that you have nothing else after losing a boyfriend, I think you are rather disillusioned with yourself," he murmured around the edge of his wine glass. This was why he didn't drink often - good wine made him soft, obviously. He added afterward, "I hardly think that he's worth it, anyway. I wasn't entirely sure what you were doing with him at the Gala."

Jedixjaya:
She gave him something of a glare across the table, but something of a glare was all it was. It was halfhearted at best. "What's that supposed to mean?" she asked. Just then she kind of wished the food would come and make for a distraction, but she knew somewhere that they needed to have this talk. It had been coming for a long time

"Aside from the fact that I caught you watching the Lestranges," And by that, he meant him (although he'd seen this only because he'd been watching her), "You're obviously too good for him. I'm not surprised he doesn't want to let you go, and that he's so easily jealous."

"I hope that was a genuine compliment and not a compliment with an ulterior motive behind it," Ophelia shot at him, although the ghost of a smile crossed her face for a split second--a split second. "Smeth is not easily jealous. I'd be genuinely shocked if you think that you haven't given him reason to be jealous."

"I never said that my intentions were pure, Ophelia. I would have hoped that you knew that they seldome are, by now." Grayson noted the ghost of a smile with a smirk of satisfaction, "I cannot help my natural charms."

"So if your intentions are not pure, then what are your intentions? Let's settle this now, Grayson, it's about time that we did." Lia's hands spread out flat on the table as if they were talking some sort of strict business, although it was so much more than that. She made sure to look him straight in the eye as she continued. "I need to know what to do."

Grayson quirked his brow at the young woman as she splayed her hands on the table. It was certainly hard to take her seriously when she was sitting as if she were negotiating. He licked his lips absently, keeping his gaze locked on hers. "End things with him." It was commanding, but he felt as if he had a right to tell her so. She'd asked him what to do, after all.

Ophelia took a deep breath. Despite having known that was what he would say, she was still somehow surprised by it. "And then what?" she asked quietly. This was the question that things really teetered on, and seeing as she had never been particularly good at anticipating what Grayson was going to say about anything... eh, could you blame her for being intolerably nervous?

Of course not. Fortunately for Ophelia, the food chooses this exact moment to show up and Grayson spends some time glaring the waiter before he looks to Ophelia. "And then I suppose that you will not need to recieve packages from your 'Uncle' any longer."

Aha, of course she could not count on him to give her the proper answer she was looking for. Bloody frustrating man.

"I suppose I won't be recieving packages at all." She took out her annoyance by cutting into the veal slowly, imagining it to be the skin on his neck--oh Merlin, she was becoming twisted.

"If the only reason I've been recieving packages is because my 'uncle' wants to have an excuse to talk me out of dating my boyfriend, and manipulating my emotions as he knows only he can, then he has succeeded. I hope he had fun with it, because after tonight I'm done with it."

If he had known that she was thinking that particular thought about her veal ... he would have been strangely proud of her. Not that he'd say so, but still. "I would point out that you didn't need much convincing by way of breaking up with your boyfriend," he murmured as he cut a corner piece off his steak and then chewed, swallowing before continuing, "And I assure you that I don't pursue women more than once unless they are ... rather remarkable."

"Merlin, one second you're telling me that you're pursuing me, the next you're back to dancing around it with your words, then you're admitting it again," she resisted the urge not to glare fiercely at him and instead kept her eyes on her plate. "You got away with talking your way around what you were feeling when I was resigned to the fact that I was going to marry you whether you loved me or not, but here's a word of advice, in case you haven't realized it yet--that's not enough this time around. Commit to what you're saying and what you mean. Not just once in a while, but every time I ask you."

Lia paused for a moment to take a bite of her food, maybe also letting her words set in. Then she looked up at him at last, much more pleasant than she had looked at her meat moments earlier. "Now. I break up with Smeth. What then, Grayson?"

Oh, Grayson did not like this newfound attitude of hers. Or perhaps he did - he couldn't help the half-irritated laugh that came from him when she spoke, however. If she was trying to intimidate him into admitting something, she was trying to intimidate the wrong person. "My, my. You certainly are getting demanding now that you don't need to worry about your parents disowning you again. You might make a tolerable pureblooded woman yet." He managed a smirk. "I suppose you're waiting for a sweeping proposal? I would give back your ring, Ophelia, but that seems a bit cliche." Still... "When you break up with Smeth, I will resume courting you." That was all she'd get out of him for now.

"I don't need my clichéd proposal," she said, and one could tell it was the truth from the satisfied look that crossed her face as she sat back. "I don't want it, nor would I expect it out of you. You have given me exactly what you and I both needed me to hear--whether you meant it or not." No, she did not want a proposal--putting herself in the same boat as before, going through all that again? No thanks. She wanted to know that he was there. And he was.

Yes, and he'd even told her so! She was one of the few people who'd heard the truth from him. He noted the satisfied look and smirked a little over his wine, topping up his glass and hers. Then he went back to his meal, not feeling as if he needed to say much more for the moment. He'd never been terribly verbose, anyway.