Title: Smoke at Sunset
Author: Thalia
Rating: PG-13
Dedication: For dahippo
Characters: Angelina Johnson/Montague interaction after Harry and the twins get kicked off the team. Many thanks to bana05 for the help :D
Disclaimer: Obviously, Angelina and Montague are neither of them mine.
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It was somewhat fitting that she'd come here to think. It had been Her Spot, ever since she was thirteen and had a quarrel with Katie over whether Fred Weasley had MEANT to lob that dungbomb in her hair (Angelina believed that he had, to this day) and ran out here to fly and let out some steam.
The news had broken out in the Common Room earlier that day, and she was sure that even now, the rest of her house was busy making effigies of Malfoy. She had run out, tears running down her brown cheeks, because she just needed to get away from it all. Her team-- the team that she would only get one chance to captain-- all but decimated. Three Chasers and a Keeper whose nerves shot all to hell under pressure. Oliver would've been aghast.
She'd let them down. She should have been able to pull Harry back. Should have stepped in between him and Malfoy. Should have appointed a more competent Keeper... but that would've been shoddy of her, wouldn't it? Ron meant so well. Nerves were a normal thing, but for whatever wrong she might have done, the punishment was too severe.
The sun was starting to set in the distance, but Angelina was too wrapped up in her own thoughts to be touched by the beauty of crimson skies punctuated by a few early silver stars.
She wasn't, however, too wrapped up in her own thoughts to stiffen at the sound of footsteps approaching or to clench her hands when she recognized the broad shoulders and icy blue eyes of the intruder. She scowled at him, her face stony with hate, and neither of them spoke for a moment.
Montague paused a few feet away, nodded at her in brief, silent acknowledgement, and leaned against the wall of the broomshed.
"So you're out here to gloat? Or to see if the poor ickle Gryff is crying and licking her wounds?" she finally snapped at him, dark eyes glittering with ire and challenge. "Catch me alone so you can try to rough me up some more, or tell me about the party that you lot are having in the dungeons over Harry getting banned?"
She was right about the party, though he didn't say. Malfoy was certainly basking in his glory in the Common Room right now, likely being cooed over by Parkinson and Greengrass and on the third or fourth bottle of champagne right now. It had gotten far too loud, and he wasn't really in a mood to celebrate. Win by all means necessary-- but only against a worthy opponent. She was still glaring at him, though, expecting an answer to her question, and instead of saying anything, he shook his head, removed a box of cigarettes from a robe pocket and lifted one to his lips, lighting it with his wand and taking a drag.
He only smoked when things didn't go as planned and it was too wrong to be fixable.
Ahh... so he was there to indulge in some filthy habit in a spot where he wouldn't likely be caught by a teacher. The faint scent of mentholated smoke perfumed the air, not sweet but not unpleasant, and she watched warily out of the corner of her eye as he smoked, the cigarette propped up in between two long, pale fingers, its tip glowing like a dying ember.
With a slow exhale of wispy smoke, he extinguished the cigarette underneath one shiny shoe and glanced at her ramrod-straight back. Extracting another cigarette, he offered it to her without a word.
Suspiciously narrowed brown eyes met inscrutable blue ones. "How do I know this isn't poisoned or anything?"
Montague rolled his eyes and stuck the cigarette in between his own lips, igniting it and taking a long drag. Exhaling demonstratively, he handed it to her. "I'm not dying." His voice was even and low, the accent crisp and patrician.
She took it out of a rather weary curiosity and inspected it, feeling the smoothness of the white paper underneath her Quidditch-roughened fingertips. "So what will this do?"
"Calm you down," he replied, managing to look stately somehow even as he shrugged. "You know, if you hold your back in that rigid position for a while longer you'll be in pain all day tomorrow."
She laughed, the sound bitter and sharp. If it had come from someone else, she might have considered it to be concern. "And that's what you would want, I'm sure. Why aren't you with the rest of the goons celebrating in the dungeons?"
"Because there's nothing to celebrate," his answer was blunt and immediate and spoken in that same low, almost matter-of-fact tone.
It appalled her that anyone could lie with such a straight face, and the rage and bitterness of earlier overwhelmed her again. Eyes blazing, holding the lit cigarette like a weapon, she lunged at him, wanting him to feel her pain because HE's not the one who couldn't stop something awful from happening to his team. "That's fucking RICH, Montague. Your bloody SEEKER decimated my TEAM!"
But he was an athlete too, and as sudden as her lunge was, he caught her wrist in his hand before the glowing tip of the cigarette could come in contact with his face. It wasn't quite the same grasp as their handshake before the match... still firm, still strong, but not painful or too tight. Her progress was halted by the sudden flare of strange, undefinable emotions in his stormy blue eyes as surely as the grip of his hand around her wrist, and as she stared, breathless and confused and torn between anger and curiosity, she saw something that was almost like human sadness in his eyes. The air around them was smoky with more than mint and tobacco, and he broke the silence, his voice hard with austere honesty.
"Which is exactly why there's nothing to celebrate! Sure, we play by different rules than you do... but what challenge would it be if we didn't even have a complete team to play?" He narrowed his eyes even as hers widened at the admission, and the dying fire of sunset glints on his dark hair, his chiselled features slightly shrouded by smoke and shadow. If that admission had surprised her, she was in no way prepared for the second.
"You're good, Angelina. I'd be the first to admit it. I'd hate to see you no longer giving as good as you get." Her name sounded unfamiliar in his voice and accents, and she felt her hand grow limp in his clasp at the words. Only the pressure of his fingers and the warmth of his palm against her pulse attested to the realness of the otherwise surreal situation.
She stared owlishly, disbelievingly at him, her breath somehow caught in her throat, and he shook his head and with an uncharacteristic gentleness and grace, plucked the cigarette from her fingers and moved it towards her lips, which fastened around it instinctively. His hand lingered by her face for the briefest of moments, one callused fingertip tracing down the path of a drying tearstain on her cheek. She's choking and it's not the smoke, because she's not taken a breath at all. She couldn't stop the slight shiver that ran down her spine at the touch on her cheek.
"Don't cry over it, all right?" he said quietly. "Now... hold the fag and take a deep breath. Things will be all right, I promise."
She inhaled, feeling an odd combination of warm smoke and icy mint fill her mouth, tickling down her throat. Withdrawing the cigarette, she coughed slightly and exhaled, and he released her and stepped away, once again leaning against the broomshed wall at a respectful distance. It became more easy and calming with each drag, and when she relaxed her shoulders, he almost seemed to smile.
The cigarette burned slowly as the sun set in the distance, and in the dusk, colours weren't so distinct any more, green and red and silver and gold. She'd hold new trials, she thought. And they DID win against Slytherin. She wouldn't give Umbridge the satisfaction of kicking her when she was down.
Funny, earlier she would've used Montague's name instead of Umbridge's.
She dropped the cigarette after one final drag and crushed the tip of it with the toe of her shoe. He was still there, watching her a few feet away, his face calm and inscrutable and solemn. He hadn't once sneered at her, and she wasn't sure how that had managed to accomplish what none of her friends' encouragement had, lifting away some of the weight from her shoulders. He was still a rival and a Slytherin git, but as Slytherin gits went...
In an impulsive, decidedly Gryffindor sort of move, she walked towards him, stopping when the toes of her shoes met the toes of his, and gave him a small, almost shy smile as she leaned up. He looked surprised, but didn't shrink away when she brushed her lips lightly against one corner of that stern-looking mouth.
She stepped back, grateful for her dark skin tone and the nightfall to hide her blush, and murmured an embarrassed "Good night, Montague" before turning on her heel and walking quickly back to the castle. She didn't hear his footsteps following and didn't look back.
But if she had turned her head at the right moment, she might have caught the faint, fleeting smile that curved across his lips as he watched her return to the castle at her typical light pace.