The Mystery Wife

"Why do women wear dresses, anyway?" Sevanna griped, looking over two of Draco's latest suggestions. The two of them were doing a bit of Muggle clothes shopping before they headed back to the Wizarding Quarter, and Sevanna had already changed into one of the outfits she'd bought, an admittedly gorgeous black pantsuit with a knee-length jacket. It was as close to her old style of dress as she could possibly get away with, Draco noticed, in either world.

"It's not like a woman could fight in these rags," she continued, her customary sneer in evidence. "What would they do if suddenly attacked? Run away in those ridiculous high heels?"

"They're not for running away," Draco sighed. "They're for looking good. Or," he admitted wryly, turning one shoe heel-up, "attacking people back. You'd hardly need to carry a knife, wearing these. And I fail to see how a dress would be any more difficult to move in than a set of robes."

"You'll note I've always worn pants beneath the robes. I dislike anything that smacks of vulnerability. Or impracticality."

She was holding up the red dress in front of herself anyway, as she stared into the mirror.

"Well, fine-- wear something beneath these," Draco retorted, a bit flushed. "Most people do, as far as I know. Nobody's asking you to carry a big sign over your head saying 'victim'. I just think you'd look really wonderful in red."

Sevanna's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Gryffindor color," she muttered. "Though I suppose the days when it mattered are behind me. It would certainly disguise me effectively enough..."

"Nobody's asking you to wear gold with it," Draco shrugged. "And the darker shades of red would look just as good. As would most purples, and a few blues and greens, and winter white." He lowered his voice a bit and added, "Heels would also help with the disguise, you know. You'd walk differently."

"Assuming I was able to walk at all."

"Buy low ones, then. Nobody's asking you to wear four-inch spikes."

"I should bloody well hope not." She sighed, and looked into the mirror for a long moment. "Bleeding Merlin on a stick, why did I think this was a good idea, again?"

"That bad, is it?" Draco asked ruefully. "Because nobody's likely to find you like this. Because you're beautiful, and it's a form of power. And possibly because you might have a more dextrous touch with potions, with smaller hands. Other than that, though, I'm fresh out."

She shook her head. "I didn't think it would matter," she said a bit wistfully. "I told myself it would not." She took up both of the dresses Draco had suggested and marched over to the cash register. "And it will not," she said firmly. "I am alive, and fortunate enough to be so. Anything else is counterproductive self-pity."

Her eyes strayed to Draco as she set the dresses on the counter. They were, as always, unreadable, but they took him in from head to toe in a way that made him blush and think terrible, awful things.

They paid for the dresses and headed back into the Wizarding Quarter, Draco carrying all the bags. And Sevanna led them into LeClair's at a determined march.

Rosalie LeClair glanced up from her ledger, her mouth softening from its thin, harsh line as soon as she saw Draco.

"Monsieur Szarkany!" she said delightedly. "And you, you must be Sevanna Prince!"

Sevanna smiled and shook her hand. "And you must be Rosalie LeClair. My Apprentice has been raving about you."

"'E 'ad ze good sense to pick up one of my better wands," Rosalie nodded in his direction. "'Awsorn and phoenix fezzair. Eet was a good match, as I suspected it would be. We LeClairs, we 'ave an eye for zose," she said, her eyes flicking back and forth between the two of them.

Draco went rather flushed, yet again, knowing what she was looking for. She wasn't going to find it in Sevanna's case. Which was a completely depressing thought, because he thought it was probably glaringly obvious in his. And frankly, it was pretty bloody early in the day to both be publicly proven a liar AND have someone pity him.

"Madame LeClair, do you think you can find my mistress an equally good match, in the wands you have here?" Draco asked quickly. "She's... rather complex, I know, but if anyone can..."

The Frenchwoman's gray eyes narrowed thoughtfully as they seemed to take in everything about Sevanna, from the set of her shoulders to the way she wanted to pace and didn't. "Hmm," she murmured almost teasingly. "Complex, indeed. Like Draven, 'ere, you are going through a time of great personal change."

Sevanna might have looked impassive to anyone else, but to Draco she was visibly biting the inside of her cheek to contain the snorting and the snark that wanted to emerge.

"And yet, you 'ave always 'ad a phoenix fezzair core, because you 'ave 'ad to recreate yourself a number of times. You 'ave been a street rat in a bad place. And you 'ave adapted to the life of the richesse so well zat no one would guess at your origins. You flirted with darkness, and turned from it again, all for disappointed love. Ah, oui, zere is a great capacity for love, and you have never been made 'appy by it. You are a chameleon, and 'ave 'idden your true nature for so long zat no one sees it anymore, not even you. You do not wish ozzers to know ze best of you, because you see it as your greatest weakness. Beneath ze core desire you see in yourself, ze desire to be recognized for brilliance and daring, your deeper desire, your less understood desire is to be needed. To be useful. To protect. Ah, oui. Zat above all."

Sevanna's face was a mask, her Occlusion utterly perfect, but it seemed to make no difference to the wandmaker.

"You do not need a phoenix fezzair core anymore, madame. It is time for you to stop recreating yourself, and learn 'oo you are to begin wiz. Ashwinder ash, for ze most powerful protection spells, coupled with chimaera scales, for strength. And for ze wand itself, ebony. Your darkness makes a better protector spirit of you."

Those piercing gray eyes flicked to Draco's. "You are very lucky, Draven," she said.

"I keep telling him that," Sevanna said, surprisingly lightly, "but he cannot be made to listen."

"I can, too," Draco retorted with dry humour. "It just requires a whack on the head first, to get my attention."

"Now, then," she said with mock-sternness, "no discussing our twisted perversions in front of the neighbors. And while you're at it, no more trading sexual favors for store-bought merchandise. I don't even want to ask how you paid for a LeClair wand."

Rosalie laughed.

"We could always go home, and I could show you, instead," Draco replied innocently, with an angelic face and eyes full of devilry.

Sevanna snorted softly. "You see what I have to put up with?" she said mournfully to Rosalie.

"What woman could resist?" the Frenchwoman smiled. "Zis is all too adorable!"

Sevanna's answering smile appeared for all the world to be open and genuine, without the least hint of frost to it. "Have you a wand such as you described on hand, or will it need to be made?" she asked, steering the conversation back in the direction of the practical.

"I weel 'ave to make it," Rosalie said, one shoulder rippling in a particularly Gallic shrug.

"How quickly can that be done?"

"Three days. Two, if I work quickly."

"Have you anything that would be suitable in the meantime?"

"Ebony and dragon 'eartstring. An old standby." Rosalie's eyes were still flicking back and forth between Sevanna and Draco in appraisal, and frank curiosity.

"It will do," Sevanna nodded, and she paid for both wands upfront and promised to send Draco back for the new one in three days' time.

And then they stayed and exchanged just enough pleasantries that it wouldn't look as though they were fleeing for the hills.