Author's Note: If you have any thoughts or suggestions to what you would like to see, private message is open on my page and I would love to hear what you think. Writers block has taken a toll with me this month so it might be a wait until I can trap down my muse again, and this is an incredibly short chapter and I'm not at all happy with it but I was tired of merely staring at it. Thank you all!
It was par for the course that after an evening spent biting her tongue, Fleur would take it upon herself to prop her feet against the flimsy banister of the veranda. Her chair tilted as she leant it's backing against the columns of the apartment as she sighed. The breath passing from her lungs as she thumbed a packet of matches; the filter of another cigarette dangling from her lips as the draft air bid her goodnight.
Paired beside her, perched in her own chair with her knees hugged tight to her chest, Hermione couldn't help but sneer at the cigarette lit in Fleur's hands. "I doubt I could ever smoke," she said after a time. "It's much too mundane, too repetitive for my liking."
"To pause my life for a minutes fix on a dreadfully cold and miserable night," she added. "It's not in the least flattering to me, when I could be doing so much more with my time."
Fleur smirked, hearing her disdain of her habit as she tipped the ash into the wind. Lilacs, the hum of lavender sifting through the air as Hermione's hand plucked the cigarette from her opened fingers. Pausing a moment to twirl the sated stick in her hand as she sighed. "The stench as well, I am reluctant to comment on," she muttered. Her words seeming to purr from her mouth, and Fleur could not ease that flutter in her stomach as the hand that entrapped her bad habit allowed Fleur's lips to reclaim it. Propping it between her parted mouth with a huffing pout as she grinned.
"I imagine if your lips were to find another's, they mightn't appreciate it," she sputtered. "Not one bit."
Fleur blushed, unsure as to if it were the alcohol bubbling in her mind that had Hermione so free-spirited or if it were a change in weather. She hadn't understood it, but she wouldn't question it as she grinned. "Lips often have a talent of causing one to forget, mon coeur," she rasped, and with an air of inebriated confidence that seemed to shine through her words, Hermione laughed. In this pause, Fleur pictured for a moment a collision of sorts as she imagined their lips in passing. "Though this does pose a question," said the blonde. Deterring the topic, and that of her wandering thoughts as she swallowed. "If time holds you, than why have you come to join me?" she added.
Hermione breathed a laugh, the answer steering from her tongue as if it had always been there as she sighed. "There have been studies shown that hot cocoa and a hand too many marshmallows is far more satisfying beneath the stars, and you, my dear, are merely here as an after thought," retorts Hermione. Cupping her warm mug in her hands as she stirred the liquid; ignoring Fleur's gentle nudge as she rolled her eyes.
Fleur returned her laugh, though albiet half-heartedly as she strained not to appear as entranced as she was as she muttered through a breath. "I suppose I do not mind at all," she said. "Being your after thought."
Lifting her head Hermione found the stars she had spoken of, her eyes cleaving to the light that shone bright above them as her head plopped against her shoulder. "It's beautiful isn't it?" she questioned, and Fleur studied those same glistening orbs, their glimmer a shine overhead of the cities blunder and filth.
It was then that time passed over them. Dancing around topics of Ginerva, and Ronald's drunken stares, as neither of them cared to stir the pot or consider the repercussions of their own excessive drinking as they each merely embraced the others company. Hermione stirring her mug as Fleur tipped the ashes of her cigarette. Hermione's hand coming to clasp her own in the midst of their silence, and as their fingers entwined Fleur wondered if she ever would have that same courage as Hermione hummed under breath. Unaware of the turmoil that coiled in Fleur's chest as she listened. Entrapped in her thoughts until Hermione's steadied breathing had deepened. Her mug having tilted in her hand, a precious moment shared between them as she slept against her shoulder.
"It's beautiful," Fleur whispered. Remembering Hermione's sentiment, as she watched the stars above them, hopeful for a time as she plucked the mug trapped in the brunette's hand. Her heart beating a mile a minute as Hermione then reciprocated to the touch; her hand coming to clutch at her nightgown, as she leant closer in her arms. Fleur knowing she would have to wake her, but for the time being (and for that of her heart) she stayed a while longer. Those stars and their glimmer her mind's guide as her head rest against the girl beside her. Hopeful.