Happy birthday, Isis.
Sep. 18th, 2004 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
geovikiIt's Isis' birthday. Have a great day, sweetie. Hike your heart out. Just remember, no matter how many candles you have, you'll never be as old as I am. I have a giftie for you. Two gifties. Fic! Not only that, these fics are not H/D - just to prove I can write something else. Sad to say, though, they're unbeta'd. Cause you're my beta, and these are a surprise. And they were gonna be drabbles...well, that didn't happen. They kind of took off...
Laughter PG-13 Tonks/Fleur kind of pre-femmeslash (only I can write plot without porn; sorry)
Tonks was late for the standing Friday night get-together at the pub, and she swore under her breath while dodging a fully-loaded drink tray coming her way. She’d nearly made it to the table without incident, but the sudden maneuver had left her off balance – shit, again – and she found herself clutching at the last empty chair. It tottered briefly under her hand, then went down with a resounding crash, causing heads at nearby tables to turn and stare.
Chuckles greeted her from her own friends.
‘Lo, Tonks,” Sean said and leaned back as if she’d just proven some point he’d been making.
“Wotcher,” she muttered as she wrestled the chair upright and slid into it. In addition to Sean, it looked like Justin and Frank had managed to get off for the evening, and they were smiling at her with undisguised attention. None of the women who made up their usual crowd were here, and she belatedly noticed a new face in the group.
She was more than a new face. She was an exquisite creature, with pale shining hair and soft, glowing skin, elegant hands resting delicately on the table. Tonks tried not to stare in amazement.
Justin spoke up. “Tonks, Fleur.”
Tonks nodded a greeting and stuck out her hand, wondering how much her mates had spilled to Fleur about her in her absence. The amused look on Fleur’s face told her all she needed to know, and she tried to will away her embarrassed blush. Great, just great.
“Fleur is a friend of Bill Weasley’s,” Justin was saying. “But Bill’s been out of town for a couple weeks so we thought we’d bring Fleur out. No sense leaving her sitting at home, right?”
Tonks couldn’t remember if Bill was on Order business or not, so she didn’t ask. Frank slid a glass of beer in her direction, and she managed to catch it with only a little spill. Absently, she licked the foam off her hand, before realizing her appalling lack of manners, and she hurriedly dropped the offending hand to her lap.
“Er, how do you know these blokes, then, Fleur?” she asked quickly.
“Ah. Bill, he introduced me. Zey are hees friends, and now zey are my friends, too, no?” she replied in a beautifully melodic French accent, looking at the men for confirmation. “And you, Tonks?” Tonks had never heard her name spoken with such allure, like a sonnet. “Zey tell me you are an Auror.”
“Right. Yeah. I am.” Damn, could she sound any more inarticulate?
Sean, ever talkative, quickly took over the faltering conversation. Tonks struggled to relax in the presence of this charming woman beside her, content for the most part to leave the talking to the men and to Fleur. She got a little thrill every time the woman spoke in that captivating way, and sneaked glances at her beneath lowered eyelashes, hoping the other woman wouldn’t notice the attention.
As the night wore on and the beer flowed, Tonks settled down, feeling the alcohol ease away the tensions of the week. She even managed to tell a few yarns of her own that caught Fleur’s attention in a decidedly pleasant way.
“‘Ow can you be so calm, Tonks?” Fleur asked, and Tonks hid her pleasure. “I could nevair face such a person and even remembair my name, let alone how to say ze spell to stop heem.”
“Oh, our Tonks is tough as nails, she is,” Frank said, and Tonks tried not to wince.
“Oh, shit, look at the time,” Sean abruptly announced, and all three men made moves to leave, tossing down galleons and fumbling with cloaks.
Tonks frowned. “Something I said?”
“No, love, we’re on duty in half an hour.”
She blanched. “What? And here you’ve been drinking all night....”
“No worries. A sobering charm and we’ll be right as rain,” Justin assured her and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “Next week, then. Nice meeting you, Fleur.”
She got up from her perch to give Sean and Frank a one-armed hug and watched them thread their way to the door. Nervously, she realized she was left to carry the conversation by herself with the distractingly beautiful French woman. She steeled herself and turned around – too quickly. Her shoulder caught the edge of another floating tray of drinks. This time, she was too late to recover from her error, and she could only watch in fascinated horror as she was drenched with beverages.
Seeing Fleur’s expression was the worst part. As Tonks stood there on display, dripping, reeking of a mixture of god-knows-what combination of drinks, with every eye in the room focused on her, she thought wistfully about Apparating to the Outer Hebrides. An overwhelming sense of injustice at her fate made her wish – not for the first time – that she wasn’t herself: Tonks the clumsy, Tonks the idiot, Tonks the gauche, who can’t even walk across a bloody room without bringing disaster on herself.
Fleur had a handful of cloth and was dabbing at her in a vain attempt to mop up the flood. “Oh, madamoiselle,” she was murmuring in that soft, sweet voice, “Quelle dommage!”
“Don’t bother, Fleur,” she answered. “I’m used to it.” She took out her wand and muttered the most powerful cleaning spell she knew, watching grimly as the mess evaporated with a hiss.
Fleur’s hands were still clutching Tonks’ arms, and the cleaning spell traced its way across that unblemished white skin. Fleur shivered, then to Tonks surprise, her eyes widened and she began giggling. At first it was a nervous twitter, then the sound grew until Fleur was laughing out loud, melodic peals of laughter building and breaking in waves. It reminded Tonks of how the church bells used to sound rising through the mist in the valley below her childhood home.
“Oh, Tonks,” Fleur finally was able to gasp. “'ow you make me laugh.”
To hear that angelic laughter, Tonks would have gladly poured a barrel of stout on herself. “I’m sorry I got you with that scourgify, Fleur. I’m such a clumsy imbecile, I—”
Fleur shook her head gracefully, her long hair swinging sensuously behind her. “No, I am not laughing at you, pauvre Tonks. I think you say eet, ‘I am laughing weeth you.’” She was breathing in gasping pants. “Oh, eet feels so good, yes? To be able to laugh again, aftair so long. Thees war. Eet goes on too long – no one can laugh anymore. But you, ma cherie, you have made me enjoy myself tonight. I have not done so een, ah, too long.”
Fleur was right. None of them had much these days to laugh over – the war wasn’t going well, and every day seemed to bring worse news.
“Then I’m glad to be of service,” she said with a little flourish of her hand.
“No, I do not mean zat you are ze clown, Tonks. Tonight you have shown me zat someone can be full of life still, the joie de vivre. Eet makes me 'appy to see.” She was still holding on to Tonks’ arm, and now she ran her fingers gently across the back of her hand. “You have made me 'appy tonight.”
Between the gently massaging fingers and the intense gaze of the woman before her, Tonks had to fight not to let her mouth drop open and make herself look even more a dolt.
“I. Um. Thank you,” she finally choked out.
Fleur leaned in with another laugh. “And now, everyone in ziz place ees staring at us. Perhaps we could leave now, yes?”
“Sure, I—”
Fleur leaned in closer, and Tonks immediately forgot what she was about to say. Instead she paused in astonishment as blonde hair brushed her cheek and that delightful voice whispered soft and low in her ear, “Would you like to come 'ome with me?”
Tonks tried not to stammer her answer. “I think I’d like that, yes.”
Fleur’s smile was a bold assurance and a hope. “Bien. Good.” She drew close again, and her voice held longing and desire. “We French, we 'ave a saying. Maybe you’ve 'eard eet? We say ‘A woman ees nevair clumsy een ze bedroom.’”
Waiting Snape/Draco PG-13 same deal; pre-slash (what's up with that???)
Severus Snape hadn’t expected to find Draco Malfoy at his door tonight, but that wasn’t to say he hadn’t expected him at all.
He'd spent the boy’s sixth year at Hogwarts expecting – something. Something beyond the withdrawn silence Malfoy presented to everyone after his father had found himself in Azkaban. The outburst with Potter immediately following Lucius’ imprisonment was the last time he’d seen the boy show even the smallest signs of life. Since then, to everyone’s concern, he’d been merely going through the motions.
And here they were, mid-seventh year.
Snape hadn’t liked it. He hadn’t agreed with Albus when he insisted that they were to let Malfoy come to them on his own. “If Draco thinks he’s being forced into something against his father’s will, we’ll lose him for good,” the old man had insisted. “Let him come to us, and then you can do with him what you see fit.” No amount of Slytherin persuasion from Severus had changed that position. But he didn’t have to like it.
So. Malfoy had finally appeared at his dungeon door, and Severus believed he’d now fulfilled the letter of the law. Draco had come to them. Or, to be specific, to him.
“Mr. Malfoy.” He let a deliberate silence fall between them. One last chance to back out.
“May I come in? I need to talk to you.”
Severus opened the door wide to allow him to enter. Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly.
"Thank you, sir.”
Severus was slow and deliberate, observing the social niceties – please sit here in my best chair, Draco, would you care for a drink of my finest whisky? – and slowly made him feel comfortable. Welcome. Protected.
“My father was released from Azkaban,” Draco announced, but that was not news. “I haven’t seen him yet.” Severus listened with apparent fascination as Draco rambled on and on about his beloved father.
“But he sent me an owl and told me to trust you. He said I should come to you.” Draco lowered his eyes, making him look unexpectedly coquettish. “I was afraid to, this whole time, but now, since he said it was okay....”
He paused long enough so that Draco was forced to look at him. “I’m glad you did, Draco.” Slowly, ever so slowly, he rose from his own chair and moved towards his student. But he knew that Order priorities superceded those of Hogwarts, so he no longer allowed himself to think of Draco that way. “And you’ll understand, soon enough, that I will be able to help you in ways you never expected.”
He was behind Draco’s chair now, and he allowed his hands to rest on the boy’s shoulders. He could feel the sudden tension beneath his grip from the unexpectedly intimate contact, but he didn’t allow that to affect what he was about to do. Slowly, ever so slowly, his hands trailed down the smooth neck, dipped below the collar of the expensive robe, and traced along the collarbone, before beginning to unfasten the button at Draco’s throat.
He could almost hear the gasp, but it was quickly suppressed.
“Professor, what— ”
He couldn’t allow the boy to voice his questions. Now or never. His fingers, carefully held in check to prevent any trace of nervousness, continued to unbutton Draco’s robes.
“Draco,” he said, in a voice that was more like a purr, “Did your Father not explain to you exactly what I would expect from you in exchange?”
Laughter PG-13 Tonks/Fleur kind of pre-femmeslash (only I can write plot without porn; sorry)
Tonks was late for the standing Friday night get-together at the pub, and she swore under her breath while dodging a fully-loaded drink tray coming her way. She’d nearly made it to the table without incident, but the sudden maneuver had left her off balance – shit, again – and she found herself clutching at the last empty chair. It tottered briefly under her hand, then went down with a resounding crash, causing heads at nearby tables to turn and stare.
Chuckles greeted her from her own friends.
‘Lo, Tonks,” Sean said and leaned back as if she’d just proven some point he’d been making.
“Wotcher,” she muttered as she wrestled the chair upright and slid into it. In addition to Sean, it looked like Justin and Frank had managed to get off for the evening, and they were smiling at her with undisguised attention. None of the women who made up their usual crowd were here, and she belatedly noticed a new face in the group.
She was more than a new face. She was an exquisite creature, with pale shining hair and soft, glowing skin, elegant hands resting delicately on the table. Tonks tried not to stare in amazement.
Justin spoke up. “Tonks, Fleur.”
Tonks nodded a greeting and stuck out her hand, wondering how much her mates had spilled to Fleur about her in her absence. The amused look on Fleur’s face told her all she needed to know, and she tried to will away her embarrassed blush. Great, just great.
“Fleur is a friend of Bill Weasley’s,” Justin was saying. “But Bill’s been out of town for a couple weeks so we thought we’d bring Fleur out. No sense leaving her sitting at home, right?”
Tonks couldn’t remember if Bill was on Order business or not, so she didn’t ask. Frank slid a glass of beer in her direction, and she managed to catch it with only a little spill. Absently, she licked the foam off her hand, before realizing her appalling lack of manners, and she hurriedly dropped the offending hand to her lap.
“Er, how do you know these blokes, then, Fleur?” she asked quickly.
“Ah. Bill, he introduced me. Zey are hees friends, and now zey are my friends, too, no?” she replied in a beautifully melodic French accent, looking at the men for confirmation. “And you, Tonks?” Tonks had never heard her name spoken with such allure, like a sonnet. “Zey tell me you are an Auror.”
“Right. Yeah. I am.” Damn, could she sound any more inarticulate?
Sean, ever talkative, quickly took over the faltering conversation. Tonks struggled to relax in the presence of this charming woman beside her, content for the most part to leave the talking to the men and to Fleur. She got a little thrill every time the woman spoke in that captivating way, and sneaked glances at her beneath lowered eyelashes, hoping the other woman wouldn’t notice the attention.
As the night wore on and the beer flowed, Tonks settled down, feeling the alcohol ease away the tensions of the week. She even managed to tell a few yarns of her own that caught Fleur’s attention in a decidedly pleasant way.
“‘Ow can you be so calm, Tonks?” Fleur asked, and Tonks hid her pleasure. “I could nevair face such a person and even remembair my name, let alone how to say ze spell to stop heem.”
“Oh, our Tonks is tough as nails, she is,” Frank said, and Tonks tried not to wince.
“Oh, shit, look at the time,” Sean abruptly announced, and all three men made moves to leave, tossing down galleons and fumbling with cloaks.
Tonks frowned. “Something I said?”
“No, love, we’re on duty in half an hour.”
She blanched. “What? And here you’ve been drinking all night....”
“No worries. A sobering charm and we’ll be right as rain,” Justin assured her and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “Next week, then. Nice meeting you, Fleur.”
She got up from her perch to give Sean and Frank a one-armed hug and watched them thread their way to the door. Nervously, she realized she was left to carry the conversation by herself with the distractingly beautiful French woman. She steeled herself and turned around – too quickly. Her shoulder caught the edge of another floating tray of drinks. This time, she was too late to recover from her error, and she could only watch in fascinated horror as she was drenched with beverages.
Seeing Fleur’s expression was the worst part. As Tonks stood there on display, dripping, reeking of a mixture of god-knows-what combination of drinks, with every eye in the room focused on her, she thought wistfully about Apparating to the Outer Hebrides. An overwhelming sense of injustice at her fate made her wish – not for the first time – that she wasn’t herself: Tonks the clumsy, Tonks the idiot, Tonks the gauche, who can’t even walk across a bloody room without bringing disaster on herself.
Fleur had a handful of cloth and was dabbing at her in a vain attempt to mop up the flood. “Oh, madamoiselle,” she was murmuring in that soft, sweet voice, “Quelle dommage!”
“Don’t bother, Fleur,” she answered. “I’m used to it.” She took out her wand and muttered the most powerful cleaning spell she knew, watching grimly as the mess evaporated with a hiss.
Fleur’s hands were still clutching Tonks’ arms, and the cleaning spell traced its way across that unblemished white skin. Fleur shivered, then to Tonks surprise, her eyes widened and she began giggling. At first it was a nervous twitter, then the sound grew until Fleur was laughing out loud, melodic peals of laughter building and breaking in waves. It reminded Tonks of how the church bells used to sound rising through the mist in the valley below her childhood home.
“Oh, Tonks,” Fleur finally was able to gasp. “'ow you make me laugh.”
To hear that angelic laughter, Tonks would have gladly poured a barrel of stout on herself. “I’m sorry I got you with that scourgify, Fleur. I’m such a clumsy imbecile, I—”
Fleur shook her head gracefully, her long hair swinging sensuously behind her. “No, I am not laughing at you, pauvre Tonks. I think you say eet, ‘I am laughing weeth you.’” She was breathing in gasping pants. “Oh, eet feels so good, yes? To be able to laugh again, aftair so long. Thees war. Eet goes on too long – no one can laugh anymore. But you, ma cherie, you have made me enjoy myself tonight. I have not done so een, ah, too long.”
Fleur was right. None of them had much these days to laugh over – the war wasn’t going well, and every day seemed to bring worse news.
“Then I’m glad to be of service,” she said with a little flourish of her hand.
“No, I do not mean zat you are ze clown, Tonks. Tonight you have shown me zat someone can be full of life still, the joie de vivre. Eet makes me 'appy to see.” She was still holding on to Tonks’ arm, and now she ran her fingers gently across the back of her hand. “You have made me 'appy tonight.”
Between the gently massaging fingers and the intense gaze of the woman before her, Tonks had to fight not to let her mouth drop open and make herself look even more a dolt.
“I. Um. Thank you,” she finally choked out.
Fleur leaned in with another laugh. “And now, everyone in ziz place ees staring at us. Perhaps we could leave now, yes?”
“Sure, I—”
Fleur leaned in closer, and Tonks immediately forgot what she was about to say. Instead she paused in astonishment as blonde hair brushed her cheek and that delightful voice whispered soft and low in her ear, “Would you like to come 'ome with me?”
Tonks tried not to stammer her answer. “I think I’d like that, yes.”
Fleur’s smile was a bold assurance and a hope. “Bien. Good.” She drew close again, and her voice held longing and desire. “We French, we 'ave a saying. Maybe you’ve 'eard eet? We say ‘A woman ees nevair clumsy een ze bedroom.’”
Waiting Snape/Draco PG-13 same deal; pre-slash (what's up with that???)
Severus Snape hadn’t expected to find Draco Malfoy at his door tonight, but that wasn’t to say he hadn’t expected him at all.
He'd spent the boy’s sixth year at Hogwarts expecting – something. Something beyond the withdrawn silence Malfoy presented to everyone after his father had found himself in Azkaban. The outburst with Potter immediately following Lucius’ imprisonment was the last time he’d seen the boy show even the smallest signs of life. Since then, to everyone’s concern, he’d been merely going through the motions.
And here they were, mid-seventh year.
Snape hadn’t liked it. He hadn’t agreed with Albus when he insisted that they were to let Malfoy come to them on his own. “If Draco thinks he’s being forced into something against his father’s will, we’ll lose him for good,” the old man had insisted. “Let him come to us, and then you can do with him what you see fit.” No amount of Slytherin persuasion from Severus had changed that position. But he didn’t have to like it.
So. Malfoy had finally appeared at his dungeon door, and Severus believed he’d now fulfilled the letter of the law. Draco had come to them. Or, to be specific, to him.
“Mr. Malfoy.” He let a deliberate silence fall between them. One last chance to back out.
“May I come in? I need to talk to you.”
Severus opened the door wide to allow him to enter. Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly.
"Thank you, sir.”
Severus was slow and deliberate, observing the social niceties – please sit here in my best chair, Draco, would you care for a drink of my finest whisky? – and slowly made him feel comfortable. Welcome. Protected.
“My father was released from Azkaban,” Draco announced, but that was not news. “I haven’t seen him yet.” Severus listened with apparent fascination as Draco rambled on and on about his beloved father.
“But he sent me an owl and told me to trust you. He said I should come to you.” Draco lowered his eyes, making him look unexpectedly coquettish. “I was afraid to, this whole time, but now, since he said it was okay....”
He paused long enough so that Draco was forced to look at him. “I’m glad you did, Draco.” Slowly, ever so slowly, he rose from his own chair and moved towards his student. But he knew that Order priorities superceded those of Hogwarts, so he no longer allowed himself to think of Draco that way. “And you’ll understand, soon enough, that I will be able to help you in ways you never expected.”
He was behind Draco’s chair now, and he allowed his hands to rest on the boy’s shoulders. He could feel the sudden tension beneath his grip from the unexpectedly intimate contact, but he didn’t allow that to affect what he was about to do. Slowly, ever so slowly, his hands trailed down the smooth neck, dipped below the collar of the expensive robe, and traced along the collarbone, before beginning to unfasten the button at Draco’s throat.
He could almost hear the gasp, but it was quickly suppressed.
“Professor, what— ”
He couldn’t allow the boy to voice his questions. Now or never. His fingers, carefully held in check to prevent any trace of nervousness, continued to unbutton Draco’s robes.
“Draco,” he said, in a voice that was more like a purr, “Did your Father not explain to you exactly what I would expect from you in exchange?”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-09-18 06:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-19 04:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-18 08:21 pm (UTC)...
tasty~
...
it should be a series- ahem, yes yes, definitely a ficlet series..
;)
no subject
Date: 2004-09-19 04:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-18 08:29 pm (UTC)Beautiful description. I really enjoyed both of these, but the Tonks/Fleur was especially yummy. You've got a good feeling for both characters; I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that you might revisit them in a future fic/drabble.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-19 04:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-19 11:41 am (UTC)Thanks very much for writing me such lovely things to read!
no subject
Date: 2004-09-19 04:55 pm (UTC)Sorry it came out so tame. But you can imagine thing heated up quite soon after they left the pub.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-19 04:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-19 02:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-19 04:52 pm (UTC)But it's up at Skyehawke, so try reading it there.
http://www.skyehawke.com/archive/story.php?no=2226
And thanks for letting me know. I've let Diagon Alley know the problem.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-20 04:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-20 06:41 am (UTC)In that case, I have ATBT posted also on my own web site, which I'm still trying to tart up so haven't announced in general. Anyway, it's here:
Geoviki's site (http://geoviki.arithmancy.net)
Thanks for saying such nice things about it!
no subject
Date: 2004-09-20 04:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-25 06:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-20 12:36 pm (UTC)I fangirl you madly, btw. :D Just thought you should know.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-22 01:11 pm (UTC)Fangirl away! It's a hard concept for me to grasp, at least for myslef. I'm just a writer *scuffs toe in dirt*.
Quick comment- love it!!
Date: 2004-09-29 10:38 am (UTC)We say ‘A woman ees nevair clumsy een ze bedroom.’ is priceless. What a wonderful ficlet! I hope that you pursue that pairing/concept a little more- in fact, I may even do so; of all possibilities for femmeslash in HP, that one I can visualize.
Thank you so much for that one, and for sharing. I still need to read your new cookie- just so much fic to write and read!
Re: Quick comment- love it!!
Date: 2004-09-29 04:45 pm (UTC)