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[lilium_evansiae]

The sign on the bar this evening is written with glowing red and green letters:

Free Cracker with Your Drink

There is a large pile of gaily colored Cribbages Wizarding Crackers stacked next to the sign.

And there is a young, ginger-haired witch waiting to see if she has any customers. If the hat perched on her head is anything to go by, she has

Comments

[real_or_notreal]

"Bartending, now, are you?" That would be Peeta. Settling on a stool.

[lilium_evansiae]

"Occasionally," Lily says, cheerfully.

"Good evening, Peeta.

"Something for you?"

[real_or_notreal]

"Occasionally." His elbows went on the bar, and his chin in his hands. In this light, with that bemused smile and bright eyes, it'd be hard to ever picture him as the paint stained lost young man he was that long ago night. "Does that mean you've done it before?"

[lilium_evansiae]

"Maybe four times?" Lily says, trying to remember.

"I actually think it's fun. I daresay I'd feel differently if I had to do it every day, but occasionally, sure. Why not?

"Has Bar never asked you to, then?"

[real_or_notreal]

"Not as of yet." Peeta shook his head, a general shrug going with it. Before surveying the area around her beyond him on that side of the bar. "What is popular so far tonight?"

[lilium_evansiae]

"Tea and butterbeer, so far," Lily says.

"Both things I know how to fix, so I'm grateful for that.

"Can I get you anything?"

[real_or_notreal]

"Butterbeer comes hot, too, right?" Peeta is picking up a cracker, holding it by an end, examining the shiny paper, before giving her a curious look that adds a second question to the first one.

[lilium_evansiae]

"Hot or cold, yeah," Lily says.

"And those are Christmas crackers. You hold one end and I hold the other, we both pull, and it goes off with a really loud bang and a cloud of smoke and presents fall out."

[real_or_notreal]

The cracker gets a considering look. "Hot butterbeer, then. And--" He held out the other end of the strange looking shiny contraption at her. If he braces himself, the faint tense of his muscles, maybe really loud won't be that loud.

[lilium_evansiae]

Lily takes the other end of the cracker.

"On three?" she suggests.

"One ... two ... "

[real_or_notreal]

"... three."

If the sound is really loud (like a shout next to his ear, like a set of claws dragging down the planes of muscles inside against his skin, like a clarion call, like the sounding horn in The Game for each new announcement) at least the billowing purple smoke probably hides it.

Just how rigid he goes suddenly. Just how tight his grip on the cracker paper is to make his knuckles white. To force himself to focus through his eyes tearing at the smoke, that Lily will still be on the other side of it, that Milliways is going to be there when it clears. That even if the urge is to grab something and defend himself, nownownow, there is no assailant coming.

It doesn't hurt that the expression tilts confused, as he stares at the large hat on the bar top in front of him once the smoke. (Lily's bright red hair above it in the edge of his vision.) The different fabrics, and pins, and the paper in the brim.

"Maybe this one was for a girl?"

It's a thin question, a forced one, but he makes it happen.

[lilium_evansiae]

Lily takes in the paper in the brim and starts to laugh.

"No, not for a girl.

"That's the Mad Hatter's hat. Suitable for any and all mad tea parties.

"From a book about a girl called Alice who winds up in crazy world called Wonderland, and her adventures there."

She turns her attention to his butterbeer now, which she serves in a mug covered in Christmas trees.

[real_or_notreal]

Not for a girl. Which just makes him consider it looks outrageously odd, rather more Capitol than him. But he put a hand out to at least turn it. To look at all the odd pieces. The strange numbers, and the odd golden ornaments. Fingers touching these with a tremorless lack of any recognition.

For the moment he missed his drink for it. "What kind of adventures?"

[lilium_evansiae]

"Oh, let's see.

"In addition to the aforementioned mad tea party, she winds up shrinking really small and growing very large, talking to cat who fades away until he's just a grin, talking to a caterpillar, meeting gardeners who are painting roses red, playing croquet with a flamingo for a mallet, and going on trial for ... I can't remember. Something silly, though."

[real_or_notreal]

"A children's story?"

He has the odd notion his team would love this. The hat more than the story. They'd find some outrageous outfit to match it. And croon about wishing they'd created it themselves.

[lilium_evansiae]

"More or less," Lily says.

"It's all a bit mad, as I'm sure you can tell."