Nox

"Naivety and childhood left behind

Deprived of the goodness of mankind,

Past encounters have made her strong,

Strong enough to carry on and on. . ."

—Spice Girls, "Naked"

Chapter Seven - Venus In The Corner

    Hermione narrowed her eyes as she looked down Charring Cross Road for the first time since she was seventeen. It was changed so much, she couldn't believe it. Where there had been a little bistro on the corner nearest the Leaky Cauldron where she'd frequented during the summer months with a good Muggle book years earlier, there was now a hat shop, selling all types of hats. The music shop, which had sold vintage vinyl beside shiny CDs, that had been next door to the Cauldron was replaced by a snooty-looking coffee house even Draco looked at uneasily.

    "Draco, what has happened to this world?" she asked, confused.

    He offered a weak smile. The mid-afternoon sun cast shadows on the street. "If you think the Muggle world is drastic, just you wait." He steered her towards the Leaky Cauldron. "Oh, and you might want to put those sunglasses on now. Cauldron patrons are notoriously nosy."

    She grinned. "Oh, I know."

    He opened the door and held it for her. As she stepped in, she adjusted the glasses on her nose, and pulled her sweatshirt tighter around her, to disguise the scar across her collarbones. It would be a fairly obvious trait for Hermione Granger to anyone who had been astute during her injustice. Hermione did not want to be recognized. Recognition brought uncomfortable silences and unwanted attention. Hermione just wanted to get to hear Katie speak and go back to America, her comfort zone.

    As soon as the heavy door shut behind them, several oddly-dressed people recognized Draco, including a man who looked vaguely familiar to Hermione. The man had heavily greyed light brown hair and soft amber eyes. He rose unsteadily to his feet. He seemed to Hermione like someone who had been aged beyond his years by experience. His very movements were made cautiously, as though it hurt too much to shift an inch. "Well, Mr. Malfoy," he said in a tired, reedy voice, "glad to know you've come out of that particular closet."

    Draco cocked his head to one side in perplexity. "What?"

    The man gestured towards Draco's shirt. Draco looked down, then started to laugh at his forgetfulness. "You seem to be a lesbian."

    "Yes, it seems I am, doesn't it?" he replied with a grin.

    The tired man turned to Draco's silent companion. He took one look at her face and said in a low but jovial voice, "Welcome back to England, Hermione. We've missed you terribly. But do watch out for this. . .lesbian here."

    She gasped and lowered her glasses to peer at him more closely. Then suddenly, "Professor Lupin?" she asked incredulously.

    He laughed. "That's me," he agreed.

    "How did you recognize me?" she demanded. Draco put a hand on her shoulder, which she shrugged away. All her attention was focused on Remus Lupin.

    He shrugged. "I'm a werewolf, you see. I'm accustomed to identifying someone by smell." At her horrified expression he added, "Yours is distinctive, as is everyone else on the planet's. Although, you've altered it considerably. I can smell marijuana most obviously, and also. . .Corona? Yes. And Newport cigarettes. Am I not correct?"

    Hermione was simply too shocked to even reply. He smiled serenely at her.

    Draco, becoming unnerved by the other Cauldron patrons looking at them curiously, cleared his throat. "We really ought to get going," he said in a low voice.

    Lupin nodded his agreement. "Yes. We ought to."

    Hermione frowned. "I was hoping I could get a look at Diagon Alley before I have to go confront the beast." Both men looked dreadfully uneasy all of a sudden. "What?" she asked, noticing.

    "Well. . ." said Lupin, "it's just that. . ."

    "Half of Diagon Alley was destroyed," Draco finished. "It's just gone and off limits. A royal waste of time now. So, can we please get to the Manor now? I'd like to have a bite to eat before Ron and Padma and Blaise show up."

    Sensing he just didn't want to visit the Alley made Hermione want to see it even more. "No," she said firmly. "I don't care if it's all in ruins. I want to see it."

    Lupin caught Draco's eye. He gave him a look that said, 'Just take her. Don't argue.'

    Acquiescing, Draco said, "Okay. . .maybe for a little while."

    The two bid the aching werewolf farewell and left the pub, avoiding eye contact with anyone as they headed to the clearing behind the building. Draco took out his wand and tapped the appropriate brick. Whatever she'd been expecting when the portal grew large enough to admit them, it was not what she saw.

    The street seemed to have shrunk, the doors of opposite stores seemed much closer than she remembered. The flagstones were charred and cracked, their upkeep not as tight as it had always been. There was grime and litter here and there, and the sky dome spells were discoloured. The shops that were still standing seemed more forbidding, and Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour was gone. Perhaps a hundred yards away, a crumbling half of a building (what had been Eeylops Owl Emporium) and a white picket fence designated the new end of the street. Hermione looked around desperately. Flourish and Blotts was still there, and the Apothecary, and even Madam Malkins, but so many other shops were gone, including the magnificent Gringotts building. If she squinted past the picket fence, she could see the remains of the building.

    "It looks like there was a war here," she said, overwhelmed by what she was seeing.

    "There was," he replied gravely. "Death Eaters attacked the innocents here. But the Light side was prepared for them. We had Aurors in disguise all up and down this street. Every Animagi in the country was brought in and taught to fight. Even Sirius Black and Rita Skeeter, unregistered as they are, came and helped." Draco pointed to the crumbling remains of the building across the way from the rubble of Eeylops as they approached the picket fence. "That's where the Magical Menagerie used to be. That was the worst part of being here, listening to the animals scream, helpless to save themselves. If you've never heard the scream a crup makes just before death, or that of the kneazle, you're so fucking lucky. . ." he shook his head.

    Hermione nodded. "They killed Crookshanks—my cat—when I was exiled. They couldn't even AK him, which would have been humane. No, they had to crush him to death with a moped. I'm sure the sound a tabby makes is similar to a kneazle. Especially since he was half-kneazle." She stopped abruptly, making a choking noise in her throat. "I don't know why they had to kill my cat. He never hurt anyone. Not even in Third Year when Ron thought he killed Scabbers. Scabbers deserved to have been killed!" she shrieked, taking several steps forward and curling her fingers to reach out and wrap them around the fence. Draco, alarmed, grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back, clamping one hand over her mouth. She started to sob; he could feel the dampness of her tears as they fell, sliding onto his hand, the fingers stretched across her mouth. He was surprised she didn't bite him. She was too far gone to try.

    He drew her close, and she pressed her face into his chest, sobbing. Her entire, waif-like body wracking with each unsteady breath she drew. She shook, because she had no weight to stop it. Who could have known she'd be reduced to a pile of splinters by the memory of her poor beloved Crookshanks. They must have stood like that for twenty minutes, right by the picket fence, wrapped up in each other but yet impossibly detached from each other. There were hardly any others shopping in Diagon Alley that day, and those that were ignored them.

    Then, as suddenly as she'd broken down, she pulled herself back and straightened up. She squared her shoulders and wiped at her eyes. "Well," she said, "we'd best be getting to the Manor now. Don't you think Ron and Blaise'll be there by now? On the cell they said five o'clock. It'll be cutting it close. . .Draco?" she trailed off as she detected he wasn't paying her any attention.

    "Have you no curiosity left?" he snapped at her. She drew back.

    "No," she said simply. "In the city, where I've been for four years, curiosity is dangerous. Curiosity killed the cat and it'll damn sure kill you, too, if you let it. What will happen will happen and we can't very well change it. I don't want to know why this place is a ghost town. Draco, I don't care."

    Of course, he knew she was lying when she told him she didn't want to know. Filing the thought away, he sobered and shoved his hands into his coat pockets. "Well then, you're right. There's a portkey station on Practec Alley. The corner's behind the cauldron shop. We'll take that to Waterford."

    She had no choice but to agree.

*

    Malfoy Manor was originally a villa built in Roman times, but it had been demolished in various wars and was rebuilt by the Malfoys near Ardmore, County Waterford, in Ireland in the late eighteenth century, not long after they immigrated in from France after the start of the French Revolution. It overlooked the sea from a short distance, and was protected with numerous wards against Muggles. To them, the property was little more than a vacant field, closed off with electric fencing, and owned by Lord Somebody-Or-Other. To one of Magical blood, the grounds were fenced by a low enough stone wall about a meter tall. Inside the tall black iron gates ran a road up to the magnificent villa. Surrounding the villa on all sides, leading up to the fence were magnificent, sweeping gardens, all tended meticulously. In the front was a small, Victorian-style conservatory that didn't quite match the house with a short wrought iron fence surrounding the paths and furrows of Narcissa's moon garden. Nearby was a pond complete with huge Weeping Willow. The walls of the house were white plaster, with large grey stone steps leading up to the front doors.

    Hermione gasped, unsure where to look as Draco drove his small, understated Aston Martin up the road to park in front of the house. The road was paved with asphalt, to her surprise. When she expressed the emotion to Draco, he shrugged and said, "Just because we sneer at Muggles doesn't mean we can't be hypocrites and use their conveniences. It shouldn't surprise you that my father was also a hypocrite, in addition to a murderer and a coward."

    He led her up the vast front stairs and up to the classical white doors with multiple glass windows. He knocked once and they parted, allowing the two entrance into a spectacular front hall. The entire high, vaulted ceiling was encrusted with gold leaf. The pillars were smooth, polished white marble. The floor was an unidentifiable stone-like material inlaid all over with bits of coloured glass (which was more than likely not glass at all, but precious stone) in a mosaic pattern depicting a beautiful Ramora, a tragic dying unicorn, and a serpent with glowing blue eyes. Floating near the ceiling was a delicate golden and crystal chandelier shaped like a spiral disk galaxy that revolved in mid air. The back of the hall, several meters away was lined with glass doors, opening out into an open courtyard full of gardens rivalling the ancient ones of Babylon in beauty. On the far right side of the hall was a short staircase leading down. On the far left was an elegant elliptically twisting staircase leading up to the upper two floors.

    "What, no gothic furniture? No tapestries with images of Snidget hunts? No torture devices?" Hermione asked, unable to contain herself.

    Draco grinned. "Unfortunately no. Sorry to disappoint. This is our usual, winter home. We also have residences in Nice, Valencia, Naples, New Orleans, and Canberra. I think the Iron Maidens and records of Muggle killings are in Naples. My grandfather's collection of Nazi and Grindelwald-era torture devices are in N'Orleans."

    "Why am I not surprised," she replied, rolling her eyes.

    "Sadly, My mother's visiting friends in Valencia this week, so she will not be present to meet you. She'll bring back oranges, though. My father never liked oranges, or her obsession with them." He shook his head, glancing down at the dying unicorn on the floor. "Anyway, follow me. And beware the fifth step down. It isn't really there at all."

    She followed him down the stairs, careful to hop over the false step, and down a short, shadowy corridor. There was a large kitchen at the end of the corridor, taking up nearly the entire back of the first floor. It was neat and tidy, and full of at least thirty house-elves.

    "Misser Malfoy, we was anticipat'n yous coming back," said a rather boisterous-looking elf with deep brown skin, clever, narrow violet eyes and ears like a donkey. It wore a long, butter-yellow cashmere scarf wrapped around itself many times. The scarf was immaculately clean, and the elf wore a silver badge on its breast with a capital H on it. It turned its swarthy eyes from Draco to Hermione and squealed. "And yous brought a guest!" It bowed with a flourish. "I am Loppy, Head House-elf here at Malfoy Manor. Yous is, misses?"

    Hermione smiled warmly down at the little being. "I'm Hermione Granger," she said.

    Loppy gave her a calculating look. "Welcome," it said more crisply, and then turned on its heel and flittered off. Draco watched it go, and he watched as several other elves gathered around it for instructions, or even possibly gossip. Hermione was quite sure she heard snippets of "A new mistress, mayhaps, Loppy?" and "Hermione Granger, hers is."

    Draco turned to Hermione, and smiled weakly. "They have dull little lives, I suppose," he offered. "My mum and I are considering hiring a few who demand pay to stir up the Elven gossip mill. Would you believe there's one in there named Titty?" he grinned. "Anyway. . .we should be going out into the terrace to wait for Ron and Padma. They should be here shortly."

    Dreadfully curious, Hermione followed him out to the courtyard. The gardens were lush and full of all sorts of exotic butterflies. It was warm and tropically temperate. Sky dome spells and Climate Charms were very obviously in place. In the centre of the courtyard was a small brick patio with a silver wrought iron table with a glass top and pale lavender umbrella surrounded by six lavender-upholstered chairs of a like material. There were several stone benches and pedestals scattered about. A fountain and pond were located nearby, bubbling merrily over fish swimming in the crystal water. Hermione identified one or two of them as delicate, silvery Ramora.

    Just as the glass doors quietly closed behind them, Ron and Padma appeared near the table. Padma appeared absolutely furious and wore long black robes under a gargantuan camel corduroy coat with white fur lining. Ron looked put out and exasperated, with his arms crossed over his black pea coat. Underneath he wore dark ruby robes that matched his hair remarkably well. "Hello, just in time, you two," said Draco. The couple glared at him, but he only smiled in a self-serving manner that further angered Padma and further frustrated poor Ron.

    Padma tucked an unruly lock of her raven hair behind her ear and opened her mouth to speak, but a House-elf suddenly appeared on her heels. After falling over itself with apologies, Draco told it to get on with it.

    "Missy Zabini in the dungeons sends Frampy up here to tell yous that she is needing you. You is all here now. Come quick, Mister Malfoy. And Weasleys, too!" it said in a breathless voice before promptly vanishing again.

    "Weird little creatures, they are," said Ron, running a hand through his hair. Padma and Hermione both tossed him 'shut up' sorts of looks, but for marginally different reasons. He caught Hermione's eye and held it, as though trying to convey something she didn't seem to understand. After all those years, it was little wonder they operated at different frequencies. They barely spoke the same language anymore.

    Draco sighed. And, picking up on the link going on between Hermione and Ron, he said to Padma, "Let's go ahead. Ron isn't quite necessary—" Ron broke his connection with Hermione to toss him a glare "—and these two need to talk."

    Padma smiled serenely. She was really starting to hate Hermione for disrupting her perfect life the way she was. Another flammable substance added to her apothecary. Another explosive to add to the magazine of gunpowder thoughts and shell-shocking unpleasantries. "Of course, Draco," she said in a blank sort of voice.

    Draco offered her his arm and she took it, curling sinewy brown fingers around the elbow. They went inside without a backward look. Draco didn't especially care, and Padma couldn't bare to see.

    At the nearly inaudible tap of the glass door closing behind them, Ron and Hermione snapped out of their reverie. He averted his eyes to look up at one of the second floor windows overlooking the courtyard. Mint green curtains obscured half of the window, and a soft milky light illuminated the room inside.

    "Why do I make you do this?" she asked suddenly in a voice with a strength that surprised even her.

    He almost didn't dare to look down at her. When he did, he let his gaze linger at the scar running across her collarbones. It caught the sunlight filtering down through the sky dome spells and seemed to glow silver. "Do what?" he asked nervously. He dreaded the surefire response she'd give and squeezed his eyes closed in expectation. The action also successfully removed her scar from his sight.

    "Shun your wife?" she said as he'd predicted.

    He opened his grey eyes tentatively, dismayed to still see her scar. He lifted his arm up to run his index finger along the silver line softly, barely touching her. She jumped, startled by the motion. "You know, you could get this removed. Cosmetically the Muggle way, or with the new potion creams on the market now."

    She wrapped her hand around his wrist and moved his arm back to his side. "Don't touch me, Ron," she said. "And why would I want to delete this souvenir? Wouldn't it be more fitting to leave it here, proclaiming who I am to all?" Her eyes were coming alive, not with true vitality but with an utter ferocity that further disarmed and ensnared Ron. She threw her hands skyward, before jabbing her index finger into his chest, past the unbuttoned coat. "You're skirting the question," she accused.

    Taking a leaf from her book, her covered her hand with his and drew if back from his chest, but unlike her, he did not let go. Instead, he held it like precious artefact. Her eyes widened in fear but she did not jerk backwards. As much as her mind wanted to, her body was mutinying. He ruthlessly caught her gaze with his and held it. She was starting to feel suffocated and trapped. "Hermione," he said in a ragged voice, "I have never gotten over you. I'm sorry I didn't stick up for you seven years ago. But let bygones be bygones, Hermione. I'm sorry."

    She was beginning to understand. She wrenched her hand back from his grasp and she stared down at the breaking of that union. "Ron, I can't forgive you. Maybe I could if things were different, but come on, Ron! You have a wife and a baby on the way! It doesn't matter how much you want me. I mean nothing if you've got yourself a wife. That's not something that just goes away with a scouring charm or Mrs. Skower's All Purpose Magical Mess Remover, Ron. Padma isn't going to go away."

    He looked at a loss, a possible first for Ron Weasley. He seemed to have absolutely no reply. He just stared at her with pain in his eyes. After a few moments, she found she couldn't look at him any longer, and tore her own eyes away. But in looking away, she lost her concentration on him, and he grabbed her around her waist and pressed her body up close to his. She tried to squeak, but he covered her mouth with his hand. This time, she did bite.

    "Argh!" he shouted, removing his hand to his own mouth to suck on the wound. He did not, however, let go of her.

    "Let go of me, Ron," she said, twisting away and running down one of the bricked paths back to the house. He followed, slower, seeing she'd closed the one path that didn't lead to a door, but to a hollow with a stone bench and statue of some goddess (Venus, she later found out) up against the white plaster of the house. It was completely surrounded by plants, an impenetrable wall of solid green. A small black iron gate was closed, and she flung it open, stumbling into the small hollow. From the outside it seemed simple and benign, but from the inside, it was absolutely magical. Fairies twinkled everywhere in every colour. Orchids of matching hues outlined the brick paving. The bench shimmered and the statue of Venus was in colour and seemingly full-life because she would assume a different posture every so often, and was singing to herself in a sweet, high voice.

    Hermione glanced back behind herself to see Ron gaining on her. "Hermione, come on," he said, coming to a stop at the threshold of the gate. "Draco told us you're a whore now—"

    She slammed the low gate directly into his crotch. As he was falling over backwards, moaning in agony, she said, "Oh, did he now?"

    Ron groaned. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut and his teeth were gritted. It made Hermione feel better to know she'd gotten some form of revenge on one of them. Harry might have to wait. "Okay, sorry I said anything."

    "You'd better be," she replied. "Taking the Jason Alexander position is never good. Plus Jason Alexander is just. . .wrong." He gave her a weird look. "See Pretty Woman," she said shortly, glaring down at him.

    He seemed to realize he wasn't making any progress lying on the ground, writhing in agony, and slowly got back to his feet. He dusted himself off and refocused his glare on her. She shook her hair back and stuck her jaw out imperviously. He put his hand on the gate and stepped into the alcove. Her eyes grew large as she realized what he was doing. He was awestruck at the beauty of the alcove from the inside. The Venus in the corner began a slower tune that was almost mournful. She sang in Latin, and her song told a sad story of love lost before it could really begin because the girl was afraid and always had to run away. But maybe, in the future, the love would be revived and could thrive.

    Hermione sat down on the bench. Ron sat beside her. She sat with her knees and thighs together but her feet spread far apart, perched on the very edge of the bench. She was gnawing on her bottom lip and staring at a lavender fairy that was sitting on the gatepost and looking at her with a curiosity she didn't know fairies could express. Ron put his arm around Hermione, at first just to test if she'd even let him. If he was surprised when she leaned her head on his shoulder, he was even more surprised a moment later when she kissed him.

*

    "Weasley, I'm growing bored with this little game of charades," the haunting voice echoed through the dungeons below the Malfoy Manor. The voice had a beauty to it that was more disturbing than anything else Blaise Zabini could immediately think of. The twenty-four-year-old with piercing cobalt blue eyes and shimmering ebony hair was unnerved by nearly nothing, having grown up in a slum of Dublin, with her Italian Muggle father. Her witch mother had abandoned her at the age of only a few months, two perhaps, for a married wizard of great prestige and wealth named Lucius. Blaise watched the naked branches of a beech tree outside in the garden sway in the breeze.

    "I must agree," Blaise whispered. Ron was off doting on Padma, the shallow egotist. In Blaise's opinion, Padma was a waste of time, and her egotism would be the death of her, if not all of them, someday. Blaise put her head down on the windowsill.

    "Bored already, Zabini?" another voice broke in, one far more pleasant than Katie Bell's. The door at the top of the stairs was open, revealing the silhouette of a man and a more willowy, obscured female figure behind him. They were backlit, and the lack of proper lighting reduced them to mere shadows.

    Blaise laughed, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "I've been down here for seven hours, Malfoy. I'm going out of my fucking skull."

    "Sorry to hear that," he said, coming to a stop at the bottom of the staircase. The woman behind him turned out to be Padma, looking surly and cold. She pulled the jacket she wore, which was Ron's, tighter around herself. "What cell is she in?"

    Blaise reached for the rack of hooks and keys and tossed him one, a long, ominous black one with a curly handle. Glancing at her momentarily, he took it, then began walking towards the cell. "Send Hermione and Ron after me when they come down, would you?" he added, turning around to walk backwards a few paces.

    Padma narrowed her eyes at Blaise. "What is your relationship with Draco, anyway?" she asked. She'd long been curious. "You live here at the manor, don't you?"

    Blaise grinned. "Yep. One of the suites on the second floor," she replied. "We're half-siblings."

    Padma's jaw dropped. "How so?"

    "Our flighty, idiot mother, Charlotte. Narcissa isn't really his mother. She's barren, you see, something Lucius married her in spite of because he loved her. But he did need an heir. When Charlotte left me with my pathetic Muggle father, she came down here to Waterford to visit friends, and met Lucius. After a few weeks, she and Narcissa became friends, and they agreed to let Charlotte mother Lucius' heir, but never tell a soul. They got the Dark Lord to approve it, and some ten months later, Draco's born."

    "So he was really one of the youngest in our year!" Padma said, very surprised.

    "I wouldn't have been surprised if he was the youngest. His birthday was in March 1981." said Blaise.

    "I had no idea," Padma said. "He seems so mature."

    The door at the top of the steps opened, revealing the hem of Ron's ruby robes and shiny black leather shoes and behind him, the white tennis shoes and blue jean-clad legs of Hermione. They descended the stairs, with Hermione ducking around him to finish the last of the steps two at a time. Her facial expression was desperate for something Padma didn't want to identify. She skidded to a stop just before the two witches, nodding her hellos to them. Ron stopped at the bottom step and avoided Padma's gaze. Blaise put her arm around Hermione's shoulder and led her to the mouth of the corridor Draco had gone down not ten minutes prior.

    As soon as they were out of earshot, Padma hissed, "What did you do?" Ron winced considerably at the tone of her voice. It was shot through with so much heavy emotion. If there was one thing Ron avoided for the most part, it was emotion.

    "Nothing," he said with a shrug.

    "I'm to believe that?" she asked incredulously, her eyes beginning to smoulder. "Fuck that, Ron! I'm not ignorant."

    "I never said you were!" he replied smoothly.

    Padma looked at the floor, crossing her arms over her abdomen. "I'm not stupid, Ron. I know you don't love me, and I know you don't want this baby. But I'm also not as unperceptive as you seem to think I am. I know you've been upstairs in that courtyard snogging her or maybe even more. I'm not just going to turn my eyes away while you do that." Her eyes were tearing up and she was shaking.

    Ron was a severe loss. Finally, he gathered her up in his arms and let her cry into the breast placket of his wool coat.

    While they were trying to work out the difficulties of loveless marriage, Blaise gave Hermione a supportive smile. "Have fun," she said ruefully. "I'll send those two—" she hooked her thumb over her shoulder at Padma and Ron "—when they're done sobbing on each other."

    Hermione nodded. "Thanks, Blaise," she said gratefully.

    Blaise nodded. "Least I could do. Draco is my brother, and he really seems to like you." Hermione gave her a weird look, but didn't ask. She took a deep breath and started to walk down the corridor. Blaise watched her for a moment, then shook her head and turned to go the opposite direction.

    Near the end Hermione could see Draco on a black iron chair with three unsteady-looking legs. He sat on it backwards, leaning forward with his arms on the backrest. He seemed focused intently on whatever the occupant of the cell was saying. They were speaking in a low enough voice that Hermione could hear but not understand individual words.

    He glanced up and saw Hermione standing alone, unsteadily in the middle of the passage, looking terribly unsure.

    He stood up, backing off the chair carefully. Hermione's eyes followed his every movement. "Well, Katie," he said, "you've got a most important visitor."

    "Ooh, goody. I like visitors," Katie replied in her hauntingly ethereal voice.