LADS.

It's been some time! Hoping to wrap this story up in the next chapter, to be frank.

Life has happened, as it does, so thank you for your patience with me!

Also, there's just been so much more queer content that consuming took over creating - I'm only a human.

Songs for this chapter: "All Time Low" (Jon Bellion AND the cover by Walk the Earth), "Losing My Mind" (Jeremy Jordan), "You Don't Know" (Katelyn Tarver) and "Heart It Races" (Dr. Dog).

Enjoy, yell at me, all that jazz!

XXX

It is nice, sometimes, to exist in the liminal space between shut-in and extrovert. The break provided from countless interactions, necessary or no, allows for a quick moment to breathe without completely disappearing from the world. It is much like watching a film with friends: you are all there in the same room, yet the quiet hour and a half wherein you all take in the same story is spent in your own mind, interpreting and understanding the film in your own, personal way. The brief meditation is relaxing and can be clarifying.

The lights must come on at some point, though. The credits roll and the respite is finished. Is this a terrible thing? No. The blurry space between active participation and isolation is a good temporary balm that is necessary to appreciate both aspects of being alive; however, too much time spent there is toxic. Existing but not being present withers connections. They become dry and unused and eventually break off. It is tortuous, as well, to not become a hermit and yet act as one. Being alone in a crowd is awkward and painful. It is in the best interest of the psyche to occupy that perfect liminal space for a brief period of time, and then, refreshed, return to whichever side you choose to occupy and move forward.

XXX

Harry and Ginny were understanding of the situation, sympathetic even. A room at Grimmauld Place had been prepared for Hermione, and when she arrived, it was to open arms and mugs of hot tea. The night was spent alternating between explanations and tears and hugs. With many thanks and promises not to overstay her welcome, an exhausted Hermione had finally ascended the stairs to a deep, dreamless sleep.

Over the course of the next few weeks, she existed only for routine: wake, work, read. Repeat. It was solid and real and asked no more of her than she was willing to give. It also helped her burn through several tomes that she'd been meaning to get around to. Though people at work noticed her absent and sad eyes, they didn't pry. She was too good of an employee to necessitate nosiness, and they were too busy to care. I suppose I ought to be thankful for that, she would muse. It was certainly relieving to not have to entertain false sympathy or pity.

She only really cried when she tried to sleep. There, body under duvet and head on pillow, she had no shield of semi-social interaction. No public script was available for a crutch. There was no book to draw her in and distract her, to pull her away from the world. She had neither the warm body of her husband – ex husband – to curl into, nor that hope of Fleur to keep the shadows of her brain at bay. The loneliness and doubt crept, hand in hand, into all the dark corners of her room, closing in and whispering cruelly to her. Sleep began to elude her. Though she still functioned, she became a spectral version of herself.

A month and a half in, Ginny was fed up. Not with the living situation – Hermione was always welcome for however long she needed – but with the utterly defeated puddle her friend had become. That was not her Hermione Granger, and she was determined to fix things, or at least get them addressed and confronted. One Tuesday evening, after Hermione had come home and poked around at her dinner, Ginny announced that they were going on a trip. Hermione nodded, acknowledging but not hearing her words.

Gripping the arm of her best friend, she Apparated to Fleur's apartment.

"We are going to get you answers, the way anybody would. Then maybe you'll stop floating around like some sad ghost."

Considering her, it made sense; Ginny had never been one to mince around a topic. It was one of the qualities that went deeply appreciated in their friendship.

"Gin, I've already been by! She's not in, and even if she was, I doubt she'd open her door to me."

"True, probably." The older woman gaped at her friend, whose shrug screamed I'm not wrong and everyone here knows it. "That's why I'm here: to get you lot to sit down and talk and clear some bloody air. Merlin knows you're both too stubborn to do it yourselves."

With a grin, the redhead turned and headed towards Fleur's apartment. Foreboding mixed with anticipation and clutched tightly at Hermione's chest as she followed.

Ten short minutes later, Ginny was pounding on the familiar door. The incessant thumping seemed to carry on for hours. There was no answer.

Each repetition felt like a strike to Hermione's numbed spirit, a railroad spike driving past bone and cartilage to pierce the struggling musculature of her heart. The silences that followed were deafening voids that threatened to drag whatever small shreds of hope she had into a relentless whirlpool of darkness. Not that you're being dramatic about the whole thing at all.

Ginny was losing her patience with the nonverbal rebuffs, and whipped out her wand. She frowned, aiming it at the door.

"Ginevra Weasley, what are you doing?" Hermione screeched.

"Opening the bloody door so you both can bloody have a bloody conversation about just what the bloody hell is going on!" The younger woman retorted, expertly gesturing while somehow maintaining the exasperated look that seemed to be genetic amongst Weasley women. Before she could open her mouth, however, the door opened, revealing an unkempt and unimpressed Fleur Delacour.

"Bonjour, Ginny," she began, eyes roaming in an anything-but-casual manner over to Hermione. "I don't suppose you 'ave come on a 'ouse call, oui?"

"Perceptive, Fleur, and correct." Ginny, in a surprising feat of flexibility and strength, shot an arm behind her, practically dragging her friend in front of her. "I am aware that there are some matters that need discussing between the two of you, and as it has become a right pain in my arse, I am going to facilitate you both sitting down like the grown adults you are and talking. The hell. About it."

"And what if it is non-negotiable, mm? What if I am aware zat a conversation would lead nowhere, to nothing, ultimately destroying a rather important friendship zat I would much prefer to maintain?" Fleur crossed her arms, the question directed more towards Hermione than to her friend.

"You're both miserable. Does this look like a properly maintained friendship to you?" Ginny retorted. Fleur glowered at her, shoulders lifting in a half-hearted yet petulant shrug.

"For the love of – the both of you are being entirely too dramatic, just talk to each other like the rational beings you are, and work something out!" With that, the frustrated Ginny shoved Hermione at Fleur, who, shocked, had no choice but to catch the woman.

Throwing her hands up to the sky with a disgusted groan, the youngest witch Disapparated.

Hermione tried to ignore how warm Fleur's embrace was, and how that summer scent floated and clung to the air.

XXX

"Tea? Coffee?"

Fleur's tone was clipped, yet polite.

"Coffee," Hermione returned, sitting stiffly on the (admittedly, very comfortable) sofa, one leg crossed primly over the other.

"Bien sûr."

The silence settled, interrupted only by the sounds of Fleur's coffee preparation. It was stifling to Hermione, but it was also a test of the wills: who would speak first?

It wasn't that she was afraid to, absolutely not! There were several key points in a well-thought out diatribe that Hermione would focus on, and she would make Fleur see, with her rational arguments, that…

That…

Well, that her heart hurt. That she had been gently strolling on a downward spiral, and that the one person she needed to talk to, to provide something resembling closure, had shut her out after whipping the metaphorical rug from under her feet.

A small, close clatter brought Hermione out of her mind. Two mugs steamed, and a warm, earthy scent filled the apartment.

"Careful, il fait chaud," Fleur warned, using the sleeves of her sweater as a barrier between the ceramic and her skin. Hermione nodded, focusing her stare on her own drink.

More silence passed.

It was a silence party, with coffee and unspoken truth.

Finally Hermione broke the silence. Winning be damned, she was here now, and she would have satisfaction – or at least, answers.

"Fleur, I don't understand."

She looked up from the inky depths of her coffee, into those blue eyes that never ceased to transfix her. Fleur's face was unreadable, giving away nothing but taking in everything being said. It was infuriating, but familiar; this is exactly how she'd taken the news of Bill, after all.

Hermione continued:

"We don't interact much for ages, and then this whole mess with Bill happens and suddenly we're talking so much more, you're more in my life and we're going to museums and shopping and to cafes together, and th-then you kiss me?" She stopped to breathe; yeah, you did just say that out loud with your own mouth to her with words.

If it wasn't, it's real now.

"A-and then you kiss me and before I can even process anything, you're gone! You just..just vanish and leave me with all these questions that need answers and thoughts and feelings," Hermione didn't mean to spit the word, but the onslaught of emotion had prompted a slight panic, which mixed venomously with her anger at the situation. "Feelings that I can't make quiet or begin to unpack, and it's just not fair and I am so, so unbelievably cross with you! How could you do that and just leave?"

Fleur listened, the familiar slight frown crinkling between her brows. Hermione continued on, letting Fleur know exactly how bad the last month and a half had been, how she'd missed her, how unfair it was that she'd been left in that situation with nothing but closed doors and radio silence.

Finally, Fleur stood and walked those few feet over to Hermione's side, and knelt down. Wordlessly, she reached up and brushed a soft thumb along the side of the younger woman's cheek.

Oh shit, when did you start crying?

The gesture was gentle, caring, and made Hermione's heart break all over again. She needed to know, but she needed this contact, as well. The warmth radiating from the older woman's hand spread down to her bones, settling like comfort and home. Like she had that first night in her kitchen, Hermione slowly reached up to hold Fleur's hand.

"Will you please tell me why?" She implored, searching Fleur's face for answers. Full lips parted, and she saw the acquiescence shimmering in her eyes before it was voiced:

"Oui."