.
.
It's the flavour of elderflower wine on Hannah's mouth.
It's bitter-sweet.
It's like everything else in Susan's life.
They traipse the seventh floor corridor of Hogwarts Castle, clutching each other hand-in-hand, whispering excitedly to the Portrait of Three Ladies blowing bubbles and giggling and motioning to Susan and Hannah in a pleasantly coquettish hush.
Or perhaps it's the wine.
.
.
Returning to the Hufflepuff Common Room, Susan collides into Dean Thomas and apologizes profusely, getting elbowed by a smirking Ernie Macmillan. "You're a right horrid git, you are," she mutters unhappily to the other Hufflepuff entering before her.
"I heard you got a Dreadful in Potions," Ernie announces, like the insufferable know-it-all he is.
(Worse than Hermione Granger could ever be.)
Justin Finch-Fletchley clucks his tongue, shoving at Ernie's head gently with one of his hands. "Bugger off," he says, strolling for the Boys' Dormitories and having Ernie follow him, proceeding to have a loud row comparing their own O.W.L.s.
.
.
"Oh, I hope I do better with my N.E.W.T.s…"
Hannah sighs as if lamenting, brushing out Susan's dark red, unplaited hair.
The rest of the younger Hufflepuffs vanish to their beds. The copper lamps fades their warm, amber light. Every window darkened. Susan enjoys the privacy with her, humming out and fidgeting with a stray, goldenrod thread on her pyjamas.
"You will," Susan breathes, grinning when Hannah's fingers impishly tickle her nape.
"Susie…"
No one else is allowed to use Hannah's nickname for her.
Hannah catches her, arms slotting, when a pouting Susan falls over into her lap. A harrumph! echoes around them. "Ernie heard wrong," Susan insists "I got Poor on my O.W.L.s when Professor Sprout asked me to see her. Poor for Poortions."
A light, sunny giggle escapes Hannah's lips.
It's a lark…
It's a dream interweaving their littlest secretive joys and tempestuous wants… Hannah whispers her name gleefully, leaning in when Susan presses the edge of Hannah's thumb on her clothed mound, rubbing along the hidden, hot seam… it's…
It's them.
.
.