Her hips fit perfectly under his hands. He knew that in the grand scheme of things that wasn't such a significant factor, that, practically speaking the fact that her hips and his hands seemed made for each other meant next to nothing but still…. Here, in the dark of the nightclub basement, surrounded by drunks and addicts and free spirits and sweat, here it meant everything in the world. Everything. His thoughts were hazy, like the air that swirled thickly past his ears. His thoughts were hazy and she was lovely.

She was okay under the Parisian street lights, utterly average if he was being completely honest. Still, something about her lips had made him want to talk to her and something about her wrists had made him ask her to dance with him. So he did. And it was good that he had asked her to dance because under the streetlights she was, at best, mediocre but here in the noise and in the music, and in the dark, and in the moment she was the most stunningly lovely person he'd ever laid eyes on. Moving against him (her hips, his hands) she was devastating. She was daunting. Enrapturing. Entrapping.

She tilted her head back, breathing in the thump of the bass and her golden hair brushed briefly against his knuckles. She smiled and her thick lips caught the shimmer of an errant strobe light. In the neon flashes and basement darkness her eyes were almost completely washed out: a pale and perishing green. He had never loved eyes quite so much.

I'm probably a little drunk. He thought dazedly.

"You probably are," She laughed in reply, and her laugh was fantastic.

Underneath his hands her hips curved and swayed. Against his chest her fingers tapped a rhythm. They were dancing closer together now and when she laughed her fantastic laugh he had to laugh too because of how the vibrations of her body trembled through him.

There wasn't any more talking. Just dancing.

They danced for what felt like days, weeks, hours, him and her, she and him (her hips his hands, her fingers his chest, her body his laugh)

…until he finally felt the alcohol leak from his fingers and toes and he was left wearily sober and she was sagging against him, dancing the dance of the sleep deprived. And for a brief moment, free from the influence of alcohol and crowd mentality (the club was clearing out), he wondered if he aught to be dancing like this with a girl he barely knew. He didn't really do hookups, it wasn't his style, and there was a nice empty flat waiting for him across town, with a mattress he fully intended to sleep on just as soon as he got home. And glory only knew what this girl was like when she wasn't dancing in clubs with strange men all night long. She could be a nutter for all he knew, escaped from some facility. Even worse, she could be some kind of dullard, utterly beige in both personality and looks.

"Hey," He nudged the girl's side with his thumb a bit, his hands still resting on her hips as they swayed out of time to the DJ's swan song, "Club's shutting down. Don't have to go home but we can't stay here, and all that." His voice was rough from disuse and exhaustion. Really all he wanted was to get back to the flat. He'd find the girl a cab, he decided and then they would go their separate ways. All would be well. "C'mon," he nudged her again.

She mumbled, and nestled her head further into him.

He felt the tip of her nose scrape against the exact center of his chest.

Her hips still fit perfectly in his hands.

They swayed together a moment more, the last couple left on the dance floor.

"Alright," she mumble sighed at last, lifting her head from his chest, and she grabbed his hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Why the hell not? He sighed, Why not just hold her hand until we get up to the street and catch a cab? I'll pay the fare, she'll give me her number, and I'll tell her I'll call. She and her perfect hips will never hear from me again, so why not hold her hand on our way out?

She led him up the stairs, through the front room and out the front door. Somewhere along the way she had acquired an army green duffle bag and it was now slung expertly across her shoulders. Her hand pulled him along and somewhat sleepily he noticed that her long hair was a bit matted and mussed and… the bottom three inches or so were a cobalt blue.

They stopped on the cobblestones, just on the edge of a halo of lamp light fast becoming unnecessary in the breaking dawn, barely linked together by the fingers that hung limply between them. She turned to him and once again he was struck by how ordinary she appeared, and how inexplicably and extremely he was drawn to her. Her eyes were greener in the soft morning, living, budding green. She was looking at him and he couldn't tell what she was thinking. It wasn't a look that said she was expecting something, it wasn't a look asking for a response it was simply…

He knew that he ought to call her a cab, usher her off so that he could be on his way. But he was still holding her hand. And as perfectly as her hips had fit in his grasp that was nothing compared to holding hands with her. He needed to ask where she was headed, needed to see her off, should probably let go of her hand now.

He didn't do any of those things though. Instead he cleared his throat and said, even though he was exhausted and in desperate need of sleep, "Would you like to get breakfast?"

And despite the fact that she was about to fall over, despite warnings she had received about going of with strangers, she smiled. "I'd love to."

Ted Lupin beamed. Ramona Dursley blushed. Together they walked hand in hand down the street.