6th arrondissement
Paris, France

Juliette sighed idle content, turned toward the warmth, and coiled into (a sleeping?) Landis. Her palms spread softly on his back, taking and offering the comforts of physical closeness. There was affection in the touch, too, and her eyes fluttered open just enough to spy the back of his head against her pillow.

They had made up... and lost little time in the act of making up, and had spent stretches of summer days taking refuge from the stormy Scotland highlands in her flat splayed over the immaculately planned streets of Paris. A healthy amount of that time had been spent in bed, sleeping and not sleeping.

The mattress gave a shake, and then other. Juliette furrowed her light brows and opened her eyes further still, hands slipping down Landis back and away. Neither of them were in throes of a nightmare, the present victims of an Unforgivable curse, or taking part in some other, slightly more pleasant activity.

She peaked above his shoulder, blue eyes locking immediately onto the culprit. Louis stared back, paws on the white duvet, mere inches from Landis. He appeared ever the unimaginably adorable, needy thing, invoking in her a sense of affection that did not always extend to real children. Certainly, of course, her bedfellow seemed to prefer neither. Some of the ones in her classroom were a nightmare, products of a Troll generation that made wonder if she’d ever been their age. But, then they’d existed then, too. She squinted in remembrance, glanced again at Landis (whose own existence as a child at-some-point-in-time she would not have believed without photographic evidence), and then looked promptly back to Louis with a sweetly reproachful expression tinged just so with retreat. He took it as an invitation and backed onto his hind legs and launched himself.

Juliette winced. It was a smile, too. With idle resolve, she fell back from Landis' side and into her pillow, closing her eyes with purposeful bidding.

Landis was not asleep. He was exquisitely aware of the unfolding situation, and of the pup who promised to ruin the lazy warmth of a Parisian morning.

They had been staring at each other for at least a minute, but unlike normal people who would have recognized the glint of premeditated murder in Landis' frosty blues, the puppy seemed to think eye contact was actually a declaration of love or at least some delightful game. Landis narrowed his eyes - the puppy's tail wagged harder. He narrowed them to slits that would have sent all but the stupidest Gryffindors fleeing - the force of the pup's lashing extremity whipped his little body from side to side in a quivering desire to please.

Landis didn't buy it. He'd been so careful to create a puppy-proof barrier around the corner of the living room too far gone to save. The thing must have gotten out, and all the pathetic wriggling in the world wouldn't have him forgive that fact. Interruption now was marginally more bearable than it would have been several hours ago, but given the number of times he'd been thrown off his stride by its attentive stare Landis was not impressed at its current, no doubt temporary, restraint.

That was when Juliette leaned over him. He felt the path of her gaze blaze warn and secret over his shoulder, the permission the pup'd been waiting for.

Damn it, Juliette.

All gangly limbs and adoring eyes it cried and grinned and tumbled about, bouncing off his back undeterred before burying its nuzzle in its mistress' side and then popping back up with a huff. Landis didn't have to see it to know what it was doing. This was not an uncommon dance.

Landis' shoulders tightened, and he pressed his face deeper into the pillow. Back still turned on the romping pup, he muttered Juliette's name and then a pillow-muffled, "Ça m'agace."*


*It annoys me.

Louis tripped over Landis as if the man were part a particularly warm (and cold) pillow. Even through barely-lifted lids, she could see the approaching shadow in the corner of her eye, before it disappeared again and Louis’ chocolate nose nuzzled into her. She opened her eyes a little more, turned her head to the side, and spied the puppy’s tail wagging ferociously while his face became lost in his owner’s familiar scent.

Her eyes drifted to Landis just as Louis’ head surfaced; the dog licked her arm and Juliette smiled with breathy amusement. She smoothed his silky coat gingerly and opened her eyes properly when she realized her lover was not fooled.

Still, she couldn’t help smiling. She pursed her lips at Louis, eyebrows raised in not-so-convincing chastisement... and something that seemed to say, ‘what will we do with him?’ The puppy tilted his head, making a whiny, confused noise before plopping down again, going soft as a rag doll under Juliette’s hand.

“He adores you,” she lied[1]. Her voice was mild, but her tone suggested she was framing a careful debate, attempting to appeal to whatever emotion lay somewhere deep down there. If there was anyone in all of Paris who could not be persuaded by a puppy on this fine, sunny morning, it was Landis Morgan. Of course. And Louis did not seem wonderfully pleased at having to share Juliette, either, but he hid it better; his pawing was cute, his barking charismatic. It was what dogs did. When he scratched at the door at night, whining to be let in, it was almost painful to ignore him, though Juliette gave in to that request for Landis’ sake. “It’s why he always waits on your side.” Now she was speaking to Louis, eying him, trying to get him to agree to this truth. He stared back at her with wan blue eyes, his innocence as transparent at Juliette pretending to be asleep.

She sighed, pushing his puppy rump, trying to shoo him to the end of the bed. He obliged with a tail curled under and ears that spoke of great suffering. Juliette moved closer to Landis again, biting a smile as she reached for his shoulder. She trailed her fingers over his skin much more carefully than she had Louis’. They required different sorts of attention. “I don’t know how he got in, really. He must think you’re playing games with him.” She was sure she knew what sort of response this would garner, but he did look so strangely endearing with his face pressed into the pillow like that. She would have liked to capture a photo but she was sure there would be a wonderful argument if she ever took one, let alone if it accidentally found its way into the line of vision of one of their colleagues. She couldn’t help but tease him. “We could train him to bring in the Prophet.” What a shame so much of the ‘news’ was framed exactly like an English tabloid. She kissed his shoulder, smiling against it. Though it was amusing to watch, she tried to rouse him from his pillow before he suffocated in his annoyance. “You can’t hate a puppy forever, Landis, it’s impossible.”

1.	She is speaking in French unless otherwise noted.

"He adores you."

She trailed fingers and kisses over his shoulder until Landis, coaxed out of complaints, turned over. Before toothpaste and comb he was a little blurrier, harsh angles softened by cotton sheets and sleep, tousled hair and shirtlessness. Awake, yes. Alert, yes. His eyes were clear and blue. But he also had a crease across his cheek from the pillow, and there was little that humanized even the frostiest aristocrat like pillow creases. He regarded her doubtfully, having caught the tail end of her smile against his skin.

Of course, he was annoyed, but it was hard to seem serious without clothes on. Though Juliette wouldn't have taken him seriously even in a three-piece suit. It was refreshing and exasperating all at once, though Landis was aware he may have perpetuated her bad behavior by his presence in her bed in Paris. Oh, professionalism. So nice while it lasted. Well - he stretched a little, fingers grazing the bare curve of her hip - maybe it wasn't so bad.

"It pissed in my shoes last Thursday," he said at last, in English, giving her a look. "It waits on my side because we both know if I don't get up it'll do it again." He was wise to the ways of its weaponized bladder. So, he suspected, was she.

Juliette grinned wider, more openly as he turned to face her, revealing a pillow crease most complimentary to his pale skin. She suppressed a laugh and rested her face some few inches from his, initiating without permission one of their many staring games. Her hand moved from his shoulder to his cheek as his fingers grazed her hip.

She sobered obligingly, looking for a moment almost serious-- like a wizards resources professional at the Ministry of Magic-- as he offered the ‘look’ and a succinct account. “Did he?” She echoed, not missing a beat as she changed Landis’ ‘it’ to a more personal pronoun. She did not sound so concerned as her face would have him think. “You think my dog is blackmailing you,” she summarized. She raised a light brow. Her thumb was now caressing the spot where the pillow had made its mark. “Louis,” she asked, not taking her eyes from Landis. “Can dogs blackmail men?”

Though she didn’t look, she knew the dog would react to its name.

Juliette, of course, knew that Landis spoke the truth. “He’s only a puppy,” she reiterated, like a parent unwilling to hear a word against her child. “Once he’s bigger,” (And he would get bigger.) “He’ll know better.” Which implied Juliette would teach him. She was taking her sweet time. Indulgence was culturally ingrained.

Landis' expression was the very picture of put-upon skepticism. Such teasing so early in the morning was really unfair. And when she involved her dog as a collaborator... "Don't put it like that. Animals are entirely capable of manipulation."

Regardless he pulled her closer, his arm slipping around the small of her back. He knew from experience how well her head fit under the crook of his chin, how she pressed stomach-to-stomach all soft curves to his harsh angles. Her wrists were fragile and her skin milky, and her sheets smelled like perfume. He traced idle designs on the soft skin of her back. His eyes transferred past her face to meet the puppy's, blue to blue, the cold to the curious, not unlike a demonstration of territory. Obviously, he did not intend to share.

It was not until he'd worked at Hogwarts with its long breaks that he considered summer a time of leisure. Such pure laziness seemed almost sinful. But what if he'd had plans for this morning...? Such a damned little pest.

"Once he's bigger, he'll take up more of the bed," he muttered darkly.

She looked at him with a mixture of mild surprised and warm humor, a willing-to-accept-this-bit-of-truth-for-the-moment expression.“I have not had the pleasure,” she confessed lightly. “Of being manipulated by something on all-fours.” She tapped a finger over his lips and chin, smiling from her shared bit of his pillow. “That wasn’t human.”

She was pulled closer, and could hardly complain. If Louis had gotten over being relegated to the less desirable end of the bed, Juliette was all eyes on the mattress’ Welsh resident, his body against hers. (The dog got plenty of attention, more than was probably good for it-- though Juliette would never admit that to Landis-- and would survive). “Oh, you’re plenty trim, Mr. Morgan.” Only his name was spoken in English. Mr. Morgan. She kissed his chest, little, reassuring kisses. “You’ll both still fit.”

She reached a hand from the warmth of blankets and Landis, and pressed it with gentle sternness to his shoulder. She forced him flat on his back and sat up beside him on legs easily folded to the side. Leaning over him so that her hair was everywhere (including falling into strands of his), she kissed him again, on the mouth. She lingered there for a moment before settling down again, her lips moving back to his chest, to the trinket there. She still recalled, frequently and with fondness, his initial reaction to her own matching jewelry in a post-apocalyptic dungeon. It made her grin against his skin.

“I’ll buy him his own bed,” she promised, cheerfully dismissive, as she sat up again. She moved to the other side of the bed, reaching for her wand. Louis perked up, clearly invested in Juliette’s sudden movement-that-did-not-involve-entertaining-the-blond-intruder. Juliette settled into the middle of the bed, smiled, and waved her wand at him as if it were a toy, but Louis’ attention was quite suddenly on the red laser-like dot that bounced around his paws and his bit of the bed. He let out a mumbly, nippy bark of suspicion as he watched it, his moodiness at the dot’s pace growing exponentially in a matter of seconds. He paused only to look up at Landis-- maybe Landis had been right about animals and manipulation-- before taking off after the dot as it flew off the bed and toward the open door.

Landis gave her what was intended to be a dark look but ended up a smile, the tug of his lips betraying infinite laughing reluctance at such a stereotypically Juliette answer. There was no point in protesting that he hadn't meant it like that. "You're hilarious," he replied, settling back against the sheets at her insistence. His hands went out to cradle her as she leaned over him, to catch her and keep her where she was. His palms fit easily over the curve of her hips, thumbs uncurling to stroke against her stomach; she pressed lips to his as he slid hands down. It was so curious the difference between now and months ago. He'd never needed to reveal all of himself in any romance and didn't intend to now, but the closeness was nice. Now he was with her for reasons more than that she looked so good in his bed, though he would be hard-pressed to vocalize any of them. This unfurling of warmth, this softening, was miles away from what Juliette apparently felt for him. But "I love you" was an easy lie to tell, a phrase prettied up for polite society, better than "you're fantastic in bed" and "I admire your humor," or the disappointingly vague "I feel comfortable around you." If he broke things off with her again, he'd do it better. For now, he didn't have the intention.

She coiled on his chest, close and warm. He liked the look of her from this angle, liked the hot press of her lips and tongue, but was increasingly aware of the dog's presence. Was that strange? It was right there on the bed - Landis didn't perform for an audience. She moved away from him then and he, with some reluctance, let her go.

He watched her solve the dog problem. There was no need to smile though he knew she would turn back to him; he was happy, but Landis had never put stock in unnecessary expressions. He just watched her, and the sunlight in the room shaded his eyes a pale even grey as they lingered on the lines of her body.

He did move to take up his own wand and lock the door behind the pup, not entirely trusting Juliette to do it for him. Dropping it back in its bedside spot he reached out for her again, his hands sliding around her waist as he kissed her. They were already awake and would get up soon, but the dog couldn't be allowed to steal from them the pleasant leisure of the morning. Had it not interfered he might have woken her differently, and Landis - being a gentleman - was keen to make amends.

Juliette smiled at the click of the lock, courtesy of Landis' wand, and returned to him most obligingly. His visage, which could be so unchanging and yet perfectly adaptable to his needs-- intimidating students, disapproving of colleagues, letting Louis know that he was not fooled... and, generally, projecting fantastic, centuries' planned purity-- was something which Juliette found perpetually pleasing, something which seemed to suit her gaze and the pleasantries of her apartment (whatever her taste in decor compared with Landis' own). But collecting him like a vase, she was not; despite the icy thrill of the librarian in his purebred sharpness, fine, collared dress shirts, and that imposing wand in hand, Juliette knew that he was not so cold to the touch, knew what he looked like without those things (except the refined profile, which was as striking here as in the Great Hall, the dungeons, the cobbled, gingerbread high street that led from the Three Broomsticks back to their staff quarters). Juliette was quite content with this being more than it had been before, and she knew that Landis knew it. So she said nothing as she pressed back into him, her snowy skin against his angular physique, which was not made of marble after all.

-------

While many lingered at cafes and book shops in the streets below, ambled upon sidewalks, the pair locked in Juliette's apartment took their breakfast in other ways...

And would eventually have a proper if very late breakfast, too.

It was some unmeasured time later, when Louis had ceased hunting for dots of light, had given up trying to get through securely fastened doors, and had fallen into a needy heap of slumber beside his perfectly full bowl of food, that Juliette emerged from her bedroom. She braided back her hair as she floated to the kitchen in a robe, letting it fall un-fussily against the silk before flicking her wand at the espresso machine.

And, with only the briefest, most affectionate inner roll of her eyes, the tea kettle on the stove.

The morning papers lay on the table, French and English both, delivered through an open window in the living room. Juliette’s own owl, who had delivered letters to her grandmother the previous evening, stood proudly upon its perch in a shaded corner, nestled into its feathers, neck compacted, sleeping in the strangely alert way that owls were wont to do. It was above Louis’ antics; the dog did not even exist in the owl’s world, though surely it tried on a daily basis to ruffle the bird’s feathers.

While the coffee and tea brewed and boiled themselves, and croissants warmed, Juliette glanced over the headlines. Louis stirred from his lethargy and made his rounds, unsure whether to beg at Juliette’s ankles or sit in front of the oven with the hopes of a croissant Accio’ing itself in his direction. His indecision caught Juliette’s attention. “Yes, Landis would love to take you out after breakfast,” she told him.

Landis stayed in bed, half-awake, while Juliette took her shower, rising at last when she disappeared into the living room with a flick of her robe sash and a pointed smirk. He went automatically to get dressed, shrugging on one of his many business shirts before reaching for his trousers, but what was the point? Who knew when they would leave the apartment. He left the shirt open over his boxers but put away again the trousers, then wandered into the living area in search of Juliette. He found her standing at the table looking down at the morning's paper, the dog about, kettle on. The air already smelled like coffee and something baking, fresh with the breeze from the open window - very unlike London, that, the sun falling into the apartment, the air stirring, even paired with city sounds. He moved in behind her so he could read the headlines over her shoulder, sliding arms around her waist.

"Anything new?" he asked, attention already wandering, distracted by the clean scent of her damp hair. He was very relaxed, a rare state of being for Landis. It showed in his easy touches, his careless words, the line of his body fluid rather than stiff. There was something to be said for vacation and lazy living - and accomplishment in one's line of work.

St. Mungo’s unwanted renovations splayed the front page, a week and counting. Today’s recap and Ministry quotes, however, were peppered with a new bit of information, and a handful of well-known names. “Your cousin will be contributing to a gala to raise money for St. Mungo’s.” Juliette’s eyes lingered on the page a moment longer as she took perused a few more lines. She turned in his arms, placing loosely balled fists (one wand-clad) on either side of his unbuttoned shirt, toying with the material between thumb and fingers. Though after her last parting with Darian, Juliette had adopted Landis’ attitude toward the other Morgan, she was still fond of his shirts-- which were multifunctional for Juliette, who enjoyed undressing Landis and then wearing them. She stared up at Landis. “Should we donate?”

Over his shoulder, she began directing hot drinks to pour themselves. The croissants, properly warm now, and floated out of the oven, their delightful scent growing strong. Breakfast soon laid itself on the table.

Juliette turned lithely and sat down, expertly ignoring any beggars at her ankle. She placed a croissant on a plate and stirred her espresso. “You know they’ll be asking for comments on the security measures for the Tournament.” She glanced at Landis as she lifted her cup, her face pleasant, slightly humored at the prospect of a reporter approaching him.