A Chinese Buffet

holly was waiting for eric

Eric appeared. THey had been going out for 10 months and Eric had a bulge in his pants. No, not that kind of bulge. It was in his pocket.

Holly, wearing a cute little black dress, held arms with Eric and gave him a quick kiss. "How have you been?" she asked as they went in, were shown to a table and got their food from the buffet.

"H-h-hey, Holly!" he said happily, hugging her.

And so, they sat down in a booth. "How have you been doing at work?" she asked politely, and kind of awkwardly. Tonight, they would have been "officially" dating for ten months. For some reason, she felt really nervous.

"Great! I really injured my shoulder the other day, though, pulling down a riot. They've been getting more frequent and worse, Holly..."

"Really?" Holly's brows knitted together. "I really worry about you working out there, Eric, I really do."

"Nah, no need! We've got tons of guys, and we're all really well taught for all this stuff."

"Alright, if you say so," Holly murmured, sounding uncertain. "You're living alone, too. What if one of the people in one of the riots finds out where you live and comes to your house and rapes you or kills you or something? There's no one else there to call for help!"

"I'll disapparate before they make it into my bedroom. And we're trained to avoid getting raped, Holly."

"They actually train you not to get raped? Even the guys? That's odd."

"Err... well, not really, but they taught us typical defense methods."

"Oh, like what?"

Eric rubbed his chin. "Hmm... Well, we learned these charms and protection spells, but most of that is confidential." He winked at her.

Holly giggled. Eric was so cute when he winked. "Oh, suuuuure. So tell me about these riots. What are people saying?" she lowered her voice to a whisper. They were in a Muggle restaurant, after all.

"People believe that now that you-know-who is gone, the Ministry is trying to take over his original plans, along with all these other atrocious conspiracies." he whispered back.

"Conspiracy theorists, huh." Holly contemplated this as she continued to eat her food. Once she swallowed, she said, "Those people are the craziest. And I sincerely doubt the ministry would do that. Maybe back when it was controlled by You-Know-Who, but definitely not now."

"Exactly! I mean, everything is better now, they've replaced many people in the Ministry. It's not like things will go back to how they were in '97 unless some psychopath stands up and starts recruiting like mad," Eric stabbed a dumpling with his chopsticks. "Well, we'll be ready." he said with a sharp, determined nod.

"Good." Holly smiled at him. He sure had grown up since Hogwarts. "Is there anything else going on at work?"

"Blaine's an ass as usual, and Nicolas reunited with his sister. It was so sweet.."

"Aww, he did? I heard the two got separated, Libby told me. That's so sweet..." Holly sighed dreamily.

Eric smiled meekly. "Yeah, it's so sweet. I'm so happy for them."

"I'll bet. How'd they find each other?"

"Nicolas went to go see his mother. But she didn't remember him... sadly. So he left, and looked through the town for Katherine. And luckily, he found her! It's so great for them. Katherine was a horrible mess."

"Awww, that's so sweet! Wait, what was wrong with Katherine?"