Current mood:	apathetic
Entry tags:	*fic, character: fleur delacour, character: ginny weasley, community: rarepair_shorts, fandom: harry potter, femmeslash, genre: angst, rating: pg, ship: ginny/fleur

Intentions
Title: Intentions
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Ginny/Fleur implied
Prompt: challenge #2 (it was a dark and stormy night) for rarepair_shorts
Rating: PG
Word Count: 622
Summary: For a moment, she gently touched Ginny’s cheek, her fingers lingering peculiarly close to her lips, as though her intentions and desires were no longer synonymous.
Author's Notes: I've been meaning to finish this up for a while. I just never got around to it before. It is intentionally purple and angsty. Boo.

Intentions

It was a dark and stormy night, and the glass windowpanes of the Burrow shook loudly. Ginny sat awake, eyes wide and alert as she clutched a warm mug in her hands. The glow from the fire was the only source of light in the room; all else was bathed in flickering shadows that seemed to suggest there was more to the walls than first met the eye.

Ginny shivered. The house was cold, and though her bed was warm, something kept her rooted to her spot, tethering her to the living room chair. It was as if the blackness engulfing the stairs would swallow her if she moved toward them, as if she would never reach her own room if she tried to do so. She knew the ridiculousness of this, yet even though there was now nothing left to fear she could not shake the lingering paranoia of Before.

With unsteady hands, she raised the mug to her lips but did not drink—for it had long-since been empty. The motion in itself was a comfort; calmed, she glanced toward the staircase.

It required several moments for Ginny to realize that someone was standing upon it.

“Geenevra?”

Startled, Ginny’s heart seemed to catch within her chest, and she let her mug drop to the floor. As it shattered, the noise almost echoed, and the force of it hitting the ground seemed to shake the room. Nevertheless, she did not think to look at it.

Fleur trailed down the stairs toward her. A thin nightdress draped from her slender frame, and she looked akin to a ghost, pale hair and skin tinted with blue, until she stepped into the firelight. Even then, however, there was still an ethereal beauty lingering about her from which Ginny could not pry her eyes.

“Eet ees late…” Fleur frowned—still managing to maintain the flawlessness of her features—and seated herself beside Ginny, who, in turn, edged away.

“Yeah, I noticed,” Ginny snapped. Her body as a whole suddenly felt clammy; ignoring the feeling, she at last bent to gather the shards of her mug into a small pile.

Fleur reached down to assist her, and Ginny watched fascinated as her long fingers curled gracefully around each individual piece. Her full lips were parted slightly, showing hints of impeccably white teeth. Ginny smelled something exotic upon the skin that was now so very near to her.

“You should sleep,” Fleur murmured, clicking her tongue absently.

“If I could sleep, I wouldn’t be down here, would I?”

Fleur pursed her perfect lips and did not reply. Her porcelain cheeks became stained with red.

After all of the mug’s pieces had been collected, plucked carefully from the rug, Fleur looked up and met Ginny’s eyes.

“I ‘ave tried, you know, to make you like me. I ‘ad ‘oped zat we would not be enemees any longer.”

Outside, the thunder rolled across the sky, rattling the dishes in their cupboards.

“I ‘ave only wanted…”

For a moment, she gently touched Ginny’s cheek, her fingers lingering peculiarly close to her lips, as though her intentions and desires were no longer synonymous. Yet then, as if she had been slapped, Fleur hastily drew back and was on her feet—so quickly that it seemed as if she had flown.

“I am… sorry… zat you weel not allow me een your life.”

As she hurried away, her nightdress billowed out behind her, her hair rippling in an impossible way. Inexplicably, Ginny’s heart lurched—once, and only once.

Halfway up the staircase, Fleur looked back. “I ‘ope zat you can sleep. Bonne nuit.”

After that, the shadows seemed to lessen, though they were far from gone.

And the storm, still, raged on.