Loop after loop jumped in Luke's path today; this week. This month. In fact, from the moment he'd first faced the unmasked Michelle in the Great Hall, she'd been keeping him slightly off-balance and always a little less than certain that she wanted him to be around her. He'd never let her know that; it would like wound her sweet spirit and that would be something he could never forgive himself for.

If not for the smile that wouldn't seem to leave her face, he might have been much less steady in this moment than he was.

And earlier you told me you liked Peppermint breath, she said. Maybe you should have asked out that big Bertie Botts girl after all.

"You think she'd still be about?" he asked, stopping in the snow and turning his head to glance over his shoulder. "She wasn't hanging about the peppermint section, that much is sure."