Moon

5: Perihelion

His hall was completely unfurnished; simply a beige box with a door in the centre of each wall.

'The living room is through the door straight ahead,' he told her. 'The bathroom's on the right, if you need it.' As he spoke he desperately tried to remember how clean his bathroom was.

'What's to the left?' she asked, glancing at the other door.

'My bedroom.' He blushed. That question alone was enough to make him blush. He wondered how many men's bedrooms she'd seen, and sighed again. This was stupid, he was stupid.

'It's been a traumatic day, hasn't it?' Lavender observed, again misinterpreting his sigh. She opened the living room door. He nodded unhappily and prepared to allow himself to be hurt again.

They were dancing around each other, talking but not conversing. Before tonight, he had never shouted at her, he certainly had never been deliberately hurtful to her. Was she worried that he would finally explode?

She was going to ask if they could carry on, he decided. She was going to tell him that she still wanted to be friends.

"Can we be friends again?" that was what she had asked him in the street. He still hadn't answered that question, he could not, because the honest answer was, no. Friendship was no longer enough.

He was damned.

He silently stepped past her, opened the living room door and waved his wand. The lamps flickered into life. He watched Lavender curiously examine his living room. It was sparsely furnished. The polished wood floor was uncarpeted. One wall was covered in laden bookshelves while the three uncluttered walls were painted a bland magnolia. Two battered old black leather armchairs and a low table stood in the centre of the room and an old wireless stood on a smaller table next to the window. The only other furniture was an old walnut writing bureau and a stool. The room was spotless.

'This is a very tidy room. Will we eat here, or in the kitchen?' Lavender asked.

'In the kitchen,' he told her, nodding towards the other door. She strode towards it. He followed.

'This is very tidy, too,' she observed as she looked around the room. She sounded surprised.

'I need to move the laundry basket,' he pointed out. He lifted it from the small square kitchen table and placed it on one of the two chairs.

'The plates are in that cupboard, on the middle shelf, and the cutlery is in the drawer below. If you want tea it's in the pantry; cold drinks are in the larder.'

Lavender took his comments as an invitation, and opened both pantry and larder doors to examine the contents.

'No dirty dishes in your sink, no stale bread, and a well stocked pantry and larder,' she smiled. 'This is one of the tidiest bachelor kitchens I've ever seen, and I've seen...' She stopped mid-sentence as his face creased into gloom. There were several seconds of apprehensive and embarrassed silence as they both processed her words. She looked worried. The silence was like a Shield spell between them; he could feel it pushing them apart, but could not think of anything to say.

'I'll get the plates and cutlery,' she said eventually, her voice no more than a whisper. 'Are we sharing, half each?'

Mark nodded.

'You mentioned Firewhiskey,' she said. 'I think that I'd rather have tea, I saw a caddy labelled Jasmine tea in the pantry. If you make us some, I'll serve the food, is that okay?'

He nodded again. He still couldn't speak.

They were such different people she had been with lots of men and he...

Until Janey had interfered they had been relaxed in each other's company; now they were walking on eggshells, they were both frightened that something would break, at least he was. Was she really scared, too? She was in his flat, and his voice and wits had left him. He needed to get away from her, to think. He filled the kettle and put it on the stove.

'Loo,' he announced, 'I'll make the tea when I get back.' He picked up his laundry basket and dashed from the kitchen. After putting the basket in his bedroom he stepped back into the hall.

He gazed at all four doors and wildly considered leaving, running away. But where could he go? He looked at the door, and decided that he wasn't that much of a coward. Walking into the bathroom, Mark washed his hands, threw water on his face and gazed miserably into the mirror. He again lost himself in his thoughts.

I'm ordinary; she's extraordinary. I'm nothing much to look at; she is gorgeous. She is always immaculately dressed; she thinks I'm a scruff. She's famous; I'm no one.

What can I give her? I listen to her. We both love sitting on beaches, listening to the waves. I can make her laugh. I love her. But she doesn't even fancy me. She wants us to be friends again. That's all she wants. Can I cope with that? Longing from afar is difficult, but being next to her is impossible.

But she came back, and she waited for me to come home. She wants to talk. I have to listen, for her sake; who else will she tell her troubles to?

His fate, he concluded, lay where it had lain ever since he'd first set eyes on her, several years ago. Everything was entirely in the hands of Lavender Brown. Resignedly, he walked slowly back into the kitchen.

The table was set and two plates of fried rice, Szechuan Chicken, and Satay Prawn awaited his arrival. Lavender had also made tea and found his Chinese tea cups, although the cutlery next to the plates showed that she hadn't found his chopsticks.

She stood beside the table, waiting for him. She had removed her leather coat and had hung it on the hook on the door, on top of his apron. She wore a pink scoop-neck cashmere sweater which clung distractingly to her curves. He glanced at the neckline and forced his eyes back up to her face. She smiled again.

'You always look at my face, look me in the eye,' she told him.

'It's a nice face, they're nice eyes,' he said without thinking. She rewarded him with her happiest smile and his stomach Vanished again.

'Sit, please,' he said, trying to cover his confusion. The only other person to have shared a meal with him in this kitchen was his mother. He drew out his spare chair and ushered her to her seat before sitting down himself.

'I'm starving,' she announced, taking a small mouthful of prawn and rice.

Suddenly, he was ravenous. He began to eat, forking rice and prawn into his mouth as quickly as polite eating would allow.

'I live in a village called Appledore in Kent, on a street called "The Street,"' Lavender announced. She told him the house number. 'I know where you live now. So it seems only fair that you know where I live. My parents live in Rye; it's only a few miles away. I'm an only child. My mum was a Greengrass; she married beneath her, or so the rest of her family said, because my dad's half-blood. He has a fishing business. Mum and Dad were proud of me after the battle, but I squandered their respect by getting in the papers for all the wrong reasons. I don't see them very often.' She paused and took another mouthful of prawn.

She had just rapidly and nervously broken her first rule: "We don't talk about families." Mark hastily swallowed his mouthful and reciprocated.

'My mum lives in Kirkcudbright; she's a Muggle. Dad's dead, and so is my sister. My dad was killed by Greyback not long after Thicknesse took over. My sister died ... she died at Hogwarts ... I was too late. I missed the first part of the battle.'

'Lillith Moon,' gasped Lavender. 'She was in my year, in Ravenclaw; Padma knew her well; I should have realised. The Carrows used to pick on her because her father was a werewolf!'

Lavender stared at him, her meal forgotten. 'Your father was a werewolf? Why didn't you tell me?'

'Because "we don't talk about families," Lavender,' he reminded her. 'That was one of your conditions. I keep my promises.'

'From now on, this is an unconditional relationship,' she blurted.

'What?' Mark spluttered. Relationship! His heart soared, was relationship the same as friendship? He hoped not.

'What happened to your dad?' Lavender asked gently, ignoring his outburst.

'He wouldn't join the snatchers. Dad wasn't much of a wizard. He had never been taught; he wasn't allowed at Hogwarts because...'

'Because he was a werewolf,' Lavender finished his sentence for him, nodding sympathetically.

'Greyback came around in the November before the battle and said that he'd be back at the full moon. Dad sent Mum here to Edinburgh to keep her safe. They fought and dad ... dad lost,' he told Lavender forlornly. She reached over, squeezed his hand, and smiled encouragingly.

Mum knew what Dad was; he told her before they married, but she married him anyway. It didn't matter to her; it doesn't matter to me that you're a werewolf, either.' He was close to tears as he spoke.

'I knew that Lillith was having a hard time at school. She was almost Mudblood, according to the Carrows. She was extremely clever, much cleverer than me, but with an untutored werewolf for a dad and a Muggle mum, she was scum to them. But I couldn't get her out of school, and I was needed where I was,' he was pleading with Lavender, desperate for her understanding.

'I was a trainee Bailiff in the Scottish Magical Law Office. The Ministry usually leave the Scottish Office alone. We do things our own way - different laws, different legal system. Thicknesse and Umbridge kept us busy, very busy. Do you know how many people our office arrested and sent to the Muggle-born Registration Commission?'

Lavender shook her head.

'One! Everyone else mysteriously escaped just before we got there. It's astonishing how inept we were.'

Lavender laughed.

It wasn't easy for us to be that incompetent, especially towards the end. In March, London sent a Death Eater up to keep a check on us. That's when we made our only arrest; she was a hundred and three, and she volunteered to be arrested. But while I was doing that my little sister was...'

He stopped and put his head in his hands.

'It's almost seven years ago, and I still miss her. I don't know exactly what happened to her.'

'I was there, Mark, at Hogwarts. You could have asked me what I knew. Why didn't you...' She caught his look and her face fell.

'Damn! You didn't ask me because I'd made you promise that we wouldn't talk about families ... I'm so sorry. Do you want to talk about her now?' she spoke softly, her voice filled with remorse.

'Yes ... no ... I don't know ... what's happening?' he asked her.

'I'm trying to make things better between us, but now I'm worried that I'm just making them worse. Do you want me to leave?'

'No!' His reply was desperate. She smiled sadly.

'Why do you put up with me?' she asked.

'Because you need someone to listen to you, and you're really a nice person, most of the time anyway ...and you're beautiful, and...'

'Beautiful.' Lavender was dismissive. 'I'm hideous. Everyone leaves me, Mark, do you know why?'

'Everyone knows that you were attacked by Greyback during the Battle. He clawed your abdomen, and threw you off a balcony, and then went in for the kill. Everyone knows about your scars, too, and that you were in a wheelchair for almost two years, until you were bitten.'

'But no one ever sees my scars, because when they do, they run from Lavender Brown, the scarred werewolf,' she spoke with certainty.

'Your friends, your real friends have all stuck with you, Lavender. You're a werewolf, so what? You have a few scars? So what?' He stayed determinedly polite, refusing to lose his temper. Often, when she started on one of her rants, he could defuse it with humour. 'I promise that I won't run away.'

'You will,' she assured him, 'I'm maimed; they're curse scars; they will never fade. Every bloke who's seen them has left me.'

'Not me,' he said certainly.

'Have you ever seen anything like these?' she asked. She stood, pulled off her sweater with a flourish, and threw it onto the floor, revealing the five ragged claw scars she'd received from Greyback during the battle.

He wasn't looking at them. Her bra was pink and lacy and, in places, transparent. It certainly did not provide adequate cover. Forgetting his manners, he stared.

'The scars are lower down,' Lavender told him; she sounded amused rather than angry.

'But not as interesting to look at,' he said, still staring at her breasts, trying to imprint the sight in his mind and wondering if humour would work, or if he'd get slapped. 'Who cares about scars?'

He forced himself to look up into her face again. He immediately blushed.

'You were looking at my boobs.' She was trying to scold him, but was finding it difficult. She was tantalisingly close to laughing. He could tip her into laughter or anger; he'd need to be careful.

'You showed them to me.'

'I was showing you my scars.'

'You said, "Have you ever seen anything like these?" and took off your sweater; it was an easy mistake for me to make,' he explained.

She began to laugh. She leaned forwards, rewarding him with a closer look at her chest as she reached onto the floor. Then, she picked up her sweater and wriggled back into it. He simply watched. He was feeling light-headed.

'You're a nice guy, Mark.'

'I'm a "lanky scruff in tatty clothes," and "you don't know why you put up with me".'

'Are you always going to use my own words against me?' she demanded.

'Every time I can, sorry.'

'Oh, for Merlin's sake, stop apologising,' she ordered, 'Let's start again, shall we?' He took his chance, it was now or never.

'This is the last time I'll ask you. Do you want to go out with me,' he said, 'on a date, a real date?'

She waited for a few heart-stopping seconds before replying.

'Yes, whenever you want. We've probably been dating for months and I just didn't realise it, sorry.'

She leaned across the table and kissed him.