This was jointly written over IM with Mel, which was a lot of fun! We recommend it!

---

The steak was placed upon the table, raw, bloody and accompanied by a salad that quite simply didn't need to be there. Without waiting for her companion’s food to arrive, the witch snatched up knife and fork and started to slice into the meat. Once it was on her tongue she glanced up, frowning.
"People are staring…"
"I'm staring." Johann replied pointedly, his eyes examining the steak on her plate, which looked like it might have been introduced to the grill but nothing further. He hadn't felt too hungry until the smell of cooked chips had filled the air. So he'd relented, and the bowl arrived with a bump beside the beer.
"Still don't quite get how you and Colin eat that."
"So that we don't feel compelled to dine on you instead."
"How reassuring." He replied, and took a sip of his beer, contemplating the bowl of chips with less enthusiasm than he'd previously mustered. "I'm not sure I'd be much of a meal."
"That's why we have the steak." Hannah responded flatly before her teeth got to work on the meat.

Johann chuckled quietly, and let her chew the probably quite tough steak a moment while he looked up and round at the rest of the patrons of the Leaky Cauldron. Hannah was right, they were staring at them.
"You're right. They are staring." He uttered quietly to his companion. "I was in here last night, and people weren't staring... or perhaps they were and I'd had too many beers to notice."

Hannah’s keen eyes taking in the other patrons.
"You weren't with your werewolf fiancée last night."
"No, I wasn't." Johann replied, his eyes retreating from the strangers around them and returning to Hannah. "Would have been nice if you were, but well, you're here tonight." He turned more towards her, trying to ignore the staring. He was arrogant, but he wasn't so arrogant he was pleased at strangers staring at them impolitely.
"I'm surprised so many people recognise us." He picked at a chip, munching on it thoughtfully.
"Me." She corrected while cutting a second piece of steak free. "They recognise me."

Rightfully humbled, he was in the presence of a convicted criminal, after all, Johann's features changed to irritation and he gave a dark scowl in the direction of the watching eyes. Some turned away, but not for long.
"The Daily Prophet has a lot to answer for, and the bloody Wizengamot." He grumbled, and picked at his food with his fingers, but not eating it. His mother would have tapped his hand with her wand and scolded him for this. Thankfully, he was eating dinner with Hannah.
"We can go if you want?"
"If…" She forced the knife through the meat with difficulty "I ran every time someone looked, I'd never leave my flat." The healer looked up at Johann "This is going to happen every time you're seen with me Joey. Get used to it, dear."
"Of course, darling." He replied, though his tone was annoyed.

Johann let her eat, deflating with a long sigh. He wasn't sure how she could stand it, being stared at everywhere she went. He rather enjoyed anonymity.
"I'd hex every one of them if we'd get away with it." He informed her slowly, and then managed a more relaxed smirk as the second beer began to work,
"And then you could rip them limb from limb."

Instead of replying immediately, Hannah focused on chewing the meat, enjoying the taste and relief it gave her from the craving she'd had all day. Perhaps the situation was too much for Johann but Hannah had been forced to deal with it.
"And wind up back in a cell. That would please your father."
"I don't really care what he thinks." Johann replied and sat back. One of his long arms landed on the back of Hannah's chair. He wasn't stupid enough to put it round her, but the action reflected a subconscious thought of being protective over his best friend.
"Though the lack of any news from back home is both reassuring and rather unsettling. I haven't had any more parcels, but if I do, I'll get Hamilton to open them for me."
"I'd expect something soon." The witch was seemingly too focused on her food to notice the placement of her friend's arm. "He won't let this lie."

Then Hannah frowned and glanced sideward at Johann.
"What is this?" it was a question she'd been meaning to ask since Christmas.
"It’s a steak?" Johann replied, caught off guard, "Why did they cook it poorly? Or ... at all?"

A long sight was released and the witch closed her eyes rather than scowling at the dim yet apparently intelligent wizard.
"Merlin, give me strength…"
Johann, sipping his beer again, stared at Hannah in surprise. Clearly that wasn't the correct answer to her question. Try again.

"What is this?" Johann repeated her question, still a little clueless. "Qualify this, you've lost me?"
"Sometimes Johann…" the witch shook her head, momentarily ignoring the steak. “Sometimes you are anything but intelligent."

At her blunt words, her friend deflated, his shoulders sinking and face dismayed.
"I'm not a mind reader." He complained. But his face creased with thought, considering what she must mean.
"This... Us?"

"Yes!" Hannah jumped on his finally correct assumption. Ignoring her knife and fork, she twisted the ring around her finger.
"This…us. You proposing and giving me a ring and standing up to your parents. What does it mean?"

"Does it have to mean anything?" He replied softly, concerned. "No, perhaps that was poorly phrased. It’s..." His gaze moved from her to look upwards as he considered.
"I thought you wanted this. I thought it was the right thing to do?" He put down his pint and scratched his head.
"My mother suggested I'd felt it was the 'right thing to do'. But, I can't remember consciously waking up Christmas morning knowing I'd ask you that at your parent's dinner table, if I'm honest."

Hannah didn't respond for a moment, she chewed thoughtfully on her steak.
"You thought I wanted to marry you?"
"I er..." He weighed up the reasoning, looking thoughtful. "Yes - you asked me to come with you Christmas Day, your parents treated us like we were, and then when I pointed it out you didn't seem that upset about it."
"I told you not to!" The knife and fork were dropped down on the plate, Hannah looking at her friend, somewhat exasperated.
"You did?" Johann was taken aback. "I thought... oh, Merlin."

He withdrew his arm from the back of her chair and placed both elbows on the table top, his long fingers covering his mouth.
"But you ... you said yes?"
"To silence my mother."
"Well, that worked." Johann's fingers had retreated to the point of his chin, and he blushed ever so slightly.

"So, you don't want to marry?" He asked, and genuinely looked disappointed, not that he really could identify why. Unless it was all the effort he'd put in since the Daily Prophet had published the news, defending Hannah and their choice.
"Not you." Hannah responded before frowning. That was cruel.
"No, I don't mean that. We're not in love. That's what people marry for." She paused, looking up at him. "Isn't it?"
"Apparently." Johann replied cynically, "It's considered the most worthy reason. Convenience, continuing the pure blood line, to do right of an unwanted pregnancy... there's dozen more if you read Witch Weekly." He listed them off on his fingers as he spoke, and then hastily dropped his hand back around his pint. He imagined Hannah didn't read that magazine, and he only did out of boredom.

A smirk twisted her lips as she regarded him.
"You read Witch Weekly?"
"Yes..." He replied slowly, seeing her amusement. "Only when I'm bored. Which is... often." His other hand waved away the point.

"So we're not in love? Well, you're not in love?"
Hannah blinked.
"Are you?"
"I... I don't honestly know." He confessed, staring away from her, looking lost.

Hannah suddenly looked somewhat uncomfortable.
"Oh."
"Love isn't quite something one can measure with numbers, everyone treats it differently and I've been told it 'takes you by surprise'. Which the last few weeks qualify for." He shrugged, "Someone once told me I'd probably interpret falling in love as feeling unwell."

There was another pause. The steak sat forgotten on the plate, blood creating a small puddle around it.
"And do you? Feel unwell?"
"No more than usual. Like I always did." He sighed. "But when I asked you, I wasn't feeling like this - I was thinking clearly. Or perhaps not. I've been trying to work it out for a while."

Hannah nodded, trying to take it in. This was definitely news.
"So you think you're in love with me?"
"I cannot rule it out."
"Perhaps you should."

Her abrupt tone made him look up in surprise and he tried not to be hurt, and instead drank his beer in silence, unsure of how to reply to that. He'd taken his mother's advice to heart in Hannah's flat, presuming that she was wiser about such things, because she was married and loved his father.
"Alright." He uttered eventually. "So what do you propose we do about this mess?"

He looked put out. Hannah's lips pursed in though.
"Can you honestly see yourself married to me Johann? Engagement means marriage. Marriage means living together, kissing, having children, sharing a life."
"I know what marriage is - I have parents!" He replied less reasonably than he would normally do. The mild hurt he felt for the earlier words was quickly manifesting into irritation with her. Not a thought that he'd been the one to ask her to marry him, that he was at least half to blame.
"I've lived together with people throughout my life, people have children every day I -." He caught sight of her expression and let out a deep sigh, his shoulders sinking.
"I gather this all repulses you though."
"No."
"No what? It doesn't repulse you? Or no, it doesn't repulse you to consider those things with me involved?" Johann asked, having a moment where Hannah's short answers were giving him little to feed off as he struggled interpret her expression.

Her arms crossed awkwardly across her chest, not looking at Johann.
"I just...always figured it was for other people."
"Well it is." He replied quietly, and caught sight of people staring again. "But I've come to realise people expect it from us too."

Hannah's gaze followed Johann's to the staring witches and wizards.
"So you proposed because of people's expectations?"
"No - I ... no, I think their expectations about you and I are rather different." They were still staring at the strangers, his expression darkening again at their unending staring.
"I asked you because I thought it was the right thing to do. To stick by you, I'm sick of people getting at you for what's happened."
"You can stick by me as a friend, Johann," the witch quickly responded. "Engagement is unnecessary."

He nodded, she was right. He'd been thinking about it all week, about the difference between people's expectations of them as friends and how they were now talking of living together, and children.
"You're right." He replied humbly, looking back and giving her a wistful smile. "We're not in love, we're not going to live together, have children." The relief was surfacing, yet after all the arguments and fighting of the past week, the disappointment remained.

"Exactly." Hannah glanced down at the ring. "Although this...this I liked." Yet with reluctance she twisted it off her finger and offered it to Johann. "For if you do actually find the love of your life." Her smirk was somewhat amused, taking the mickey out of her friend.
"Ha, thank you." He replied, taking it with a momentary hesitation, studying it again in the light of the Leaky Cauldron. "I'm not sure it'll suit Colin, but he's worn stranger things." There was a pause, a relieved snort of humour.
"No, really, I appreciate knowing. It’s been a most confusing week. Thank you."

He leaned over swiftly and placed a kiss on her cheek, reminiscent of the affection he tended to show his mother. Hannah didn't bristle when his lips brushed her cheek. Worse could have occurred had she not said anything. Married couples were expected to kiss, to share a bed, to copulate. She glanced sideways at Johann, very relieved she'd set this one straight.

"You're a strange wizard."
"You wouldn't be the first to say that." Johann replied, sounding more upbeat.

He slid the ring on his finger a moment beneath the table where it was only visible to the two of them.
"Looked better on you." He confirmed, sliding it into his jacket pocket. "Fancy a chip?"