Story: Licentious Liaisons
Author: grey chemistry
Edited: Not yet
Rating: T/PG-15
Completed: Yes
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C×G
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D×H
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Author's note:
This is a partial continution to my previous oneshot, 'Debauchery' and it is highly recommended reading that before this. However, this can be read as a standalone story too. : )
Licentious Liaisons
OoO
There is a woman and there is a man. Years ago, the woman had made a wrong choice as a girl. Years ago, the man had let her go when he had been a boy. Now they meet again. This is that account.
The woman knows that she has made a mistake by coming here tonight.
She has no reason to be here among these happy people, except for a piece of decorated card addressed to her and signed, 'Yours lovingly, Hermione'. The card currently lies on her empty bed in her empty, one room apartment. She doesn't want to be here but Hermione Malfoy neé Granger had asked her to be her bridesmaid and she couldn't have refused the fiery witch.
She sighs and picks up a champagne flute from the table. It's perhaps her tenth (or is it the eleventh?) that evening. She wants to fall in her bed and lie in there forever. However she can't do that until the post wedding party ends and so she contents herself with sitting on a chair instead. She watches the bride and the groom with her haze laden eyes.
The fact that they— both of them are so in love with each other registers in her mind. It seems as if the hundreds of other people around them don't exist as they gaze in each other's eyes and kiss, much to the delight of the others. The woman sighs yet again.
She doesn't know what she's doing with her life. She doesn't remember how she became a war heroine to Harry Potter's short time girlfriend to a broken Quidditch journalist. She doesn't want to remember. All this happiness is getting on her nerves. She just wants to go home and lie alone in her sorrows.
However her indifference to the festive fervour around her vanishes when she sees her ex-boyfriend saunter in with a very sensual looking Pansy Parkinson. It's only been a month, how dare he!, half of her mind shouts out loud.
But somewhere, you've known all along that it would come to this. You've known all along that you were not meant for him and he was not meant for you, haven't you?, the other half of her mind tells her. She nods as if answering a question asked by a real person.
Somehwere in the graveyard of her mind she has a deep buried memory of someone saying, "I hope you get to kiss Harry one day."
Oh, who is she kidding? She exactly remembers who that 'someone' had been. A boy, now a man, had said that to her. He had been exasperated with her when he had uttered that, she supposed. His hope had come true but what good had come out of it?
Not a single bit.
She recalls what had happened before the man had said that to her. He had kissed her, ever so lightly and then gone away like a true gentleman. She blushes slightly.
Speaking of him, where is her?, she wonders. She distinctly remembers being told by Hermione that he had been invited too and she doesn't know why she is growing worried at seeing his absence. He works along with her at the Daily Prophet but they rarely speak to each other, preferring to stick to their own work. Besides he doesn't have much of a desk job as he is continually out for taking all sorts of photos for the newspaper. They're nothing more that distant co-workers, then was is she getting worried at his absence?
Because, her mind tells her, you're co-workers who kissed once. "Shut up!" she shrieks, not being able to differentiate between her inner voice and a real person due to her drunken haze. In the process she accidentally frightens a little girl who had been standing near her, but the woman is too carefree due to the alcohol to apologise to the child.
With a sway of her hips, she slips out from the sweaty atmosphere of the ballroom and into the cool night air. She doesn't expect to find him. Hell, she doesn't know why she wants to find him. Something after seeing Harry has sparked a fire in her and laid out old memories before her. She doesn't know what, but it burns in her soul, igniting every edge with a raw and fierce energy.
The vast and expansive forest surrounding the Manor is absolutely quiet and she is glad she carries her wand with herself. A moment in the trees stills her and she rises up her gown to pull out her wand from a pocket in her stockings. Now armed, she edges towards where she had seen the movement like the brave Gryffindor she had always been—
only to see a man, the man she had been looking for all along. He is sittng on the grassy ground, supporting his weight against a tree trunk. In the semi darkness, she can make out his features with the help of the pale moonlight. His eyes are closed and his neck is arched back as he inhales in the coolness around him.
He is here. He is okay, he mind says, now turn around and go back to the party and she wants to but strangely her feet work their way towards him and since her sense of balance is so horrible twisted and the high heels aren't any helpful either, she falls on the ground with a loud crash, some two metres away from him.
The man's eyes snap open. "You're drunk." he simply states instead of exclaiming any phrase expressing concern. He simply states it as if finding a drunk lady was a daily occurrence for him. He gets up and pulls her up.
She can't imagine how he knows she is drunk. Women tend to fall while wearing heels all the time, don't they? Perhaps she'll never know how he always got to read everything going on in her mind.
"You're upset." he says after a while and she is shocked yet again, even though she really should have gotten used to it by now. This...this thing that he does with her, it's not normal, is it? They haven't talked properly in years and here he is, reading her like all those years ago back at Hogwarts.
"Colin, Colin, Colin," she begins, ignoring his last remark, "do you remember what happened on this date ten years ago?" She slurs of a little towards the end.
Of course he remembers each moment of that fateful evening in vivid detail. He had kissed her for the first (and last) time. How could he not remember?
"Umm, yes, I do." he replies carefully, nervously.
"Then let's do it again." She is smirking.
"What?" he yells.
"You heard me right."
"Even if I did, I am as sure as hell not going to do anything. You're not in your senses right now Ginny!"
Instead of saying anything further, she approaches him and wraps her arms around him. And after that, she kisses him lightly, just like he had ten years ago.
"You listen to me right now Colin Creevey," she whispers against his lips, "exactly ten years ago you told me that you hoped that I get to kiss Harry one day. Tell you what, all the kisses I ever got from him paled in comparsion from the one you gave me."
"No, this isn't true. Tell me you're toying with me." he murmurs back.
"No, I am not Colin." And she kisses him yet again. This time it is not light but rather a fierce bonding after an eternity of wait and betrayal. He pushes her back until she is pushed flush against the tree trunk and he cherishes the taste of her, exploring all he could, making up for all those lost ten years.
She disappartes them with a small, soft pop to her apartment.
The woman remarks that coming here tonight hadn't been a mistake after all.
And she hopes that falling for the man, her man, wasn't going to be a mistake either.
-end-
