Kestrels Keeper

Fluffy Date

Word count 2579

"Did you really send the house elf to attack me?" Hermione asked, her voice strained. She stood in the doorway, eyes simmering with a mix of disbelief and anger.

Blaise smirked from his position on the chaise. "Attack you? If you mean by forcefully take you out of the library and clean you after three days, then yes, we did."

Perched on Blaise's lap, Pansy tutted, "Really, the house elf? That's how you refer to poor Moia? Not even the butler or handmaid, but the house elf? I'm so very disappointed."

Hermione sputtered, "You know damn well that isn't what I meant."

"Oh no, leonessa, your meaning was clear," Blaze replied, shaking his head in faux disappointment. "The house elf, the help, the servant, the creature beneath—"

Pansy rested her finger on Blaise's lips, "Don't speak such words, my husband. Our wife may crudely refer to a magical creature as if their entire race were only suited to one–"

"I'm going to hex both of you so thoroughly you won't be able to have sex with each other for an entire month!" Hermione swore viciously. "You're purposefully twisting my words–"

"But, darling," Pansy purred, "if you know, why are you letting us?"

"And this hexing," Blaise asked with a wicked smirk, "since we won't be able to enjoy each other, does that mean we'll be enjoying you instead?"

For an instant, Hermione's magic coated her skin and they could feel it like a heated breath on chilled skin through their bond. It took their breath away for one delicious moment, before it was gone, her magic contained and static, her face composed.

"Blaise, Pansy, my dear contractually obligated spouses, why was I forcibly bathed and dressed in this kimono? And why did Moia, the kindly little house elf that usually helps me organize my quill pens by feather type and nib style, steal my underclothing?"

"Because it isn't a simple kimono," Pansy drawled, her eyes full of mischief. She stood fully then, properly revealing her own Japanese style robes. They were a blue so pale it was almost white with darker blue flowers that looked hand painted all over. A large golden yellow sash cut across her middle. She prowled toward Hermione, an extra sway in her hips. In front of Hermoine, she gently tugged and smoothed the pale yellow fabric, the sunset orange flowers on it blooming further at her touch. Pansy hummed softly in approval, stroking the lavender sash at Hermione's waist. "It's a yukata. They're meant to be light and breathable during the heat of summer, a complete garment without any underclothes necessary. These are Charmed so as not to show too much skin. Specifically, no one can take these off of you in any little way, except Blaise or I."

"Or myself," Hermione challenged

Pansy rolled her eyes. "Or yourself."

Blaise, who was now behind Pansy, pouted. His own yukata was a striking violet color decorated with white flowers and his sash was bright red."You take away all of our fun, leonessa. We promised to spoil you, did we not? What is more decadent than your lovers' hands worshipfully undressing you?"

Hermione sighed in resignation, some of her tension visibly draining out of her as her shoulders relaxed. "You're not my lovers, you're my spouses," she deadpanned.

Pansy dramatically pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. "You wound us, darling! Such a stinging blow!"

Hermione gently tapped Pansy's nose and swatted Blaise's wandering hand away. "Why am I, I'm sorry, why are we wearing yukatas?"

"Because it is my turn to pick our outing for the month and, because there's a proper delegation of students from Mahoutokoro at Hogwarts for the International Student Quidditch Tournament, they're holding a proper matsuri–a summer festival. Someday I'll take the two of you to the festival held in my grandmother's home town of Mito, but for now, this will do."

"Oh," Hermione said softly, losing the last vestiges of frustration, "That sounds rather lovely. Did your grandmother go to Mahoutokoro?"

"She did," Pansy said proudly. "She even had a cherry wand. My grandfather relentlessly pursued her after she completely humiliated him in a dueling tournament. Of course, she dismissed him. He was foreign, couldn't hold chopsticks to save his life, and 4 years younger than her. It took seven years before she and her parents agreed to the suit, but he captured her heart in the end. We Parkinson's are very relentless when it comes to pursuing what we desire."

"And you already know a Zabini's passion," Blaise said with a wink, pressing a kiss beneath Pansy's ear.

"Yes, yes, that's why your mother was going to poison me," Hermione chuckled.

"Isn't she our mother now?" Pansy asked with a delicately raised eyebrow.

"Are you taking out your anger on my dear mother now too?" Blaise frowned, peering at her from beneath his eyelashes.

"You two are awful. I like Helen more than either of you," Hermione huffed with a little stomp of her foot.

Blaise held his hand over his heart, "I never thought the day would come that my own mother would be mi rivale."

"If only the world knew what an absolute sap the legendary lothario Blaise Zabini is," Hermione sighed. "Not a single person would believe me."

Pansy tsked. "Our marriage vows included keeping secrets. Now hold still, the both of you."

Hermione blinked, but did as commanded and Blaise stilled completely, even the thumb that had been rubbing Pansy's side stopped moving. Pansy chanted a spell and flicked her wand thrice. Both Hermione's hair and Blaise's dreadlocks were suddenly up and contained in loose buns and each had a flower tucked behind their ear. A red camellia for Blaise, and a yellow camellia for Hermione. Pansy had acquired a flower too, a rather lovely dahlia that brought out the color in her eyes.

"Now we're ready to go," Pansy declared. She crooked her finger at Hermione. "Come closer, darling."

"I think I'm reluctantly beginning to admire how absolutely shameless the two of you are," Hermione muttered, stepping forward and letting them fold her in their embrace.

With a little twist and soft pop, they disappeared from the manor.

The area between Hogwarts and Hogsmeade was taken over by various stalls, brightly colored flags, and paper lanterns. The scent of delicious food hung in the air and the sounds of chatter and laughter greeted them. Hermione instantly began looking around, questions flowing out of her mouth, stopping abruptly when two fingers gently pressed against her lips. She blinked and looked at Pansy.

Pansy gave her a very rare smile, barely there and hovering at the corners of her mouth, soft and beseeching. "No history questions or lectures while we're here. Let me explain at my own pace and afterwards you can ask all the questions you want. I'd like this to be an experience, not a lesson. Your first time is something you can never relive."

Hermione nodded and Pansy removed her fingers. "I admit," Hermione explained, "that I usually experience by asking questions, but I'll hold them in."

"Thank you," Pansy said sincerely, before smirking, "I'd apologize for shushing you, but I can never apologize for taking the chance to touch my lady-wife's lips."

"Bragging, mi cara?" Blaise pouted. "Now I can't try that trick."

Hermione rolled her eyes and then smiled faux sweetly. "You could try, husband dear, though I may bite you."

Blaise smiled dangerously. "How deliciously wicked. I didn't know you had it in you. Shall I call you allettante leonessa from now on?"

"Only if you'd like that hex I talked about earlier," Hermione challenged.

Pansy laughed and Blaise's smile only grew. Pansy slipped between them and wrapped her arm around theirs. "At least flirt and walk. There's a festival to experience after all."

Hermione bit back her initial retort and then said blandly. "Oh, alright. But you and Blaise are so incredibly hard to resist."

"Oh the fluttering of my heart at such sweet words," Pansy drawled, equally bland, as she tugged them forward.

"Ah, but wait until the day she begins comparing our eyes to her favorite book covers," Blaise continued smoothly, "that will be the day my heart truly skips a beat."

Hermione covered a snort of amusement with a polite cough. Pansy and Blaise exchanged a glance of small triumph.

There were a great many booths and they all varied. It seemed that while most of the booths were run by the Japanese students, that some of the other teams had decided to participate and set up booths, too. Even a few of the Hogsmeade shops had decided to participate, and there were quite a few Hogwarts students assisting in various stalls. There were food stalls, stalls with little toys the shopkeepers were transfiguring from buttons and pebbles, stalls with with good luck charms, stalls from the older students with properly crafted things–detailed snuff boxes, embroidery, a wooden dragon that yawned and smoked, hand painted egg shells, simple jewelry. There were several stalls of masks, and several places to create your own, various carnival games, food stalls, and several stalls that were renting out yukatas and parasols for those who wanted to try them.

Pansy looked at the various stalls, but mostly she watched Blaise and Hermione. Blaise, smooth as ever, took it all in without showing too much, but he held Pansy's arm tenderly, occasionally stroking it, and his mouth occasionally twitched upward. Hermione looked at the stalls the same way she studied most new things, intently and brimming with curiosity. A few times she inhaled, lips parting as if ready to rattle off a dozen questions, but then she'd exhale and pinch her lips together.

Finally, Pansy squeezed her arm and bent closer to her ear. "I didn't mean for you to be silent."

Hermione startled a little, then turned toward Pansy and subsequently Blaise who was now watching them. "Oh, I know, it's simply that I'm not sure what to say. That is, I have so many things I could say, that I'm not sure which thing to say. I know my reputation, but with many subjects in school or Magical Britain, I've studied them. When I was younger, I'd study so I'd fit alongside my peers, or because I wanted to know everything about something. And the older I grew the more I wanted to know and be prepared for any possibility. It's easy to form opinions when you know something, or feel like you know it. My parents hated ignorance, and the most ignorant thing to them was to inform an opinion without research."

She shook her head slightly then looked at them both with a kind of fond exasperation. "There was never any reason to prepare for going to a Japanese festival with Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini who I happened to be married to."

"I'd like to hear at least one or two opinions," Pansy admitted, "I don't mind if they're accidentally ignorant. From you as well, Blaise."

"I'd like at least three," Blaise offered, "It's a better number, no?"

"More magically sound, I suppose," Hermione agreed.

Pansy smirked, "I'm glad tha–"

A sound that was a mix between the growl of a Cerberus and the yowl of a kneazle cut her off and Hermione immediately flushed a red nearly as bright as Blaise's obi. Blaise chuckled and Pansy smiled in a sort of fiendish delight.

"Well," Pansy purred, "It seems I'll get your opinion on food far sooner than I dared hope."

Hermione covered her burning face with free hand and groaned.

"Don't despair, allettante leonessa, Pansy and I both have ample chests to hide those burning cheeks," Blaise teased.

"You're the absolute worst husband I have ever had," Hermione declared.

"You're the one who didn't eat," Blaise countered.

Pansy spoke, interrupting their back and forth, "What would you like to eat? Did you eat at all while you were in the library?"

"Eat? By the ancient books?" Hermione asked, scandalized.

"Then what would you like to eat," Pansy replied, a single eyebrow arched.

"I don't know," Hermione admitted, before hurrying on, "But I do know that I'd like it to be some of the Japanese food, and that I'd be willing to eat anything we passed except what appeared to be the grilled squid. It smelled delicious but I'm still not used to eating something with a face."

"Gryffindor," Blaise teased.

"Have you seen Ron eat?" Hermione quipped.

Pansy squeezed both their arms. "Portable or not?"

Hermione looked at all the booths they still hadn't properly inspected. "Portable."

"I agree," Blaise nodded.

Pansy lead them through the stalls and soon they were armed with steamed buns, some filled with pork, and others with red bean paste, as well as bananas covered in chocolate on sticks, paper cups filled with sticks of fried sweet sweet potato, fish shaped cakes that Pansy called taiyaki and a paper sack filled with fried balls of batter called takoyaki. Of course, Pansy informed neither Blaise or Hermione that they contained octopus until after they'd bitten into them. She's even grabbed a bottle of a juice drink the name of which translated to "tears of the heavenly peach." They walked through the stalls, eating and passing the bottle between them, occasionally feeding each other. Even Hermione acquiesced to it, stealing a bite or two of Pansy's banana and accepting a few bites of bun from Blaise.

As they Vanished the last bit of their trash, a third year approached them, a camera hanging around their neck.

"Hello Lord and Ladies," the wix greeted with a bow. They smiled up at them, "I am Inge Blackthorn, a fifth year at Hogwarts. I took a picture of you and would like to offer you a copy for two sickles. For five sickles, I'll destroy the picture and the negative of it."

"Oh my," Pansy said, highly amused, "do we have a young Slytherin entrepreneur accosting us?"

Inge smiled even brighter. "Hufflepuff, actually."

Hermione burst into peals of laughter at the slightly flummoxed look on Pansy's face.

"1 galleon," Blaise offered, "Three copies and the negative."

They considered it a moment and then nodded. "Sold, my lord!"

They took out the photo and a delicate slide, casting a quick spell to copy the photo, and hand them to Blaise. "Have a good evening! The first firework show starts soon!"

Pansy and Hermione crowded around Blaise to get a good look at the picture. It was captured at a moment when they'd paused and Blaise was offering Pansy a bite of takoyaki and Hermione was leaning over, stealing a bite of Pansy's banana.

"Perfect," Blaise said smugly.

"It is rather appealing," Pansy agreed.

"Thank goodness you bought the negative," Hermione grumbled. "Who knows what the headline would be, and no! Don't even start guessing."

Thirty minutes later and Hermione was drooping considerably, her full stomach and exhaustion from pulling three all nighters finally catching up to her. She refused to leave until after the fireworks. Blaise and Pansy had herded her between them and now they were sitting on a flying tatami mat (only flying carpets are illegal, Hermione) waiting for the show to start.

Hermione's head lolled against Pansy's shoulder. "Thank you for bringing me," she murmured.

Blaise scooted closer to ensure she wouldn't flop backwards and Hermione absently patted his thigh.

Pansy exchanged a soft look with Blaise over her head. "Anytime."