Dancing with the Green Fairy

Rue Bonaparte forty-two was an unremarkable corner on a typical scruffy Parisian street. Plaster was coming off in large pieces on the sooty façade and each window had hatches on both sides and wrought iron fences in front of them, just like the windows in Hermione and Monique's apartment. The café was on the corner of the house with windows facing both directions. Its name was not X, but more unimaginative and simply named after the street, Bonaparte. At least Hermione supposed that was the name. The B in the neon sign was broken and only the "onaparte" was lit above a triangular sign immediately on the corner announcing it was a Café-Bar On the marquise was advertisements for Mutzig Pilz, whatever that was, Czech beer possibly.

Inside it was small and packed with people. When Hermione arrived Soren, Jean-Paul, René and Simone were seated at table in the far corner. René and Jean-Paul sat in thoughtful silence looking content and relaxed and Soren was in deep conversation with Simone, leaning towards her and gesturing with his hands, trying to argue or explain something. Both René and Jed a cigarette in their hand that they just let sit between their fingers, the smoke whirling towards the cracks in the yellowing ceiling in a synchronised fashion that made it look like they were communicating with secret smoke signals. Huge beer glasses stood before them on the green cloth, and the ashtray was already overflowing.

In the other end of the room Hermione saw the stage. It was partly lit with spotlights falling on the instruments leaning against chairs or standing scattered. The band had not come on yet. The stage was tiny, yet they had drums, a contra bas, a guitar, a piano and a trumpet. The Hexis must be a jazz band Hermione concluded.

"Hello Hermione! Do sit down," René said. He gestured towards a chair. Hermione pulled it out and had nearly collided with a tall cactus on a pedestal. She wrestled herself into the corner between the cactus and the table.

"I do believe you have met Simone," René said gesturing with his hand towards her.

"Hello Hermione," Simone said, looking up from her conversation with Soren.

"Hello," Hermione said without enthusiasm.

"So, what will you be drinking tonight?" René asked, smiling brightly.

"Oh, I don't know. A glass of wine perhaps?"

"Ah, splendid. I'll get it for you."

"No really you don't have to."

"I insist. Stay put." René got up from the table and made his way over to the bar.

"You can wait forever for a waiter in here," said Jean-Paul. "It's a pretty cheap place but we like it. René is in a good mood tonight. He likes to be the gentleman."

"Lucky for me, I might avoid being stung by that vicious plant."

"Blasted thing. Isn't it really ugly?" Jean-Paul laughed.

Jean-Paul asked Hermione about the French. She said it had gone well enough until her roommate had started to play absurdly loud music. A minute later René came back with her wine. She didn't know the sort. She hadn't even specified if she wanted red or white, but red was apparently the right choice. At least that was what René had gotten her. She knew embarrassingly little about wine, and here she was sitting in the heart of France. If she just shut up and didn't comment on it maybe they would never know.

Hermione didn't often drink. Her parents always let her have wine if they were having a finer dinner, with the understanding that she now was an adult and should learn to drink responsibly. Ron and Harry had used to sneak in their whisky bottles occasionally in their last year at Hogwarts. They had both got quite pissed and Hermione had had a hard time keeping up with them. She liked whisky all right but when Ron and Harry got drunk all they would talk about was Quidditch, for hours. She had always tired of them before th did and gone up from the common room to sleep. In the morning at breakfast she would have a terrific headache, and Ron and Harry would not be seen at all that day. It was mostly more trouble than it was worth.

"Here's a little mind expanding something to make us enjoy the music," René was saying. He opened a bottle with green liquid and pored into small glasses that he had fetched for everyone.

"What's that?" Hermione asked.

"This, my lovely, is green absinthe. Also known as the Little Green Fairy."

"Wormwood," Jean-Paul whispered dramatically, leaning in close to her. "When the serpent left the Garden of Eden it grew in his wake."

"Quite!" René said. "It has a rather diabolic effect. Even Muggles can feel it, but on wizards it really works."

"And witches," Simone said and reached for her glass.

"Is it a drug?" Hermione asked.

"Nah, I wouldn't call it that. I'd call it fun. It expands your mind and tunes you in."

Hermione lifted the little glass. The liquid glistened green in the subdued light. She sipped it hesitantly. "Ouch! That is bitter." She felt as if her tongue was curling up.

"Here, have some sugar in it." René took a spoonful of sugar from a little jar that stood on the table and held it in front of her. She held out her glass for him and he pored it in. The sugar fell to the bottom of the glass and started to dissolve in a swirling cloud in the green. Hermione took a sip again. Now it was somehow both sweet and awfully bitter. It tasted a little better though.

"Am I supposed to feel something?"

"In a little while. Cheers!" René held up his glass and they all saluted him.

Something was stirring on the stage. The members of the band were getting ready. The base player and the guitarist were tuning up and the trumpet guy was picking up his trumpet and flipping his fingers on the valves nervously, or maybe he was just checking the function.

"Go Hexis!" Jean-Paul called.

The trumpet player smiled at him and waved.

Hermione sipped some more on her green absinthe. It had an interesting taste. She washed it down with a mouth full of wine in between though. It took some of the bitterness off. She was beginning to feel light headed.

The band started toplay. At first they played a soft and relaxed style. Hermione thought it was quite pleasant. Not at all like the Lesbian Hags. After a minute the music became more intense. The piano player and the trumpet player took turns to play the lead. It was like a duel or a conversation. Sometimes it got pretty intense. The guitarist on the other hand was laid back. Together with the base player he would accompany the others standing in the background. Sometimes he stopped playing all together and drank from the beer he had standing beside him, watching the others play and tugging at his long blond beard. His guitar seemed small where it tilted slightly upwards on his rather round belly. He would light a cigarette that sat in his mouth while he strummed the chords with and inward look on his face.

Hermione wondered why she didn't listen to music more. She leaned back in her chair and sipped her drink. This was a nice place to be. She wanted to be nowhere else. She thought she could see the notes; they looked like little golden beetles when the piano played and the trumpet sounded like long green serpents flowing in the air.

She supposed it was all her reading and studying that had made her less interested in music. She had a hard time concentrating with music on, and since she almost always either studied or read a book she wasn't much into music.

Now they started on another tune.

"They are really good," Hermione said to Jean-Paul.

She pored herself some more of the green stuff with a generous amount of sugar. She watched the dissolving cloud with interest. Was it the little Green Fairy dancing in there? This song was really fascinating. The base was like a fog in a chilly cold morning sweeping in over a lake. The piano notes glittered like little waves and the trees were swaying in the wind. The rower dipped his blades in the still water. Hermione flowed with the music across the lake. The morning felt chilly but the stillness was beautiful. She felt refreshed breathing the sharp air.

Suddenly she was plunged back to reality. The transition from the vision of the lake felt so abrupt it was almost like Apparating. The music had stopped.

"Aw, did the song end already."

Now the trumpet player came on the stage alone. A single spotlight illuminated him. T sweat glistened on his clean-shaven, bald, head. He looked very young and thin with his spidery legs in grey trousers and a black tight shirt. Hermione could tell he was reaching inside to find the right mood.

He raised his trumpet and played two tones, stepping up the tension, followed by three fast tones that ended in a single thin tone swirling like a golden ribbon in the wind. It ripped through the silence as all the people in the café had stopped talking, all their attention on the single tone that seemed to go on forever. When it hung in the air it started to vibrate in the end. Despite being so thin, this guy must have enormous lungs. Then there were two other rapid tones stepping on each other and the melody bended itself a half note. Hermione felt the golden ribbon becoming raw and colder, still there was intense heat in the music. It was like a knife cutting through paper, or a tearing in the soul. Hermione could feel intense emotion radiate from the stage.

"I feel like I know this melody," she whispered.

"Sketches of Spain," Jean-Paul whispered back.

She was studying the eads on the nose of the trumpet player and flying at a hundred miles an hour through a desert with a burning sweltering sun. Hermione thought it was so beautiful she would explode. She couldn't stand another second of it. The desert was flying by so fast she felt dizzy and almost nauseous looking down. The lights bounced all around the room and she could feel Jean-Paul through the music, his heart was beating. Ghostlike figures flew across the intense desert sunlight. The sun was like radiation on a distant star. She looked down at the hard crackled ground and they emerged over a cliff. Far down below her the ground disappeared, several hundred feet below. Maybe it was thousands of feet. René laughed beside her and his laughter rolled like thundering clouds across the dessert sky. Good thing, the flowers would need the rain. They sprung out in cascades of blue white and red and huge wet drops started to fall in slow motion towards the dry dessert sand where they broke and splashed like grey mud. The rain turned into birds and they flew a cross the French flag.

It felt like an hour passed.

"Did you like that," Jean-Paul said, smiling.

"I think I just died," Hermione sighed. She heaved herself up in her chair. She had nearly slipped down on the floor. She looked down and realised she had been squeezing Jean-Paul's hand. She withdrew it hastily.

"This stuff did something to my brain," she said, "I was seeing the music, and then I had some sort of dream."

"Remarkable isn't it?" said René. "Synestecia, it opens up your mind and causes some mingling between sensory perceptions. Quite fascinating stuff. I looked up the differential calculus they used to describe it. Very heavy, but the theories are incomplete. Gaspard might walk us through it if we ask him."

"He'll probably force me to do it while he throws chalk at me," Hermione said.

René threw his head back and laughed. "Yeah I'm sure he will. No, seriously I'll ask him to do it, it is interesting to do things theoretically and then try the practical side of it. Experience it."

"Especially with drugs," Jean-Paul said dryly.

"You can ask him now," Soren said.

Philippe Gaspard was standing beside the table grinning at them in a grey overcoat and the many-coloured scarf with a bottle of beer in his hand that he saluted them with. Hermione noticed he wasn't wearing his glasses tonight.

"Hello my young friends, hello Hermione!" He started to wrestle out of the coat with the beer in hand. It didn't go to well so he put it down on the table beside Hermione.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I'm not allowed to enjoy the music?" he stopped his wrestling and gave Hermione an amused look. "The Hexis happens to be good friends of mine."

"Yes of course, I didn't mean..." Hermione stammered. She felt foolish. Of course he could go and listen to any band he liked. She was surprised to see him here and the comment had slipped out spontaneously. She just wasn't used to teachers hanging out with the students. It wasn't like McGonagall would ever fraternise with her students after class, even though she and Dumbledore would occasionally have a Butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks. Well, Gaspard was a great deal younger than McGonagall, wasn't he? Besides they were all adults now, more or less, so things were maybe a bit different.

"There's an empty seat here, Philippe," Simone said, gesturing to the chair beside her.

"Yes, right, thanks" Gaspard said, eyeing Hermione and hesitating for second. He then picked up his beer and sat down beside Simone.

"Ah, the little Green Fairy. You know you aren't exactly allowed to do this stuff, or at least not encouraged. The long time effects can be quite disturbing."

"Oh this is our first time Professor, promise!" René said.

"Yeah, right. Better make me an accomplice then," Gaspard said and helped himself to Simone's glass. "Do you like the band Hermione?"

"I was going to ask you something," Simone said.

"Yes?" Gaspard said, turning to her.

Hermione pored some more absinth and tuned them out. She was listening to the band that was playing a faster song now. It was nice.

"Can I get you some more wine?" she heard Gaspard ask her. She was uncertain how long time had passed. It didn't really feel like time mattered much any more.

"Sure, bring it on."

Eventually the band took a pause and they came down from the stage to say hello to their little group around the table. They all knew each other.

"Who is this cool new bird?" said the trumpet player, gesturing towards Hermione.

"Hello, I'm Hermione Granger," she said, reaching across the table to shake his hand.

"Louis Mucci." The trumpeter introduced himself, taking her hand in his.

"She is in Arithmancy of Philosophy with us," Jean-Paul explained.

"So you are studying that awful mathematical stuff that Philippe teaches?"

"Well, it is quite fascinating," Hermione said.

"Of course I could have sworn he was studying you," Louis said, and winked at her.

I already have a boyfriend, Hermione wanted to say, but for some reason she didn't. This conversation was crazy anyway. Lucky she was a bit drunk it made it easier to disregards this strangers insinuations. She just smiled at him.

"How can I not," Gaspard said, sipping the little glass with green absinthe. "She held the most excellent presentation on sexistentialism this afternoon. It was quite divine."

"What?" Hermione said staring at him, then turning to the others. "Did he just say sexistentialism?" She turned towards Jean-Paul, "Did he say sexistentialism?"

The whole table exploded in laughter. In the state her mind was Hermione thought it was the funniest thing she had ever heard. Seeing the magnificent Alain Philippe Gaspard turning a deep red didn't make it any less funny and she roared with laughter. Louis looked at her, grinning, a bit confused.

"That must have been the Freudian slip of the century, Gaspard!" René said, doubled over with laughter.

"Oh fuck, how do I get out of this one," Gaspard said, saluting them again with glass and leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest, still with pink spots on his cheeks.

"Are you coming on to me, sir? " Hermione said. Fluttering with her eyelashes in a corny imitation of a flirt. Oh, my god I'm flirting with a teacher, she thought. I must be royally pissed. Well, was that really a Freudian slip or an unseemly joke?

"What is sexistensialism, Gaspard?" Simone asked in an amused tone. "An attempt to restore male domination in your class?"

"Something like precedence of sex before existence," Gaspard tried to catch on to the joke. "After all that normally comes before existence doesn't it?"

"Except in the case of virgin birth," René said.

"Or if you get all confused by the hen and egg problem and make a messy omelette of the whole issue," Jean-Paul said.

"Making a good omelette is frightfully difficult," René said. "Of course few things beat a good omelette with unions and mushroom and a nice wine. A chap couldn't have a better breakfast."

"You eat that for breakfast? That's disgusting," Simone said.

"Not as often as I would like, no."

Hermie was beginning to have trouble following the conversation. How much wine had she drunk anyway? Things were beginning to blur. She saw that Gaspard was tuning out of the conversation as well. When he saw she was looking he caught her eye, shrugged and smiled. She smiled back. He was all right really. If he just wouldn't look so damned smug and entertained all the time with everything she did or said. It was like there was some joke she wasn't in on.

The band started to play again and Gaspard moved over to sit next to Hermione. He poured green absinthe for them both and there was an awkward pause as both searched for a topic of conversation.

This time when the little Green Fairy started to dance in her mind she could suddenly see equations and Arithmancy before her eyes. It was like the air was distorted with colourful patterns and transformations of math.

"So what are you doing here Hermione?"

"Eh, Jean-Paul invited me after the lesson," she said.

"No, I mean what are you doing at the university? Do you have any special plans with your studies or are you only in it for the parties?" He smiled and lifted the little glass to his lips while fixing her with his deep blue eyes over the rim.

"Normally I wouldn't admit it, but I really only have two ambitions in life, and if I can't be Minister of Magic I'll try to get into research here. Now that I got in at Isobel D'Éry I might go for the research bit first." She grinned at Gaspard. She had meant to say it in an offhand sort of tone, more like she was joking, but Gaspard wasn't smiling. He just looked at her thoughtfully. She felt her face start to burn in the silence and gulped down her drink very quickly.

"You know research might not be all that it is cut out to be, but if you are going for Minister you might like to work on hiding your ambitions a little," Gaspard said after a long pause. His face broke into a smile again.

"I only said it because you asked and I'm a bit drunk, " Hermione said.

"Well a Minister of Magic needs to be able to handle liquor, there wil be many dinners and a lot of entertaining to do. Did you try politics in school? Hogwarts it must have been if I'm not mistaken. It is the only wizard school in Britain right?"

"Yes, the Irish want a school of their own, but there is just not enough students. Arthur Weasley says the Irish let the Muggle rivalry get to them and wizards should know better."

"Who is Arthur Weasley?"

Hermione hesitated, "Oh, someone I know. He works at the Ministry."

He is my boyfriends dad, was what she was supposed to say. Why had she hesitated?

"Someone to inspire you a little huh?" Gaspard said, thoughtful again.

"I did try to work for House Elves rights at Hogwarts, you know, give them wages and let them use wands and all that," Hermione said hastily.

"Oh really, and how did it go," Gaspard asked. He looked interested, and he didn't laugh, which she had half expected.

"It was frightfully difficult. I think I managed to piss off everyone at Hogwarts, including the House Elves themselves," Hermione said with a sigh.

Gaspard laughed. "Yes, no one thanks you for being idealistic. It makes people nervous, especially when their comfort and privileges are threatened. I do research you know, maybe you could give me a hand sometime. I sure could need it."

"I'm sure I will be able to contribute immensely after a week of studies," Hermione said.

"Ah, well, don't be to sure. I could need a set of fresh eyes you know."

"As long as it is not sexistentialism." Hermione said.

Gaspard shifted in his seat, looking uncomfortable. "Eh, sorry about that. My tongue slipped I don't know what I said. It was just a stupid little mistake. Eh, sorry..." He shifted again like a worm before the hook.

Having him on the hook like that made Hermione feel bold. She was beginning to wonder if she affected him in some way. That was not exactly something she was used to from Hogwarts. A small tinge of both nervousness and exhilaration shot through her. She shouldn't be talking like that to her teacher, but the temptation to wipe off Gaspard's smug little smile was just too much to resist.

"Maybe you were looking at something." She pressed on, resting her chin on her hand and looking into his eyes.

"Eh, maybe," Gaspard said. To Hermione's amusement he was blushing again.

The evening became even more of a blur after that, but as much as Hermione recalled she had terrific fun. After the Hexis had finished playing they hung around talking to the band for a while. Then René fetched beer for everyone. Hermione thought he must have a great deal of money the way he was buying. She tried to pay for some of it but René wouldn't have that. People started to put on robes in the café and the crowd was quickly disappearing.

"We need something for the road," René said and went over to the bar where the bartender was cleaning up and putting things away. An intense conversation with the bartender and René followed. They could not hear what they were saying, but the bartender shook his head and looked very determined. René then produced a considerable stack of Galleons. A little later he returned from the bar holding two bottles of red wine.

"Not the best sort, but it will cure our thirst while we walk home," he said, grinning triumphantly.

When they left Café X they were all quite drunk, not to put to fine a point on it. They walked down Rue Bonaparte in a big unruly bunch leaning on each others shoulders singing "Show me the way to the next whisky bar, don't ask why," at the top of their lungs. If the Muggles had spotted them in their mixture of Muggle clothing and robes they would probably have thought they were the strangest sight.

Hermione felt like she was floating in mid air watching her self do crazy things with detached amusement.

"I know just the place," Soren said. "We need to Apparate there of course."

"Hermione doesn't much like Apparating," Jean-Paul said uncertainly.

"No problem, I have done my Apparation test damn it," Hermione said with a little more edge than she had meant to.

"Well, good for you!" Soren said, grining. "All right then follow me," Soren said. He Apparated to the top of the nearest house and stood there, waving for them to follow.

"I'll bring my scooter. I don't want to leave it here," Jean-Paul muttered and left.

"Ready?" Gaspard said and put his hand on Hermione's shoulder. They Apparated together to the roof standing beside Soren. Simone came soon after. A high noise of a starting engine ripped the silence of the night as Jean-Paul started his scooter on the ground below. The engine sputtered and whined and suddenly he appeared beside them hanging in the air.

"That thing flies?" Hermione exclaimed. She started to laugh. Seeing that sputtering scooter hanging in the air wavering slightly in the wind just looked too comical.

"Of course it does," Jean-Paul said. "How would it otherwise be useful beating Parisian traffic?"

"But don't the Muggles spot you?"

"Who cares about the Muggles?"

They followed Soren to a nearby roof with a terrace. The view was breathtaking. It was on a house higher than the surroundings and in the distance the skyline of Paris was visible in all its splendour, including the Eiffel tower.

They sat themselves down at the table on the terrace. It was really cosy and nice to sit on this roof looking at the stars that glittered above and the night light of the city glittering below them.

"Oh we're screwed!" René burst out suddenly. "I forgot to bring something to open the bottles with."

"Oh no problem," Hermione said. She was still a little annoyed that everyone seemed to think she didn't know how to Apparate. She spotted an open window a few stories below her on the other side of the street. "Just hang on one second," she said.

"But those are Muggles," she heard Simone call after her.

She appeared inside a bedroom that lay in darkness. What had she been thinking? You weren't supposed to apparate inside Muggle houses in the middle of the night.

You are breaking and entering Hermione. This is illegal!

Oh well she was only going to borrow a wine opener. She'd give it right back. But where would she find one. In the kitchen of course but where was that? It was all dark in here.

"Who the hell are you?" A bewildered Muggle guy was staring at her from a bed she hadn't noticed at first.

"I'm the little Green Fairy," Hermione said and giggled. "You are dreaming stupid, go back to sleep."

"Oh, I guess I must be."

"But before you go to sleep again, where is the kitchen. Do you mind if I borrow a wine opener? Since I'm only a figment of your imagination anyway."

"Oh, sure, go ahead. It is out that door and the second on the right," said the Muggle who looked like he hadn't entirely woken up.

"Thanks, now go back to sleep."

When Hermione Apparated back to the roof they were all grinning at her. "That was the coolest thing," René said when she handed over the wine opener.

"I guess it must have been illegal," Hermione muttered. "But I actually asked the guy and he said it was all right that I borrowed it."

"You apparated inside a Muggle apartment in the middle of the night and asked to borrow a wine opener?" Gaspard asked. He laughed and looked at her with admiration. For some reason Hermione felt pleased by her own recklessness.

They sat on the terrace for a while passing the bottle around. They didn't speak much. The cool night felt good after the crowded café. Hermione realised she had a French lecture early next day but she pushed the thought away. She guessed her parents would be surprised if they knew she was sitting on a rooftop in the middle of the week drinking wine. Ron would probably not have minded though. He would always be on about how she was a stickler for rules. She had come a far way from how she had been in their first years at Hogwarts. She might have started out that way, but in the end friendship and loyalty had meant so much more to her. Bending a few rules sometimes didn't matter so much if you did it for a good purpose or a greater deed.

It had been many hours since she had thought about Ron. She felt a pang of guilt.

Finally they stood up to leave. Hermione had to steady herself a little with her hand on Jean-Paul's shoulder. It was really not such a good idea to drink a lot of wine sitting down. You didn't need your balance much for that.

"You can ride with me on the scooter," Jean-Paul offered.

"I don't want to go home." Hermione giggled and staggered a little. She felt childish and in a silly mood.

He rolled across the terrace and started up the engine. It made a terrible noise and Hermione was sure all the Muggles in the world must wake up. She sat up behind Jean-Paul and they took off across the sky, flying low over the rooftops, dodging chimneys and satellite dishes.

Hermione had gone into a crazy mood and was sitting with her arms spread out singing very loudly, "There's a star man waiting in the sky. He'd like to come and meet us but he thinks he'll blow our minds."

"Keep quiet Hermione, you'll wake the Muggles again."

"What, and this engine wont? This is where I live by the way. No you don't need to land, I'd like to drop and pop."

"Are you sure?"

"Hey I did pass my test you know. Actually I did pretty well, but I usually do, don't I?" She laughed and stood up on the scooter behind Jean-Paul, balancing precariously. "I had a great time! See you in class Jean-Paul."

She jumped backward and started to fall. It was an exhilarating feeling dropping through the sky. The cold wind made her robes flap and the ground was coming towards her with deadly speed. She screamed a high-pitched scream, like a little girl at an amusement park. Not until she could see the gravel on the ground did she apparate.

There was one little detail she had missed. Before you Apparate you had to straighten up, since you appear again at the same angle as you lef When she appeared on the back yard behind their apartment she fell the last foot straight on her face. She knocked a tin waste basked over and it tumbled into another one making a great racket. She felt her hand and face sting when she hit the asphalt.

Rolling over on her back and looking at her bleeding hands Hermione couldn't stop laughing. Her laughter echoed between the houses on the dirty old back yard escaping into the Parisian night.