101 Ways to ditch the Date | SIRIUS BLACK

No. 5

"I think he did it on purpose," Ora said, flicking through her book. Emmeline dumped her bag on her bed before moving over to her friend's and sitting next to her, "He told me a story that broke the pattern as he did. I underestimated him."

"Really? I think you're giving him too much credit as it is," Emmeline replied, "He's just going chronologically, Ora, you're overthinking it."

"Am I?" Ora asked, tapping the last story with her quill, "See? Pattern is broken in many ways. MANY ways. It's written down in pen, can't argue with that."

Emmeline blinked a couple of times before pointing out, "Ora, you wrote that. All that shows is that you were overthinking just as much then as you are now."

"No, I was calm then, now I'm not calm. Now I'm overthinking and paranoid," She said, slumping down on the bed, "I should have realised not to do this. Lawyers shouldn't work on things that they are personally involved with, that's like the first rule and here I am breaking it. I love rules, Emmeline, I LOVE making them and I love enforcing them with strict precision. How did I manage to break one."

"It's not really a rule so much as a guideline," Emmeline said, nudging her friend, "And this isn't a case."

"It's practice, it's all practice," Ora moaned, "Oh God, I'm going to call the whole thing off."

"I thought you said you had 'tricks up your sleeve', right? What happened to them?" Emmeline asked, lying down next to her friend and turning her face to face her.

"I was an idiot, they all relied on me having the upper hand here, I never thought he'd mix things up, even in a small way. He's trying to get into my head like I'm doing with him, you can't both be doing that," Ora said, "I can't let this happen, why did I think I could do this?"

"Ora, you're being stupid and you're a Ravenclaw! Snap out of it!" Emmeline said, clapping her hands in front of her friend's face who blinked a few times before looking at her friend with a look of confusion and surprise.

"I'm not being stupid. If anything, I'm being smart. Overthinking is just lots of thinking, that's the literal definition of it. Thinking is smart therefore more of it must be better," Ora said quickly, smiling triumphantly.

"But... if the thinking was bad in the first place then doesn't that mean more of it will be worse?" Emmeline replied and Ora cocked her to the side as she considered this.

It took her a few seconds for Ora to snap her fingers and excitedly reply, "But the idea that thinking can be bad or good requires subjective judgements - "

"See!" Emmeline said, "See what you just did? You were expecting me just to accept your overthinking argument lying down but instead I retaliated. And what did you do? Did you sit back and freak out and threaten to give up? No, you argued back, you came back with a firing response because that is what you do! You're not freaking out because you were vaguely outwitted, you freaked out because you thought that he might find a way out of your one excuse to talk to him, right?"

"... You're a true Ravenclaw," Ora said finally, "I'm not used to actually caring about the outcome. This is new."

"It's just good practice I guess, in case you come face to face with a cute client," Emmeline said, winking at her friend who attempted to wink back, "Maybe don't wink at him though."

"My wink is cute."

"It's more of a squint but okay," Emmeline said with a shrug, "Anyway, what you need to do is fight back, okay? If he wants to get into your head, you do it back. If he tried to outwit you, you pull a trick that he's never even seen before. I feel like he's already intrigued and he liked you enough to ask you out so the hard part is done - "