Ellie narrowed her eyes, but not for long. A smile came unwillingly, close-lipped and secretly amused. (Or not so secretly.) He did have an effect on teenage girls, which she liked to poke fun at, but it could get serious in Alohomocha sometimes. “I’ll give you teenage girls.” Excluding herself, she was not to be lumped with his mini stalkers and cafe loiterers!

She’d like to think she wasn’t dating someone who made small children cry on the regular, however, and thought she had plenty of evidence that suggested a very soft heart under the artful misanthropy.

She supposed Lala had a point: between the two of them, they could probably get Sander to do a whole lot of things that even a sociable person would refuse to do. Her pixie-ish friend could make good on her threats, and Ellie’s own bossy streak only seemed to blossom with Lala’s influence on her life. She was almost one-hundred precent sure that Sander secretly liked it.

Out at night doing? Her expression morphed again, this time beckoning Lala to go on, but she saved face, smoothed over the bump in the road, carried on… still. There was something there to investigate. Perhaps she should start with the source, hear it from his mouth (when he wasn’t moving her furniture). She looked over her shoulder, vaguely in the direction of her new room, and back to Lala.

Skipping over that comment— for the moment— she shrugged. “I will. I can cook brilliantly.” Ish. Some things. She was better at ordering pizzas, but it wasn’t like the lot of them were accustomed to and quite comfortable with that school of cooking. “I’m good at eating leftovers, too.”

“I don’t have peasant music, but…” She followed her friend’s gaze to the stereo system, which might as well have come out of one of the movies she’d watched with Leon. “I don’t think that will be a problem.” Ellie’s lips swished to the side, cheeks bunching a bit. “You could be an awesome best friend and show me how to turn it on, though.”

A vacuum presented another challenge in the Wizarding Olympics. “Muggles. What will they think of next?” They were half mystifying, half maddening, but not in a bad way. Ellie had no dislike for them. “I don’t know how I feel about cleaning with something that uses a cord… plug?” She tried, offering the handful of words that seemed to mean the same thing or be related. “I’ll add a broom to the list.” The shopping list was only in her head at the moment, but they had plenty of time to map out of everything. In their own way. If in a few hours a couple of shoppers would be overwhelmed by the state of Ellie’s cart as she, Lala, and any willing new neighbors whirled through the store, well, they were providing good entertainment.

Feeling an edge of glee at Lala’s discomfort, she laughed. “It’s not like I’m planning to invite you to watch.” But it was with a loving tone, and understanding hiding just beneath that. Ellie wouldn’t exactly want to walk in on anyone else (Lala included) going at it. Shaking her head so fringe bopped away from her forehead a bit, she did her best to squash those fears and joined in on the rhymes of sisterhood. “Witches before—“ Nope. That didn’t work. She simply gestured with another toss of her head toward where Sander was. And he was there now, properly, looking at them. “Hoes,” she finished in a cackle, spurred on by someone’s disbelief. She lifted an arm, hovering around Lala’s shoulder, making sure her friend wasn’t actually choking.

Lala raised a disbelieving eyebrow at Ellie's declaration on her cooking skills. She'd decide if her food was edible for herself... She'd be very cautious. Actually, she should cook for Sander! That was brilliant! That way Sander could test it first. But he wouldn't dare criticize his girlfriend's cooking, now would he? Hmmm. "Well, we can cook together, and if you wanna share your plate with McGrumpy, it's yours to do what you want with it." There, that was safe enough. They'd make something spicy, just to fuck with Sander.

Lala watched her friend in complete silence, blinking a few times before her eyebrows drew toward the middle and she narrowed her eyes, with lips pursed. "How do you live without technology? No, really, I can't even with that." Weird-ass wizards and their weird-ass technophobia. "Fear not, tho. I shall teach you the language of my people, young padawan" she eventually declared. She'd have to fill the house with instruction post-its. Fun times.

Apparently even a vacuum was going to be a challenge and Ellie's comment was met with a silent murderous glare. "Wizards, what will they keep being ignorant about" she replied in a dead-pan tone, rolling her eyes a little. What? Magic was weird and even after so many years at the border of the muggle and wizarding world, Lala still thought of herself as a muggle with benefits. Of the magical kind. "And it's cordless, thank you very much. This is the twenty first century" she huffed, crossing her arms. Lala was also very into her house appliances. She spent too much money on a bunch of appliances she didn't really need. Except the state-of-the-art coffee machine. That was kind of like air: very much so needed.

The discussion on Ellie and Sander—Sandeanor? Lysellie? Ellysander! It was making Lala want to crawl out of her skin and run to live in the woods. Except she'd die. Because Lala was not an evolved human being just to return to the woods and live off of the land. It was horrifying anyway and Ellie kept making it worse. "W—watch?" she mumbled, with eyes so big they were almost popping out of their sockets. Oh god, oh sweet baby Jesus, she did not need that image in her brain. Before Ellie, Sander was pretty much an asexual creature in Lala's mind. And now this?! She wasn't that good of a friend. "I liked you two better, wen you were having the bromance of the century" she muttered with a long sigh.

When Sander popped back into the room with a face that looked like someone had ran over his puppy repeatedly and then told him Santa wasn't real, Layla just lost it. And laughing with half a muffin in her mouth wasn't exactly easy. After the violent burst of shits and giggles and ensuing choking, Lala finally dragged a long audible breath. "I dunno, big guy, I bet if you shook that money maker in the right direction, you'd be surprised at the results" she said with a shit-eating grin, turning to wag her eyebrows at Sander and dodging a shoe—her own shoe—at the last moment, before it violently collided with her face.

"Rude, Sander, we do not throw 200 pound shoes—my shoe—at friends" she said throwing her head back and laughing at how red his face was turning. "You're not my friend, you're Satan's bride sent to torment me and drive me into an early grave" he replied through scrunched teeth, making his way to Ellie. "Dude, stop with the flattery, you'll make me blush" she cooed in response and batted her eyelashes sweetly. Sander sat on Ellie's other side and buried his face in her hair, which if it was anyone but those two would've been ridiculously adorable, except it was those two, so Lala just mimicked vomiting. "Are those my muffins? I thought Les finished th—Did you break into my apartment again?!" It was cute, really—how Sander still didn't know her after so many years. "Told you to lock the fire escape window" she said calmly, taking another muffin.

Ellie offered a what? I can cook look, the kind of full sentence a friend could share with a brainwave. Or, you know, that look. “That’s very generous of you.” Maybe if they could get Sander to do enough favors— like the closer thing for starters— Lala would even let them share seconds.

“The same way muggles live without magic,” she guessed, shrugging easily. She knew if she’d grown up with such things as computers and… DVD players… and cars… she’d have a much harder time living without them. They were pretty awesome, certainly clever, in all of their absolutely confusing glory. “As long as it’s easier than Mermish, I’m in.”  That was open for debate. Lala seemed to prefer muggle culture, and Ellie loved Lala, and so that was that. It was like a perpetual, post-school Muggle Studies class. She could get into it.

Ellie couldn’t help it: the look of horror on Lala’s face only made her laugh. Though she completely understood on a logical level. Most people didn’t want to watch— especially their best friends. Too close for comfort. There was a familial feel to it. That didn’t mean she didn’t find it hilarious. “But my bromance with you is untouchable,” she offered, trying to butter up.

A history-book worthy battle could start with little comments and expensive shoes, Ellie knew. Anyone who downplayed the personalities of her closest friends deserved such epic surprises. “Truce over muffins!” She intervened. “Does it matter where she got them?” Her head whipped around to Sander, as if to say, the last time I broke into your apartment, good things happened. “Don’t worry about those details.” They were minor. Crimes. “Come eat.” She patted the couch beside her, scooting closer to Lala to make room. “And help us make a grocery list…”

A list that would likely end up full of things that weren’t edible.

"That's me, Miss Generosity" she batted her eyelashes and shrugged sweetly. She really was. But food was not something Lala Styles took lightly. Food was an art. Especially pizza rolls. But nobody seemed to understand that... How sad. "Yes, but we have science" she declared half ominously, half enthusiastically. Really, if one thought about it, it was a kind of magic... Except with a lot more work. "And Mermish is impossible, I dunno a single person that can actually speak Memrish, and I dunno any mermaids so I'll have to call unicorn on that one. Ugh, I mean—it's a muggle thing" she shook her head and smiled at her friend. "It's easy, really, I'll leave you post-its with instructions."

"Psssh. Damn right, it is" she said, as if that wasn't even in the question. Because it wasn't. hey had the sort of friendship that would go on for a century. She hoped at least. They would be old cat ladies together, and they would be enough for each other, even if others didn't stick around. They'd have tea together - laced with, no, actually, just brandy -  and bitch about the younger generations.  She gave Ellie a quick side hug and then ruffled her hair, because displays of affection just weren't Lala's thing.

"I'm perfectly calm" she responded to Ellie's heeding for peace, while Sander huffed audibly, and really, he was just so cute. He listened intently to Ellie, eyes looking up at her from her shoulder and he gave a long sigh as if saying he was just done with all this. Which, awe, poor baby... "I propose a gag for your roommate" Sander said, glaring her way to which Lala merely raised an eyebrow and smirked slightly. "Already have one of those, Grumpy" she replied cheekily and hid her smirk into her cup of coffee. "Jesus Christ, Lala, don't—just don't" came the ensuing objection and Lala just chuckled loudly.

"Adorbs, you are" she cooed, reaching over Ellie to pinch his cheek, her hand batted away before it even came into contact with his skin. "Go upstairs and change, while we finish with this. We're going shopping. And we need a mule" she declared, shooing him away with one hand, while he said something in Ellie's ear that ended in a particularly  murderous glare thrown her way. Whatever.

"And we need a driver as well, so I'm gonna go pound in the pipes for Zero"she said getting up and walking to the corner near the counter bar where the radiator was. "Add milk to the list, also bread, some eggs... and basically anything edible you might want. Oh, and put down condoms for me."

"At least wait until I'm gone, for Christ's sake" whined Sander as Lala merely shrugged in response. "And cat food, you don't wanna see Grinch grumpy. Also, I'll apologize in advance, if you wake up with two cats boxing your head in and purring in your ear. They do that."

Mermaids, science, food… it was just another day for the pair of them, only with more furniture than usual, and the promise of more food. Ellie leaned into her friend’s hug, grinning.

It was a much more touching moment than Sander an Lala’s war of words— but Ellie would be lying if she said she wasn’t amused. Even if she was supposed to be playing Neutral Auror. A little banter could be a good thing, right? But then Lala went on about gags, and the St. James girl scrunched her nose even as she smiled.

Her grin turned wider and toothier at Lala’s pronouncement, and then she set her attention on Sander, trying a softer touch where Lala hadn’t managed. “It’ll be fun,” she promised, climbing to her feet again and putting a hand on his arm. Her brows rose as if her expression might justify or persuade. “Especially with Zero driving.” She was always up for a trip in car. "Thanks for your help,” she added, an amused afterthought as she reached up to peck his cheek. “We’ll see you back here in a few?”

Ellie summoned parchment and a quill and some turquoise ink, scratching it out a bit at the top corner before starting the list. She let out a breath of laugh as she wrote. “You know you’re paying for those.”

Better safe than regretful, though.

“I don’t mind cats in the morning…” She trailed off, catching sight of Grinch, then looked at Sander again. “I’m adding popcorn, too. I won’t let it overflow this time.” Probably. She thought she’d mastered it after a few tries; it paired well with all kinds of muggle activities, too, so it was a must for moving in with Lala.

This new living situation was definitely going to be worth the rent and lack of sleep. And easy access to all of her favorite people.