take me higher;

Poppy’s wand reached out to light the rolled paper between his lips before he could, burning the end of it as he inhaled. His lungs vibrated, and the drug leaked into him, skewing his vision momentarily and then curbing the emotions. Smoke suspended in the air around them, and Florean looked over at her.

“Did I just hear what I think I heard?” He said, taking another hit, “Show you how? As in.. show you..” He held up gillyweed in front of him, “how to… be the worst prefect in the school? Of course I will.” He scoffed to himself, a smile of wonderment across his face. 

Florean handed it to her, “Uh, so you just.. like.. suck it in. But don’t keep it in your mouth and then blow out because then you’re wasting it and I’ll yell at you. Take it in like you’re taking a breath.” He said, watching her carefully.

She watched him carefully as he inhaled, watching the rise of his chest and the slight arch to his neck before he released the smoke in a stream. It was beautiful, in a way she’d never considered before. Delicate, like a form of art she’d never thought possible, and she was mesmerized by him. It wasn’t new for Poppy, however. She spent most of her time with Florean, lost in his mannerisms and his words. 

A smile crept onto her lips as he took in her request, but there was no way he could have been more shocked by her words than she was herself. She let out a soft chuckle at his estimation of her, shaking her head. “You know, I’m hardly the worst prefect in the school.” she retorted as she took the joint from his fingers carefully. She couldn’t help but compare it to holding a bomb, with all the same delicacy and uncertainty. It welt foreign between her fingers. “In fact, as far as prefects go, I think I’m doing quite alright. It took me five years to come this far.” 

She felt nerves bubbling up inside of her as he began to direct her. “You? Yell at me?” she retorted, glancing over at him with a quizzical expression. “I’d like to see that some time.” She didn’t believe him for a moment, and she probably never would. 

Seeing the slant of Poppy’s bones under so much living skin had made Florean understand that he would never be okay without her. Her eyes calcified him, and he swore that his lungs lied still when her lips met his. Captured in pixels like a butterfly under glass, pinned down by his synapses that would not synthesize Poppy from his head, he wanted her to understand that this was about more than longing; He was giving her his desperation. He never wanted to be this fragile. He did not ask to splinter under her fingertips, and now he only wanted her hands back on his shoulders.

“I’m only strong because I have someone to be strong for.” He said, looking down at her. “Sit with me.” Florean returned to the ground once more, his knees pressed to his chest to keep the warmth in. When he looked at her through his breath clouding in the air, he saw the architect of his fulfillment. He thought of their midnight swims at the creek, howling like wolves from the rock scree on the other side of the mountain, convincing each other to eat wild berries and pray that they were lacking in poison.

Florean reached into his coat for a moment and pulled out a firmly rolled joint packed with dried gillyweed, “I’m sorry, I know you don’t like it, but it’s just one of those nights.” He said smiling, lighting it between his lips. 

“I think you need to do what you said in the room of requirement that night. Just let loose. Don’t worry about anyone else. Don’t worry about acting like you have it all together. Don’t worry about being strong. Figure out who Poppy is. That’s what nights like this are for.”

Having strength for the benefit of another was something Poppy understood more than anyone else probably could have. She had no retort to make that wouldn’t have been hypocritical, so instead, she just joined him in sitting, her side pressed to his from thigh to shoulder. The heat radiated off of him in waves and she drank it in like she was dying of thirst in a desert; she was desperate for the contact. 

She watched him pull out the joint and her face automatically slipped into a frown. She sucked her bottom lip in between her teeth, not wanting to fight about rules or anything at all; it wasn’t like it mattered to her with Florean. “It’s alright,” she responded decidedly, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knee, watching him carefully.

In truth, the process fascinated her. She didn’t keep up with the practice, and she didn’t allow herself to be around it if she could help it, but that didn’t mean the mystery she was left with wasn’t intriguing. As his words sunk into her mind, her she looked at the small cylinder between his lips, she made a choice.