Choices and Consequences

Harry wasn't paying much attention in his next Charms class, which came around on Tuesday morning.

Initially he'd been very interested in the subject matter, and had absorbed a lot of what Professor Flitwick was telling them about the Protean Charm, but it soon became clear that he wasn't going to pick up much new information.

Hermione knew how to do a Protean charm and she had used it to charm the Galleons they had used for the DA the previous year. She had used the same technique, she had told him, to create the medallion that Harry wore, and she had taught him the complex spell right at the start of the school year.

The two of them had worked through a number of variations of the charm the previous term from time to time to try and find a way of making the communication two-way, but so far they had been unsuccessful.

He already knew, therefore, what Flitwick was telling them, and he could see that Hermione was also stirring a little restlessly a couple of seats along, though she still seemed to be paying attention to the Professor.

Instead of concentrating on the lesson therefore, Harry was musing through the basics of what he intended to teach the first years and his notes consisted not of Flitwick's descriptions of the charm, but of tentative plans for the forthcoming sessions with the youngsters instead.

He had met with them after dinner the day they had inveigled him into extending the DA to them, and had given them a brief idea of what he expected of them. He now needed actually to plan the lessons out.

If this was how much effort teaching took, he didn't think he'd want to take up the profession after leaving school.

The first years had been extremely enthusiastic, and in some ways he looked forward to teaching them more than he did some of his regular DA meetings. He only hoped that they didn't find it too boring.

They had arranged to meet in the Room of Requirement this Tuesday evening at half-seven and been warned that some teachers might not appreciate what they were learning, therefore not to go around telling everyone.

Harry was most worried about Professor Silverwood finding out, since he might feel that Harry was covering topics he expected to cover in Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons, but he also expected the Headmaster to object too, if he found out - normally that wouldn't take very long.

John Christopher and Professor Gaarder had been cautiously in favour of the idea.

"I don't want you taking too much extra on, though Harry," John had told him.

"It is sensible, however," Gaarder added. "If they are keen, then they are another resource that can be used."

"And at least they might be able to defend themselves and that's one less worry for us," John continued.

After a brief discussion they agreed that Harry's proposed scheduling would fit in okay with his other commitments, but warned him not to promise the first years anything further than that.

"You might want to get all their flying skills up to scratch as well," John suggested. "I didn't see how well Hooch's class went this year, but they might be useful as messengers if they can fly well."

Harry noted the suggestion and decided to approach Madam Hooch later to see if he might be allowed to borrow the school brooms for additional practice.

His own schedule was now very tight, but he understood their eagerness to learn to defend themselves, particularly in view of the number of attacks that Death Eaters had carried out over recent weeks.

Instead of attacking mainstream wizarding locations, and picking on individual families, Voldemort's forces had shifted their strategy. They now seemed to spend a lot of time near known wizarding haunts and businesses in the Muggle world, scaring people off and generally terrorising them. The result was that many people were becoming frightened of frequenting such places and were inclined to stay safely locked up in their homes.

Harry sighed quietly to himself as he thought about the new strategy and ran through in his mind some of the basic defensive spells that he had learned. Occasionally he added a curse or hex that he thought would be helpful, and was semi-absently noting things down on a piece of parchment as he did.

A strange feeling that someone's attention was on him interrupted his musing, and he looked up just in time to receive a sharp word from Professor Flitwick.

"Mister Potter? Pay attention, please!"

He brought his attention back to the present and found the whole class staring at him. His face heated up, and he spluttered an apology.

"Sorry, sir!"

"Please demonstrate the charm for me, Mister Potter," Flitwick requested, drawing two coins from a pocket in his robes and sliding them onto Harry's desk. "I hope you were awake enough to understand the appropriate incantations and wand movements?"

The diminutive Charms Professor looked at Harry in expectation, not too unkindly, and gestured for him to proceed. Harry stood and picked up the two bronze Knuts that Flitwick had placed before him, holding one in each hand.

He thought for a moment about the words he wanted to use, although as Ron had demonstrated years ago when faced with the troll, intentions often mattered more than the actual incantation. Still, he didn't particularly want to mess this up having been called out for inattention.

"Proteo effingo totalis muto inconstans!"

A sliver of white light flashed between his two hands, held out in front of him, and he felt the two coins warm up slightly.

Smiling in satisfaction, he handed the Knuts to Professor Flitwick and sat down, oblivious to the stunned stare of the teacher and Hermione's incredulous look.

Flitwick recovered first, looking down at the two coins in his hand. He placed one on the desk and held the other tight, concentrating for a moment, then inspected both coins. He looked up at Harry and nodded.

"Very good, Mister Potter," he squeaked a little excitedly. "I do apologise."

Harry mumbled his pardon, then watched curiously as a speculative look popped into the Professor's eyes. Placing the coin in his hand back on the desk, he picked the other up and repeated the process, his eyes opening wide and a look of glee forming on his face when he looked more closely at the results.

"Oh yes, very good indeed! Five points to Gryffindor, Mister Potter!" he chirped happily, his eyes wide in delight. "Please could you wait behind after class? Miss Granger, too, please. You both have a free period next?"

They both nodded, neither was taking Muggle Studies, which was due next period.

The rest of the lesson dragged for Harry. He wasn't entirely sure why Flitwick wanted him and Hermione to stay after class, but he hoped there wasn't a problem. Flitwick seemed excited more than anything. He spent the rest of the lesson instructing the students on exactly the method that Harry had used,

When the rest of the class had filed out, Hermione came over and sat next to Harry as they waited for Flitwick to address them. She was about to say something, but was interrupted by the Professor's approach.

He jumped up on a nearby desk and sat cross-legged in front of them.

"Miss Granger came to me a few months ago with a little problem," he began. "She had already mastered the basics of the Protean Charm, but was having trouble adapting it slightly to meet certain requirements she had."

He paused and cocked his head sideways.

"May I see your medallions?"

Harry shrugged and lifted the chain over his head and passed it to the Charms Professor, as Hermione did likewise.

He inspected the two medallions and beamed at Hermione.

"Most excellent work, Miss Granger. Most excellent indeed!" He handed them back to their respective owners.

"As you might have noticed during class, when I called upon Mister Potter to demonstrate the charm, he had no trouble doing so, and in fact created a two-way charm identical to the one-way communication your medallions possess. I believe that if he were to do the same with those, it would create the two-way effect you are looking for."

"But we've tried all sorts of things that haven't worked!" Hermione complained. "How come it's such an easy solution?"

"I believe that the problem lies with what you were trying to do - you were attempting to manipulate the existing charm. The Protean Charm is most difficult to manipulate," Flitwick explained. "I think that if you try and create a new charm, overriding the existing one, it will work just fine."

Harry and Hermione exchanged a brief look.

"It can't hurt to try it," Harry suggested.

"I recommend that you add a small caveat to your incantation though, Mister Potter," Flitwick suggested. "I don't know if you had noticed, but the motif on your medallions is different - Miss Granger's has an owl on it and yours has a dragon. If you perform the spell you did in class, you would lose one of them."

Harry hadn't seen the motif on Hermione's medallion, but had assumed it would be the same as his. He looked questioningly at her for the reason.

"It was a suggestion from the shopkeeper I bought it from. Your dragon is supposed to represent inner strength and responsibility, while the owl symbolises wisdom and balance." She blushed slightly. "Perhaps it was a personal conceit, but it sounded good at the time. I don't know that it makes any actual difference, Harry."

He chuckled at her discomfort, and was rewarded with a light punch on the arm in protest.

"Nonetheless," Flitwick interjected, "it would be best if they remained as they are. In magic, the symbolism is often important.

"Harry, use the same incantation as before," he instructed, "but replace totalis with extremus and visualise just the outer edge changing instead of the whole thing."

Harry took the medallions, one in each hand, and performed the spell as Flitwick had explained it. Again, a flash of white light zipped between his hands and he felt the medallions warm up slightly.

He opened his hands and passed the one with the owl motif to Hermione. He smiled as he looked at the representation, thinking how closely it resembled his own beautiful snowy owl.

"I'll let you two try that out in a few moments," Flitwick noted with a grin, "but I do have one more thing to ask you, Mister Potter."

"What's that?"

"How long have you been able to perform wandless magic?"

"Eh?" Harry's eyes went wide. "I can't do wandless magic!"

Hermione giggled at him. "You didn't even notice, did you?"

"Notice what?" he asked, getting more confused by the moment.

"Where was your wand when you picked up those medallions, Harry?" Flitwick questioned gently, a bubble of glee seeming to be contained just beneath the surface of his eyes as they sparkled at him.

"Um?" Harry felt around in his pockets and pulled his wand out of a back pocket. "Here?"

"Could it have been a remote casting rather than wandless, Professor?" Hermione asked a little breathlessly.

"It's rather unlikely," Flitwick disagreed," but we can check and make sure. Please give me your wand Mister Potter."

Harry handed his wand over, and Flitwick jumped down off his desk and pulled out a heavy-looking box from between two filing cabinet, waving awa Harry's assistance when he stood to help.

"No, don't worry, Mister Potter, I can manage," he reassured Harry. "I only have to pull it out this little way."

He dropped Harry's wand into it and closed the lid, which echoed with a 'thunk' as it settled down.

"Now, your wand is safely secured in that lead-lined box. Even if you can remotely cast with it," he advised, "there's no way it would work from in there.

"So," he added, pulled another pair of Knuts out of a pocket, "would you care to try again?"

Harry sighed and picked up the coins. He repeated the incantation he'd used in class, and for a third time the spark of white light travelled from one hand to another, and, once again, Professor Flitwick looked more than satisfied with the results.

Hermione's expression was another matter. She looked almost dumbfounded, and was spluttering something incoherent about Harry hiding his abilities.

"Oh my!" Flitwick exclaimed. "Most impressive Mister Potter! I must congratulate you!"

Harry sighed and shook his head. It always seemed to happen to him. Still, he was sure that this was one ability that might actually come in handy, though in retrospect most of his others had done too, even the ability to speak parseltongue - it had after all allowed him to save Ginny's life.

"Professor?" Harry asked tentatively. "Can we keep this quiet?"

Flitwick looked concerned for a moment, wondering why on earth he would want to keep this ability secret, then it dawned on him.

"Your secret is safe with me," he assured, "though if today is any indication, you would do well to take more care not to expose the ability to others. I'm surprised that others in our class this morning failed to noticed that you performed the spell wandlessly."

Harry nodded. He hadn't even thought about pulling out his wand to do the Protean Charm in class. The first thing that came into his head when he was called upon was to perform the charm, and the fact that his wand was safely tucked away under his robes hadn't even occurred to him. He chuckled under his breath. It was a good job that he could cast wandlessly - if he'd cast the flame throwing spell he'd learned from John, he'd've ended up with his robes ablaze just like Moody otherwise.

"I think I'll leave the two of you to play around with your medallions now," Flitwick suggested, glancing up at a clock on the wall, which indicated that he had another class of students waiting outside the classroom door for him. "Do let me know if you have any problems with them though. Such an intriguing use of the Protean Charm."

Hermione badgered him about his new-found ability all the way back up to Gryffindor Tower. She wasn't quite convinced that Harry had only just learned to do this, and was trying to find out how he'd managed it, but since Harry didn't even know how himself, he was at a loss to explain it.

The wove their way through the corridors and dropped their classwork off in the common room then went their separate ways, Hermione to the library and Harry back out through the portrait hole to the Room of Requirement for a session with Professor Gaarder.

---

By the time he made it down to a late lunch, Harry was exhausted. After hearing about his newly discovered prowess at wandless magic by way of an explanation for his tardy arrival, Gaarder had taken his wand from him and picked out some of the more tricky exercises from the Transfiguration textbook to test the limits of his ability.

From Harry's perspective, the act was no different to using a wand, it just required a little more concentration and took a little more effort to channel the magic he was trying to use.

Gaarder was most impressed with the results though, and told Harry that he would be working on his elemental magic training without a wand from now on, since if he could master it, he would probably have an even better feel than using a wand. Harry sighed and resigned himself to yet more hard work at Gaarder's instruction.

Hermione was just leaving as he sat down for his lunch - she and Ron were on their way out to see Hagrid prior to their Tuesday afternoon Care of Magical Creatures class. Harry feel fleetingly guilty at how few occasions he'd managed to find the time to visit Hagrid this year, but Ron assured him that he'd say hello from him.

Ron and Hermione were still not getting on all that well, but were managing to tolerate each other for now. Having so few classes together meant that Hermione had less to nag Ron about, and now that they were not patrolling together as prefects they seemed to rub each other up the wrong way a little less often. There was still a bit of friction between them though - Hermione still felt that Ron was insensitive and Ron still thought that Hermione was bossy, and they still argued.

Harry had to concede that both were probably right about the other, but if the clash of their personalities was that bad then it was a good job that they weren't going to be dating any time soon!

Hermione hadn't mentioned anything about her date in Hogsmeade with Terry Boot, but Harry had seen them studying together in the library on the odd occasion he'd made it there, so it obviously hadn't gone too badly, Dementor attack notwithstanding.

He caught Hermione's eye as she left the Hall and pulled at the chain on his medallion to remind her to send him a message to test it.

Ginny stayed a little longer as she didn't have quite so far to go to her next class, and massaged Harry's shoulders as he ate, to help him relax.

"Got a new trick to show me?" she asked as she stopped the circular motions on his weary body. "Hermione didn't stop talking about it all lunchtime."

Harry glowered for a moment. When he'd told Flitwick that he'd wanted to keep the skill under wraps he'd assumed Hermione would have understood that to mean her as well.

He sighed. "Just the same old, same old," he muttered.

He waved his hand and murmured an incantation under his breath and a single rose appeared in his hand, dew still fresh on its petals and its stem recently shorn of bark and thorns.

"How's that, my dear?" he asked with a jaunty wink, gently placing the flower behind her ear.

Ginny giggled slightly and fluttered her eyelids at him.

"It's lovely Harry. Much more romantic than I expected, especially at the dinner table," she said with a grin, indicating Lavender and Parvati behind her who were giving them their best "aww, isn't that sweet" looks as they got up from the table to follow the other Gryffindors out into the castle grounds.

"Something special for my special girl," Harry replied with a wink. "Besides, it's better to use it for something small right now - I'm knackered!"

"Aww! Poor baby!" she teased, leaning forward and giving him a quick peck on the lips. "Go have a soak in the bath - you'll soon feel better."

He smiled.

"Excellent idea - I'll do just that," Harry said. "Join me?" he invited with a wink.

Ginny blushed. "Much as I'd like to, I don't think that's such a good idea. I'm sure Professor Snape wouldn't consider that a good reason to miss his Potions lesson."

Harry snorted. "Ah well!" he sighed theatrically. "Another time, then."

She rolled her eyes at him and pressed the day's Daily Prophet into his hands.

"Here! Get your mind off of me and read the paper instead. Some of us have classes this afternoon."

She kissed him again and headed off out of the Hall.

An hour later, Harry was up to date on all the latest news and he was much more relaxed after his bath.

The Prophet continued to run stories about the latest Death Eater attacks, and how it was starting to become difficult for isolated wizards to get out and about locally because of the constant threat. Only larger communities like Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade were considered safe, and even they couldn't be guaranteed, as they had found out the previous month when Dementors had been set loose in Hogsmeade.

According to the Prophet's sources, Pettigrew was still undergoing interrogation at the Ministry, although the Ministry had still refused to confirm the man's identity. Harry knew from John Christopher's reports of his frequent trips to London that they were slowly getting more information out of him, and it was leaking gently into the press too, but it was slow progress.

The only down side to this, in Harry's opinion, was that the story was submerged beneath the reports of the Death Eater attacks. People weren't concerned about the fate of a man who had spent twelve years in Azkaban without a trial when their own safety was in jeopardy.

Having finished reading the paper, even digesting the sports section where he noted that the Cannons had lost by almost five hundred points against the Harpies, he lay back in the tub, enjoying the warmth of the soapy water and closed his eyes. He had nearly drifted off to sleep when he felt his medallion warm up.

He smiled softly. Hermione had finally gotten around to trying the medallion out. He'd thought that with the revelation over his wandless magic she'd totally forgotten about it.

He lifted it so that he could read the wording around the edge. The last time he'd paid any attention to it, it had simply had his last message on it, the date of their last DA meeting before Christmas, which Hermione had wanted to post on the main school notice board.

Now the words had changed, and it proved that they had finally got the charm to work as a two-way communicator.

Is it working now? The wording around the outer rim read.

Harry chuckled as he lifted himself out of the bath and cast a drying charm on his toes while he towelled the rest of himself down.

He gripped the coin in his hand and concentrated, sending a message back.

Yes. No class today?

He pictured Hermione standing around on this cold February afternoon helping Hagrid feed whatever animals it was that he'd gotten hold of for the NEWT Care of Magical Creatures class, and playing with the medallion rather than paying attention.

Despite his guilty feelings for not taking Hagrid's class at NEWT level, at that moment Harry felt a surge of relief that his other choices had meant that Care of Magical Creatures wasn't an option.

Hagrid was a nice guy, but even when his classes were interesting they were often slightly dangerous, and he was happy to have been in the bath instead of out on the grounds.

Parkinson injured. Class over.

Hermione's message wasn't a surprise.

Harry snorted. He wondered what Pansy had done now - she'd always been a pain in their classes, though more of an adjunct to Malfoy and his behemoth bodyguards than any particular threat on her own.

Ah. Glad it works.

He slipped his vest on over the medallion and finished dressing, then headed down to the common room to meet the Gryffindors when they arrived back from the lesson as they were likely to do - it was too cold for them to be outside for long without wanting to return to the fire in the common room.

---

That evening's session with the first years went pretty well - their enthusiasm was infectious and Harry found it fairly easy to keep them entertained with a small selection of spells that he felt suitable to both their age and their developing abilities that they would not yet have learned in class.

He had started them off with the basic expelliarmus spell that they had already learned, but worked with them to improve their aim, accuracy and power with the spell.

He also showed them some shield spells that worked well for different scenarios, including one that conjured a physical shield that could be carried around instead of having to re-cast protégé all the time.

It was after he had dismissed them all and they had scurried off to their first year dormitory that he received a shock.

Waiting for him outside the Room of Requirement was Professor Charles, who eyed him warily and asked to speak to him.

Charles was a short but powerfully built Muggleborn, with ginger hair that he kept cut very short and that was going grey at the temples. Harry suspected he might have been in the Army in his younger years, though he didn't have quite the bark of authority that seemed to come with Sergeants and the like. He was fairly genial, though Harry had spoken to him on only a few occasions; Hermione had reported that he was a very good teacher though - strict in his class but knew his stuff really well - and most of his students respected him.

Harry invited him back inside the room where Ginny was still tidying up a few bits and pieces, and offered him a seat as the room suddenly provided them with a conference table and chairs.

"I wondered where all my first years had disappeared to, Harry," Charles started off by saying as he sat down.

Harry blanched slightly. He hadn't thought that anyone would miss the first years for an hour or so, but apparently he had been wrong.

"Seeing as I'm responsible for them, it was a little unnerving to find that they seemed all to have disappeared from the castle entirely, and I was starting to panic a little," the Muggle Studies professor continued. "It was only when I remembered a chance comment from last year about how you had set up your little Defence study group that I started to suspect where they might be."

Harry stuttered out an apology for making the Professor concerned, but Charles waved it away.

"Oh, I don't have any problem with you teaching them," he said quickly, cutting off Harry's protests about them needing to learn more advanced stuff to defend themselves. "Personally I think you're quite right - everyone needs to learn how to defend themselves against the Death Eaters, since anyone could be a target."

Harry breathed a sigh of relief. He thought for a moment that Charles was going to tell him that he didn't want Harry filling the first years' heads with nonsense about being self-sufficient, an attitude that he had come to expect from certain people.

"I do want to know a few things, though," he noted.

"What sort of things, sir?" Harry asked cautiously.

"I'd like a run-down of what you plan to teach them. Just to be reassured that you aren't planning anything inappropriate." He held a hand up to forestall any protest. "I'm sure you wouldn't, but just for my piece of mind eh?"

Harry nodded. "What else, sir?"

"I want to know when and where you'll be meeting. I can't have my entire cadre of children disappearing without some idea of where they are, so I think it would be in order for me to know that. I assume you'll be meeting in here?"

Harry nodded.

"Okay. Well let me know in advance when, so I'm not worrying about them unnecessarily. In fact," he continued, "it would be helpful if you could meet me in my office at lunchtime tomorrow to give me the details of your planned curriculum."

Harry agreed to that without hesitation. He didn't want to let the kids down so soon after agreeing to train them, and was relieved that Charles hadn't simply forbidden him from doing so.

Charles stood and nodded. "Thank you Mister Potter. I appreciate your understanding," he said, and turned away from Harry, leaving the room at a fair pace.

After the relief that spread through Harry after meeting Professor Charles, he thought that the evening would be nice and relaxing, but unfortunately it wasn't to be.

He and Ginny lingered in the Room of Requirement for a while longer to make the most of the time alone. The room provided them with mood lighting and a soft, comfortable couch, though Ginny suggested with a giggle that a bed might be more appropriate. They left more than a little flushed, having explored even further than before, but still stopping short of anything too serious.

"Damn," Harry muttered as they left the room to return to the Gryffindor common room.

"What's up?" Ginny asked.

"I didn't bring the invisibility cloak and Marauders Map with me," he groaned, "and it's well after curfew now."

The thought of having to sneak back without his normal aids irked him, as he'd become used to relying on them for his occasional journeys around the castle.

"Well it's not too far," Ginny reassured him. "We might not run into anyone."

"Hmm. Knowing my luck, Filch will be around the first corner we turn," he grumbled.

A nervous ten minutes of creeping through the castle saw them safely back in the warmth of Gryffindor Tower, though not without a couple of scares along the way.

"Face it, Harry," Ginny insisted once they were back in the common room, "Whatever that ritual was supposed to accomplish, it seems to have worked on one level at least."

Harry looked at her sceptically, but let her continue.

"I mean, the castle seems to like you - it goes out of its way to prevent us getting caught where we shouldn't be."

"I'm sure it's just a coincidence," Harry argued.

"Pfah! Some coincidence, if you ask me! McGonagall was moments away from turning down the corridor we were in before she suddenly remembered something in her office, and whatever it was that scared Mrs Norris off had Filch chasing away in totally the opposite direction."

He shook his head. "It's not like I'm doing anything."

Ginny puffed her cheeks out in frustration at Harry's nonchalance and refusal to believe that anything had actually changed. "And I suppose that the castle just happens to make you sink through the walls of its own accord?"

Harry shrugged. "Maybe it was just a freakish occurrence."

"What? Right when we needed to escape from Snape? Your luck's not that good, Harry."

"That's not fair!"

"It's true though. Nothing goes your way normally, so it's a bit of a surprise when we're suddenly spirited out of a situation that's likely to end up with us in detention - not that it makes much difference to you!"

"Hey! You were the one who wanted me to take you along with me when I was doing pranks and stuff!" Harry's voice rose as his temper started to get the better of him. "You didn't have to come with me!"

"I thought we were doing these things together, Harry," Ginny snapped. "If you want to go back to being alone, you can do, but I thought you liked spending time with me, doing things together?"

"I do!"

"Then why are you trying to push me away again? I'm only trying to help you here. Why are you being so stubborn?"

The argument went on for a while longer, and it was probably a good job that it was so late in the evening, otherwise they would have had a sizeable audience. As it was there were only a couple of seventh years still around, and once they heard an argument starting to develop they decided that their respective dormitories would be a better place to be, leaving Harry and Ginny alone in the common room.

Ginny's argument was mostly based on her disappointment that Harry didn't believe what she was telling him, that he ought to open up and accept her explanation that he had missed things and that he really had successfully carried out the ritual.

From Harry's point of view Ginny was thinking too hard: the odd happenings were easily explained away, and after all, he'd had plenty of odd things happen to him at Hogwarts over the years. He also started getting hot under the collar about her insistence on calling him stubborn and obstructive.

"I'm not! Ginny! Really, I don't think anything has happened at all."

"Harry, on top of everything else, you've suddenly developed the ability to cast spells wandlessly, which we know you couldn't before because you told us about the little incident with Moody," she pointed out. "Now, do you really think nothing has changed?"

He let out a sigh. "Look, I really can't feel anything different! Shouldn't I be able to?"

"I don't know," she replied softly. "But the evidence suggests that whatever it is you've done, it's having an effect."

Harry looked back along the sofa where they had been sitting as they argued and noticed the gap that had developed between them physically as the argument had become more intense. He felt a sudden panic and a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach to see the gap, and he took one of Ginny's hands.

"I'm sorry I shouted. I didn't mean to have a row."

She smiled sadly and patted his hand with her free one. "It's okay Harry. I just wish you'd listen to me sometimes instead of just steaming off in your own little world."

With that they headed off to their beds, a little happier that they had resolved the argument amicably, but also a little less sure of themselves than they had been earlier in the evening, and with a little sadness that they had just had their first real argument as a couple.