WHO: Winnifred Llewellyn & Louis Bonaccord
WHAT: A confrontation
WHERE: Louis's place
WHEN: ... A week after NYE? LOL oops
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
Looking up where Louis Bonaccord now resided was painfully easy, if only because of Winnifred's maintained contacts (victims, some might have said, but not her) in the Hit-wizard department.
The address surprised her, certainly, but she didn't let that deter her from her purpose. Winnifred Llewellyn had been left in quite a daze after the New Year's Eve party.
The word was quite literally left, as she had been jilted, in public, no less! At least the masks provided a modicum of anonymity, so as to preserve her dignity, etc. but they most certainly did not work in the favour of Louis Bonaccord.
Winnie did admit that the events immediately preceding the jilting had dazed her so strongly that she hadn't properly felt her rage until she'd left the lavish ballroom of the gala and was all but tucked into her manor, but she was very ladylike about it. Even the house-elf had sworn the vase had been merely bumped into, and not angrily swatted to the side. (Though it was not an heirloom, had been crafted in at least the last century, and was certainly no more than 7th most expensive in residence—she wasn't a heathen.)
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
This behaviour would be quite beneath her, and exceedingly improper, as Winnie had no desire to chase wizards, being a Pure-blooded witch of impeccable breeding, but… There had been something in the way Louis had apologised to her as he had, yes, admittedly run quickly from her that night. Genuine regret, as if forces beyond his will had pulled him from her grasp. She was here today to… inquire. To have a discussion. Her nails may have dug sharply into her palms, but it certainly wasn't a sign of anger… Winnie would have to correct his behaviour, of course, but she'd hardly yell at him.
No, yelling was certainly undainty, but scold, perhaps, emphatically, and forbid him from doing such a thing to his fiancee ever again. Something like that.
She hammered—knocked—insistently at the door for the second—perhaps third—time.
Louis ran a hand through his wet hair as he poked his head out of the bathroom. Someone had been knocking. Where was Adian? Perhaps he went to get breakfast, though with their budget…They had been crunching numbers since they had moved into their most glorious of flats, their flat being so glorious that the income of two ministry interns should not have been able to handle the rent. But with a bit of sweet talk to their dementor-like landlady (she was always touching his hair, it was quite disturbing), things had gone smoothly...until Adian had been fired. Now, Louis felt like every last knut had to be accounted for and the last thing he needed was a row about how much their breakfast cost.
“Coming!” he shouted as the knocking persisted. He muttered under his breath, wondering who would be so urgently banging on their front door. Louis reached for his bathrobe, but then a thought occurred to him---had they paid their rent this month? With the whirlwind that New Year’s was, he couldn’t recall if...Louis gulped, knowing that his bank account would not have enough to cover both his and Adian’s share of the rent until the end of the week. Merlin’s Beard, he did not need this right now…
Thinking quickly, Louis tightened the knot of the towel around his waist and smoothed back his hair. Feeling filthy even though he’d just exited the shower, he hurried to the door. Maybe he could buy them a few more days.
“Good----”
His mouth froze mid-greeting, eyes widening in terror. The last person he’d ever expected to see on his doorstep was standing there, flush with---with---he didn’t know what to call the look in Winnifred Llewellyn’s eyes, but he was terrified to find out.
"I believe you—" Winnifred began insistently, but trailed off upon seeing Louis in full. In full, indeed! Winnie had wondered if she might feel butterflies or some sort of… tingle, for lack of a better, appropriate word, when she laid eyes on Louis again. Whatever she was experiencing right now was certainly not the product of her own making!
Almost involuntarily, her head tilted to the side, for a new angle, perhaps, and she would not have called what she was doing ogling, strictly, but she was not prepared to not call it that, either.
A bit dazed, she had to work hard to recall why exactly she had come all the way here, but her train of thought kept being derailed by the question why on earth was Louis Bonaccord answering his door wrapped in a towel?
Then her eyes widened. Had he, in some unbelievable way, been aware that she was coming?
Had he, she wondered as her eyes narrowed, taken so long to answer the door because he had seen it was her and then hurried to disrobe?
True, Winnifred would admit to indulging in some very improprietous behaviour… certainly the most heated of kisses she'd have partaken in, but he couldn't have thought— She was a lady, she would never—
Her jaw fell open at the thought, and, with a deft CRACK, slapped him right across the face.
"Just because I kissed you does not mean I'm sleeping with you!" Winnie said heatedly, jabbing him with a finger.
Winnie Llewellyn was barging down his door because she was under the impression that he was the mystery bloke that had snogged her senseless New Year’s Eve. Louis knew this because his darling roommate had informed him in a series of squeaks and shrieks the following morning. He’d barely recovered from the shock of seeing Winnie at his doorstep before she’d gone from appreciating the view to slapping him silly.
Louis somehow managed to keep his stance, maybe it was some unknown force that was saving him from an even more embarrassing spill in this blasted towel. He snapped his head back to face Winnie, eyes wide with annoyance.
“I have no intention of sleeping with you, Winnifred,” Louis said quickly, rubbing his cheek.
She got some bloody nerve acting like a little priss, especially after how she’d manhandled Adian! His friend had made mentions of the wild, frantic snogging, so much different than his own evening. A proposal of sorts had been rushed through during Adian’s explanation, and Louis took a step back at the thought of it. No need to mention that and get himself slapped again. Louis reached for a cloak that was hanging next to the door and swung it on quickly; he should be at least semi-clothed if he was about to face off with the Kraken herself.
“And what, may I ask, gives me the pleasure of your presence?” he asked, making sure his cloak was secure with all its buttons. To save his best friend’s life, Louis had to carefully choose his words. Louis looked at her in feigned, irritated confusion, hoping that Adian stayed wherever he’d disappeared to for a while longer.
She gaped, well and truly, at Louis, rapidly beginning to wonder how she could have ever, even for eight quite passionate minutes, believed him to be marriageable material. Winnie knew seven years would not have led her judgment so astray.
"I am here," hissed Winnifred through clenched teeth, "because of your questionable behaviour on New Year's Eve."
Had he suffered short term memory loss? Perhaps he was embarrassed by his and Winnie's little tryst, and was now feigning ignorance of it?
The thought had Winnie's blood boiling, and she was certainly not going to be made to feel like a fool for something he had been just as party to! No one, absolutely no one, regretted locking lips with Winnifred Llewellyn.
"Simply because… liberties were allowed to be taken that night in no way," she made sure to enunciate both words, "excuses what you did."
No part of her, not even one small, nearly unheard part of her, admitted to her ire being drawn because she replayed those eight minutes to herself quite a bit more often than she was pleased with over the last week. Such a notion was, in fact, positively preposterous.
She tossed her head back and allowed her perfectly maintained curls to sweep over her shoulder. "As such," Winnie said regally, "I feel I am entitled to answers to my questions."
How easily it would have been to let slip that he was not the bloke who had snogged her, that it was a Gryffindor, a halfblood at that, that had jammed his tongue down her throat. So easy! But that would put Adian in a more than precarious position. He needed to tell Winnie that she had it all wrong, that whoever the bloke was had used his name and vanished into the night without a second thought. Would she believe him? Probably not, but it was what was best for Adian.
Louis opened his mouth to tell her the quickly made-up excuse and to get her out of his flat, but a thought occurred to him. What was Winnie doing here, a week after the events? Yes, Adian had wailed about a supposed engagement, but his friend had also seemed starry-eyed (and terrified) as he recalled the evening. Was Winnie...he couldn’t imagine her as in a tizzy as Adian could be, but if she’d was enraged and embarrassed by the night, she would’ve left after slapping him and not insisting on asking questions.
He let out a sigh. As much of an irritant as Winnie had been throughout the years, Louis knew he would feel...pah, guilty if he was cruel to her to get her to leave. Again, he’d have to use his words to his advantage. Louis sat against the arm of the couch, looking expectantly at Winnie.
“There was something strange in the air that night,” he admitted, thinking back to his own misadventures. A small grin played on his lips at the thought before looking back at Winnie. He straightened up. “I cannot explain my actions, but you can ask me anything.”
If Winnie had expected, at any point during this exchange, to not feeling increasingly bewildered and slightly offended, she had been sorely mistaken. She found Louis Bonaccord to be, at times, a highly tolerable person (aided substantially by his breeding, though her opinion still stood), but at this very moment in time, she had a wish to do somewhat grievous physical injury to his person.
Reconciling this surprisingly violent urge with having been provoked by and a deflection of her current position of vulnerability and slight naivety was hard, and she therefore chose not to do it.
Something had been strange that night, Winnie was sure of it, but that strange something was supposed to be the spark she and this man had shared, that had never before been felt in Winnie Llewellyn's lifetime. Not a bizarre occurrence to be breezily brushed off.
She made her second impulsive decision of the day then and there. Winnie marched right up to that smug face (a mean feat as she had been but ten inches away which hardly allowed room for a step much less a march), and pulled it right down to hers.
If he need a reminder of exactly what those inexplicable actions had been that night, then she was happy to provide one.
He’d tried not to flinch as he prepared himself for a second slap. Louis’ eyes widened as Winnie pulled his lips down onto hers, and he felt a great wave of guilt boil over in his chest. He shut his eyes, so not to be rude, and put his hands on the side of her face in preparation of the inevitable break. Louis’ pulled back moments later, not quickly, but with a smile full of regret. This felt terrible.
And not--! Winnie was not a terrible kisser, that was not it. She’d come here with a purpose and it was evident that she had hoped for something more. Louis, for a moment, felt like he had made a terrible mistake by not revealing Adian’s deception, but that surely would have led to his best friend’s demise, wouldn’t it not? Winnifred Llewellyn, caught snogging a halfblood Gryffindor? One with glasses? She had slapped him for less!
Louis let out a breath. She had beautiful eyes, he could understand how Adian had gotten so lost in them.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, dropping his hands from her face and running them down her arms before they fell to his lap. Louis’ shoulders slumped, and he felt quite miserable.
She would have to call it a lovely kiss. Perhaps under different circumstances, Winnie would even have called it magical, but those were not the circumstances under which she was currently being pushed away, so all she felt was hollow inside. Hollow, beginning to fill up with utter disbelief.
Plainly, coming here had been a mistake. There was a reason Winnifred had been bred and brought up a lady, and it was not so she could chase after boys she had been improprietous with at some throwaway social function. She began the meticulous task of salvaging the situation and extracting herself gracefully.
"Put it out of your mind, I beg you," she said, and though her voice was ladled with sarcasm, there was a tremulous note on the end of her sentence, brought on by what she thought, with no small amount of horror, was the unmistakable urge to cry. "It would be foolish to think something might arise from one too many glasses of punch."
Clasping the neck of her powder-blue cloak closed, she turned sharply on her heel as she marched away with her head held high, trying not to count the steps or seconds until she could disappear.
With her head still held high, she would not, Winnie vowed, acknowledge the tear that had found itself sliding down her cheek until she was well into her own home, into bed.
