#quietlyqueer

“Louis.” She rolls her eyes. “And I’m the resident love potion expert here, not Nick bloody Grimshaw.”

“I didn’t know,” Liam says quickly. “I’m sorry!”

“You should be,” Louis continues. “Who knows what’ll happen when you use Nick’s potion. If I were you, I’d–”

“Louis!”

Liam’s startled again, this time by Nick leaning out of her open window and shouting at Louis. Liam looks nervously back and forth between the two, getting more worried by the anger in Nick’s eyes and feeling uneasy at the sight of the smirk on Louis’ face.

“Nick!” Louis says, her voice saccharine-sweet, “we were just talking about you.”

“I know,” Nick says flatly. “You’re not exactly quiet, are you?”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Louis says, continuing in her overly friendly voice that makes Liam feel like he’s missing a crucial part of a joke or something.

Nick gets visibly angrier and for a moment Liam’s legitimately worried for his own safety - who knows what one angry witch will do let alone the possibility of two - especially when she slams her window shut and a moment later reappears at her front door. Nick stomps down her steps as Louis saunters over to the gate, trapping Liam in-between the two of them.

“Get off my property and stop harassing my customers!” Nick says, staring Louis down with a mutinous look in her eyes.

“I’m not on your property,” Louis replies snidely, gesturing to the sidewalk she’s standing on. “It’s a free country on this side of your stupid gate.”

“I’m sorry, should I–” Liam starts, but he quickly shuts his mouth when Nick looks at him.

“Don’t listen to her, Liam. The love potion I gave you will work.”

“That’s what you think,” Louis sing-songs.

“Louis is just bitter because I didn’t go to her stupid seance six bloody years ago,” Nick says, ignoring Louis’ childish taunts.

Liam makes the mistake of thinking everything will be fine now that Nick’s assured him of her potion’s effectiveness. One look at Louis’ face tells him immediately that it may be in his best interest to duck and cover.

“I didn’t even want you there,” Louis says, her tone dripping with venom, all trace of the overly-pleasant voice gone. “I just thought that maybe you’d like to learn from a real witch.”

“Is that so?” Nick laughs. “Who was that going to be, hmm? From what I heard, nobody even showed up to your little seance, anyway.”

Louis’ face turns harder still, her frown deepening the lines in her face. Liam’s never felt this uncomfortable in his life and he wishes he’d never come here in the first place.

“Listen, I should–” he tries to make an excuse, but it goes unheard and he stays frozen in place.

“I don’t know who you think you are, Louis, but clearly you’ve got no idea what being a real witch even means seeing as how all you do is wait around outside my house to pounce on my customers!”

“For your information,” Louis seethes, “that is not all I do. I have customers of my own, not that it’s any of your business!”

“Oh, right,” Nick says sarcastically, “I’m sure you do.”

“And furthermore,” Louis says, her voice rising to a shout, “nobody came to the seance because the only bloody person I invited was you, you enormous twat!”

Liam winces at the sharpness of Louis’ voice in his ears and spares a glance at Nick to see her reaction. She stares at Louis with wide eyes, all trace of her frustration gone.

“What?” she asks softly.

“I just–” Louis huffs and ducks her head, turning her gaze to the ground. “I’d been trying for weeks to figure out how to ask you out properly but I didn’t know how, alright? I thought maybe if I came up with a good enough reason to have you come by, then things would just… I dunno. Happen.”

Liam looks back and forth between Louis and Nick a few times, wondering to himself which one’s going to say something first after Louis’ admission.

“I…” Nick shakes her head. “I didn’t know.”

“‘Course you didn’t,” Louis says quickly. “Didn’t want you to, did I?” She crosses her arms. “Felt like an idiot before, now here you are making me feel like an even bigger one.”

“Louis, I…” Nick laughs in disbelief. “All this time I thought you hated me! All because I didn’t go to your seance. Are you seriously telling me that you’ve been giving me shit for six years because I inadvertently turned you down for a date?”

“Well,” Louis huffs, “when you put it that way… it sounds a bit stupid.”

“You hexed me!” Nick says. Liam doesn’t understand why she’s laughing a little as she says it; being hexed sounds like a terrible thing!

“It wasn’t that bad,” Louis says. “It wore off, didn’t it?”

“You’re an idiot,” Nick replies.

If Liam didn’t know any better, he’d say that Nick almost sounded fond. He looks back and forth between them again, hoping that this is an actual turning point and they’re not about to start shouting again. A small smile is forming on Louis’ face that’s visible even as she keeps her head down, meanwhile Nick’s not even trying to hide her own smile.

“D'you want to come in for a cuppa?” Nick asks.

Louis lifts her head. “Yeah, reckon I would.”

“Wait,” Nick says, stopping Louis before she can put her hand on the gate’s latch. Nick murmurs something under her breath and then undoes the latch, pushing the gate towards Louis to let her in.

“Seriously?”

“You hexed me,” Nick reminds her. “Had to protect myself, didn’t I?”

Louis rolls her eyes and shakes her head as she steps through the gate, passing by Liam as she starts to follow Nick back up the steps. He stands still and silent until they’ve reached the door, when he snaps out of it and realizes they’ve most likely forgotten he was there at all.

“So, um,” he calls out, “is the potion alright, then?”

They turn back around, sharing a look between themselves before Louis grins widely at Liam.

“It’s fine, Liam. But you should know, you don’t even need it. Harry’s already in love with you.”

“How did you…?” Liam stares aghast at the two of them, waiting for an explanation that never comes. They slip back into Nick’s cottage and shut the door behind them, leaving Liam all by himself.

He closes his eyes for a moment and shakes his head, glancing around when he opens them again to see if anyone else was around to witness any of that. The street’s completely empty, so Liam takes a deep breath and crosses through the gate, setting off on his way home.