Surprised when he followed her to the stairs, Julian was about to suggest a list of wizards who would need no convincing of kissing her if she was worried no one she knew would be up for it, when the snitch manuevered sharply in a direction he never could have guessed.

"I meant...with you. I...,"

His eyes widened, and with little more time for reaction or foresight, he could only respond simply, "Oh."

"I meant, Julian, could you help me? I just...I don't feel like...I feel comfortable around you. You did, after all, see me in nothing more than my rather...sheer top in Greece. And you've kept that to yourself. I trust that I could come to you for this and you'd keep it to yourself as well. And I just don't have any other guys I'm nearly close enough to to even think of asking - and I would never dream of asking Matthew. Why advertise to the guy I like that I think I need to be better at kissing?"

Swallowing with some difficulty, the action was one of near aggravation now, Julian had to work his nerves together to understand what she had just done. Propositioned him, frankly enough. To kiss her. To kiss her.

This was, by far, the oddest manner in which Julian's affections had ever been sought.

That alone had him studying with her nonjudgmental curiousity, even a touch fo respect, if one could go so far.

Before allowing himself any other question as to why she'd chosen him or whether he was her first pick or whether kissing would be all this would encompass, he heard himself asking wryly, "And your dear Matthew, he wouldn't mind this 'practice' you would be getting with me?"