Nox

"Well I know you want to love her,
Let me tell your brother, she's been sleeping
In the Devil's bed. . ."

—the Eagles, "Witchy Woman"

Chapter Six - What Have You Seen?

    "What did you see?" he asked her, as she stood against the railing at the very top of the hotel building, looking out over the sprawling capital city. Her long hair was picked up by the wind and viciously thrown around by the chilly November breeze, making tiny lacerations on her skin. Their breath was just visible as condensation.

    She turned her face towards him. "What I've seen is a little boy trapped inside the body of a man, longing to get out after seeing too many things he shouldn't have ever seen. What I've seen is a man eaten up alive with regret and desperate to make it right but unable to contrive how. What I've seen is a woman set aside when something better comes along. What have you seen?"

    "Would you please quit speaking in riddles?" he replied, looking away. The illusion in her eyes was piercing and painful as staring at the sun.

    She simply smiled. The wind began to die down, and an eerie, tense silence settled over that rooftop.

    "Whatever," he said finally. "We should go. You know, to England. To question Katie. You heard what Ron said back there."

    Hermione let go of the railing and pulled back, staring at Draco in incredulity. "Did you not hear what he said back there, Draco? I heard him perfectly. The man is ludicrous, you know. Completely off his rocker, as if he was ever on it in the first place! The man still wants me! He's married with a child on the way and he still wants me! Draco, look at me! Look what I am? I'm a fucking whore with no chance of getting out. Why would he still want me now? Why would he say those things to me, in front of her? What could have been running through Padma's mind when he said those things? I know what I'd've been thinking." She stopped abruptly and clenched her fingers back around the black iron bar, letting the cold metal sting her skin.

    Draco was at a definite loss for words for a moment, staring at her like a gaping fish. Finally he said, "He always loved you, you know. He only married Padma because she got pregnant, which was completely by accident. It was right after we'd gotten a lead on Katie and followed her only to lose her at the very last second. They drank themselves silly and had sex. Then he felt guilty." He shrugged and wrapped his long, spidery fingers around the bar as well, even though some of his fingers were gnarled and twisted after frequent breakings and an unfortunate accident one evening on the Golden State Freeway where he'd lost a jockstrap after quite a night that had involved a renegade moose and lots of chocolate sprinkles and gotten a hand crushed by a massive earth-mover driven by one very wasted Muggle man in a Britney Spears tee shirt and an NYPD hat. Draco shuddered every time he looked back on that evening. "Just like Potter loved you."

    "Potter," said Hermione with derision, "was dating Ginny at the time. All evidence pointed, contrary to your belief, that he loved her. Obviously, because if he truly had loved me, he surely wouldn't have prosecuted me."

    Draco shrugged and withdrew his hands, shoving them deep into his pockets. The wind picked up her hair again, tossing it around like nothing at all. "Potter was a Gryffindor. You're noble souls all right, but brains you usually lack in the worst way. Potter, too. You're the exception, though." Hermione frowned, cacophony in her eyes. "In other words, he jumped to a wrong conclusion. His feelings got pushed to a back burner when he saw an innocent dead. He wanted retribution, Hermione. You got the brunt of his rage. If, say, Ron had been standing above his own sister, he'd probably been burned at the stake, just like you."

    She crossed her arms over her chest and turned to walk for the door. He watched her go, his brow furrowed. Her mystique was crackling around his own, their auras were colliding in a way he was starting to find uncomfortable. He was getting annoyed with her unwillingness to comply with his thoughts, because no one ever behaved with such dissent with him. However, he was intrigued, and she'd wormed her way too far under his skin by then, so in a way, if she'd wanted to walk through the hotel and back to her life on the streets, she couldn't have, and he wouldn't have let her.

    There was a respect in the absence of a romance, which there was most certainly not between these two. However, if they weren't meant to be lovers, what exactly were these two lost souls to each other? They were more than acquaintances, but never friends. They weren't allies, because they'd had very different experiences over the years. They were by no means enemies, but when one is neither comrade nor foe, the grey of the existence grates on their very soul until they've worn down too far for possible repair. They both probably sensed their acquaintance would be counterproductive and even destructive for one if not both of them, but neither cared.

    "I hate Americans," she muttered. She truly did. All of them. Snooty pricks, always thinking they were so much better, and therefore more equipped to iron out the problems of the world. They were wrong. Their measures of 'improvement' in Magical Britain were not needed. The Seminar was a royal waste of time, in her opinion. It was a shame there would be several more like it, once a week for two months. She was glad she'd probably never have to attend another. In her seven years in America, she'd learned to coexist with them, but never get too close. They were usually best avoided for the most part, as they seemed to always have some motive for destruction of an adversary or even the unknown. The British people were so much more hospitable. She let the heavy, black-painted steel door slam shut behind her. She stood for a moment on the top step, as though expecting Draco to follow, but he didn't immediately, and she began her descent.

    A cold wind surrounded her, accompanying her down the stairs. Then again, a cold wind accompanied her everywhere. She took out a cigarette and lit up as she walked down the flights of stairs to his room and unlocked the door with the key she'd filched from his pocket earlier that night. Not like he'd notice it was missing; when he was alone he Apparated. She closed the door behind her and bolted it. She walked to the window on the far wall. The sun was just setting, lighting the buildings in view on fire one final time that day. The sky was streaked with gold, crimson, and bluish violet. It was smattered with stars and marred with grey clouds of smog hovering here and there on the horizon and near the zenith.

    She flicked the ash on the end of the cigarette, and watched as the grey papery bits flittered down to the soft pile of the pale mauve carpet. There was something about that simple action that Draco, appearing by the bed suddenly, found deeply poignant, resonating in layers of his subconscious he rarely used because of their impossible depth. She glanced towards him from where she leaned against the frigid window glass and raised her eyebrows.

    "Do you think the Americans are doing any good to help you out over there?" she asked, rummaging through volumes of subjects in her head and settling on a safe, placid one. He sighed and pocketed his wand.

    "Who knows. I'd be the first to tell you our accidental magic reversal leaves a lot to be desired." At her questioning look, he added, "Potter didn't like the last good Head and sent him to his death."

    Hermione gasped. "That's so. . . inhumane! I can't imagine Harry doing that."

    Draco gave her a look that said, 'Oh, please.' "You know very well his behaviour in that respect. I've told you about it before." His tone grew clipped as he approached the window to stand inverse to her. She drew her arms closer around herself like some form of protection against him. He sat down on the edge of the bed.

    "Harry's changed. Sometimes I don't recognize him. His secretary back home, a tiny little witch named Hannah. . .she was in our year. . .might've been a Hufflepuff, is the only one who really understands him. Even his girlfriend—her name's Adela—doesn't get him. She's just in it for the sex, she says. Damn Russian. But I digress."

    She dropped the cigarette to the floor, grinding it in to the mauve carpet with her heel. "Hopefully it sets the whole hotel on fire," she said.

    "Won't that be fun?" he commented absently, not wholly paying attention to what came out of her mouth. She knew it and was equally unfazed. That was what bothered her, like an unreachable chronic itch. They had ceased to surprise each other, or even especially affect each other. Since when did anyone have the right to know her, know her dreams so completely? Then she shook her head mentally and realized there was no evidence that pointed that direction. There was no way anyone could break in through her meticulous defences. Besides, what was there to see?

    "Weasley just sent me an owl, after you stalked off down here. Seamus conveniently forgot to tell us that Katie had attempted escape and must be questioned immediately." He looked at her, into her blank face and expressionless eyes, the eyes that stared out over a landscape that didn't amuse or amaze or even puzzle her anymore. He doubted if she'd even care if he told her he'd maimed and killed (and maybe even denied pay to—God forbid—) a House-elf on the way down, too. "So, if you haven't got anything scheduled for tomorrow, we should get to the airport first thing in the morning."

    She pursed her lips. "Why fly? You've got a wand."

    "Yes, but you haven't."

    She nodded. "Good point."

    He took off his black wool coat and draped it over a chair. She watched as he turned his back on her and the window and unbuttoned his hunter green Oxford, then shrugged the shirt off his shoulders and slipped his arms out of the sleeves. He hastily folded the shirt and laid it on top of the coat. He crossed the room to his small suitcase and removed a toothbrush and a pair of shoddy blue flannel pants she'd seen him sleep in before. She watched, captivated, as the muscles under his skin rippled with his motions, moving the white material of his wife beater. He unbuckled his belt and folded it up into the bag. He briefly turned to her, "You don't need the bathroom now, do you?" he asked.

    She shook her head numbly. "No. Don't think I do." It was long after he shut the door behind him and she heard the sound of the shower coming on that she really moved at all.

    Her only movement was to take off her own coat. The thermometer on the heater read thirty-seven degrees, so it was perfectly comfortable, but Hermione shivered violently from cold. She curled up on the bed, still dressed in her black flare jeans and red sleeveless turtleneck sweater. She didn't bother to go pound on the bathroom door ten minutes later form annoyance as she had the night before when he'd been in the bathroom too long. She drifted to sleep before he emerged.

    He came out wearing only the blue flannel pants, still drying his hair with a white hotel towel, and began to say something to her, but found her curled up, fully dressed, on top of the blankets on his bed. He shut his mouth and his lips twisted into a warm but awkward smile towards her. He carefully lifted her up long enough to slide the covers out from under her. He flipped them back across the bed, took off her shoes and then folded the blankets over her unconscious form. She deserved to sleep.

    He watched her for a few minutes from the other chair, breathing in the faint smell of her cigarette. Her hair spilled across the pillow. He curled up with the comforter that had comprised her floor-bed the previous two nights and was asleep before he could notice the black mascara track staining her cheek and the white pillowcase below.

*

    Hermione awoke earlier than Draco the next morning, well before the first lights of dawn danced on the horizon. She slipped out from under the covers in the darkness and went into the bathroom, undetected by the long, lean figure crumpled uncomfortably in the chair.

    The red numbers on the clock claimed five forty-nine in their harsh luminescence.

    She flipped on the light and shut the door halfway, wincing in the brightness of the light. It was so dreadfully bright. She stared at her reflection in the large mirror for a second. She brought a hand to touch the taut, translucent flesh stretched over the hollow of her left cheek, marvelling at the tragedy. She stared at her own reflection as she hadn't in years and then turned her back on it, unable to look upon the spectre there any longer. She turned the silver knob to the shower to scalding and closed her eyes as the soothing rhythm of the water hitting the tub floor filled the small, white room. As the hot water warmed up the cold room, she stooped her back some and took off her pants, draping them across the back of the toilet. She shucked off the red sweater tank and laid it on the closed toilet lid. The mirror began to fog up, and she turned to stare at her emaciated reflection before it vanished. Her black lace underwear did little to disguise the visibility of her ribs above and below her breasts, and the awkward way her collarbones stabbed upward against the straining skin. Her limbs were straight stalks punctuated only by more rounded elbows and knees. If she had turned her body around and examined her back in the mirror, she would have seen every detail in her shoulder blades and the way her spinal column left nothing of its shape to the imagination.

    Once again unable to look at herself, she tore her eyes away as she removed the last of her garments and left them lay scattered across the floor. The heat of the water stung her skin briefly as she stepped under it, but she quickly adjusted to it. She tried not to think of the murder it was doing to the skin's moisture. She yanked the shower curtain closed. After standing with her eyes closed under the constant spray for several moments, she found a washcloth folded neatly on the soap shelf beside a tiny bottle of pearlescent white body cleanser.

    Outside in the room, Draco woke up to the sound of the shower through the partially-open bathroom door. He rose to his full height, letting the comforter slide off him as he stood. He shivered as the coldness of the room hit his bare chest. Somehow the warmth of the room had dissipated over night. Overcome with the urge to urinate, he entered the bathroom. He wasn't concerned about seeing her nude because he knew she probably wouldn't be concerned if he saw anything he oughtn't see.

    He opened the door a little more than it had been open previously and slipped through. She heard the creak of the old hinges and called out, "Draco, you up?" just as he was dropping his pants to his knees to take his leak. Thankfully, the opaque shower curtain blocked out any embarrassment on either's part.

    "Clearly," he replied, fixing his attention on the arc of yellow liquid.

    If she said anything else on the subject, it was far too faintly to be heard over the water. He pulled his pants back up and looked towards the shower when there was the creak of the knob as the water was turned off.

    "Could you pass me a towel?" she asked. Behind the white curtain, she was leaning on one arm braced against the white tiled wall, her face downward as she let water run down her nose and drip down to the water running down the drain in a clockwise spiral.

    The edge of the curtain puckered as his fingers drew it back some and the other hand shoved a white bath towel through the gap. She took it gratefully and wrapped it around her body in a desperate attempt to warm up. She bent over halfway as she stepped back, pulling the curtain back, and wrung out her hair. She liked the heavy beat the water hitting the tub made.

    The two of them appraised each other silently for a moment as she sunk her toes into the plush white rug on the peeling linoleum floor. She had never actually seen him without a shirt before, ever, and she was mildly impressed with the state of his upper body. The muscle was bound tightly to the bone under the skin in a way that reminded her of warm, oiled paper over velvet over solid steel. Either he had some intensive Glamours in place or he'd spent a lot of time working to achieve such a body. Knowing him, he probably had put in the blood and sweat. He still felt the overwhelming, stomach-clenching sadness when he observed her body, the slender and wretched structure of it. She was the perfect picture of chalcedonic misery wrapped up in ennui and enigma, steeped in apathy and baked to a delectable, alluring crispness.

    "Like what you see?" they asked in the same tone of voice at the same time. It was in jest, not cruel but yet distinctly not blithesome. She shrugged in reply and left the room. He watched the doorway in silence for a moment, then dropped his vision to the floor. Her underwear scattered, the bra unclasped and stretched out unceremoniously and the panties inside-out in a heap surreptitiously wormed their way into his conscious memory. There was a sadness about their state of being and position he found hauntingly alluring. It impetuously imprinted into his memories, and if all else failed would be one of the few lingering images he would retain after she inevitably removed herself from his presence and was lost again. The spell that cloaked her from detection was still in effect, unbeknownst to her.

    Beside the sink was a glass ashtray, full of white butts and ashes that hadn't been emptied. He sighed and left the room.

    "We have to get dressed and packed so we can see about catching the earliest possible flight to Heathrow," he said, coming out into the main room.

    She was curled up, sitting in a leisurely foetal position, nude, on his bed. She turned her face towards him and half-smiled. "I haven't got any other knickers," she explained. "I'm not about to go anywhere without clean knickers."

    "Why can't you wear the ones on the bathroom floor?" he asked, unfazed by her nudity. She put her legs down across the bed and crossed one ankle over the other. He, not wishing to see her, looked away.

    "You shouldn't have to ask," she said smoothly as she lifted herself up from the bed. She walked over to the bag that was sitting on the floor near the window, and bent over purposely at the waist to fetch out a pair of white cotton knickers she'd worn earlier that week and a clean mint green bra. He declined her offer of a view of everything she'd been blessed with. She was doing it because it gave her power over men usually, because no man could resist a woman blatantly putting her twat up for show. Unfortunately his refusal to look resulted in no arousal and thus, no power shifting. She became livid and the rest of the dressing passed silently as she fumed.

    He dressed in a deceptively casual black Muggle tee shirt proclaiming that he was a lesbian in block, capital white letters and khaki pants. She rolled her eyes. She wore equally benign Muggle clothes that included plain blue jeans, a black and white hibiscus print tank top, and a black zip up hooded sweatshirt. They matched somewhat, which was what they'd unconsciously agreed on. They put on their coats, gathered everything up into their respective bags, and left the room, letting the door lock automatically behind them.

    They checked out and emerged into the early-early morning sunlight and cool November air. "To the airport, then?" he asked.

    "I should think," she replied.