The Book Of Jude

Chapter 6: The Space Between

`You cannot quit me so quickly

Is no hope in you for me?

No corner you could squeeze me

But I got all the time for you, Love.

The Space Between

The tears we cry

Is the laughter that keeps us coming back for more

The Space Between

The wicked lies we tell

And hope to keep safe from the pain

But will I hold you again?

These fickle, fuddled words confuse me

Like `Will it rain today?´

Waste the hours with talking, talking

These twisted games we´re playing...´

Dave Matthews Band, The Space Between

Jude and Rhys stood on the Silver Street Bridge staring out over the water as it glided smoothly under them. The air held a slight chill for summer--a storm was brewing to the south and its pewter clouds were advancing steadily upon them. Jude hugged her arms around her and tried to summon up all the courage she possessed. She couldn´t bring herself to look at Rhys--she knew he was angry, however, because she could feel the tension in his body as he gripped the railing of the bridge hard.

"Why are you doing this, Jude?" He looked at her, but her expression remained blank--she betrayed no emotion as she continued to focus unblinkingly on the iron sky. "We were happy together, admit it. Why are you doing this now--to me and to yourself?" She remained silent. He gripped the rails tighter, the rough stone biting into his hands. He´d thought everything was finally okay, that all secrets were out in the open and that everything was going to be fine between them. It had been for a while and it was like old times again--when she laughed, when she told him things, when she wasn´t afraid every moment of every day. At least he´d told her all of his secrets--he wasn´t sure how much she was still hiding. But what else could there possibly be?

"What is it? What aren´t you telling me? For God´s sake, Jude, nothing can be that bad. Quit playing your twisted little game!" He couldn´t help but betray a little of his anger at her, although he doubted it helped the situation at all. "Or are you just so messed up that you can´t bear to be happy? Is that it?" His anger overflowed and he could not stem the tide. He wanted her to feel a little of the pain that she was causing him.

She looked at him. It hurt more than she could bear--doing this to him. Yet her cold gaze and stony expression betrayed none of that inner torment to Rhys. She couldn´t let him see how much this was killing her just as it was hurting him. When she finally spoke, she surprised even herself, as she adopted a soulless monotone. What else could she say? She didn´t know what else she could say to push him away, and naturally her mind reverted to the elegant lines of literature, which she quoted robotically. "Happiness is but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain." Thomas Hardy´s Jude the Obscure was one of the first books she´d ever read. She´d first discovered as a child its solemn themes that somewhat echoed her life by accident when she was passing time in a London library until the best time for picking the pockets of the population of the city. The title bearing her name drew her to its pages.

"Don´t give me that bullshit, Jude. Do you honestly believe that we should go through life never expecting to find happiness? That we don´t deserve it?" He grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and turned her from the waters edge to face him. Her body obeyed, but her eyes refused to look into his. This frustrated him further. She should at least have the guts to look him in the eye while she was lying to him--while she was ripping his heart out and Flamenco dancing all over it. "Everyone deserves to be happy, Jude, including you, whether you believe it or not." He couldn´t fathom why she was pushing him away--what would frighten her this much?

"Rhys, trust me. This will be better for the both of us in the long run. I can only hurt you, and I don´t want to do that." She continued in the same flat monotone voice.

"Bollocks! What do you think you´re doing now? Do you think I enjoy this, watching my best friend and the only girl I´ve ever loved walk out of my life?" The thought terrified him more than ever, now that he´d spoken it. She was leaving him--perhaps forever. "The past is dead. It´s gone, Jude. It can´t hurt you anymore." He tried to convince her but he could feel every word failing to dislodge the lie she´d convinced herself of.

"No!" she interrupted angrily, showing the first emotions she´d had the whole day. "It´s not dead, don´t you get that? It never dies, it just lies in wait to ambush you when you least expect it--when you´ve got more to lose than you´ve ever had in your life!" There had been too many close calls recently. On two occasions in the two months that had passed since the letter from the Ministry had shaken her secure world to its very foundations, she´d almost carelessly revealed the mark on her left arm. The time had come to tell him or leave him--she could no longer hide. Doubting that she could bear to see the look of hatred and disgust in his eyes each time he looked at her--the inevitable consequences if she told him everything--she decided it would be best for them both if she´d just left him--no explanation at all. She could feel her face begin to flush with rage as she screamed the words.

Clenching her fists with barely controlled fury, she continued. "It can still hurt me. Oh, make no mistake about that. But I´ll beat it to the punch this time. I´m leaving Adda´s tonight--I´m looking for another job and another place to stay. Goodbye, Rhys." She turned her back on him as he dropped his head and rested his hands against the stone railing for support. She was actually going to do this.

"There´s nothing I can say, nothing I can do?" he asked, defeat echoing in his hollow voice.

Without turning, she answered no. Her shoulders sagged a little as she walked away--it was done. She didn´t turn around once as she left. Only the sound of Rhys angrily driving his fist into the solid stone of the bridge where they´d spent many hours in each other´s company, mocking the boaters who passed, pursued her down the street. Eventually, though all was drowned out by the gusting winds of the storm behind her.

***

The tinkling of the tiny bell above the door announced to Adda that someone had entered the door of her shop. She turned from the dough she was rolling out on a marble table to see Jude walk in, looking as if she´d just lost her best friend. "How was lunch with Rhys, dear?" She tried her best to act as if she hadn´t noticed Jude´s downtrodden and weary expression. However, her fears were confirmed when Jude told her in a flat, dispassionate voice that she and Rhys had ended their relationship irrevocably.

Adda had immediately ushered Jude into a chair and poured her a cup of coffee. Jude simply stared at the steaming cup as Adda asked her about the "whys" that inevitably came. She explained everything to the old woman, who then insisted that she fix everything up between Rhys and herself and just to allow herself to be happy. Jude refused to listen to her condemnation again--she´d heard enough from Rhys already and she could barely cope with that, let alone Adda´s chiding.

"This isn´t going to get better, Adda. Trust me on this. It´s over." The old lady´s face fell at this. She loved Jude and Rhys as if they were her very own children and didn´t want to see either unhappy. "And I can´t stay here any more," Jude finished. "I can´t live and work in the same place with him. I have to leave." Adda looked as though she would cry.

"But where will you go, dear? And who will take care of you?"

Jude allowed a weak smile. No one had taken care of her as well as Adda had done. She would miss spending every morning helping her bake the day´s wares and chatting about nothing in particular. This place was comforting and safe for her--but no longer could she stay here.

"No one can replace you, that´s for certain." Jude bent over the table to hug the woman, who now held a lacy handkerchief to her eyes. "But I can look after myself, you know that." Adda nodded. "And I promise to visit you all the time," Jude tried to comfort her.

Adda sniffed. "You´d better. It´ll be so lonely here with out you, dear." She burst into another loud sob. "Oh, I miss you already." Jude stood and walked over to Adda´s chair, then wrapped her arms around the woman who´d been so kind to her, trying to comfort her as best as she knew how.

After a few moments, the two broke apart. "Well, I guess I have to go and pack. I´ll only be a few minutes--I don´t have that much stuff." She smiled at Adda, hoping she wouldn´t start sobbing again. "I´ll be back down to settle the room with you." Adda sunk back into the chair and dotted her eyes tragically with her handkerchief as Jude sullenly climbed the stairs to her room.

Opening the door to the flat she and Rhys had shared for over three years now, Jude was immediately greeted by Darcy. She knelt and hugged the dog, who´d been as faithful a companion to her as she had been to Rhys. She was going to miss the affectionate hound. As she sat down on the floor, leaning back against the closed door, she rested her forehead on the dog´s furry head. She´d been a fool to think that she could have this life--the life she´d always dreamed of. To make such good friends--to find love--was careless of her. It would have been better if she´d remained alone. That way, no one would have been hurt. A single tear fell down her expressionless and pale face, despite trying with all her might not to cry.

***

It didn´t take her very long to pack her few belongings in the battered luggage that had accompanied her here three years ago. She lugged two suitcases and a small cardboard box containing various miscellaneous items down the stairs where Adda was waiting for her. She looked as if she´d been crying the entire time Jude was upstairs. Jude smiled in a manner she hoped was cheerful, but knew bordered merely on resignation and resoluteness.

"Someone´s been looking for you. He´s in the front." She jerked her thumb toward the main room of the store. Jude´s stomach dropped. Was it Rhys? Her mind raced quickly. She hadn´t expected him to show up for a while--at least not until she´d made her escape.

Adda noticed her agitated appearance and quickly reassured her that she´d never seen this person in her entire life. "It´s a gentleman with black hair wearing a black coat."

Was it someone from the Ministry? She wondered. How could they know she was planning to leave so quickly? Oh, well. She would deal with him in due time.

Jude held out the key and what little cash she had saved to Adda, who tearfully took the key, but refused to take Jude´s money. "Take it." Jude insisted forcefully and pushed the folded bills into her hand. She then set down her bags to give the woman one last embrace.

"You be careful, do you understand young lady?" Jude loved it when Adda talked to her like she was eight. "Don´t be a stranger now, I want to see you in here often--and I mean every day." She kissed Jude on the cheek before allowing her to pick up her bags and head for the door. Adda pressed her handkerchief to her face and retreated into the back of the store.

As Jude emerged from the back room, her eyes fell on a familiar, yet totally unexpected, face. "What the hell are you doing here?" she exclaimed without thinking and dropped her bags, which crashed to the ground with a loud thud.

"So nice to see you again, too," the person said a little sarcastically and smirked. "It´s been far too long, Jude."

Still reeling from the shock of the encounter, but a little ashamed at the way she´d just greeted her old professor, she gathered her composure and her bags that now littered the floor around her feet. "Sorry, Professor. But you...sort of caught me off guard--you were the last person I expected." She shifted her burden uncomfortably, not knowing what to say next. Her eyes flickered to his face for a moment then returned to the ground, and she smiled a little awkwardly. "It´s nice to see you again, it´s just...why do I get the feeling that you standing here isn´t a good thing?" She shifted the box in her arms, waiting for an answer.

Professor Snape nodded solemnly. "I have a favor to ask of you on behalf of Dumbledore. Is there somewhere we could talk?" Then, as if noting her suitcases for the first time, he asked with a frown "Were you going somewhere?"

"I have to move," she replied shortly. This was not something she wanted to discuss for the third time.

"Why? Is everything alright, Jude?" he asked, betraying a little concern.

"Everything´s fine. Couldn´t be better," she answered dully, her face the same emotionless mask. "We can go around the corner to the pub and talk." She headed off that conversation immediately. He took the box from under her arm and they headed for the door. Before they rounded the corner, she couldn´t help but cast a farewell glance at the small bakery on the corner of Paradise. She had the feeling that she would not be seeing that place for a while.

***

"You know, when Adda told me that someone wanted to see me--someone she´d never seen around before--I thought it was a Spook from the Ministry." She smiled.

"Spook? Jude, you really should stop watching American spy movies." He joked about the situation, but in truth, he knew how frustrating it must be for Jude to deal with this. The Ministry had also treated him with the same suspicion in years past--he wasn´t sure they trusted him even now. He knew already that she was being watched. The Department of the Mysteries had sent a few agents to Hogwarts to question Dumbledore on the whereabouts of his dangerous student. Of course, Dumbledore had not cooperated, even though they both knew where Jude was.

"I got a letter from Fudge saying that if I didn´t notify them if I left, there´d be "consequences". If those bastards think I´m going to tell them that I left, they have another thing coming. They can track me down again, for all I care. They should have to work for their seven sickles. This will be the perfect opportunity for them to finally throw me in Azkaban. I don´t give a fuck what they do," she finished dispassionately.

"Language, Miss Elliot." Snape raised an eyebrow at Jude. He knew she hated when anyone called her by her last name. She eyed him indignantly, but remained silent. He continued, now that he held her attention. "You won´t go to Azkaban. Dumbledore has already notified the Ministry that you plan to leave." Her reaction was that of utter surprise.

"But how could Dumbledore know..." she sputtered, trying to make sense of everything.

"Calm down, Jude. He´s not a mind reader. He didn´t know you were leaving your flat for God knows where. But he did want the Ministry to be informed that you planned to be at Hogwarts for the upcoming school year."

Jude was beyond confused. "Why would I be at Hogwarts?" Jude asked, hoping everything would soon become clearer.

"You´ve been offered a job. Dumbledore would like for you to accept the position of his personal assistant."

"But I can´t leave now. My life is here. I have an internship at a publishing company and this is my last year at the university. You can´t expect me to just leave this all behind because of some whim of Dumbledore´s. Everything for me is here."

"That´s not what it seems to me," he replied evenly, casting his eyes pointedly on the pile of bags under Jude´s feet.

"You´re wrong," she lied. She had, in the past few hours, lost everything that was dear to her in this town. Her education meant little to her besides being her reason for staying here in Cambridge, near Rhys and Adda. She had little reason to stay now, and she knew it. But hell if she was going back there. "Why should I go back?" She would at least allow him to explain.

"Because you have a duty to someone."

She closed her eyes. This was infinitely frustrating. He wouldn´t just come right out and tell her what was so important that he had to come all the way to Cambridge to persuade her to do. It was typical of them, really. Whatever was going on, Dumbledore knew that Jude would refused to come back to Hogwarts--to the magical community, in general--at all costs. She also knew that Dumbledore was familiar enough with her to send Professor Snape to twist her arm.

She was tired of owing people. Whoever this person was that she had a duty to could forget it--she was done with it all for good. She was not going back. Still, out of curiosity, she asked, "Who?"

"Harry Potter."

He couldn´t have said anything else that would have produced such an effect on her. She froze--a silent statue staring at her professor in disbelief. That was it, then. If the boy whose father she killed and whose mother she failed to save needed her to come back from her exile, then she would do it. It was an obligation that she could not walk away from. She continued to stare at him, waiting for him to continue.

"Did you know that he will be attending Hogwarts this upcoming fall?"

She shook her head. Yes, that made sense, though. He must be nearing eleven now and of course he´d be attending the best wizarding school in Britain--he had, after all, reduced the most feared dark wizard of his time to a weak and disembodied spirit when he was only a year or so old. "Well, you very well know," Professor Snape continued, "that Voldemort was never truly killed. We have not been successful in tracking his whereabouts and Dumbledore fears that he may make a bid to gain immortality again and come after the Potter boy." She nodded, wanting him to continue. "Dumbledore received news from Belgium early this summer--it appears that someone, perhaps one of Voldemort´s followers, tried to break into Nicholas Flamel´s residence. They must have been looking for..." He was interrupted by a hoarse whisper from Jude.

"The Sorcerer´s Stone." It seemed the likely target for Voldemort--an easy and fail-proof way of regaining everything that he´d lost the night he´d tried to kill Harry.

"You know about it, then." He looked mildly surprised. But then again, his prized student had been an avid reader of everything she could get her hands on and it was not unlikely that she would be familiar with Flamel and his life´s work.

She nodded distractedly. She´d studied Flamel and other great sorcerers of the time--including Dumbledore. Flamel and Dumbledore were the only other known wizards with such abilities, beside herself, that were still living. Flamel, she knew, should have been dead long ago, if not for his fabled Elixir of Life--a product of the Stone´s ability--which now appeared to be a little more than just myth.

"Dumbledore retrieved the Stone after the muddled attempt to steal it and it is now at Gringott´s." He lowered his voice as he explained. "He doesn´t think that it will be safe, however, until it is under his watch at the castle."

"But that would just lure Voldemort to where Harry is. Dumbledore wouldn´t be so foolish as to put the Stone and Harry in the same place. That would make it too easy, and Voldemort wouldn´t be able to resist." As she said the words, it all clicked and finally came into clear focus. "He´s going to use them both as bait, isn´t he? He wants to catch Voldemort badly enough that he would put Harry and everyone of the students there in jeopardy?"

"No, Jude. Harry wouldn´t be in danger and neither would any of the other students. The school is highly protected and Dumbledore is a far greater wizard than Voldemort. There will be plenty of protection to ensure the boy´s safety. That´s where you come in."

Jude looked up from her hands resting on the table to look at the professor.

"Dumbledore wants you around the castle as another pair of eyes and ears. You will be watching Harry the entire time he is at school."

Jude shifted uneasily in her chair. She didn´t like the fact that she was going to be a pawn in a plan that involved putting an innocent child at risk. Snape sensed her feelings.

"Voldemort has been reduced to a shell of his former self, Jude. He wouldn´t be a threat unless he got to the Stone. And we´ll stop him before he does."

"Why doesn´t Dumbledore just destroy the Stone? Why would he risk so much when this could all be avoided?" She tried to make sense of everything.

"Because it is against the wishes of his partner, Flamel. Without the Stone, he and his wife will die." Jude crossed her arms in disgust. Flamel would put innocent people in danger just so he could continue to live on borrowed time. That was beyond selfishness, but what could you expect from an alchemist who´d spent his life creating something from nothing?

"And we´ve been unsuccessful in locating Voldemort until now. Jude, this could be the last chance to end it all--for good." That was a pretty damned convincing reason to risk all that they planned to Jude had to admit. For it to be all over--that seemed almost too much to hope for.

"Can we count on you?" Snape fixed a piercing stare on her. He knew she was in, but he needed to hear the words.

"Yes, of course." She sighed, defeated. She knew that this would come eventually, and she hoped that it would not end up costing her everything she had to give.

"Good." He felt somewhat guilty for having had a hand in dragging her back into a life she´d tried so hard to leave behind. But everyone had to pay for their sins--he and Jude were no exception. "Dumbledore thinks that it would be best if you were present on the train to Hogwarts, just in case anything should happen." He studied Jude´s expression. She looked resigned and determined. That was a good sign. She was pretty much unstoppable when she was determined to do something. "Of course you know when and where." He did not need to elaborate further, for she had, at one time been a student at that school. "And in the meantime," he suggested, "you can stay at the Abbey. I plan to be there until the term starts, myself. And I could use the company."

She looked skeptical of the offer, but where else could she go? Certainly not back to Adda´s, and there was nowhere else in this town that she could think of to stay. She did miss the old house in Dover where she´d spent many summers as a child. She nodded her head, gratefully accepting the offer.

"Well, it´s getting late." And with little ceremony, he lifted Jude´s bags and walked out the door, as she followed with the box in her arms.

Outside, the sky had grown dark and the advancing clouds had settled low over the town, threatening rain and lightning. As the professor pulled out his wand to Apparate back to his home, Jude reached for the silver charm around her neck. It was a portkey to the very same manor--one of the few places she´d ever considered home. "Domi," she whispered and in a flash, both persons were gone, leaving the dark alley as empty as it had been when they´d entered it.