Je ne sais quoi
Rating: PG for the moment
Genre: Drama
Warnings: None.
Summary: A typical girl get together. As if anything they do is ever typical.

Chapter 2: Coffee Break!

Hermione ordered the table and Daphne popped out to call Megan and Ginny.

Thankfully they all got cell phones sometime last year when they decided to do a celebration extravaganza in honor of their friendship, got mildly blitzed together and barely avoided branding themselves with matching tattoos. Not surprisingly the tattoo idea came from Ginny. Megan was thankfully, at least in Hermione's opinion, able to get them to go in for matching cells instead. Hermione later played around with some spells and now the little pieces of heavenly connectivity worked in any circumstances and never, no really never ever, dropped the call.

Daphne slid into the chair next to Hermione's and leaned back bonelessly, closing her eyes. "Why do I smell utter disaster?"

"Because our coffee isn't here yet?" Hermione guessed as she redid her bun. Her hair never did learn to stay up for very long.

"Could be it," Daphne agreed. "Don't think me a lush darling but right now I could really use something... stronger in my cup though."

"I've thought you a lush since fifth year," Hermione said. She fiddled with her lace napkin and glanced around absently. She really loved Cafe Cameo. They had gone here religiously since Ginny discovered it on an illicit trip out during her seventh year. It was tiny, though always big enough for all the customers, quaint with its almost antique tea-shop appearance, and made the best damn coffee on this side of the Channel.

"Okay I'm here." A tall, willowy brunette plopped into the seat across the dainty table.

"Hi Megs," Daphne said as she fidgeted impatiently.

Hermione waved half-heartedly.

"Hi Megs? That's all I get?" Megan said. "You two dragged me away from the most fascinating... well never mind. What is it?"

"You'll love it," Hermione said dryly. "Really. But we should wait for Ginny."

"Hello my beauties." The head waiter approached their table with his usual swagger. "What can I do you for?"

Daphne swatted at him with a lazy hand. "You could get me some coffee, Donovan dear. With something extra in it."

"You mean aside from my burning passion for you?" he teased.

"You better not put that in my coffee!" Daphne replied with a straight face.

Hermione groaned and Megan covered her face in her hands.

"Not this again," Hermione muttered.

"Sorry-sorry-sorry," Ginny chanted as she rushed towards them, a bundle topped with a shock of red clutched in her arms. She flopped in the last free seat and tried to catch her breath. A small hand reached out of the bundle, followed by a mischievous little brown eye peering between the flop of hair and the bulky jacket.

Hermione sighed and reached for her goddaughter. Settling the squirming package on her lap she unwrapped some of the layers to reveal a big, gap toothed grin. She tuned out Daphne and Donovan for minute and placed a kiss on the girl's button nose.

"Hi Morganna. Mummy couldn't find a babysitter huh?"

Morganna didn't deign to reply and merely rolled one of Hermione's loose curls around a tiny finger before popping it into her mouth. She liked to eat Aunt Hermione's hair on a regular basis.

"Can I just interrupt for a second?" Megan said quietly.

It was a testament to her subtly pervasive influence that suddenly three women, a toddler and an oozing-sex-as-he-moves waiter all swerved their heads to look at her immediately.

"Donovan, get us our orders please. You know the usual and we would like it now," she said with a pleasant but firm voice. This was the voice that made Megan Jones the best barrister of their generation and it worked its magic now. Donovan nodded, smiled and walked away. "Now, what's going on?"

Daphne and Hermione exchanged looks.

"Well," Daphne began. "I'm sure you heard Etienne Zabini is making an arse of himself again."

"I covered it actually," Ginny cut in. "We're letting out an extra edition just to address that. Breaking news and all."

"Right. Well guess who showed up in our office because this person is now working on behalf of the WPR and championing Etienne's case and, of course, is an arse to top it off?" Daphne said.

"Malfoy?" Megan suggested grimly.

"Damn," Daphne said and pouted. "I guess it was kind of obvious."

"You know what wasn't obvious?" Hermione asked, bouncing Morganna on her knees, and, just as she was about to continue, Donovan appeared with a tray of four, large, china cups and a plate of Madeleine cookies.

"Coffee!" Daphne exclaimed. "Precious liquid of life!"

Megan shot her a stern look as she took her cafe latte. "What were you saying Hermione?"

"Malfoy kissed my hand."

Silence.

Pink elephants running through the dining area.

Well not really but they could have and none of the witches sitting around the table would have noticed.

Silence.

"Let me get this straight," Ginny drawled. "Draco the Ferret Malfoy placed his ever so sacred, pureblooded lips against your sullied, Muggleborn skin. And it wasn't a hallucination."

"Exactly."

"Oh."

Ginny reached for her child and cuddled her close. "It's okay sweet-pea, mummy will protect you from the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse."

"Don't be such a drama queen," Daphne said.

Ginny's eyes rounded gently. "And I am hearing this from... you?"

"Okay children," Megan said. "Is it out of your system now?"

Daphne hid behind her coffee and attempted to look innocent. Ginny only shook her head and relinquished Morganna back to Hermione.

"We need a plan," Hermione said. She attempted to feed Morganna a Madeleine but the little girl remained steadfastly loyal to chewing on Hermione's springy curls.

"Now look I'll be the first to admit that Antigone Windemere scares the bloody hell out of me but why don't you contact her?" Megan suggested.

"Anee is a sweetheart," Daphne said. "You just don't know her."

Megan blinked as she sipped her coffee. "Now Daph, any witch who can turn the blood in my veins into a sluggish river of ice with a look is not a witch I want to know closely."

Daphne sighed. "Fine. And anyway she already knows. She warned me before Malfoy sleezed his way into our office."

"I have a plan," Ginny said. She closed her eyes as she swallowed a bite of the Madeleine and chased it with a gulp of coffee. "My plan is that we enjoy our coffee break then call in the reserves and dig in for the long haul because according to some of the hints I've been getting from my sources, this thing is going to get much bigger than Etienne Zabini making a fool of himself for the millionth time."

The women exchanged looks, which between the four of them was something akin to drunken laser tag, and then simultaneously raised their cups, Hermione albeit very carefully, in agreement.

Peace and quiet, for a half an hour, would be theirs.

They should hold on to the memory well because it wasn't going to be a frequent visitor.

At all.