[mp] nothing changes anything [harlan]

edinburgh // 4 may 2004

She kept thinking she saw him, ever since she had talked to Bérénice for all of ten minutes, but it always wasn’t him. Honey was just trying to avoid him, she was telling herself, if he was even there at all. There was no reason he’d be at a Ministry gala, even one that was auctioning off books, so unless he was someone’s plus one… The champagne probably wasn’t helping with her optical illusions; there weren’t any men in the room that even really looked like him, so she had no business thinking it was him.

Until, of course, it was. Honey drained her glass and turned, determined to avoid Harlan as planned. But-- Honey turned again, holding the skirt of her dress just off the ground as she took a few steps forward through the crowd. If he was here with someone, it shouldn’t bother her. It didn’t bother her. She had worked through all of that the last time she had seen him, just after his birthday, when he said they couldn’t be friends. (She was choosing to ignore that last detail.)

And did she want to be seen with him? Maybe, just a little.

Honey smiled--it was something that bordered on a smirk--as she got closer, lifting her hand in a small wave after stepping around another guest. The Griffins had lost their last four matches, and Honey considered saying something to that effect, but she didn’t think that would help her cause any. (And she didn’t know what her cause was, here, maybe just getting things back to their pre-dating versions, able to have a conversation without wondering about a million what if?s.)

“Hi,” she said, happy to find him between conversations. “Here for the books or the free drinks?” It was probably the lamest line she could think of, but it had been so long since she had tried to make genuine small talk with him, she was a bit underprepared.

@Harlan Bellamy

A hum of conversation carried through the weaving sound of strings that seemed to swell from the walls of the museum themselves. Harlan was in one of the main rooms and stuck in a neverending cycle of conversations. He was eager to get the auction part of the night. It wasn't often he was so keen— it was a fundraiser of course— but he had his eye on one particularly rare restored Farrington original that he had already resigned to spending an exorbitant amount of galleons on.

There was a brief moment of respite when the silver-haired man in full tails finally excused himself for another drink— cognac, by the smell of him. Harlan let out a breath he'd been holding deep in his lungs just as a familiar color met his eye in the parting crowd.

Of all people, he hadn't expected to see Honey Flume there. Perhaps she'd taken up an interest in literature.

He grinned at the thought.

"Could I not be here simply to help save the orphans?" Harlan quirked an eyebrow as she approached. The whole charitable aspect was nice, he thought, despite his deep-seated cynism about events of the sort (he knew entirely too much). "Newfound interest in restored literature?" He adjusted his tuxedo jacket, running his hand absently over the fabric in place of a drink of his own.

Could Harlan be here to save the orphans? Honey raised her eyebrows in disbelief, though her grin betrayed the joke she was trying to pass off as a sincere remark: “No, that’s why the Griffins want you here.” She thought Harlan would be more comfortable supporting charities from a distance. From home, maybe, without social niceties. (And that’s what Honey was there to help with, right? She was social but she wasn’t nice.)

“Not quite,” she said, her gaze trailing over his face, stopping to watch his hand as he adjusted his jacket. There was another joke there, somewhere--she didn’t like restored literature, the dirtier the better, but she had no idea if restoring a book involved cleaning it and she was just confusing herself thinking about it--but instead she just brought her gaze back up to meet his eye, shrugging one shoulder.

She pointed a finger at a silver platter as it floated past; it was loaded up with chocolate truffles--but not too many, they weren’t going uneaten--and smiled, more proud than smug. “I made those.” And plenty else, but there wasn’t a convenient tray of petits four or macarons floating around for her to point out. “For charity,” she added, not mentioning that her brother had more or less tricked her into it.

“Do you--” she paused, almost expecting his date to pop up out of nowhere, make herself known, but a full second passed without anyone else interrupting them. “Want a drink?” She stopped before she could ask if he still thought they couldn’t be friends, not sure she wanted to know the answer.

Harlan scoffed at Honey's apparent disbelief.

There was a grin in there somewhere that he was doing everything that he could to mask with an offense. "How presumptuous," He clicked his tongue disapprovingly before his grin finally broke. In truth, the Griffins had nothing to do with why he was there. "For the record, this is a personal sanctimonious venture," A laugh came from his chest. Honey knew how he hated that kind of thing.

Well, she had.

Harlan followed her direction to a floating tray of sweets. Honeydukes. Of course. He should have known. It was surprising that he hadn't taken note of that any sooner. There was a time that he could see the fruits of confectionary labor particular to her everywhere. He wondered when he stopped taking notice of it.

"Of course," Harlan decided not to dwell on the question and instead studied the sweets as they passed. A woman nabbed a truffle, then another, and he smiled faintly to have seen the interaction. He wasn't one for them, but there was something nice about seeing other people's delight. Maybe that was why Honey enjoyed it so much.

A drink? His gaze flickered down to his otherwise empty hands, then to the stage. The auction was set to start at eight. He looked at his watch. There was plenty of time. "Sure," Why not? There were a number of reasons, he reminded himself. Harlan nodded in the direction of the bar, letting Honey lead the way but opening himself up enough to shift the crowd around them.

Honey returned the noise Harlan had made with his tongue. Presumptuous or not, there was a good chance she was right, but for the record-- Honey raised her eyebrows like she was following him, as if she knew what ‘sanctimonious’ meant. She knew what ‘personal’ meant, at least; maybe he really did want to be there. Her eyebrows lifted a little bit more, but only because she was still skeptical, not because she assumed him being here by choice meant he was here with someone.

Of course, he said, and Honey nodded, expecting him to say something else, but that was all he had to offer. She had hinted at work and he hadn’t asked her how business was, but even past that: he didn’t offer even a tiny word of praise about all the work she had clearly put into all of this. Honey sighed--quietly, she thought--and glanced away from a passing tray to look at Harlan again, in time to catch that small smile. She smirked softly and glanced away again.

Honey suggested a drink--that was something even ex-friends or ex-lovers or ex-whatevers could do at a party like this--and she followed his gaze to his hands, the stage, his hands again. His ‘sure’ was chock full of enthusiasm, but Honey led the way to the bar, resisting the urge to look behind her and check he was still following her.

She ordered herself another glass of champagne, stopped herself from ordering for Harlan. (In another life she would have ordered him a gin for a laugh, drank it herself when he ordered something else instead.) Champagne flute in hand, Honey looked Harlan over again; pity they didn’t do parties like this when they had been dating, because no matter how uncomfortable Harlan might have been there, he still looked good. How annoying.

“Portree’s looking good for the finals,” she said before she took a sip that drained half her glass.

Honey made her way through the crowd seemingly without having tried at all. Harlan smiled to himself. At least that much hadn't changed.

"A beer, cheers," Harlan added on top of her order. A beer (of any variety) was enough to keep his hands busy. He had been off the booze but something about Honey had him second-guessing himself, as per usual. Harlan straightened up, as did his resolve. "You think?" Of course, she did. They had won their latest match, so the statement was valid enough.

"As long as Lackey doesn't stuff it up," Harlan nodded a thanks to the bartender and bowed to the glass. "Again..." He added over the lip. It was easy to wind her up as far as her team was concerned. Her half-finished flute of champagne wasn't lost, either.

Harlan scanned the crowd, his elbow on the bar. He could have sworn he'd seen—

"How've you been?" He shifted as a brunette (a stranger, as it turned out) passed by. His gaze flickering back to Honey by way of her dress. Had he seen her so dressed up? It had been some time since she turned up at his, but he hadn't forgotten how that ended. She wanted him to leave her alone, yet, there they were. Despite it, he wasn't on his heels, despite it all. "You look nice," Harlan added with a grin, earnestly, despite the inevitable sarcasm in his voice.

Honey shrugged. It didn’t matter if she agreed with him--Lackey was clearly Portree’s problem--but she couldn’t very well say that the Griffins looked good for the finals. Even when they were dating, she didn’t pretend to be a fan. She was happy he was humoring her, at least. “Guess I’m an optimist.” She wasn’t at all and surely he was aware of that, but she wasn’t going to let the very first thing he said about Portree rile her up.

And there was proof she wasn’t an optimist: Honey watched as Harlan scanned the crowd, her smile slipping a bit. She had another drink, hoping to obscure her change in expression with her glass. Bérénice was out there somewhere, and Honey didn’t want to be around when Harlan spotted her amongst the faces. Maybe they shouldn’t crowd the bar; that seemed like the best place to run into someone. But there were two other bars so technically the odds were in the favor of not being interrupted at this specific bar. She was almost out of champagne, she had been thinking so long.

She lowered her glass as she looked at Harlan, smiling again. He asked how she had been but she didn’t answer right away, more interested in the way his gaze slid over her. She smirked softly. “Good,” she said, both for his attention and for how she had been. She didn’t see any reason to elaborate on it; she had tried the last time to ask about his personal life, and that had gone so well; she didn’t need to offer details about hers.

Honey returned his grin. “Thanks.” She looked down at herself briefly before she met his eye again. “It only took two, three hours of effort.” That was only a minor exaggeration; there had been a small kitchen disaster that had required major cleanup. She considered returning the compliment, but she suspected Harlan already knew he looked nice. There was a beat of silence where she tried to work out what else there was. The answer was obvious, once she thought of it. “Sorry about—“ Honey waved a hand vaguely between them— “last time.” She smiled, but it was a more serious version of the expression, almost contemplative. “Not my best look.”

Harlan shook his head. He should have known better than to compliment Honey so openly, but she did look good. He noticed the favor wasn't paid in return which made a grin threaten the pull at the corner of his mouth. "Only that?" His brow quirked. The retort could have been read two ways; either he assume it had taken longer or that he couldn't imagine that getting ready could possibly take that long. The truth was somewhere between the two if he were playing it up, but more so the latter.

He took a sip of his beer before settling an elbow on the bar, holding the bottle at his side.

Honey said she was sorry and he paused. "That's okay--" He glanced as a man sidled up to the bar beside him, and clearly not pleased to be in such close proximity to an otherwise perfect stranger. Weren't there other bars he could choose from? "I didn't mean for you to leave, like that," Harlan added, his voice a little bit lower and wishing they could have a more private conversation without the whole, private bit. Unresolved issues seemed to be a real specialty of his, though.

Harlan caught her eye, his gaze narrowing in contemplation, like he was trying to think of how to put into words his feelings. It was a task easier said than done.

Only that? Honey laughed once before she smirked softly, narrowing her eyes as she tried to decide which way to take that. It took her a second, but she decided to go with compliment, and worked to move the conversation to something else before he got the chance to clarify.

So she apologized. She was getting better at that, she thought; or, maybe she was just doing it far more often. Whatever the reason, Harlan said it was okay. It didn’t feel okay, of course, but Honey didn’t know how to say that without coming off as pathetic. She had a drink instead.

And then he said he hadn’t meant for her to leave like that. Her immediate response was didn’t you? because she couldn’t see what else he might have meant for her to do. He hadn’t tried to stop her from leaving-- but she waited a beat before saying anything; she didn’t want to ruin this already, didn’t think there was anyone else here she wanted to talk to. (She did know, at least, that there were people here she didn’t want to talk to.)

She finished her champagne--there were only a few sips left, anyway--and angled herself toward him just a wee bit more. “You really think we can’t be friends?” She didn’t take her eyes off of his, though it was tempting to slide her gaze over the people around them. Honey had agreed with him at the time because there was no inbetween for them. But three months after the fact, she was definitely reading into him saying can’t rather than shouldn’t. “I think we could, if we wanted.” Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

He watched, vaguely amused, as Honey finished what was left of her champagne. The sight of her half-open palm and the nape of her neck as she stretched back was familiar in some strange way. He lingered in that memory before his eyes flicked back to hers where she was already looking back at him. Harlan felt something shift in chest but he steeled forward, holding his position as if that might stop the thoughts from flooding in.

"We were never friends," He explained after a moment of introspection. He let the confession sit in the air between them, his mouth pulling into a sad smile that matched her own. "I mean—" The correction wasn't impulsive. He allowed himself the time to really think through what he was going to say next, as he did with most thing.

The truth was, they had never been friends. They were strangers, quickly turned into lovers, then back again. And they vacillated exclusively between the two.

Harlan ran his teeth over his bottom lip as if to stop himself from saying just that. Some part of him hoped that Honey would just understand. But, no one was a mind-reader. Or so his therapist had reiterated time and time again. He had a tangible role in the fact that people had a hard time reading him; that was exactly how he had made it to be.

"I can't be your friend," He said, certain he had said that before in one of their many on and offs. Harlan set down his beer with a fraction of a shrug, keeping his eyes firm on hers. At least that way it was on him. He figured that Honey might feel the same underneath the allure of the nostalgia.

At present, Harlan didn't even want to be friends with Harlan.

We were never friends. Honey’s smile fell as she swallowed hard, purposefully not admitting that he was right. She agreed, had just been thinking about it, probably wouldn’t have brought it up at all if she had had a few glasses less of champagne. And now she wished she had more champagne; it was a good thing she was still leaning up against the bar, but she didn’t want to take her eyes off of Harlan. He started to explain himself, stopped before he said anything enlightening.

There was no inbetween for them. They were together or they weren’t. But she was a good friend these days, having actual conversations. Will, Charlie-- Honey was friends with them. But they weren’t Harlan. This was different, somehow, though she didn’t know why. She did know that she didn’t want to let this go so easily, though.

But then Harlan said he couldn’t be her friend. And why not? It wasn’t like he was so attracted to her that he couldn’t bear to be around her without sleeping with her, or they would have done that at least one of the ...five? times they had seen each other. There had been the occasional snog, both stopped by a Bellamy--Audrey the first time when she walked in on them, Harlan the second time when he thought better of it--and then she had told him to leave her alone.

She wouldn’t let this be her fault. “Why not?” She asked, wishing she had asked for another glass of champagne instead.

Why not?

Why couldn't they be friends? Why couldn't he be friends with her? All were valid questions. And questions that Harlan had asked himself what felt like a thousand times before; even if half of those he wasn't willing to admit to.

Involuntarily, his mouth pulled into a smile that was verging on nostalgic, closer even to sad. It was easy around Honey to find himself lost in a time that had well passed. His brow quirked as he considered the question. That time more seriously than he had on his own. Being face to face with it, in the form of her, was enough to have him looking in the depths of his feelings for an answer that satiated it all. Harlan's jaw tensed under the bite of his teeth.

"Because I have no fucking clue how to be..." He sighed an exhale of breath through his nose, verging on a laugh even though there was nothing funny about any of it. It was an honest confession; he had no concept of friends as far as she was concerned.

"Why would you even want to be my friend?" Harlan wondered, genuinely, forgetting that there were other people around them.

That smile was so familiar, and that, combined with the more than three (but less than six) flutes of champagne Honey had already gone through, was confusing.

He had no clue how— she didn’t think he meant it like he was asking for suggestions for friendly activities, though if that had been what he was asking she thought she might have suggested the pub, drink and play darts. But those were things they did while dating, and were those things tainted now? At the very least they would always have some sort of cloud hanging over them— Honey didn’t think she could play darts anymore without thinking about Harlan’s arm around, teaching her how to hold her wrist properly, nearly every time. So, it was a good thing he wasn’t asking like that because she had no fucking clue either.

But there was a follow up. Why didn’t she want to be his friend? Fuck if she knew, why indeed. Again her mind flashed to Will—brunch and window shopping—and Charlie—biscuits and television—but she didn’t know why she wanted to be friends with them, either.

And Harlan, specifically? Honey felt like she had changed since meeting him, since dating him. She certainly had a different idea about what constituted cheating now (even though a non-negligible part of her was still convinced he had been lying when he said he had only kissed Bérénice). She didn’t know if that counted as her maturing, or whatever, but it was certainly some kind of growth.

All that to say: she didn’t want to go back to how things were before she had met him, for whatever reason. She couldn’t put a finger on it, wouldn’t be able to put any of her thoughts or feelings about it into coherent sentences even if she had wanted to. “Why not?” she said instead, not realizing she had asked the same thing just a moment ago. It took her a second to catch up and correct herself. “I don’t know.” That much was true, anyway. “Feels like the right thing to do.” She didn’t know how to explain that, either.

Harlan was half way to good-naturedly rolling his eyes when the repeated question was turned back at him; why not? How often could they keep going in circles, he wondered? Whether it was in conversation or in the way that they kept leaving room to find one another in new and less-exciting ways, chasing each other's tails, there was a pattern there. It was tangible. And he figured belatedly that it was exactly why she asked to be left alone to get on without him. Quite frankly, it was tiring, and he was only just starting to accept that.

He wasn't one to give up on a fight all that easily, after all.

But then Honey continued.

It was the right thing to do. "Phew," Harlan blew out a breath from his lips, eyes narrowing, amused. Honey actively trying to do the right thing felt like a bit of a misnomer given how he had known her. She had never really been one for rules, or guidelines, or societal niceties just for the sake of it— that was why he had been so drawn to her, after all.

"I'm not certain it is the right thing," True to form, he was skeptical. What about the two of them being friends could possibly bode well? They had proven a few times by then that the opposite was the case. Harlan set down his drink and scanned the buzzing crowd that seemed to have shifted slightly. The auction must have been starting soon, he thought.

"I don't want to be your friend, Honey," Harlan turned belatedly to her, allowing himself half a breath to compose himself before catching her eye and holding it with genuine purpose. The truth? He knew he didn't mean it, but he figured somewhere deep down she did. And if he had to spare being the bad guy for one in the hundreds of times he actually had been, he could handle that. "Think the auction's setting up..." He cleared his throat, gesturing to the bartender for another round on him.

So much for not drinking. 

He didn’t answer her why not?; he didn’t say anything when she said she didn’t know. But of course he said something when she said something sort of declarative: he wasn’t certain it was the right thing. Why couldn’t he ever just agree with her? Usually it something a bit more lighthearted to disagree about-- except usually was nearly a year ago. So was it too much to ask that he say something definitive, tell her what he was thinking rather than just talking around it? (She was purposefully ignoring the irony of not being very good herself at sharing her thoughts very directly with him.)

She laid eyes on his drink as he set it on the bar, prepared to pick it up and drain it, but his glass was empty, too. She glanced up only after he was finished speaking, the words running through her head on a quick little loop. In the time it took him to meet her eye, she had already replayed it ten times. He didn’t want to be her friend. He didn’t have to be that direct, for fuck’s sake.

Honey was still looking at him, breathing a little quicker with not actual idea what to say to him. (There was a first time for everything.) But the auction was setting up, as he so helpfully pointed out. “Right,” she said with a nod, still not looking away. It was a pretty clear sign to leave, wasn’t it?

He ordered her another drink before she could convince her feet to move.

She had already embarrassed herself by coming to talk to him; she couldn’t do much worse by not taking her cue to leave (if that was what it had been, anyway, because what about the drink?) But she wasn’t going to talk to him like a friend, and they were rather shitty at small talk, and she didn’t want to talk to him about quidditch. What did that leave them?

But he didn’t want to be her friend, she remembered--how could she forget?--so she threw caution to the wind, not really having anything else to lose. Just getting it all out there now before the auction started, or before he spotted someone he did want to be friends with. “I can’t pretend like I don’t know you.” He hadn’t asked her to but that didn’t change anything. It seemed like the only option left. Or that, and the glass of champagne being set on the bar before her, were the only options left. She knew which one she preferred, anyway; she picked up the new flute and drained half in two quick swallows.