Chapter 25

Sarah was sitting in a busy bar in the middle of London, surrounded by her two oldest and closest friends in the whole world, with pints of lager and the whole afternoon to catch up laying leisurely before them. Jobs and responsibilities, the two inevitable restraints of growing older, meant they barely saw each other more than a handful of times a year now they were all living in different parts of the country and following their own career paths. She’d known Teri and Susannah since she was eleven, and they’d been an inseparable trio both at school and thereafter. Sarah was simultaneously amazed and grateful that, despite distance and the sporadic nature of meetings, they never seemed to skip a beat and picked off exactly where they had left off. The mark of true friendship, she thought with a warm glow as she took a sip of ice-cold beer.

“So, come on, then,” said Susannah, her blue eyes sparkling, “You’re obviously dying to tell us something. You’ve been twitching like you’ve got a splinter up your bum. Spit it out.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Sarah replied, unable to keep the smirk from her face.

“Oho! Did you see that?” Susannah asked Teri, hitting a hand down lightly on the wooden table. “I can smell some first-class gossip here.”

“You’ve pulled, haven’t you?” asked Teri bluntly as Sarah took another deep swig from her pint.

“Might have,” she answered with another smirk, loving prolonging the agony for them as they made exaggerated gasping noises and collective cries of, “Oh my God!”

“Details,” commanded Susannah. “Name. Age. Hair. Eyes…” She paused for dramatic effect. “Girth…”

“Susannah!” Sarah chided with mock-derision, whilst Teri made noisy agreement.

“Tell us everything!”

Sarah sighed. “His name is Severus, and he’s a teacher.”

“Severus?” asked Susannah incredulously. “He’s not Polish, is he?”

Sarah burst into peals of giggles. “No, he is not Polish, or any way Eastern European!”

“Strange name though. Do you call him Sev for short? Sevvers? Sevvy?”

Sarah looked appalled at the thought. “I don’t think he’d like that, some how,” she answered, swilling her beer around the glass.

“What does he teach?” demanded Susannah.

Sarah paused. Defence Against Dark Arts? Potions? Er… “Chemistry,” she said after a moment, thanking her quick thinking.

“Ooh, clever sod then,” Susannah replied.

“So where did you meet?” Teri chipped in.

Oh God. She hated lying to her friends, and she wanted more than anything to share her secret about magic with them. She was practically bursting with excitement with all the things that had happened to her in the last few weeks, but she knew the Statute Of Secrecy now affected her and she didn’t want to lose the precious gift she’d only just been given.

“We met at the library,” she said quietly, thinking it wasn’t unreasonable for a teacher to frequent her place of work and hoping they wouldn’t probe into their meeting any further to cause her to lie even more.

“Have you shagged him yet?” asked Susannah, cutting in with all the tact of a stampeding water buffalo.

Sarah nearly choked on her pint. “I’m not saying,” she said demurely.

“Which means you have!” Teri yelled triumphantly as Susannah roared with approval.

Sarah looked down coyly whilst her friends continued to tease her.

“So how about the old chemistry set, then? The old Bunsen burner. The old test tube.” Susannah waggled her eyebrows mischievously.

“Yeah,” Teri joined in, “Is he more of a beaker than a bung?”

The pair giggled like harridans as Sarah rolled her eyes.

“He’s perfectly well-endowed, thank you,” she said quietly, tracing a patch of spilled beer on the table with a finger.

Teri looked at her friend for a long moment. Sarah usually revelled in such banter, out-filthing the pair of them on occasion. Her face became serious.

“You really like him, don’t you?” she asked quietly.

Sarah nodded.

“Awww!” the pair cried in unison.

“That’s so sweet, Sarah. I really hope it works out for you. God knows you’ve waited long enough,” Teri said encouragingly, with Susannah nodding over her pint.

“Tell me about it! I thought I’d healed over at one point!” Sarah quipped, sending them all bursting into giggles again.

“Seriously, though,” said Susannah, “You deserve some luck. You’re gorgeous, and I hope he realises it.”

Sarah smiled gratefully up at her friends.

“Promise you’ll introduce him to us next time?” Teri begged.

“Hold your horses! It’s early days yet, we’ve only been seeing each other for a few weeks.”

Teri and Susannah gave each other knowing looks and started to cluck like mother hens.

“Stop it! I don’t want to jinx it.”

The pair acquiesced, seeing how much affection their friend had for this man, whoever he was.

“When are you seeing him next?” asked Teri.

“Well, I told him I wouldn’t be back until Monday, but my train is on Sunday afternoon so I’m going to surprise him Sunday evening.” She grinned.

“Awww. You’ve got it bad, girlfriend,” said Susannah, smiling with genuine happiness for her friend.

“Good luck to the pair of you, I say,” added Teri, raising her glass. “To Bunsen burners!”

“Bunsen burners!” Sarah and Susannah cried, chinking their glasses and laughing.

Sarah felt the warm glow of contentment settle down in her stomach once more as she looked fondly at her friends. She hadn’t been this happy in a very long time.