In regard to the following chapter, I have two comments (apart from my usual gratitude at your return). First, this chapter is shorter than the previous one. This will be compensated by the two remaining chapters, each of which will roughly triple the size of this one. But in my defense, I can state that this chapter is precisely as long as it needs to be to make its point -- which brings me to my second comment. I wish everyone who reads this had a webcam, if only so I could see your eyes pop out of your head when you read the last sentence. (And no peeking -- I have an army of invisible house-elves under my spell, and one of them is peering over your shoulder right now! In the words of Professor McGonagall, "You have been warned.")
When Hermione's magical "lift" came to rest on what was undoubtedly the topmost floor of the building, she found that she was not standing in the familiar corridor, but in an alcove which let onto a chamber that was almost palatial in aspect.
She was looking into a sort of parlor, though this appellation was far too feeble to define its true nature. She would have wagered a month's pay that her and Harry's entire flat could have fit into this one room with space to spare. Its spaciousness was enhanced rather than diminished by its elegant furnishings, which were scattered about with a sort of artistic carelessness that could only have been achieved by design. Couches and divans dominated, abetted by a few high-backed chairs and even a pouf or two. Small, fringed pillows littered the couches and the floor alike, the latter of which was of highly polished wood that gleamed mirror-like in the gaps between numerous rugs which were wrought with what Hermione would swear were threads interwoven of silk and fine gold.
Paintings adorned the walls - not the pedestrian fare lining the corridors below, but masterworks of unquestioned taste and quality. Statuary of like station stood grandly upon marble pedestals or reposed upon one or another of the polished tables which dotted the spaces between the upholstered furnishings. A few gold-framed mirrors vied with the objets de'art along the walls, and Hermione sincerely hoped that none of these was of the enchanted wizard variety. Invisible she might be, but she was still solid enough to raise a row if she bumped into a table or stumbled over a pouf. If her own mirror at home was any example, even a muted cough might be her undoing. Even her footfalls on the hardwood floor might draw unwanted attention. Rather than attempt to navigate her way from rug to rug to mute her steps, she instead knelt carefully (keeping her Cloak snug about her) and untied her shoes, thereafter placing them carefully in her bag. It was with a renewed confidence that she glided into the room, her shoeless feet making no more sound than a shadow.
The silence within the vast space seemed unnatural somehow, and Hermione reasoned that the entire building was likely Charmed with a Silencing Spell for privacy's sake.
In spite of herself, Hermione could not help but be impressed with the splendor of her surroundings. What price must the occupant of these grand quarters command to keep it so lavishly appointed? Whoever occupied these opulent chambers must entertain only the most affluent clientele, wizards whose regard for a sack of Galleons was no more than she might reserve for a packet of crisps. This thought had the effect of stiffening Hermione's spine into a rod of unbending steel.
Ten Galleons or ten thousand, she thought disgustedly. She's still just a whore - a filthy, stinking whore!
But if that were true, what of Harry? Was the patron of sin less reprehensible than the purveyor? Hermione shook herself and returned her thoughts to her mission. She raised her left hand and gave her ring the familiar mental command. It immediately tugged to her right, and she followed its pull to a doorway which seemed to lead to a less ornate, more pedestrian area of the penthouse flat. Upon reflection, Hermione concluded that such a large area as this must comprise a full-time place of residence for its owner and not merely a "place of business." This seemed confirmed when she peered cautiously around a corner and found herself looking into a strikingly modern kitchen that appeared to incorporate concepts both wizard and Muggle. A gas stove not unlike her mother's (an electric appliance would not work in magical surroundings, of course) stood beside a magic-fire stove nearly identical to that used by Molly Weasley at the Burrow (though this one was much newer). Hermione might have found such incongruity intriguing under other circumstances. But she had more pressing concerns now, which effectively quashed her natural curiosity for the nonce.
Two doorways beckoned in the far wall, and Hermione, following the pull of her ring, approached the one on the right. Apparently, the Silencing Charm covering the parlor (and, presumably, the bedroom) was relaxed here, for no sooner did Hermione enter the kitchen than she heard voices coming from the right doorway. And as the speakers' voices came to her ears, she felt a chill as if a Disillusionment Charm had suddenly been placed on her.
"Harry, Harry, Harry," came a sickening-sweet voice of exaggerated delight. "You're the very devil, you are!"
This declaration was answered by a throaty laugh in a deeper, decidedly masculine voice - a voice Hermione knew well.
"Harry," she whispered, inhaling a tortured sob beneath the folds of her Cloak. "Oh…Harry…"
Struggling forward on legs suddenly turned to rubber, Hermione edged around the doorway and found herself, to her mild surprise, in a sort of open patio that looked out onto the skyline of London. It was a one-way view, she knew, as the entire penthouse was quite invisible to outside eyes, be they wizard or Muggle. She pulled her own eyes from the open sky, and they fell abruptly on two people seated at a wrought-iron table surfaced with what appeared to be nothing less than snow-white virgin marble (which descriptive irony was not lost on Hermione, even now). Clapping a hand to her mouth to keep from gasping aloud, Hermione felt her legs give way, and she sank to the tiled mosaic floor and pressed herself against the wall beside the doorway. Feeling both courage and anger draining away, she curled up, child-like, hugging her knees to her face as she beheld the pair sitting less than a dozen paces in front of her, their muted laughter ringing in her ears like the chimes in Big Ben tower.
"More tea, Cassandra?" Harry asked, reaching toward a cart upon which sat a silver tea service that would not have been out of place in Buckingham Palace.
Cassandra shook her head, sending strands of midnight-black hair flickering across the pale oval of her face.
"You didn't come here today to drink tea," she said in a silky voice, winking a long-lashed eye wickedly. "Any more than all the other days this week." Harry smiled weakly as he withdrew his hand from the tea cart and sat back in his chair.
"No," he said in a somewhat sheepish voice, "I didn't. Well, then, I guess we'd best get down to it."
"Right you are," Cassandra smiled seductively. "After all, you're not my only client today, you know. Business is business, after all."
Giving her head a carelessly regal toss, Cassandra rose cat-like from her chair and turned in the direction of a nearby cupboard that reminded Hermione of nothing so much as her parents' liquor cabinet. But Cassandra had barely left her chair before Harry drew his wand and said, "Allow me."
Pointing his wand at the cabinet, Harry said, "Alohomora." The inlaid door sprang open, whereupon Harry said, "Accio!" As Hermione watched, her arms tightening around her knees, a square, cut-glass bottle emerged and streaked toward Harry. Bewilderment wrinkled Hermione's brow as Harry caught the bottle and pulled out the egg-sized stopper. The bottle gave every appearance of containing some sort of spirit, whether firewhiskey or some other intoxicant, it was impossible to say. But Harry did not drink alcohol! Or was that merely a pose - just another sham among the many Hermione was discovering about her husband of late? After nearly eight years, Hermione thought she knew virtually everything there was to know about Harry. It was beginning to look as if she knew nothing about him at all.
But a moment later, when Harry Summoned a crystal goblet from another cupboard and set it before Cassandra, the truth hit Hermione with the force of a physical blow. Given the nature of this "establishment," that bottle, its appearance notwithstanding, could hold naught but one thing.
This was confirmed when Harry tilted the bottle and began to fill the goblet with a thick, glutinous substance which, even at that distance, assaulted Hermione's nostrils with an odor as of overcooked cabbage. A moment later, as Hermione's stomach tightened and her blood turned to ice, Harry produced a plastic bag from a pocket of his jacket and extracted from it a long, very tangled - and very brown - hair. He immersed this in the gobletful of potion, stirred it briefly with his wand, and looked at Cassandra expectantly.
Her nose wrinkling with undisguised revulsion, Cassandra muttered, "The things a girl has to do for a Galleon these days," and promptly downed the contents of the goblet in three gulps.
The change was almost instantaneous. Though Hermione had herself experienced the sensation of changing into someone (or, in her particular case, some thing) else in her second year at Hogwarts, this ill-prepared her to witness such a transformation in another. The shock was further compounded by the foreknowledge of whom Cassandra was about to change into. For there was no longer a shred of doubt in Hermione's hammering brain.
For a few moments, Cassandra's exotic face writhed and bubbled, looking not unlike the surface of the potion itself as Hermione had observed in the confines of Moaning Myrtle's loo all those years ago. Then it was as if a silent explosion were unfolding in slow motion. Like hot chocolate leaping from a lawn sprinkler, Cassandra's raven hair erupted into a dull, chestnut brown, its former sleekness inflating into a wild, bushy mane. Her face melted like wax, reshaping itself almost instantly. Its oval contours became rounder, her aquiline nose shortened, her full lips thinned noticeably. Her obsidian eyes lost their seductive obliqueness, dulling to a deep mocha.
Nor was her face alone affected. Her supple curves shrank, her very nature diminishing. Her ample bosom, the better part of which was revealed by her plunging neckline, retreated like a deflating balloon. Her long, shapely legs, which she had purposefully dangled invitingly from the folds of her dressing gown, shortened. The gown itself, which had clung like a second skin to her figure, hung limply now, its sleeves falling to the very tips of her fingers.
Holding the now empty goblet before her, Cassandra regarded her reflection in the polished surface with something less than approval. But almost immediately - spurred, no doubt, by the professionalism demanded by her occupation - she smiled over the rim of her goblet at Harry, who, to Hermione's utter revulsion, smiled back in an almost embarrassed way. And the face at which he smiled - into whose eyes he looked with unmistakable longing - was no longer Cassandra's. It was now the mirror image of his wife's.
Unable to watch any longer, Hermione buried her face in her hands, holding in an anguished sob with the greatest of efforts. She wanted nothing more in that moment than to scream at the top of her lungs, to cry, to beat her fists against the wall until the stone cracked or her flesh turned to bloody pulp. She wanted…she wanted to curl up and die…
When at last Hermione looked up again, her eyes blurred with tears she could no longer restrain, the patio was deserted save for herself. Struggling upright through a profound lethargy, she leaned weakly against the wall, striving desperately to clear her thoughts sufficiently to choose a course of action. But before she could summon even the ghost of a rational thought, voices came to her ears from a doorway opposite that through which she had entered the open patio. She wanted desperately not to listen to those voices, but she found, whether by inner weakness or secret desire, she was unable to do otherwise. And the words that penetrated her numbed brain lit a fuse which set off a veritable explosion inside her, snapping her from her anguished despair like a faceful of icy water.
"Shake a leg, Honey-Boy," came Cassandra's voice - no, Hermione's voice! - with a sickening, cloying sweetness that made the invisible listener nearly choke with disgust. "Hurry up and get out of those clothes so we can get down and dirty, lover!"