Touché!
Title: Touché
Team Name: Spy for the Death Eaters
Word Count: 2x100
Rating: PG-13
Challenge: sports and athletics
Characters: Hermione/Severus
Disclaimer: I am making no profit. Any characters or settings recognizable from the Harry Potter series belong to J.K. Rowling. The rest is mine.
Author’s Notes: many thanks to
bluestocking79 and
dacian_goddess for their beta help, and to
bluestocking79 in particular for the title.
She let her blade fall, and sank on the grass.
He was still holding the sword in his right hand when he lowered himself beside her. His left hand sought, found and intertwined with her much smaller, still-warm fingers.
A blue patch of sky winked through the foliage, streaked with strands of white dishevelled clouds, torn on the treetops.
The breeze rose and all around the clearing, the voices of the Forbidden Forest-- hushed for a moment-- resumed their soft, indifferent hum.
They lay in the grass, panting, the sweat already cooling to an icy sheen on their foreheads.
****
“Pick up your blade and wipe it.”
“Just a moment, please,” she breathed. “I don’t understand how I failed. How did you know I wouldn’t follow through? I didn’t know it myself.”
“You wouldn’t damage the goods,” he said smugly.
She snorted.
When he continued, his voice was stern again and cold as steel: “You thought it was over, and froze your thrust, giving me a fraction of a second. You know better than that. No adversary deserves less than your total attention. No fight is over until it’s sealed. Nothing is definitive, except death.”
“Not even that,” she murmured.