Chapter Text
Florence hadn’t stayed over at Sophie’s since they were children. It was weird to be there as an adult with a girlfriend, in their own guest room, instead of sharing Sophie’s four poster bed. A NEWT Hall of Fame student and considerate friend, Sophie had taken the time to enchant the room Flo and Isa were staying in, so that the ceiling would give the illusion of the vast starry sky Florence loved, and from the windows, Isabella would hear the sound of crickets and the placid lapping of the waves Sophie knew all too well from the Slytherin dorm.
Florence had always felt like the Hart-Walshes looked at her with concern, even as a child, and if they knew about Sophie’s spells they would probably judge Florence for still having trouble sleeping as grown-up. She’d always been the half-blood who didn’t fit in, no matter how much she didn’t want to believe it, and the Hart-Walshes genuinely didn’t know how to act around her. They seemed like practical people: they were probably relieved not to have her for a daughter. At least until their own child had announced she was in a steady relationship with a Gryffindor boy. At her 18th birthday party, of all places; in the presence of the chief editor of the Daily Prophet, and a host of Slytherin alumni.
It could have gone very wrong - it could have caused a scandal - but once Sophie made a decision, there was no way to change her mind. Callum was a pureblood, at least, but it hadn’t been easy for the Hart-Walshes to accept this development.
Florence wished Sophie had told her in advance, but no - she’d had to find out like everyone else. Suddenly the “I’m going through something similar” made sense. Falling in love with the “wrong” person happens to everyone sooner or later in life, and for some people, the “wrong” person is actually forever, Florence thought as she turned towards Isabella on her right. She found her already staring back with bleary eyes. She’d bothered to remove her makeup, for once, out of respect for being in someone else’s bed, even though it would take just a simple spell to remove her signature eyeliner streaks from the pillowcases.
“Good performance, don’t you think?” Florence murmured, unnecessarily quietly. It had only just gone midnight, but they had excused themselves from the cream of the crop of the wizarding community because Florence needed to discuss something very urgently.
“Understatement of the year,” Isa replied, her smile audible even in her voice. “You don’t notice this, but the expression on their face changes when you open your mouth.”
She could see Florence was sincerely touched by her choice of words, if a little self-doubting. “You get some credit too. You write the songs with me.”
“I might as well be invisible, Flo.” Isa deadpanned.
“Well, I know you’re there. And to me, that means everything.” Flo took Isa’s hand and she responded with a happy sigh.
“Staying for as long as you’ll have me.” Isabella closed her eyes and leaned forward to give Florence a light kiss. Then she rolled over, with her back to her girlfriend, trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in in this foreign bed.
“Night, babe.” Florence heard her mumble. “I’m really proud of you.”
So that left Flo alone with her thoughts, which she hadn’t been able to bring up; Isabella’s adoring comment had sidetracked her and made her lose sight of her agenda. She felt so edgy and sleep was certainly not going to come to her for a very long time. Her heart raced, as it did sometimes without warning; her lungs, her throat, filling with anxiety that something terrible was about to happen.
“I can hear the cogs turning in your head, Florence.” Isa called from her side of the bed. Throughout her tossing and turning, she’d somehow managed not to let go of Flo’s hand. “What’s bothering you? Is it this contract thing?”
“Well, yes.” Florence replied, fretting. “It’s a big step, I don’t know how you can be so calm.”
“We don’t need to decide now… we can look at it tomorrow with fresh eyes, can’t we?”
“I’m just not sure about this.” Florence said, disregarding Isa’s request to sleep on it. Maybe they didn’t need to make a decision now, but she sure as hell needed to let out how she felt. “What if gossip mags look into our background and find out we went to Hogwarts?”
“Florrible and Misrabella are witches?” Isabella asked, incredulous. “Who’s gonna believe that?”
“You’re not scared because you don’t know what Muggle gossip is like. You think wizard gossip rags are terrifying, wait ‘til you see the Daily Mail. It’s all new and exciting to you. I’m just trying to protect us.” Florence protested.
That made Isabella turn around. Her foot started to tease Flo’s legs, prying them open just enough to let her own leg be trapped in between them, hoping the closeness would also bring comfort to Flo’s troubled mind.
“Sophie said she would sort out fake backgrounds for us though, didn’t she? You can be sure she’s going to keep her promise. A perfectionist like her… she won’t do anything halfway. There are things that can be done, obliviation spells. They can just modify your relatives’ memories so they will all just think you went to some South London comprehensive or something.”
“After all I did to make my mum accept you? It’d be like invalidating all my efforts.”
Isa tried to lighten the mood. “If by 'all you did’ you mean that you nearly fell out of a first floor window that one time and I had to save you with magic because Grace still couldn’t use it outside of school…” She winked.
Florence feigned shock. “I told you afterwards. It was accidentally on purpose so that my mum would like you better.”
“Yeah, sure, of course it was, Florence.” Isa grinned.
“Well, you know, I’d been camping and I hadn’t seen you in two weeks and I couldn’t know that Grace’s broom was not weighted for me.”
That had been her 19th birthday and maybe just the second or third time that Isabella had met Florence at her mother’s house (unless Evelyn was abroad for work and certain not to return; those were instances where Isa would actually move in for a few days, and they would learn to tolerate each other for long periods of time). Florence had been in Grace’s room and, seeing Isa approaching their driveway, she had obviously thought flying out the window would get her to her girlfriend faster than taking the stairs. Her mum had been in their front garden, washing her little red Muggle car, when Florence had flung open the window with the broom in one hand: a broom that, predictably, didn’t respond to her at all. It only took three seconds for the whole ordeal to be resolved, what with Florence capsizing on the broom and Isabella generating a vortex of some kind that sucked her backwards into Grace’s room and landed her safely on the bed, but it most definitely made Evelyn like Isa better. Not only had she been the only one to find Florence when she’d run away – Evelyn now owed her her daughter’s life. As far as daughters-in-law go, she could have done a lot worse, as she came to realise the first time Grace brought home a boyfriend who seemed to be unable to discuss any other topic than Quidditch.
“Seriously, Isa.” Florence tried to go back to the subject at hand. “We’re doing well with the music thing, I think. Can’t we just keep going with the bookings we have?”
“Two of those are for funerals. Again. I’d rather not build a reputation as a funeral band?” Isa said, making a statement into a question as usual. “Besides, the bookings are getting too much for us to handle. We need a manager and this lady sounds alright. Or should I say girl? She’s younger than me, you know? I think she said she’s 25.”
Florence turned her head on the pillow so she could look Isa in the face. “Grace has offered,” she reminded her.
“Grace is seventeen, Flo. She has NEWTs next year. Your mum would kill her if she dropped out of school to manage us. Then kill you for asking.” Her hand landed into the sensual curve of Florence’s waist and tried to physically – but gently – shake her out of her funk.
“You could ask. You know my mum likes you more than she likes me nowadays.” How things had changed over the course of three years. Evelyn and Isabella ended up bonding over their constant worries that Florence would get herself in too much trouble, their practical side providing an anchor for Flo’s constant daydreaming and her disregard of what the world expected from a twenty-one-year-old.
Isa couldn’t resist rolling over even further, landing half on top of Flo, hand still planted on her waist and lips coming up to about Florence’s shoulder. She gave it a playful bite. “You’re a sulky child, you know that.”
Florence hid her face in her hands. Her voice came out all muffled when she said, “I’m scared.”
“I thought you weren’t afraid of anything. I’m not scared to jump, I’m not scared to fall… I thought this was your dream?”
Flo drew her hands apart just enough to uncover her mouth. “Stop using my own lyrics against me. I’m scared all the time. Scared that you’ll leave me, scared that something will happen to you. My dream was just to make music with you. I don’t mind in what capacity. I don’t need to make a record, that won’t help you stay.”
“I’m here.” Isabella turned very serious.
There was no reason for Florence to think that she would ever leave, and she’d never given any indication of wanting to, either. Sure, she wasn’t easy to live with at times. She was insecure: about her looks, about her talent… she still didn’t feel she deserved to be loved so unconditionally, even after three years.
She brushed her fingers against Florence’s and got her to finally reveal her beautiful features. Flo’s eyes struggled to make out Isa’s face in the darkness, and when she finally focused, she greeted Isa with a mock-frown.
“Flo, I really think that together we can do whatever we put our minds to. Your voice needs to be heard. Your words need to be heard. They’re too big and significant for just little old me.”
Compared to how much convincing Isabella had needed early on, this was quite a change of heart. Their first public performance at Sophie’s 18th had got them two bookings, and it had sort of opened her eyes to the fact they really had something good. Not that it was Florence’s talent Isa doubted, as much as her own. She always saw herself as an unnecessary commodity that could be replaced, but Florence kept saying that she wouldn’t want to write with anybody else.
Florence had chosen her: for some reason, she’d opened up in a way that she’d never been able to before. And Isa felt so lucky, questioning it would have been ungrateful. Florence reallydid want to make music together. She was the one who’d bought her her first keyboard. She’d taken her earnings from those first two bookings and turned them into Muggle money, added it to her birthday money, and bought Isabella a crappy £100 Yamaha.
Isa had played day and night to really get to grips with it, and even though Florence still lived with her mum, she’d spent more nights in Isa’s flat in Crystal Palace trying to decide which sound effect sounded least like a dying animal and more like an actual instrument than she had in her own bed. Their songs had been fleshed out - there were strings, now, drum beats. There was bass and harp and the occasional guitar from Callum. Now they were being asked to put them on a record, and for the record to be sold to Muggles. Some would call it fate, but Isabella called it hard work, and boy had it taken her a lot of working – not just on the keys, but on herself.
Now, having performed again for Sophie’s 21st (which, as it turned out, had also been an engagement celebration of sorts) they were faced with what was probably the biggest decision of their life, after choosing to be together.
“I know you don’t care about being famous, Flo, but if this goes right for us we can be sorted for the rest of our lives. I wouldn’t need to pull pints anymore… we could travel the world… think of the people you could inspire with your words. Just think about it.”
Florence shuffled a little, curling up on one side. It broke contact with Isa, but she lifted a hand and ran the tip of her index finger down Isa’s nose, her voice suddenly taking on a serious tone.
“What if I didn’t have those kind of ambitions? What if I was just content making music with you and doing the occasional gig at a pub on Diagon Alley? I get it, it would be money. And I get that we would travel and that’d be great, but it’s not like it would be a holiday. I’m not the risk-taking type, Isa. You must be mistaking me for my sister… you know, the Gryffindor?”
Isabella sighed. She didn’t know if it was amusing or concerning that Florence didn’t consider herself to be a risk-taker when she’d initiated every last situation that had led them to falling in love. “There’s a little bit of lion in everyone, Flo. You just need to find it.”
“I don’t feel like a lion.” Florence whinged. “More like a little rabbit, lost in the middle of a road. The border between magical and Muggle. By the time I decide where to go, someone will have run me over anyway,” she concluded in her typical, overdramatic fashion.
“Well, what if the little rabbit had a snake friend for support?” Isa humoured her.
Unimpressed, Florence squinted. “Snakes eat rabbits, Isa.”
Isabella raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I could eat you alright.”
“ISA!!” Florence hissed, which snapped Isa out of the joke, and back into the role of understanding girlfriend.
“I know it’s a sacrifice, but you have a good support network. Your mum doesn’t have to be Obliviated. Do you really think she wouldn’t keep a secret for you? Just… don’t piss her off, and I’m sure she can keep all her memories and still help out with the fake background. I reckon she’d be happy to imagine a world where she took you to your Muggle school every morning, with your best friend Sophie. A world where we were just friends who work together, and we met somewhere predictable, you know, like a Muggle house party.”
Florence shifted an inch to the left, and although they were still close enough they could smell each other’s breath, Isabella knew what it meant. Florence physically distanced herself every time Isa’s words rubbed her the wrong way. Sometimes she’d stew on them and conclude that Isa was right; sometimes she wouldn’t. “You sound kinda bitter.”
“Well, I’m not going to sit here and pretend like it was easy. Your mum doesn’t like what we are, Flo. You could be running for Minister of Magic and she’d still rather you were a Muggle popstar, I reckon.”
Florence wouldn’t be the only one, either. Isabella had spent the past couple of years bringing herself up to speed on the Muggle music scene; and how funny it had been, to find out through word of mouth which artists came from the magical world and had completely made-up backstories. Granted, there weren’t many – some wizards and witches still preferred to make their fame only among their own people – but it kind of showed that it was possible to appeal to both worlds.
“Fiiiiiine,” Florence dragged out the word, and returned her hands to her eyes. The groan that followed seemed to suggest that she wasn’t fine in the slightest. “Fine, I’ll sign the contract.”
“I thought I was the one in this relationship with the crippling fear of commitment,” Isa joked.
That got her a smile. “For someone with a crippling fear of commitment you’ve stuck around though, I must say.”
“So, it’s decided? Tomorrow we sign this contract?” There was a faint flutter of butterflies in Isabella’s stomach, even though her head was hurting and she just wanted to go back to sleep. She kissed Florence on the cheek before settling back into the fetal position.
“Tomorrow we sign our lives away.” Florence confirmed.
Isa rolled back a little. “What did you just say?”
“Tomorrow we sign our lives away?” Flo repeated, confused.
“Ooooooh!!” Isa turned her back to Florence, hoping she would take the hint and spoon her. “Oh. I thought you said lungs!”
THE END