Pride

Chapter 2

Temptation was an imp with a rich English accent, whispering in her ear. He nagged at her, made suggestive comments, caused her to watch what she should ignore and woke her in the middle of the night with dreams about emotions and sensations she had almost forgotten. The imp drove her mad, distracting her from her books and making her more irritable than usual.

August drew to an end. Most of the teachers had reported to the school. One by one, the rest of the Dark Arts professors straggled back. When Rolf Haken dragged himself reluctantly away from his family, the count down to the first day of school began.

Loup was happy to see them. Well, most of them. She and Rose Jones walked stiffly around each other, neither willing to be the one to strike first and each wishing the other would disappear into a crack of the earth. Siegfried Kessler's absence would have been silently cheered, but he returned just as loud as ever, cracking jokes about what new seventh years he would bed as he dug an elbow into Gregorov's side as if suggesting that the wolf join in, too. Loup tried to shrug that particular raw anger off as mere loudness.

In the midst of the chaos of returning professors and swapped vacation tales, the imp's voice nagged and suggested. Unnoticed before, it seemed that Lester was everywhere. Every time she saw him, the imp would laugh and ask what was she waiting for? Each time, she reminded herself that she knew nothing about him. "That," sneered the imp, "is something that you can remedy. Or, are you ready for the collar so soon?"

* * *

Late one afternoon, Loup forced herself to knock upon Haken's office door. Of all the few people she knew, only he seemed to know something about everyone. As he opened his door, Haken's smiling face faded into wariness. He looked down the corridor, as if expecting to see someone else with her and, when he saw no one, grudgingly invited her inside.

Loup seated herself in the chair opposite his desk. Haken had not invited her into his living space, and she understood the implied rules instantly. When he did not take the other chair and instead leaned against the desk, she knew that she had only a few minutes to ask her questions. Looking around at the tidy room, her eyes were drawn to the photographs of children that covered the walls. She ducked her head to hide her knowing smile. "I didn't know you had so many children. What are their names?"

Despite his best intentions, Haken's defenses cracked. Slowly, reluctantly, he started to talk about his family, perking up as he pointed at individual smiling faces on his wall. As if in response, the children in the photos waved or laughed. The family resemblance was remarkable. Haken was shorter than Loup, his wavy brown hair peppered with gray. There was something about him that suggested fields or outdoors, not the dark confines of an office. Miniature versions of Haken smiled back from every photograph crammed neatly on the walls.

While he talked, Loup studied him. Haken was an odd combination of a smiling face with strangely dead eyes, which sparked to life with each tale. She settled herself in the chair, willing to wait as long as necessary for him to purge his sorrow at leaving them. After an hour of family stories, her patience wore thin and she began to squirm. Haken didn't just miss his family; he was obsessed by it. In an effort to stay awake, she tried to keep track of all the names but gave up. There were names and nicknames and he used them all interspersed with descriptions that confused her. With a fixed smile on her face, she waited.

Finally, Haken sighed almost silently and sat down at his desk. His eyes wandered over the collection of pictures and, reluctantly, back to his guest. His face lost all of its sweet sadness and became businesslike, a face that knew that there was a price to pay for his audience's false attention. "What do you want to know?"

Loup had to smile. He understood her too well. "I have a few questions." She paused for a second, creating a mental list when something occurred to her. "None of these photos are more than ten years old. Are there older ones somewhere else?" It seemed strange to her that there should be such a huge display for such a short period of time.

Stiffly, he replied, "These are the memories I wish to keep alive. What do you want?"

Loup made a mental note to remember that and see if she could gather more information. "What do you know about Richard Lester?"

A brief twitch broke Haken's mask and, setting his mouth in a tight line, he leaned back at his desk. "Why?"

"I just want to know a little more about him." She tried to sound casual and failed.

"Handsome man, is he not? English. Early forties." Haken's breath came out in a puff, perhaps a small laugh. "A single man. Odd, do you not think so? He seems to have come from a wealthy family. He arrived at Durmstrang in the late 1980s." Warming to his topic, Haken's familiar smile reemerged. "He rose quickly here. His knowledge of the Dark Arts seems quite good, almost as if he had a practical knowledge as well as a theoretical one. It is a shame that he chose to join the Defense Against the Dark Arts department. He had a choice, you see. He could have taken the position that was open here, but he opted not to do so."

"The position here?"

"Yes. Todor Rabe was employed instead."

"Rabe must have been very young." Loup did a quick mental calculation, wondering if she had guessed wrong as to Rabe's age.

"Yes, he was a recent graduate from the Institute." Haken drummed his fingers on the desk, a sign that the interview was ending.

"So, he has no real experience."

"Correct. None. It explains a great deal, does it not?" He had barely finished speaking before he stood, walked over to the door and opened it. Her time was over.

She stepped into the hall, barely clearing the threshold before the door was closed behind her. Turning to go back to Gregorov's quarters, she heard her imp's voice again, this time coming from the staff room. Curious, she edged over to the doorway and looked into the tatty room. Seated at the table, Rabe and Lester were conferring over a stack of paperwork. Lester wore a bored expression as he ran a finger down the top page, stopping close to the bottom. Rabe looked confused. From where she stood, it sounded like they were arguing where some supplies had gone.

She could hear Gregorov's voice rumble from the end of the hall where he chatted with Siegfried Kessler. The two laughed over some joke, undoubtedly crude. She weighed her choices, knowing that the wiser of the two would be to continue down the hallway and ignore the object of her obsession. The imp stopped whispering in her ear and began to yell. What was she waiting for? She should at least see if he was worth getting in trouble for. Maybe he was. Could be fun. Could be disastrous, too. She dragged her fingers through her hair, trying to tame it. Lester looked to be the immaculately groomed sort and she always wore the look of a wild animal. Opposites attract? She had almost made up her mind to again ignore the temptation when Rose Jones walked into the hall. The mere sight of the other woman slammed several decisions into play at once. Jones was the image of what Loup was trying to avoid: the solitary Dark Arts practitioner - the old maid with a cold bed - alone and bitter. The imp laughed once as Loup walked into the staff room, trying to look casual.

The two men glanced up to see who had entered. Rabe went back to his papers, but Lester continued to watch. She felt a visceral pull and leaned against the sink, giving up any attempt to be casual or coy. She was too old for that nonsense any way. Lester gave her a twisted grin and went back to the task at hand. To kill the time, Loup got a cup of water and waited.

The discussion continued for only a few minutes longer. The supplies were declared irrevocably lost. Lester allowed Rabe to ramble while he and Loup inventoried each other. A bit louder than necessary, Lester announced that his offices were on the top floor, third door from the top of the main staircase, to the left. Loup nodded and left, feeling that the hunt had begun.

The stalk was cut short. Loup went back to Gregorov's quarters and tried to brush her hair into something that was less wild. Busy with her battle, she failed to hear Gregorov return. He found her staring at her reflection, intent on the decision whether to leave her hair loose or pull it back. Down she decided, picking up the brush again. His reflection appeared next to hers. Loup dropped the brush with a clatter into the sink. Meeting her gaze, he retrieved the brush and, without asking, he began brushing her hair, smoothing its tangles into something that resembled order. Even after almost three months of cohabitation, she seldom let him touch her. The attention alarmed her into a breathless stillness.

He finished brushing and ran his hands over her dark hair, smiling at the streaks of gray that shot through it. Eyes shut tightly, she waited. He had a talent for confusing her, almost as much as she confused him. His hands slid onto her shoulders and stayed there. She opened her eyes the merest of slits to see a question reflected. Guilt stung. She owed him so much and he treated her well. He had never pushed her for anything more than she was willing to give. It would be sensible to give in. Get it over with. The wolf in her agreed, the imp gave her a swift kick.

"I'm supposed to meet somebody. I need to go." Loup's voice sounded thick and false. Eyes to the floor, she left feeling Gregorov's silence settle uncomfortably over her.

Desperate to be out, she almost ran across the grounds to the castle. She felt trapped by the stone walls and even more trapped by the assumptions in the Dark Arts building. A brief stab of doubt hit when she walked through the main doors and, stumbling slightly, she sat down on one of the benches lining the hall. What was she going to do? She needed Gregorov the wolf. Gregorov the man had turned out to be better she had originally expected. If she followed through with what she thought she was going to do, there would be hell to pay. There would be nowhere to go if Gregorov kicked her out. What if he refused to hunt with her? Memories of the wretched, empty feelings came back. She did not want to go back to that. It would be better to just let it be. The Dark Arts professors rarely mixed with the rest of the school. She would probably hardly ever see Lester unless she looked for him.

"Settling already?" the imp asked. "Might be worth it. Maybe you can have the best of both worlds. Hunt with Gregorov, sleep with Lester..." Loup put her head into her hands, knowing that it was an either/or situation. "You only regret the things you didn't do." The imp whistled innocently, reminding her of other paths not taken. "Besides, Gregorov needs you as much as you need him. You only need to hunt with him every now and then. Remember Armand?"

Rubbing her face, Loup remembered Armand too well. Armand, her mate, had been a bad choice. She had met him in San Francisco when he had been visiting on a holiday. He was handsome, articulate and practically oozed sex appeal. She had been smitten from the start, attracted so intensely it was overwhelming. As the days and nights passed, she found that only part of the attraction was the man. Armand had another side; he was also a wolf Animagus. It was too perfect. All of her senses set on him as the ideal solution, almost wallowing in the physical and psychological bliss he gave her. They had spent a month exploring each other in great depth before he returned to Paris.

It was only then that she discovered the down side of her wolfish nature. The horrible need began within days of his departure, an almost physical pain. Having found another, the wolf wanted its pack. Despite Loup's solitary nature, another part of her wanted and needed the structure and comfort of a pack. Anxiety ruled. Without knowing why, she paced incessantly. Every outing found her hunting for him. Her caution crumbled before the need; she became sloppy in her defenses. Didn't listen to the rumors filtering through the dark alleyways of San Francisco. Missed the signs.

San Francisco traditionally had steady work for those trained in the Dark Arts. For years, it had been one of the most lucrative places to work. The work was easy to come by. The town had a reputation for both the quantity of eager clients and the profitability of the spells. Things had been changing for a long time. Territories began to shift. Accents changed. A distracted witch who ignored everything except her search was easy prey.

The Hua family had been a rising star for years. Its circle of influence grew each year. This year, it swallowed Loup's neighborhood. With a precision she envied in hindsight, they hunted down each known practitioner of the Dark Arts. Some were killed. Others left. In a profession of solitary individuals, the change was difficult to notice. The men sent to deal with her were incredibly polite. They offered a solution to the awful need. Leave San Francisco or die. The sudden apparition of four men was so startling the twenty-four year-old Loup could only gape at them. At last, she managed to ask if they would give her a day to pack. It seemed the perfect solution. She would follow Armand to Paris. Everything would be fine. She gathered her tools and books while they watched. The sum total of her tools and clothing then amounted to a few boxes. They lectured her as one would a child, informing her that she could never return to San Francisco and cast a spell that left her heaving and desperate to leave. Everything ached until she passed the city limits. At the airport, she bought a one-way ticket to Paris and embarked on a new life. Things went downhill from there.

Paris was a big city and she didn't speak French. Finding one man in that metropolis wasn't an easy feat. It took days to find the magic sector, its gates hidden close to the Sorbonne. That was like entering a wonderland. Paris' magical area was huge and colorful, bustling with energy all hours of the day and night. There were little cafés stuffed into each and every corner, all populated with fascinating witches and wizards. She discovered that the Dark Arts were legal, profitable even. Bored Dark Mages gave her the information about registering herself with the city officials. If not for the anxiety building up within her, it would have been a happy time.

Two weeks after her arrival she ran into Armand. His handsome face had become haggard and he had the same consuming nervous energy. Her arrival didn't produce the kind of response she had hoped for. That was when she learned the difference between need and want. They needed each other and he resented her for that need. He didn't want her in his life. Over the years, they played out a recurring scene where they would fight, each attempting to wound the other to the core, and then leave, swearing each time to never see the other again, but the need brought them back. The need was stubborn. It ruled their lives. Through years of endless bickering, they realized that they only had to endure each other for a few hours each month to keep it all at bay. More was better for the wolfish side, but a midnight hunt through Paris' cemeteries would be enough. They ended up working for the same Mâitre des Sorciers, a not too happy arrangement that helped more than it hurt. Mâitre Faucon, who considered himself quite clever, quipped that they had a double F relationship, they were either fighting or... The years passed untidily. When it seemed that they had finally reached a kind of status quo, Armand's defenses had not been quick enough. Believing too much in his own reputation, he failed. One less dark wizard in Paris. Not an unusual end. Rarely one that caused much grief. Loup grieved and went mad. All alone, without a pack, things cracked. The anxiety built, sleep failed and the path to hell grew steep and fast. She had spent over a year searching for another wolf, gradually giving up all hope and taking riskier assignments until she met Gregorov. That need was satisfied... for now.

He can't just shut me out,

she thought. He'll need me just as I need him.

"Go ahead," the imp said, poking at her indecision. "Give it a try. Armand did. Didn't he have a wife, and a mistress as well as you? You only need to be monogamous with your mate. He seemed to manage to separate the wolf from the human part."

She ran her hand through her hair, undoing whatever order Gregorov had managed. "Oh, what the hell," she muttered as she started to climb the stairs.

The Defense Against the Dark Arts offices were a long walk up. She paused at the top of the stairs, still undecided whether she should turn around and go back. Office doors were open, giving peeks of empty desks. She counted three doors to the left and decided to be bold. The door was partially open, showing only a small slice of the office within. Sidling up to the door, she paused and inhaled deeply, checking for Lester's scent. The room smelled of tea and of paper. There was some kind of musky aroma she identified as soap. She felt foolish standing outside the door and, giving herself the lecture about not knowing unless she tried, forced herself to rap smartly on the door.

No answer. She peered around the door to see a cluttered, but mostly organized office. The large oak desk had several piles of papers and parchments. A handful of quills and a few pots of ink were laid precisely in the center. A large potted ivy held down one corner, looking out of place there. She took note of the lack of anything on the walls. No photos, no paintings, no diplomas. It could have been a set for all of the personality the office conveyed. She leaned around the door and called out, "Hello?" And again received no answer.

So much for all of the soul searching, he wasn't even there. Still, the door was unlocked and open. Maybe she could go in and wait. Her internal debate was interrupted by a disturbingly familiar soft voice. Startled, she walked down the hall until she came to a staff room. A barrage of personal scents overwhelmed her nose. Here was Lester and several others, too. Standing in front of the door, his back to her, the head of the Northern District's Auror office, Johannes Werner, addressed the crowd.

Loup had had only a few encounters with him and it had been enough to confirm her distaste of Aurors as a rule and of him specifically. Gregorov had told her that Werner had instructed his men to leave her to bleed to death. She had no reason to doubt that statement. The Auror had consistently referred to her as "it". She moved silently to one side of the doorway and eavesdropped.

Werner's lecture was boring. She was disappointed to hear the more or less rote speech about preparing tomorrow's Aurors. How the new generation needed to be taught more of the diagnostic techniques for identifying spells. How less time should be spent teaching children how to deal with creatures that only appeared in foreign lands. How they needed to spend more time dealing with the dark spells that had begun to show up more often, brought in by foreign sorcerers. Loup smiled her feral grin, knowing that she was one of those foreign sorcerers. He kept emphasizing that constant vigilance was essential. She yawned and let the rest of his speech turn into a stream of noise. She had her books and her tools, all she needed was a paying client and she would show Werner a trick or two, assuming he ever caught on that something amiss had occurred.

Feeling quite cocky, she went back to Lester's office and seated herself in the guest chair. To keep herself amused, she began inspecting the office. His bookshelves held little of interest. She saw all of the standard texts, nothing new. She cracked the door that led to his living area and checked out another boring room with nothing on the walls. The living area held the standard couch, chairs and a table in the middle - all of much nicer quality than those found in the Dark Arts offices - and more plants, ferns this time. She began to wonder if that visceral pull she had felt was misplaced. Nothing in the rooms seemed to indicate that the person who lived there had any substance at all.

A murmur in the hallway told her the meeting had been dismissed. She ran a hand over her hair, finding the usual tangles and took a quick wipe around her mouth, making sure that any crumbs from lunch would be gone. As the voices got closer, she sat back down and smoothed her clothing, picking off some bits of fluff that stood out sharply against her usual all-black outfit. At least Gregorov had brought her back some of her clothing. It had been funny for a while, wearing his things, but she hated feeling like she was swimming in them. When he brought back the first suitcase, he had asked if she owned anything that wasn't black. The answer was no.

Lester opened his door and walked by her as he went back into his living quarters. She watched his back as he walked into the next room, closing that door behind him. Muffled sounds told the story of someone walking through the living area and another door opening and closing. Since, as far as she could tell, all of the quarters were set up the same, he must have gone back into his bedroom. She continued to wait, imagining what that back room looked like.

The telltale sound of a toilet's flush informed her of where he had gone. Moments later, the door opened and Lester stepped into his office. She held still, waiting for him to notice her. Without looking up, he proceeded to sort through a drawer in his desk, making small sounds of annoyance as he failed to find what it was he hunted for. He sat down and continued the search in one of the lower drawers, his brow furrowed. Eventually, he placed both hands on the top of the desk, preparing to stand and, as he looked up, he saw her.

She gave a thin smile and waited for him to greet her, but he sat there staring. "How long have you been in my office?"

"A while. The door was open. You have a dull library, by the way." She was puzzled at his expression. Perhaps he was like Professor Jones and hated having his space invaded. "I can leave and come back later, if you'd prefer."

"No. Stay. I must say that I did not expect to see you this soon. Are you alone or will Professor Gregorov be coming by for a visit as well?" He sat back in his chair and, attempting a rather false smile, waited for her response.

"Alone. I don't know what Gregorov's schedule is today - or any other day." She sounded cool, annoyed at the far too common assumption that she and Gregorov had any kind of connection.

Lester's false smile warmed into the genuine article. "Would you like some tea? No, I understand that you are a coffee drinker, as are all Americans."

Loup began to feel that her visit was a mistake. Nothing sounded right. "No, thank you. I think I should go now. Maybe some other time." She rose and started to turn towards the door.

"I thought you meant to remain a while, or was I mistaken? It is difficult to read your expression with the black eyes." Lester sounded calculating.

"Do they bother you? Most of your kind are frightened by the Dark, or are you one of the ones attracted to it?" Loup relaxed against the wall and crossed her arms.

"Are you referring to your eyes or the arts?" Lester leaned forward, putting his elbows onto the desk. "Attracted, I would say. Fascinated, perhaps. And you?"

"I am the dark."

"Ah. I see. And why, my lady dark, are you here? I thought I knew, but now I am not so certain." The corner of his mouth tightened and his aristocratic face went hard.

Loup caught her breath. That was more what she recalled when she had felt the pull. He looked dangerous and she found that very attractive. Very. If she unfocused her eyes slightly, he looked like Armand. Old feelings bubbled up and she stepped forward. The smile that answered her movement was exactly the same as she remembered. Lester stood and, leaning forward, reached out and closed the door next to her.