Word Games
It was a warm day. A warm day of a warm week that followed a summer of cold, pitiless rain. Perhaps a lifetime of rain. An overcast existence, where the sun broke through the clouds occasionally, but without regularity or perpetuation. But now there was heat and light and contentedness. Basking behind a veil of childlike naivety, they watched each other through dreamily half-lidded eyes.
"I'm telling you, 'rambunctious' is a word." Hermione protested half-heartedly.
"You are lying to me, 'ermione. Use it in a sentence."
"'Rambunctious is a bloody word'. There."
Fleur glared at her in a lame pretence of severity. It was Hermione's role to look suitably chastised, and appease her lover with a thousand apologetic little kisses over her face and neck and throat until she submitted her defeat with a coy smile. Theirs was a curious dynamic, one that it was impossible to calculate from the way they were together in public, their body language, the way they danced together at Bill's wedding to that lovely girl from Gringotts (nobody so much as guessed). Sometimes Hermione found it hard to believe that they were even in a relationship, but of course she had always doubted that fact since that first night, when Fleur had extended a hand with tear-flooded eyes. The moonlight had streamed through the window and flooded the room, placing an ethereal glow on the pair and, when Hermione looked back on the night; it seemed too ghostly and strange to be real. Fleur had moved closer and closer, until Hermione, desperate to keep her sanity, could smell the watermelon flavour of the other girl's lipbalm. Desperate to keep her sanity, she had whispered to her mind 'prefectprefectprefect' and willed herself out of what had to be a dream, even as Fleur's lips met her own with a resounding crack as the universe flipped over.
'prefectprefectprefect'
Hermione stood rooted to the spot, eyes crunched closed.
'prefectprefectprefect'
She had put her hands against Fleur's shoulders, and made as to push her away, but not before Fleur had moved back herself, and given a small smile.
"Zat's ze idea!"
And re-placed her lips.
'prefectprefectprefectTHISISFLEUR', she had thought as the girl snaked a hand to the back of her neck. Without quite meaning to, she had let her head fall back, and a slight whimper to escape as the half-veela sucked on her bottom lip. Then she was kissing her. Kissing her. Kissing Fleur. Wrapping her fingers through lush blonde hair and pulling her closer desperately, every cell in her body tingling from the contact as the girl's tongue caressed her own. Fleur's other hand slide up her body, along her ribcage, pushing her towards the bed where she straddled her, and drew a map of featherlight kisses along her collarbone.
Why was she with her in the first place, Hermione often wondered. The dynamic between them was confusing because it had hardly changed at all when their, well it hadn't even been a friendship… changed. Evolved. It was something that they hadn't really spoken about except in a dizzy matter-of-fact manner that was so completely her, those actions and ways of looking and being that identified her and set her apart. The calm, patient eyes which saw to your soul and tore it apart without quite meaning to. When exactly they had changed to being an 'us' was a matter of blurred lines. It was as a photograph of the horizon where you can't tell if the sun is rising or setting. They had stolen kisses, and Fleur's suggestive glances over the Weasley's dinner table. The flush of Hermione's face and the smirks of Fred and George were matched in time.
"What about 'perfunctory'?" Hermione suggested with a yawn.
"What is zat?"
"Sort of, automatic, unthinking. It's a good word. What do you think about 'compendious'?"
"Hmm?" Sounds muffled through Hermione's neck as Fleur slipped closer to sleep.
"I just said I'd give you big words, not dictionary definitions!" The argument was met with a sniff of playful disapproval and a light kiss on the cheek.
"You ruin my life, ma chérie."