She could feel the grass under the knees, sharp and green and fresh. The tapestried earth folded around her head. The moss made the whole grounds velvet, porous. Her arms were stretched out to either side, and from up high she appeared as Humbert Humbert's orgiastic crucifixion in her knee socks and pleated skirt, red hair displayed against emerald background, surrounded by the idyll of the sleepy gardens stirring lethargically in the opening summer day. When she listened to nothing but the meaty thump thump of her heart, she began to catch the liquid sound of the swirling Lake, never still even under the clear sky, and the exultations of the trees as the air ran its fresh fingers through their leafy heads. She looked up, trying to see through the azure to the night behind, and pulled at the earth with her outstretched hands, forcing mud under her nails. She inventoried her body, savouring the wood smoke smell from near the forest's edge, the keen of wind veering between the greenhouses, the heavy dirt, the itching grass, the splash of water. She revelled in the lack of human sound – the quiet absences that made the morning whole and perfect. The sun slid inexorably higher above the horizon, and she shut her eyes against it, monitoring the brightness of her eyelids, burning orange and gold and red from capillaries and tissues ignited by the sunlight.

The crunch of gravel far behind Ginny's head almost made her flinch. The steps were light – she thought, girl. Girl's feet. As the walk ended in stone, she heard no flat pat of shoes on flagstones, only a pause. Then a strange sound, a dry rustle, and then a pad, pad, pad towards her. When stones gave to grass, she heard a sigh – the sigh of green between your toes, pressed against the arches of your foot, brushing your ankles in a whispered entreaty to dance – and then bare ankles stood to the right of her nose. The girl folded down, throwing something (socks and shoes?) across the lawn to her right. She pulled at her skirt, rearranging it, and then inched down until she lay symmetrical to Ginny, two Passions displayed side by side. When Ginny finally turned her head, her eyes crinkled up in recognition at Hermione's profile, her black-dark gaze fixed challengingly up at the blue.

'Good morning,' she whispered, loath to break the silence. She heard the chirrup and warble of birds and the buzz of heavy laden bees.

Hermione replied with more of a grunted murmur, rubbing her eyes with her hands.

'Mmmhm-guh?' she questioned, laughing like the splash-slosh of the lake, or the birds in the sun.

Hermione slapped her hand gently, 'Not a morning person, remember.'

'No tea?' Ginny let mock concern accent her voice.

'Not even tea.'

'How you got down here without injury is beyond my imagining,' Ginny chuckled. 'Cig?'

'Before tea? You must be insane.' Hermione pulled up to sitting regardless, proffering her wand as lighter.

Ginny sat up by rolling on her side, pulling her legs in, and folding over herself. Hermione had to laugh at the elaborate movement, ridiculous, almost ritualistic, and very animal. The cigarettes appeared from a pocket under her skirt, momentarily flashing freckled thighs. Once lit, Ginny lay back again, billowing smoke above her to burn up in the warm sunlight. With each exhale, she caught the smoke with her gaze, watching its vortices and curling tendrils, until Hermione noticed patterns emerging in the smoke. Ginny began to blow rings that would envelop a spiral, at which they would promptly disappear, and then figures would start to walk among the smoke. She saw a sleeping cat curl and rising from sleeping, or was it perhaps a tiger? The carnival of grey under blue sky faded as Ginny looked away to ash, but when she looked up again it coalesced. As the butt neared, Ginny blew smoke ring after smoke ring, bigger and bigger until they formed concentric circles around each other, hovering ten feet above them. Still gazing intently, she stubbed the butt out on the grass, narrowing missing Hermione's ankle, and at the viciousness of her motion the smoke circles burnt out with a yellow glow. She sat up quickly, still with the same lithe movement, and pinched her nose as it dripped red onto the ground for a few seconds. Deep inhale later, and she looked up at Hermione searchingly, iron and cigarette taste in her mouth.

'Fuck, Ginny,' at which Ginny blanched, amused, for Hermione swearing was an unusual sight.

'Come again?' she raised an eyebrow.

Hermione grinned, 'Fuck. Ginny.'

'Your eloquence is astonishing,' her smile was jubilant and incongruous with her dry tone.

'That was hard – almost impossible – and impossibly beautiful. I had never even thought that was doable, let alone worth doing. Shit.'

Ginny grinned wider, 'I must be losing my hearing. Did you just say shit? And that you're hard, and I'm impossibly beautiful? Or was that I'm doable?' All her teeth danced naked in her grin. 'To lose one's hearing at such a tender age,' she glanced heavenward, melodrama written on her face, 'is such a devastating thing.'

Hermione batted her on the shoulder. 'Seriously, though. That's Charms, I guess, but done so exquisitely it doesn't deserve such a feeble name, and done wandless. And all you got is a ten second nosebleed. Sheeeit,' she lingered over the word, as though relishing its newness, 'you got a headache, at least?'

'Nope,' Ginny shook her head, and lay back, grinning more, 'used to sometimes. Maybe the nicotine helps.' She stretched out on the grass, arms above her head, curling her toes as her back clicked. Hermione laughed at the lazy look of content spread over her face and the messy sprawl of her. She leant over so that her hair dangled in Ginny's smug look, trailing over her mouth and nose.

'Fuck off,' Ginny mumbled and tried to sit up, banging her forehead into Hermione's.

'You smell like fags. C'mon, I need my tea,' Hermione dragged Ginny to her feet, and pulled her back up towards the castle.

At the doors, Hermione cast a look back and swore, 'Shit, forgot my shoes. Accio socks and shoes.' They flew towards the girls obligingly, landing at Hermione's feet. 'How stupid did that sound? I need to get better at this non-verbalising business.'

'Maybe I can teach you?' Ginny grinned.

'Ginny Weasley teach Hermione Granger? How would my pride ever recover?' she grinned back, 'Actually, I'd love that. Be my tutor, Ginevra? I'll get down on my knees if needs be.' She trailed off, laughing.

'Next weekend smoke. We can do it then.'