A/N: I don't own Harry Potter

This is for the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Word Count: 1200

"What do you mean you've never been in love?" Tracey asked, swinging her feet as she sat on a low branch of one of the large trees that skirted the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Her shiny school shoes gleamed in the sunlight. She and Flora had started meeting here between classes the moment the weather had warmed up. Tracey hated being inside the castle, claimed it was stuffy and dreary.

"Just that, I've never been in love, not with someone who mattered. I thought I was once, but it couldn't have been true love if it ended like that, " Flora answered with a shrug. She was sitting on the ground, her legs folded beneath her with her crisp grey skirt barely covering her knees. Her feet were bare, her shoes laying a bit away from the pair where she'd left them. Somehow her stockings had managed to vanish entirely. Tracey swung down, landing with a perfect flip. She twirled around to face Flora, smiling at how easy it was for her to move through the air. All those years of taking gymnastics had paid off in a way. She could climb just about anything, land nearly silently on her feet, and was quite flexible.

"Daphne?" she asked, mentioning the one girl she'd known Flora to have dated. She wasn't sure the specifics, it was before they'd become close. All she knew was that Daphne had broken Flora's heart, Flora didn't talk about her, and Tracey spent a fair amount of time wanting to punch Daphne in the face for hurting Flora, or come up with some clever hex to use. She had a feeling the last one was just her dramatic flair, but at the same time, Flora was special, even if she hadn't admitted it to anyone, save her own reflection.

"Maybe, I thought that maybe it was love, but then, she and I, it was like hot at first then grew colder and colder. I felt like I kept hanging on to something that was gone, that I kept just hoping it would come back and we'd be happy and in love again. That never happened. In the end, I'm pretty sure that she didn't care about me, maybe she'd never cared about me. I wanted something from her that she didn't want to give, she was always so guarded, I should have realized I'd never really have her heart."

"There's a reason she's called the Ice Queen by most of the house, and a few people outside of it," Tracey laughed, folding her long legs beneath her as she sat on the ground next to Flora. Flora glanced over at her and shrugged her shoulders slightly. The neckline of her jumper sliding down a bit revealing the purple strap of Flora's tank top. Flora never wore the white button down shirt if she could help it, she didn't care much for her uniform, maybe so she wouldn't be identical to her sister, Hestia.

"I guess, I thought it was me, that I wasn't capable of loving someone, but now, I don't know, Trace. Since you and I started hanging out-"

"Is that what you want to call it? Hanging out? I rescued you from a life of boringness, from the mediocrity that is being a perfect Slytherin girl," Tracey announced, flourishing her hands in the air causing Flora to laugh. Both of them knew what pure-blood society expected of them, for them to marry and carry on some bloodline. Neither cared about that, neither ever had, it was one of the things that had brought them together.

"Fine, since then, I've been thinking maybe, just maybe, maybe I never tried with her, that maybe if it were like it is with us-"

"With us?" Tracey asked, tilting her head and letting her short sandy blond hair fall over her eyes. Flora couldn't mean what she thought she meant, could she, that she felt the same way about Tracey as Tracey did her.

"Yeah, it's just so easy being together, to talk, to do just about anything, it's like you've saved me from the shell I was becoming. With you, I'm me again. I like seeing you like this, with no expectations of anything, with us just being us."

"Glad I could be of service," Tracey stated, pretending to bow with the upper half of her body. Flora batted Tracey's hair as it hung over her eyes. Tracey laughed.

"Enough of that, I'm trying to be serious for once, Tracey," Flora protested, sighing loudly.

"Fine, fine, I'll knock off the theatrics for the moment, but you do have to admit, I am wonderful at being dramatic," Tracey stated, smiling widely at Flora

"The best," Flora agreed, rolling her eyes. They always said that, about Tracey being the best and Flora meant it, it was a line of comfort, something that would never change. Tracey would always be the best at being dramatic and Flora would always roll her eyes at saying it, not matter how true it was. Tracey loved the knowing it would always be like that, that it was something she could rely on, there weren't a lot of things like that in her life. Flora was certainly becoming one of them.

"Good, now what were you saying?" Tracey asked, reaching over and plucking a leaf from Flora's curls. She twisted it in her fingers until Flora reached over and plucked it from her hand. She set it on the ground and took a deep breath.

"I was saying that, I want to take a chance, with you, on us, on being a couple, not just friends. I have feelings for you that I was afraid of at first, but if I don't act on them, I don't know, I want to act on them," Flora said quickly, her eyes meeting Tracey's. Tracey could see the fear and hope in Flora's pale powder blue eyes, eyes that Tracey had always been envious of. Her own eyes were just a boring shade of brown. Although, Flora liked to say they reminded her amber, a type of fossilized tree sap. Tracey didn't see it, she personally felt her eyes were the only non dramatic thing about her.

"Really?" Tracey asked, her heart starting to pound in her chest, trying to force the feelings she didn't admit to the surface.

"Really, you make me think of a time, back when I felt loved, when I felt like I could love, when it seemed possible to love someone and mean it. I mean it, Tracey, I want to be with you, as more than just-"

"Hanging out buddies?" Tracey interupted, reaching out and touching Flora's cheek, marveling at the softness of Flora's skin. Flora nodded slowly, biting her lip as she watched Tracey consider the proposal.

"In that case, I accept your offer, on one condition though."

"What's that?" Flora asked. Tracey smirked.

"That you never stop saying I'm the best," she stated. Flora giggled. It really was their thing.

"I accept," she stated, nodding as she threw her arms around Tracey, hugging her tightly as a slight breeze blew several more bright green leaves down around them.