"Isn't betting a sin?" Draco says, his slow smile turning warm under her gaze.
Hermione crossed her legs, saying primly, "I suppose. It really depends on what you're betting on. It's sheer folly to bet on games of chance, or horses, or cards." She pointedly doesn't look at the fortuneteller ineffectually plying the bar. "Betting on people? You'll never get anywhere without taking some risks. Or, perhaps I ought to say, if you run from risks, you're never going to wind up where you want to."
"And you thought I was worth taking a risk on, I suppose?" Draco's welsh accent draped across his drawl, his eyes filled with skepticism.
Hermione countered with sparkling laughter, her dark ringlets rippling around her face as she laughed, "Why not? You took a chance on me first."
Draco blinked, looking down at his cups. Looking up again he smiled firmly, lips close together. "Not quite. You were the one who approached me."
"A mere technicality." Hermione said, spinning one of her dark ringlets around a finger, before stilling, looking quite serious as she looked at the straw-haired young man in front of her. "Tell me, o troubled one, what do you know? What, in all the whirling, spinning madcap world, are you absolutely certain of?"
It was an excellent question, and a diversion that Draco decided he would allow. She had been so confident in her choice, that he had thought she was unaware of the risk. Heedless, perhaps, reckless more certainly, but certainly not blind. Draco found himself staring into those blue eyes, thinking hard, tossing ideas over inside his head. At first, the words that rang the truest were, of all things, about deceit. The necessity of twisting, of fashioning responses.
Those words crisped, and, unsaid, fell like ashes from his mouth. The exception proves the rule, perhaps... This young woman was direct, unguarded. Not the fragility of innocence, but the plainspoken veracity of true dealing in negotiation. No, those words, which perhaps he would have considered his truth, were suddenly not right. Another thing to question. Draco thinks to himself with a curse.
"The sun, the stars, and the great ocean deep." Draco said at last, half of his mouth twitching into the barest wisp of a smile. "For the earth quakes, and people mislead, animals bite and always death feeds." With a soft, closelipped smile, Draco tosses his head. "There's precious few things in this world to trust."
Hermione, having seen her friendship with Ron turn to pain, nodded resolutely in agreement. "Facts. Tangible to eyes, and ears, and even tongue." Hermione felt the barest touch of a blush at the last word.
Draco looked curiously at the young lady in front of him. Was she... actually blushing? A part of him wanted to smirk, to file her secret away. Another part of him wanted to respond in kind.
[a/n: I like reviews. Will you write me one? Snape's outside watching the front of the pub from across the street.]