A/N- I know it has been a terribly long time since I updated this, but I think I have it all figured out now. Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed. The next update shouldn't take anywhere near as long.
Hermione
The girl sitting between them draws her fingers through her hair. Smooth and fluid as warm honey, it pours over her shoulders, a golden frame shimmering about her face as she turns from one boy to the other. Twenty-four carat, halo gold. The same bright, rich shade as the lamp-lit coin beneath my fingertips.
But it's rude to stare, so I drag my gaze from where they sit cloistered in the corner and go back to smoothing the two pages of today's Prophet I found stuck in the slats on the bench outside. I focus on page three, mulling through the second halves and mid-sections of stories whose beginnings I haven't read. I study the advertisement for the new Fluid-Write quill, consider the dubiously worded survey about the food quality at St. Mungo's. I grimace at the photo of Minister Shacklebolt drinking a milkshake through a stripey straw.
…while Mrs. Topsport maintains the contaminated roots were purchased from the upstart firm of Dormire and Winks...
…able to contain the fire, shortly. Damage is estimated to exceed 2000 Galleons…
…says new standards will assure all recruits are proficient at conjuring and casting the appropriate…
The last bit piques my interest, but my attention is lassoed away by a blast of sound behind me- an odd whinny of a laugh echoing, jangling off the window panes. It doubles in volume, grows legs, and gallops throughout the pub. I lift my head, then think better of turning to look for the source. A flash of copper calls me back to the corner.
Ron is smiling. And this girl, from what I see, she smiles a lot, too. Genuine smiles assaulting her entire face; prying her lips apart, pinching at her cheeks, pulling the corners of her eyes. And she laughs, great surges of melodic joy bouncing from her body. Harry and Ron both laugh with her. This interloper. This fan-girl sycophant. They all laugh together, and I can tell that, whatever she is, she's welcome.
This girl.
A face so sunshine warm and sweet. She sits in the place where I used to sit.
Standing across the room at the bar, I am very still, waiting, well-hidden by the veil of smoke issuing forth from the old man beside me. There is plenty to see and hear this night in the pub. Through the haze, I study the ridge of dust gathered at the base of the cupboards. I breathe in the burned fruit smell of the old man's enormous pipe. I focus on the damp pep pep pep sound his lips make around the stem. I give up on the reading and attempt to lose myself in his conversation.
"I keep tellin' 'im, yeh can't keep charmin' them cabbages. They're damn near inedible as is,"
"Aye. Tough as trotters. But, these young bucks, they know it all."
The newest cloud of smoke tumbles across itself and blankets the tap pulls behind the bar. I follow its trajectory back to the corner where Ron's hand scuttles across the table top, his long fingers creeping-spider's legs- and I remember the last time I knew it all. The last time his stories were still our stories and I knew just how he'd tell them, weeks ago in the corridor outside our flat.
It was Friday night and I was rushing. The broken heel of my left shoe lay on the pavement outside, and I couldn't open the door for the butter slicking up the knob. The wine was losing its chill, nestled in the carrier bag beside our dinner, absorbing the heat from the take-away containers of lasagne and pasta fagiole, but it didn't really matter. A quick charm could fix it, make everything perfect, again. Standing on our welcome mat, I knew I'd pile the rolls on the green plate, then wash the garlic butter from my hands with the lemon and thyme soap in the kitchen, and then Ron and I would eat. I'd clear up, and then we'd grab our bags and Apparate to Weymouth, where we'd meet my parents for a weekend by the sea -- away from the sofa, and Last-Sunday-At-The-Burrow, and the freshly mended vase on the sideboard. I knew that night we would stay up late, have semi-public sex on the balcony off our room, then go to sleep on our own pillows that I'd bring from home. We'd wake up tomorrow, breakfast with my parents, walk the town, then, after dinner, we'd take off our shoes and stumble along the cold, dry sand of the shore. We'd forget the last two weeks ever happened, and we'd come home Sunday evening and order the take-away we were to share with Harry, feeling like the same people we were a year and a half ago when he put this ring on my finger and promised to drive me mad for the rest of my life. This is how "from now on" would begin. So, I knocked with my elbow and called his name, never doubting for a second he would hear me, that he'd come open the door.
And he did hear me. He did open the door. But instead of a half-full overnight bag sagging beside the door frame, his old school trunk filled the entire corner. And then the world broke down, rearranged itself, and sprung back up a warped, mangled mess. And in that second, I knew it all again- or at least all that mattered: that he hadn't left the flat that day. That, when he finally did walk out the door that night, I wouldn't be with him. That, once he was gone, he wouldn't be coming back. I'd read this script, knew it by heart. In all honesty, I helped write it. Now, there was only one scene left to play. I lifted my eyes from the trunk and forced a smile.
"Sorry," I said. "I couldn't twist the knob," I lifted the dripping sack, offering proof.
"'S okay," he said, eyeing the carrier bag, his empty hands dangling.
"I'd say you've over-packed." The words wound off my tongue, light, sticky as spider's thread. The handle of the carrier bag twisted, slicing into my wrist. The sack with the buttered rolls was one shift of the fingers from splitting, spilling.
And Ron said, "Erm…"
"What are you doing?" Even as I asked, I was shaking my head, already denying whatever he might have had to say.
He swallowed, sucked in a breath to go on. "Maybe we should sit. Is that… is that Rudolphs?" He sighed, frowned, reached for the rolls. "Blimey, Hermione. You weren't supposed to have food."
I sank down on my missing heel, pulled the bag from his grasp.
"I wasn't…? When have I ever failed to feed you, Ron?"
It wasn't the question I really wanted to ask, but the bag had finally split. Skin-warm butter flowed down my fingers, pooled in my palm. It slid between my knuckles, the separate rivulets merging on the back of my hand where, weight overwhelming viscosity, it dripped onto the shining parquet floor of the entranceway.
Pep.
Pep.
Ron closed his eyes, sighed through his nose. "Okay, look," he began. "It's… it's like ripping off a plaster, this."
I wanted to point out that this wasn't an answer to my question. I wanted to cock one eyebrow in utter contempt and ask him what the hell he knew about ripping off plasters, because, to my knowledge, he'd never had to do so, not once in his life, seeing as Mummy could always wave her wand and fix him right up. I wanted to sling the bag of rolls straight at his face and tell him that our relationship was not a minor abrasion. But I didn't, because that was why, that was exactly why, he was leaving.
Instead, I stared at the third button down on the fitted blue shirt I had bought for him last spring. He hadn't worn it above twice since, but apparently our break-up was occasion enough to get his kit on.
He said, "I think we both know it's been coming to this for a long time. Honestly, I, er, kept waiting for you to tell me to pack it in, but... well, I s'pose I should have known you'd never give up."
I knew after he left we wouldn't speak again for a very long time, so I stood there, butter creeping down my wrist and soaking the black silk lining of my coat, and I just listened, wrapped myself in the sound of his voice, as he kindly explained why he had to get away from me.
"I think, maybe, we used to sort of bring out the better parts of each other, you know? But now… we're just… we're horrible to each other. All the time. That, or we're not speaking at all."
Crookshanks was helping himself to the spot on the floor, his tongue scratching loud as a scrub brush on flagstones in the spaces between Ron's words. Butter still dripped, coating the top of his head, turning his ginger fur slick, mud brown.
"And no one's happy, Hermione. I know you're not. And for as much as you like a challenge, this…us… it's… it's all work, now. Hard work. And, you know me,…" He scuffed his boot against the floor. Crookshanks flinched away. "Lazy."
The handles of the carrier bag cutting my skin. The warm, pungent smell of garlic. The red pain grinding from my up-jutting hip. I opened my mouth, grasped for my lines, but I couldn't remember what I was supposed to say.
I held out the arm with the carrier bag. We both watched it spin as it un-twisted, and then I finally looked up into his eyes. I hadn't done my bit. We were supposed to destruct in an epic, blazing row, but here, at the true end of it all, I simply could not deliver.
"Well," I said, then stood with my mouth open, waiting for something other than I love you please don't do this to roll out. But nothing sensible would come, so I held out the carrier bag for him to grab, and then the sodding bread. "Take this, then." The greased ring slid forward easily, pushed by my pinky and thumb. It dangled from the tip of my finger, diamond down, gold band dull beneath the glaze of butter.
Ron just stared, as if he didn't realize this would be part of the evening's proceedings.
"Go on. Take it."
He worked the carrier bag down his forearm and shifted the rolls against his chest. He reached out tentatively, exhaled audibly when his fingers closed around the band. And, as much as everything before had hurt, that one little breath was a harpoon to the heart. His face relaxed, his shoulders shrunk down from his neck. And, as he slipped the ring into his jeans pocket, I wondered, what, exactly, did he expect?
Something awful. From me, he expected something awful.
So, I did the kind thing and held the door for him. He levitated his trunk to the downstairs foyer, nicking the wallpaper in one spot and practically crushing Mrs. Whigby's dachshund as she napped on the rug. He started down the stairs, then stopped. He swallowed, then almost looked back at me over his shoulder.
"Thanks for dinner."
Friday. Take-away from Rudolph's. All that rushing just to wait at the top of the staircase, to give him those last twelve steps to change his mind. Rushing and rushing, only to turn back into the flat and close the door.
Across the pub, in their corner, Harry is talking about Quidditch, his hand tracing a flight path in the air above their table. Ron steals glances at the girl in my chair. And I wonder, the night he left, did he ever fully turn and look back to the top of the stairs? I wonder, did he even think to say 'goodbye'?
It doesn't warrant pondering, so I go back to smoothing the paper against the bar with my palms. In the upper left corner, a row of criminally young witches in low cut robes smile and toss their hair, affirming the arrival of Madame Malkin's new tri-cornered necklines. Mid-page, rotund Mrs. Buttercomb, flanked by mounds of pastries and assorted rolls, tantalizes with a tray of cherry-topped faerie cakes- one free with the purchase of any baker's dozen! Next to her, Viktor Krumb glares intensely into the camera, then veers out of frame on the new Wischen TI-30. But it's the stationary, washed-out picture on the bottom of the page that catches my eye. Two bundles of sticks, bound in an 'X' shape, with a bit of weed tied onto the top. I've seen a different photo of this same object before. Weeks ago, on Harry's desk, swimming under a tar-tinted puddle of coffee.
At their table, Harry has come out of his chair. Leaning forward, he reaches, swipes at the air, his fingers seizing a phantom snitch. And though he faces away, I can see the swell of his cheek as he smiles. I can feel the flutter of wings beating in my own fist, the whip of the wind through my hair.
Tears well. My shoulders spasm. I close my eyes and flatten my palm to the worn wood of the bar, trying to pick up some trace of the thousands who've stood here before. If I could just tease it out, that remnant, and if, for once, I could just mesh with humanity as a whole instead of hyper-focusing on those two, then…
Then what?
Then I wouldn't care that I've already forgotten how graceful Harry can be?
Then I'd be fine with only ever seeing them from afar?
I sent Harry an invitation to dinner this afternoon. Just a note that, I assume, turned up too late, since he didn't reply.
Two weeks ago, I met him in the corridor and asked him to coffee. He had an urgent briefing to attend, so I went back to my office.
A week and half before that, I stood at the door to his place. I didn't want to be in my flat because my fiancé had just left me, and I had broken plans with my parents, and I couldn't think of anywhere else to go. I took a deep breath, raised my fist to knock, and that's when I smelled it. Garlic. I had washed up and changed clothes. I was wearing a different coat. It couldn't have been me, so I leaned forward and sniffed what I thought was an aberration in the paint on the door.
Garlic. A knuckle print in butter. I backed away.
Of the half-dozen places he could have gone, Ron chose Harry's. Harry's-- where no magic is allowed because it shorts the building's dodgy, antique wiring. Harry's-- where the faintest trace of detergent musk from the laundry two stories below always sparks one of Ron's head things. Harry's-where the only food ever in the refrigerator is leather-skinned apples and dried, shrunken wedges of poorly wrapped cheese. I had heard no end to the whinging about Harry's, and how he and Ginny should have worked it out, and why didn't he just go to Grimmauld Place, and couldn't he have picked a building with fewer cat people- damn cats in every window- and on and on.
Through the door, I could hear short murmurs in male tones, long pauses. I imagined both of them sitting on the edge of the sofa, chewing. I imagined warm pinot grigio in the blown glass tumblers I had bought as a flat-warming gift. I envisioned Ron's shirt, smeared with butter, dribbled with red sauce he wouldn't be able to magic away, the russet stains. I imagined Harry, slumped over a dinner he didn't order, scraping his plastic fork guiltily through the tangle of noodles, but still managing to eat the rolls, because, after all, bread is always for everyone to share.
That night, there was still comfort in proximity. Sitting at the top of the steps, my bum resting on the same stretch of floor their feet moved upon, I could still count heads. One outside, two in. That night, I still had faith in our sum total of three. I still thought myself part of the equation.
Now, the girl sitting between them crosses her forearms on the table. She leans in, moving deeper into their conversation. And, again, she laughs. They all laugh. The tips of her fingers curl into the dusk purple fabric of her robes, then re-emerge. The polish on her nails gleams under the lamp light. Pale, perfect ballet slipper pink.
But I'm not fooled. This girl, she weaves daisy chains. She eats candy floss by the big, fluffy handful, just for the fun of it. She joyfully collects baby animals and children needing a sound cuddle to her bosom. She smells of good bread and sugared violets, and, a little closer in, clean, damp skin. Wide smiles volley between the three of them. This girl, she is everything I am not. She shines, and Ron and Harry, all their own goodness is reflected, amplified, back from her. And, even from where I stand, it's easy to see she fits, and they are all the happier for it.
And how could I not want that for them?
I do.
Of course I do.
Only good things, always. That's what we said.
The old man beside me has spread his tobacco pouch upon the bar. His segmented fingers rake through the fragrant morass as he nods, commiserating, while his companion laments the litany of agricultural blunders perpetrated by the Young Buck. Behind me, judging from the frequent, piercing bursts, the Whinnier is having the greatest night of her life, and I'm torn between the urge to turn and Silencio her neighing away, and the crush of envy that she's sitting with someone who wants to make her laugh that laugh, someone who needs to hear it.
The girl in the corner is pushing her chair back to stand. She's turning her body toward Harry and lightly touching her fingers to the rim of her glass. She speaks then peers over her shoulder before making her way to the Ladies, and whatever she's said, Ron grins after her like a love-struck simpleton.
I don't think he ever looked at me like that. I remember awe or ire, but never sheer, dumb adoration.
Harry shakes his head, four fingers splayed against the back of his neck. He feigns embarrassment for Ron's sake, but he likes her well enough, I can tell. The way he sits, elbows on the table, face and hands in the light, says he's given his blessing, that she's Potter approved.
Contrast this with the way he was at the end with Ron and me; chair pushed back in the shadows, seat angled for the loo, his quickest excuse for escape when the sniping got too bad.
It shames me to know those last few evenings with us he spent half the night in the toilets.
The girl slips back into her rightful place. She leans in amongst them, whispering, brow cocked conspiratorially, eyes wide with scandal. Ron watches her mouth and flushes pink as a new-born piglet. Harry ducks his head, gives them the moment. He smiles and sips his pint. At ease. At ease. And, it's been so long since I've seen him this way…
I don't want to spoil it.
I know I'm not like Ron. I've never been good for a night out, never good for a laugh. And if all Harry and I have weaving us together are hard times and horrible things, I don't blame him for not seeking me out for more of the same.
I look down at the newsprint, at the pictures blurring off the edges of the page. I close my eyes and raise my face to the light. I don't hate the girl in the corner, but I can't look her way anymore. And the boys- I've no right to stare.
"Granger!"
The barman's voice trembles through the wood beneath my hands. Gazes turn as he lumbers down to my end of the bar, a sack big enough to carry seven courses floating above his head. I refold the Prophet as voices drop away. Fresh eyes roam over my face. Even the Whinnier ceases her braying. The old man beside me turns, squints through his smoke, appraising.
"Well-hell. Hair's all bound up, but I reckon it is you," he says around his pipe. He hmphs, and turns back to his friend.
"Ham sandwich," the barman confirms, finger punching the tarnished brass keys of his till. The sack settles on the bar in front of me. I don't wait for the total.
"Have a good evening." I try to smile. I push the coins across the bar, lift the ridiculous sack, then turn to the door. I weave between the tables. Conversations resume.
"Miss, your change!"
I turn back and wave toward the old man and his friend. "Next round's on me," I shout over the din, then, bag rattling, push out into the cold. The fogged panes clatter as the door slams shut behind me.
One outside.
Turning the corner, away from the light and warmth of the pub, I remind myself that I'm still fortunate. I have dinner and two good legs, which is more than some can claim. Walking in the dark with my sack, though, I'm not hungry, anymore, and the weight of the sandwich drooping from my hand feels like the worst part of a bad day. I'm not even that keen on ham, really.
Ron loved it, though. We'd share. I'd thin out the meat of one half, add it to the other, then give him the lion's portion.
The ache in my shoulders spreads, knots over my spine, and I pause for a moment. I blink fast at the orange heart of a street lamp at the end of the block and take a deep breath.
Eleven years.
I know I'll never really stop turning up bits of him in everyday things, but damn if I don't feel stupid for fighting tears over the old, sweet habit of a ham sandwich.
I tighten my grip on the sack and focus on the whoosh of cars speeding by, the acrid smell of fresh blacktop and exhaust. The road is busy, but pedestrian traffic is sparse- just two women kneeling with a man on the steps of the book shop at the end of the block, and myself. They all stare down at one of the steps, heads bowed deep, the man talking while the women both nod. He gestures to the sky and they all three turn their eyes to the white waxing moon. I walk on toward them, knowing I'll have to step out into the street to pass, but, oh well. This is the way I've chosen. Home is in the opposite direction, but I'm not going home. Not tonight.
The two women stand, both tugging their trousers back into place around their hips, the chunky heels of their boots clopping against the pavement as they move. And the closer I get, I can see they're only girls, really. Both with long, silken hair. Both with violet lips, and huge, silver hoops swaying from their ears. Each in turn grasp two of the man's fingers in a modified hand shake, then, arm in arm and twittering like wrens, jaunt past wafting a thick cloud of candied patchouli.
Sister-hood.
One more thing I foolishly forwent.
The man collects what I can now tell are cards from the stretch of step between his feet. The wide brim of his hat casts a shadow under the streetlight, and though I can't see his face, I can feel that tenuous connection that always seems to stretch between two strangers on an otherwise empty path. I see the glass jar, coins lining the bottom and a few crumpled notes, one step down and out front of his left foot. I walk on and wait for him to speak.
"Spare a coin for a poor sinner's cup?"
His voice drifts from the steps as I pass, the liquid drawl a soft stroke of memory, and I glance over my shoulder at an unfolding of long, denim legs and bright-tipped boots. He nudges his hat and looks me over. "Make it worth your while," he says. "Guaranteed."
And, without a doubt, he's the most beautiful beggar I've ever seen. Clean, elegant hands. A heavy knot of thin dreads at his neck. High cheekbones and flawless bronze skin. Flushed, round lips and pale, palest eyes.
All good sense screams this man is a first-rate charlatan, but I turn back anyway.
"I'm sorry. I just spent my last on dinner," I say. "But it's yours if you like." I set the sack at his feet.
I know hungry, and this man isn't. He looks at the sack, then back to me. And I'm positive he'll refuse, until he smiles a broad, snake-oil smile- all top teeth- and holds up his cards.
"I'll take it, if you'll have a reading in return." A voice like a stone at the bottom of a stream. Cool and ancient and edgeless.
I take a step back and shake my head. "Thank you, but no. I… I don't really believe in that sort of thing."
"Oh, but that's not the way, bel cheri. What you've given must be repaid, tac au tac. And, really, the cards are only a mirror. Really," he whispers, beckons me forward, leaning toward me as if we're sharing a secret, "it's all just psychology…" He offers the stacked deck on his outstretched hand, "Really, it's all just projection." He lifts one brow, dares me. "Go on. A one card reading." He holds up his other hand, empty. "Cut."
I stare at the cards, then glance into this stranger's face. One long, unbroken moment his pale, palest eyes look right into mine, the first time anyone has really beheld me in weeks, and I'm broadsided by the irrational impulse to please this man, to make him smile his snake-oil smile. I reach up and split the deck, one half in each open hand. He flashes all his top teeth. He presses the two halves together, then, with his thumbs, fans the whole deck into a perfect, curved blade.
"Choose," he says.
I reach toward the centre, but am compelled toward the one card sitting unevenly in the spread. Seventh from the left. The nick in the blade. I pluck it free, turn it over.
I laugh, a loud, desperate ah-ha gurgling up. I hold my card out to the stranger, but he doesn't take it from me.
"You know this card, don't you?" He says. "It speaks."
The woman alone in her bed. The column of swords hanging heavy above. The hunched curve of her shoulders as she hides her face in her hands.
I cannot lie. "Yes."
He touches the woman's head with the tip of his finger and frowns. "No joy in this card."
Pain in my shoulders, knotting over my spine.
"The Nine of Swords." He runs his finger over the blades. "Suffering," he says. "Desolation. Isolation. Hard, lonely times to come." His eyes move over my face, and then down. He takes the card and leans back, props himself on one elbow as he refolds it back into the deck. He lounges, tilting his hat forward, hiding his eyes, his nose. "Guess it's good you don't really believe in this sort of thing, huh?"
All his top teeth, glittering bright in the street lamp's copper light.
I straighten, stand tall. "Yes, I suppose it is." Behind me, tires rubbing blacktop, the sealed-in thump of music rushing by. We're finished here, but I'm afraid to move. "Thank you for..." My hand rises then wilts. His hat shifts as he cocks a brow, and I suddenly feel very stupid, indeed. I shove my hands in my pockets and shuffle a few steps back. "Well, good evening, then."
"Till we meet again, cheri bel m '…." He puts two fingers to his lips, puckers, then points his kiss in my direction.
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A/N- I know this chapter was sort of R/Hr heavy, but it had to be done. Thanks so much for reading!