relative fiction | hermione

Neville ducked out the front door with a cursory glance over his shoulder to see if anyone had noticed him collect his coat from the rack— his innate ability to go unnoticed was a good thing when needed. He couldn't be sure if the exit was finite or if he could be lured back in for one last pint before heading home. He suspected whatever song came on next would help him decide.

On the one hand, he had an early morning with Bancroft, but on the other, the man would undoubtedly give him just as hard of a time if he wasn't hungover. It was rare that Neville had nights out, and it was a birthday after all...

Either way, a quick smoke gave him enough time to mull it over.

Outside the night air was brisk. The sky was clouding and threatening to open up again. A few flurries of snow sprinkled from a lamppost overhead but Neville didn't notice as they melted down the side of his cheek, red and warm from the heat of the Hog's Head. He couldn't be sure how long he'd been there at that stage, but he was (as usual) pleasantly surprised with how quickly they had all fallen into normalcy.

Neville wandered to the side of the bar front where he could discretely blow the smoke away from the windows— not that anyone could make anything out through the clouded stained glass. But better safe than sorry. It wasn't that he was hiding his habit per se, and it wasn't a habit he reminded himself, but then again—

The door opened and Neville reacted a moment too late. "Hermione, hi," A guilty grin washed over his face.

Hermione was nursing her (second) butterbeer, the designated apparator so Ron could enjoy himself properly. Not that Hermione wasn’t enjoying herself--far from it--she was just sober (and so was Ginny, but not because she had to work early in the morning). She had stuck to Ron’s side for most of the night, but everyone had mainly stayed together anyway, rather than split off into smaller groups, so it wasn’t so much being clingy as it was being comfortable. That’s what the whole evening had sort of turned out to be, comfortable. It was nice.

Of course, it was hard not to think about how this was (mostly) the same crowd that had showed up to that meeting she had arranged, in this same pub. But this time, she had conjured up her own glass to use.

She glanced at the door as she heard it open; she hadn’t noticed Neville slip away from the crowd, but she did notice him stepping out the door. She frowned--he hadn’t said goodbye--and offered a small squeeze to Ron’s arm before she followed him out the door, hoping to catch him before he apparated. She wanted to check that he should be apparating but also she did want to say goodbye; it had been six months since the last time she saw him and it would probably be another six until the next time.

But he hadn’t left-- or he was having trouble apparating-- or, he was having a cheeky smoke. She wouldn’t have missed that telltale glowing end of a cigarette, never mind that it wasn’t too dark to make out what he was holding. “Hi, Neville,” she returned his greeting with a knowing smile, like she’d caught him at something. They were adults, but they had been through so much as children and now he was choosing to smoke? “Those will kill you, you know.” But she smiled again, smally, as she wrapped her arms around herself as best she could while still holding her drink.

“How’ve you been, Neville?” She might have seen him at the wedding, but they hadn’t talked too much and when they had, it had been after a few glasses of wine.

The vanishing of the cigarette was a fraction too late, and Hermione (as usual) was much too quick. There wasn't much that she missed, Neville decided as he wiped the palms of his hands on his pants awkwardly. "I know," He smiled faintly as the smoke from his last exhale eventually and excruciatingly disappeared into the night sky. He did know it, but it couldn't hurt to be told it again for good measure. And he knew that she meant well so that helped.

"A bad habit," He admitted. Something about Hermione made it impossible not to speak the truth.

"I've been well," He added as an afterthought. The pace of his voice was quicker than before like he was trying to prove it after the scene she'd stumbled upon. It didn't look great did it?— him sneaking away from the party to have a cigarette alone. He could have at least waited for someone else so he could use the excuse of it being a "social" thing, the kind of thing he could keep control of.

"And you? Having fun?" He glanced waywardly to the cloudy stained glass window. Inside he could hear muffled laughter and music.

It was a bad habit, he said, and Hermione smiled smally. “I get it,” she said, as if she had any bad habits she was willing to admit. Or maybe just the one: she extended the fingers of the hand not holding her drink, looking at her nails-- she had always been a nail biter, particularly in times of stress, so… almost always. Manicures for special occasions were few and far between.

He answered her original question, then, and Hermione smiled a bit more as she nodded. He’d been well; “That’s good,” she said, nodding again before she had another swallow of her butterbeer. She had heard some details of his current research the last time they had talked, but she had been a few glasses deep into the wine then, too-- she would ask Ginny for the details rather than admit she had forgotten anything by asking him about it all.

She followed his gaze to the window, glancing back to him as she answered him. “I am.” There were others having more fun, surely, but it was nice. And she had kept thinking that all night, how nice it was, all of them together. “Been a while since I’ve been here,” she added with a little laugh, rippling the surface of her butterbeer before she took another small sip.

She nearly leaned back against the wall, but the exterior of the Hog’s Head wasn’t much cleaner than the interior--and surely only was because it was exposed to rain--and she thought better of it after another second. “How’s work?” It was an easy thing to ask--without asking the specifics of his research, again--because that was all she had to talk about, too.