Nox

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Then with the eyes tightly shut
Looking thought the rust and rot and dust
A spot of light floods the floor
And pours over the rusted world of pretend
The eyes ease open and its dark again..."

—Linkin Park, "Forgotten"

Chapter One - Like a Whore

He walked down a street in the Muggle portion of a large American city, well aware of all the lustful looks he was getting from the females, and the death glares he was getting from the males. He smirked to himself and whistled the tune to an old Muggle song his friend used to sing. She didn't sing very often, and she never sung the song near her ex-boyfriend. He missed her some... He shook his head. It did no good to get sentimental over her memory.

The street was crowded with mostly young clubbers, couples and singles, straight and gay, Muggle and Magical. He was one of the tallest, and he used that to his full advantage, pretending he didn't see some of the shorter men and ramming into them. They didn't find it very amusing, but he liked it quite a lot. The women continued to gaze up at him wistfully, and he did nothing to discourage it.

However, he had things to do, people to meet, whores to screw, drugs to do. His rental car was parked somewhere near a major bridge, but he could always use a Locater Spell when no one was looking. He didn't worry about it too much. He was a man with a hell of a lot of money and no one to lavish it on. His last girlfriend had turned out to be a half-human, quarter-lamia, quarter-Veela Death Eater, and he was safe saying he was a bit wary of rejoining the dating scene just yet, after nearly having his privates sheared straight off. He rather valued his deep voice.

There was a club in a rather sleazy part of the city to which he was going. Muggle America never ceased to amaze him. All the sectors were so neatly and logically separated in a city. Except in Atlantic City, New Jersey, but then again, that's in New Jersey and New Jersey itself is completely illogical. He shook his head and went in, passing a man sitting on the stoop in a grey wool jacket.

The club was not a skanky place, and it was not a strip joint nor a "gentlemen's club" (which is certainly a glossier term for strip joint, but one must add both to make a convincing sentence). At the same time, it was nothing like Studio 54 or the chain of Energy's across the country. It was more of a cafe-type deal with loads of little black mushroom-like tables, black stools, and lovely mirrored walls. It reminded him of Ambrosia in upstate New York because it was dark and smoky and the pounding roar of the bass of the music always gave him a headache if he didn't have his wand with him to perform and Aspirin Spell. There was a black wooden bar running along one wall, and there were eyes painted under the glass on the walls in places. God only knew how the glass was attached, because both ceiling and floor were hidden behind hazes of dry ice and cigarette smoke.

The women in the club were not as endowed as Hooters girls (which were not his favourite people because, in his opinion, the cells that could have developed into brain ones instead migrated south and became breast cells, or something, and he liked to talk), nor did they have miles of tan legs and oceans of blonde hair and deep cobalt eyes. They weren't slutty, but at the same time, they sure as hell weren't choirgirls. It was also a Muggle club.

He seated himself at a table and rested his chin in his hand. A waitress, dressed in skintight black pants (which were probably leather, but he couldn't tell in the dim lighting) and a white tank top (with a black bra visible), approached the table and asked if she could get him something to drink. He thought for a moment, not bothering to look up at her, and then said, "Just a bit of vodka. No ice." If he had been looking at her, he'd have seen her grin. She rarely got British customers. She sauntered to the bar to fetch his drink, and added a bit more hip than normal to her walk in case he was watching. He wasn't. He was staring at the smoke curling its tendrils around his ankles like the ghost of a Devil's Snare.

So, he tapped his fingertips on the tabletop and waited. He was late again. Of course, Draco was Draco, and therefore chronically late. It could be anywhere from five minutes to five hours before Draco turned up, so Harry sank back and decided to get comfortable. Perhaps he could play with that waitress for a spell...
*

While Harry flirted, Draco was swearing a bloody fit in Boston's airport. He was mad at himself for deciding to fly rather than Apparate. He was mad at Harry for suggesting it. He was mad at his father for waylaying him in Surrey. He was absolutely furious at the Weasleys for backing out of a business venture. Arthur Weasley was not Draco's favourite person at the moment. And, to top it all off, he was now stuck in Boston because his flight was cancelled. And, Harry had his wand. Of all the unwonderful things in the entire world, Draco got all of them tipped into his lap at once. He was mad and fairly certain everything was cutting off the circulation to certain lower extremities.

Finally, he booked a flight in twenty minutes. He bought a magazine and sat down in his terminal to read, glaring once in a while at the people around him, who all regarded him with caution and purposely did not sit near him. He felt like screaming 'I'm not a bloody terrorist!' but realized that was a touchy subject and bit his tongue. The magazine was completely uninteresting, and he realized far too late he hadn't bought the Wall Street Journal as he'd intended to do.

If he had any hopes of meeting Harry on time at Epicycle, those hopes evaporated. There was no way he would make it, and Harry would have to just boil his head. Draco still had a smirk on his face when he boarded the plane and sat down to stare menacingly out the window. America was not his friend.

By the time he reached the area, it was getting dark, Harry was probably gone, and his wand would be in Melanoma's care at Syzygy. He just swallowed and continued to drive the silver rental car, looking straight ahead and not blanching. He was taller than Harry, and he was smarter. He could best the guy in a fight. Draco was thinking crazy, and it showed. His driving was sketchy.

The sleazy part of the city made him rather sad. There were bums sleeping under newspapers up against the buildings, and prostitutes strutted up and down the sidewalks, motioning and catcalling.

A British accent of one of them caught him. She was leaning into a car, and only her back half (barely covered by a black microminidress and black coat) showed. Then she pulled out of the window, made a rude gesture to the young male driver, and walked back to the small group of five or six other whores standing at a stop sign. Drawn in, Draco pulled closer and slowed down. The British woman, who had long brown hair and looked about his age, mid-twenties, raised her eyebrows at him and her eyes got big, as if she recognized him. Her lips even formed a small O. The other prostitutes she was with looked at her funny, but nudged her forward. She was wearing flat shoes and did not topple.

"I can't talk to him!" she hissed rather audibly as Draco pulled to a stop.

"Why not?" snapped a tall black woman with white eye makeup and a zebra-print dress.

The British woman looked defeated, and she glowered as she approached his window. He looked at her with more curiosity than desire. "I know you've got money, Malfoy," she said tiredly. "I don't know what you're doing in Muggle America, and I have no desire to know. What I do know is you can pay for a month's rent for me, so am I good enough, or am I still just a-"

The shock melted from his face, "-filthy Mudblood?" he finished for her. "Granger, long time, no see."

She spat at his car. "Fuck you, Malfoy. Do you want the sex or not?"

He rolled his eyes. "Shame a smart woman like you's reduced to being a whore."

"I'm no one's whore, Draco," she snapped, using his full name. His eyes flicked up to the other whores, who were inching away, clearly sensing the history between Hermione and Draco.

"Fine," he said. "Get in if you want. I don't really care. I'm going to see Harry now."

Her eyes grew large again, and she took a faltering step backwards. "Oh, I couldn't see him. I couldn't look him in the face. He thinks I killed her. He thought I did it then, and he still does. Never any faith in me..." but Hermione got in anyway. She sat in the backseat, behind Draco, crossing one leg over the other.

He pulled away from the curb. She leaned back, pulled her coat tighter around herself and crossed her arms over her chest. "Why are you driving?"

"Potter's got my wand," Draco replied, glancing up into the rear view mirror at her, but she wasn't looking up. She had changed in appearance, her hair was long, straight, smooth and dark, like her eyes.

She scoffed, her eyes flicking up and meeting his in the mirror. "Why on earth should he have your wand?" She looked away again.

"We are having a meeting to discuss Katie's capture."

Hermione's eyes grew very large at this mentioning, and she sputtered, looking once again into the mirror. "Bell?"

He nodded and then turned a corner. "Ron and I intercepted her three days ago in Dublin. She's at the Manor right now."

"Do people know she's still alive yet, or do they still think I killed them both?" Hermione's voice was slightly flat, like a cake with a collapsed middle. She looked deflated to him. Her eye makeup was too heavy and dark, her hair was overdone, and her smile was just a mask of pieces of what she might once have been, but would never be again.

He snorted. "I was supposed to find that out from him. But you've delayed me, Granger."

"I am so sorry," she said sarcastically, rolling her eyes and curling her painted lips into a sneer. She still did not look up into the mirror.

"Cute, Granger," he said softly. She pretended not to hear him.

"Hey, Malfoy," she said after several silent minutes that were spent staring out windows and keeping in one's head. He glanced up into the rearview mirror. She was still staring out the window to her left, her eyes mirroring the images of the city streets passing them by. "Did you think, back then, that I killed her?"

At first, he didn't respond. "I couldn't imagine," he began slowly, "that you had the capacity for murder, not to sound derogatory, of course. You always seemed too saintly to me for that. But then all that evidence was presented. You're very lucky you only got exiled."

"So I could end up in America with no money and no wand to live as a whore? Malfoy, you're full of shit. I'd rather be dead." He looked up into the mirror again, but her eyes were still focused on the scenery. "My parents...I don't know if they're dead or not, 'cause they exiled me just like the Wizarding World did, disowned me, they did. I'd rather be Blank."

"Ah," he said with a smirk. "Preferring a snog with a Dementor to living is a surefire sign of some form of insanity."

"I've been cut off from everything I love. I haven't seen a good book in years. You'd be a nutter too, Malfoy." She had her arms crossed over her chest and was still staring, not daring to raise her eyes to the rear view mirror to meet his, because she felt a shame she'd only ever felt once, the first time she's served a client. But this time, she felt exposed and bare even though she still have her clothes on. She felt demeaned and humiliated, but also sad, because her perfect hiding spot was spoiled, and she would have to go home and face her crimes there. She swallowed the bile that had been steadily creeping up the back of her throat since she'd recognized him about a mile back down the road, having just declined an offer for a free gang bang for a young prick's birthday. Damn it all to hell.

"You want books, Granger? Books I can get you easily. But really, what do you want more than books?" his voice was serious, laced with the same irresistible poison as the man who'd dragged her into this world. She shuddered. "I know what you want, Granger. You want to prove you're just an innocent in this. You want retribution against a system that doesn't even exist anymore."

That caught her attention, and she trailed her gaze up to the radio console, stemming her excitement with her shame. "The Ministry?"

He smirked. "Abolished, Granger. Gone. After the Last Battle with good ole Voldie, the people realized it was a system where justice came second to punishment. So many people had been killed, imprisoned, Kissed, and exiled wrongly without trial, too many to count. We've been searching for you for years, you know. Since right after the class of two thousand graduated. We found information leading us to believe Katie Bell was still alive and in hiding."

"Who is we?"

There was a pregnant pause. "Oh, pardon me for not saying it sooner. We were once Unspeakables, freshly trained out of Hogwarts, Potter, Weasley, and I, along with Padma Patil and Blaise Zabini. With the dissolving of the Ministry, and the help of Lupin, Snape, and Sirius Black, and McGonagall, we formed our own agency for crime regulation, to prevent anarchy after the fall of the Ministry. We don't have an official name, though some call us the Gestapo, others still call us Unspeakables. Call us what you will, that matters not." He could tell she was registering this new information, lapping it up greedily. He could tell she wanted to learn all about the state of the world, but that would have to wait.

"Granger, how exactly are you dressed?" he asked suddenly, several blocks later. She looked down at herself, at her skinny knees and legs where they were exposed by both her short skirt and thigh-high boots.

"Like a whore," she replied.

"Then we'll have to fix that, won't we?"
*

"Antipathy?" Hermione asked incredulously, reading the crooked sign hanging over the door of the small boutique. She pressed her forehead to the glass and looked inside, but couldn't see a thing. The glass was dark and opaque. She turned back to Draco, where he stood beside the door, his hand resting on the handle. "What a pleasant name," she commented, with a false airiness.

He shrugged and yanked the heavy door open, holding it for her to enter before him.

Magical America, specifically in the cities, is infested with funny little pockets running between, on top of, and under buildings. There is, in fact, a large neighbourhood in the middle of New York City's Central Park which has always been inaccessible to Muggles. Many buildings to the Muggle eye are several stories shorter than they are to the Wizarding eye. Some buildings appear as just empty lots to Muggles, not even there though they may be absolutely magnificent remnants of a past long gone, an age of excess perhaps, an age of beauty and progress.

Hermione, in her trepidation, had neglected to keep in mind that Draco Malfoy had exquisite taste in everything, coming from a source of many years in training. He was a child of fortune, and had been raised to expect and appreciate the very best in everything. He'd refined a taste in everything. He didn't like his wine cheap, or even his Muggle clothing. He didn't use cheap whores, because what was the point in that? They usually carried dangerous diseases not covered by the ASTD potion he'd taken at the end of his Seventh Year, a necessary requirement of all pupils leaving Hogwarts. He didn't wear shoddy robes or eat substandard food. She was very much shell-shocked when she looked around the shop. Whatever she'd been expecting when she'd laid eyes upon the small, weatherworn building, it had not been what she saw.

There were countless racks of robes and dresses and scarves of all colours, textures, and prices crowded in vast areas of pale lavender carpeting, veined by white tile walkways that zigzagged through the entire single-floored building. At the back, dead-centre, was a long counter of shiny white laminate with lavender trim, punctuated with no less than six antique cash registers, Muggle-made and wizard-claimed. There wasn't a clerk in sight, but Hermione was fairly confident they were lurking somewhere unseen, ready to appear from thin air at the whim of a customer.

In each section of carpet, as it was separated by the white aisles, was a different style of dress; Elizabethan, Medieval, Founders, Jazz, Victorian, Georgian, Greek, Roman...er, '80s (Draco carefully steered her in avoidance of the section dedicated to the worst of clothes). Hermione gravitated towards the styling of the Jazz Age, the time of flappers and Fitzgerald, the time of excess before poverty. As in Muggle America, Wizarding Britain was hit by a severe Depression in the late twenties and early thirties. Unlike America, though, the Depression in Britain ended thankfully with the assassination of a corrupt Minister of Magic and the appointment of a man named Demetrius Bottom, a pompous twit of a man who was oft brought to the minds of older wizards during Cornelius Fudge's reign. Nevertheless, Bottom was a far better Minister than his predecessor.

She ran her hands over the floaty fabrics of the era, marvelling at various colours and accents on the fashions. She pulled out a pale lavender flapper dress with a matching lavender headband. A ticket attached to the dress suggested lavender or white shoes and a corset to bind the chest into the boyish, flat body type that was fashionable in the Jazz Age.

"What do you think of this one?" she asked, turning around to Draco, who was wandering up and down the white tile walkway nearby, looking over the dresses of the Elizabethan Era with approval.

He glanced over towards her, then at the lavender dress she held up. The style would probably fit her scrawny appearance well, but her chest was too ample to be flattened under a dress in a colour that he thought went against her coloration. "Avoid lavender," he said. She scowled.

"Well, piss on you. I like it."

"Who's paying for it, then?" he countered.

She sighed and set the dress back on the rack. He caught her discreet mutter of, "Bastard..."

She moved out of the Jazz Age section and back onto the white walkway.