An Excess of Awesome

Guess what.

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 07:34:40 GMT

I am going to write new stories again. I hope you still want to read them.

My lady . . .

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 03:15:07 GMT

I had to post this picture of her because I think she's super-foxy in it . . . the redhead with the tattoo. I also had to post it because I think she's super-foxy and there's nowhere else on the interwebs I could brag . . .

Other Works

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 00:04:12 GMT

If people are interested in my writing aside from fic,

Here are my poems

and

Here are my essays.

Word.

Fleurs de Sel

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 04:16:10 GMT

Title: Fleurs de Sel
Pairing: Bellatrix/Narcissa
Rating: PG
Summary: Narcissa gets crafty. And/or maudlin.
Word Count: 1845

A/N: For the lyrics/poetry mini-exchange thing. Taken from the Neruda prompt, from his poem “I Do Not Love You."

Her fingers trembled as she pressed the flower gently to the parchment. She stopped for a moment and leaned forward, breathing in the heavy scent that radiated around the crushed blossom like a corona. She tried to smooth out the creased petals, frowning a bit at the dark lines that crisscrossed the thick white tongues, she bit her lip as she adjusted the hair-thin pistils to radiate from the center of the bloom.

Her hand slipped and a tiny stalk snapped off. Her fingers twitched for her wand, on the table next to her, but she curled her hand into a fist and rested it in her lap. She would do it without magic. She shook her hair back to keep it from spilling into the light and took a deep breath. With excruciating slowness she repositioned the stalk and sat back.

It was beautiful. It was perfect. Just like her.

Narcissa sighed and stared at the flower. She had wanted an orchid so badly at the beginning, thought it would be exactly right, but now it seemed flashy and melodramatic. It seemed obvious.

If there’s anything she can’t stand, it’s obvious.

She closed her eyes and when she opened them the orchid stared mutely up at her from the table. It was too late now. The flower itself was perfect, except for a few tiny wrinkles, it was perfect. Her intention was the same as always. She was afraid, though, that Bellatrix would laugh in the cruel magisterial way she had, dismissing her gift as both sentimental and worthless.

But she won’t. She won’t. Because she won’t know it’s from me.

Narcissa moved to the shelf and pulled out a heavy book, its cover worn and cracked. She opened it to a page near the back, something about goblin wars and a certain silver tiara that had caused a century-long battle. Her eyes flicked idly over the page, and she slid the sheet of parchment bearing the blossom carefully across the table, then held her breath as she lifted the page and set it carefully in the book.

I love you, Bella.

She closed the book with a thud, half-hoping to startle the flower into utter stillness so that its composition would not be destroyed. She resisted the urge to check on it, then slid the book back onto the shelf, her fingers dry from the pages, her breath perfumed from the scent.

Narcissa sat back at her desk and picked up her wand. She twirled it idly for a few moments, then suddenly stiffened. She was coming.

She tried to clear away the broken blossoms and bits of parchment that littered her desk, but was still holding a cluster of bruised orchids when Bellatrix threw the door open.

“Cissy?”

Narcissa swallowed hard. The nearness of Bella made her pulse race. “Yes?”

“Mother wants to know if you’re ready for supper.”

“Why—why didn’t she just send one of the elves?” Narcissa didn’t want Bellatrix to know how much she wanted her presence, didn’t want her to know how much she ached for her.

“They were taking too long in the kitchen. They’d probably get lost trying to find you anyway, the stupid things.”

The icy contempt in her sister’s voice made something hot and dark open inside Narcissa. She didn’t understand why Bellatrix’s cruelty made her feel so utterly powerless, so wracked with desire. It was a secret thing, the darkest inner workings of magic. She wanted, wanted Bellatrix to speak to her in that same voice, heavy with disdain, not to insult her but to let her in. Narcissa wanted to know what Bellatrix despised so she could know what Bellatrix loved.

I love you, Bella.

“Are you coming or not?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“What?”

“I’m coming.”

“Why do you have those flowers?” Bellatrix’s luminous eyes flicked down to the handful of broken blooms.

“I was just--”

Bellatrix didn’t wait for an answer. A half-sneer crept across her face. “Well,” she said haughtily, “just don’t let Father catch you with them. You know how he hates Muggle things.”

“Yes,” Narcissa said softly. On her way out the door she threw the orchids into the fire.

The table was set with calendula and Chalcedonian lilies. Narcissa sat across from Bellatrix, turning her head slightly to see her sister’s profile through the heavy red baskets of the blossoms, their curled petals making soft crescent moons through which to view Bella’s face. She had left a pale lily on Bellatrix’s favorite path the day before, its papery petals almost translucent, like a thin cotton robe dyed deep crimson. Narcissa had held it up to the sun before placing it in the path, feeling the warm blush of diffuse light spreading across her face. She had hidden herself behind a bush and watched, suffused with a different kind of light, as Bellatrix discovered the flower and lifted it in the same way, its shadow spilling across the plane of Bella’s cheek.

Narcissa watched Bellatrix closely, hoping for a sign of recognition. It had been foolish, dangerous to take a flower from the grounds, something so common and recognizable. But she had been desperate. Bellatrix’s gaze settled on the centerpiece briefly and Narcissa thought she saw a flash of understanding flit across her sister’s dark eyes, but they just as quickly flicked away.

I love you, Bella. Not in the way he loves you.

Rodolphus had been mentioned. Narcissa felt a cold tug in her belly pulling her away from her sliver of Bellatrix, refracted red and gold against the lily and the firelight. They were talking of him.

“Comes from a very good family.”

“Regarded highly by all the right people.”

“And so handsome.”

The last cut Narcissa deeply. Bellatrix’s mouth had hardly finished forming the words when Narcissa stood up and left the table.

In her room she ran her fingers over the endless spines of heavy, mildewed books. Each one holds a secret, she thought. Each one is precious. She drifted her fingertips across the creased edges of the books, sometimes spilling dust onto the floor. She stopped at a volume bound in green velvet and gilded at the edges and pulled it off the shelf. It opened, she felt, of its own volition to the place where she had set the first flower.

A tiny shudder of embarrassment ran through her as she traced the rose that lay almost flat against a long passage of old-fashioned poetry. A rose. A poem. How meaningless, she thought. How ordinary.

Narcissa dropped the book to the ground and watched as a tear dropped from her cheek to pool in the dust around her feet. Her own insignificant, petty desire made her sick; she wanted to be explosive like Bellatrix, to be violent, fierce, dangerous. But she was not. She was a girl who pressed roses in books of poetry, then cried when they were not beautiful enough.

The thrill of Bellatrix’s nearness coursed through her body again. She wasn’t sure how it happened, or why, but whenever her sister was close Narcissa could feel her presence like a thin fire in her blood. She wiped at her eyes quickly with the sleeve of her dress and tried to compose herself.

Bellatrix threw open her door in the customary way and stood illuminated by the firelight. Narcissa managed to suppress a gasp at the sight of her, fearsome and lit from below like some avenging creature.

“Why did you leave?” Bellatrix demanded.

“I don’t--”

“You do, Cissy. Tell me why.”

Narcissa shrank back from the near-fury in her sister’s voice. “It was nothing,” she whispered.

At the same moment their eyes flicked to the book at Narcissa’s feet. Narcissa moved to pick it up but Bellatrix stopped her.

“What’s that?”

“It’s—just a book, Bella.”

“Why is it on the floor?”

“I—I just set it there for a minute.”

“Father wouldn’t be happy if he saw that, Cissy,” Bellatrix warned, and there was a sharp undercurrent of mirth in her tone.

“I know,” Narcissa whispered. The tears stung at her eyes again. “I’ll just put it up.”

“No,” Bellatrix said strangely. “I’ll do it.”

Narcissa felt a cold tendril of fear twisting around her body. What if the book fell open? Bellatrix would see the rose, she’d know, she’d know—

She stared, dread coiling in her belly, as Bellatrix leaned to pick up the book. She couldn’t help herself watching the way Bellatrix’s body moved, the smooth arc of her back, the tendons in her throat standing out in sharp relief against her ice-white skin, the wild fall of her hair. Narcissa felt herself surging with heat, becoming suffused with fear and desire. Bellatrix was a drop of thick ink falling into the clear water of her body, insinuating itself into her, rushing and spreading until there was no part of her that remained untouched.

Bellatrix’s fingers closed firmly around the book. Narcissa thought briefly that she was holding it carefully, tightly, ensuring it would not open. Narcissa thought briefly she saw a look of understanding in Bellatrix’s eyes as she lifted it from the ground.

“I am going to marry him, Cissy,” she said with a quiet finality. The tenderness in her voice was unexpected, and Narcissa recoiled as though she’d been struck.

Narcissa said nothing, couldn’t think of anything to say even if her mouth were able to form the words. She stood, mute and frozen, as Bellatrix slipped the book delicately back onto the shelf and left the room.

Oh Bella. I love you.

After a long time she was able to move again, and breathe and speak. Her throat was tight and her heart raced as she sat down at her dressing table and opened one of the drawers. The dusty scent of dried flowers seeped into the room and made her feel dizzy. She took a deep breath and slipped a translucent, crumbling cluster of violets out from under their protective parchment. She sat for a long moment with the violets in her hand before slowly closing her fingers around them and feeling them turn to powder in her palm.

It didn’t matter to Narcissa that Bellatrix would marry Rodolphus. She knew nobody would have a chance against her sister; Bellatrix could marry anyone she chose and the result would be the same. It mattered to Narcissa that Bellatrix would leave her, would disappear, that Narcissa would be left alone with a handful of crushed blossoms and an empty room, that her whole life might pass without ever being so near to Bellatrix as she was now.

Narcissa exhaled slowly and let the remains of the violets scatter across the floor. They hadn’t been beautiful enough anyway. The books on the shelves contained dozens, hundreds of fragile blooms, waiting, perfect, easy to give away because they signified nothing except stillness.

.

Ah, the sea.

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 06:11:04 GMT

I just re-read Blood Memory and that was a pretty excellent story.

I think this is the reason I don't really write any more stories.

Discuss.

I am going to hell

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 07:56:12 GMT

I would totally do Sarah Palin.

I can't believe

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 09:08:01 GMT

it took me so long to jump on the Tina Fey bandwagon. Girl is a stone fox.

So tragic.

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:31:53 GMT

So my computer died and I had to send it away. Therefore, while I am working on this fic, I swear to you, it won't be done for at least a week . . .

A thousand apologies.

It's true.

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 06:19:56 GMT

I am writing another chapter of Tapestry. It's totally almost done, too. For serious.

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 06:54:07 GMT

So longer, maybe . . . than I was hoping. I'm currently in the last week and a half of rehearsal before opening a play, and also I'm sort of starting a new relationship that has nothing whatever to do with love and is therefore tremendously exciting and distracting.

But here's what I'm chewing on:

For Dark Geometry (the next chapter): Exploration of the history between Bellatrix and Lily. Possible betrayals by Apolline. Freakout!

For Circles: Hermione uses her relationship with VK to get close to Fleur. Ginny starts to suspect. Freakout!

For Mirrors: Narcissa is curious about Fleur, and enlists Draco to help her. More development of her relationship with Bellatrix.

So yeah, that's not especially detailed. But I'm really jazzed about the way the storylines are all going to braid together.

And I promise I will write them . . .

Alas

Fri, 30 May 2008 17:44:02 GMT

I am about to be horrendously busy so I'm afraid it will be a few days before the next installment of Tapestry . . . I'm still working on it, of course.

Tapestry, Chapter 3 (Mirrors)

Wed, 28 May 2008 06:57:10 GMT

Title: Tapestry: Mirrors
Pairing: Oh, so many! Rarities, commonalities, past, present . . . future? (no, not future)
Summary: A sprawling epic of lady loves and bad girls.
Word Count: 2600
Rating: R, for odd bondage and emotional abuse. Maybe it’s NC-17. Use your best judgment.
A/N: Blackcest! And hints of pairing #4 (5?) . . . though I can’t remember who requested it because I am a terrible person.

*****************************************************************

She sat in front of the mirror, brushing out her hair.

Every day she sat there, facing the shimmering oblong disk, and released her hair from its pins and ribbons, and took up the soft brush and let it slip between her fingers, the entire silken length of it.

Like a princess in a tower.

She tried not to look at her face as she brushed her hair, since the bruises made ugly purple marks there. When she caught a glimpse of herself she would gasp and let her hair fall in front of her eyes, would let it catch her tears.

She calls it love.

She would wind the silver strands around her fingers and let it slip through her hands like water, half-amazed by its beauty. She did not feel beautiful, she felt in awe of her gleaming corona of hair, she felt uglier underneath it than she could ever say.

She calls it love when she makes these bruises.

Every day she sat there, not looking at her face, every day she hid in her room in the highest part of the house. She could not lock her door so she pushed a chair against it, she could not lock her door because the others had stopped her. They had taken her wand.

Like a princess in a tower. Waiting. But there is nobody coming to save me.

As she stroked the shining length of her hair she felt calm, as she wrapped it around her eyes she felt safe and warm in the dark.

Nobody can touch me.

She was safe there until the others came and knocked the door open, until they pushed the chair away and burst inside. It was always her.

“Cissy?”

I wish I knew how

“Cissy, open the door. You’ve blocked it again, haven’t you? What a foolish thing to do, my little Cissy. You make me think I’m not wanted.”

I wish I knew how to get away

“Cissy. Narcissa. Open the bloody door. You know I hate to burst in like an ogre. You know how I feel about looking like a madwoman.”

I wish I knew how to get away from this place

“Narcissa. I shall ask you once more, and then I shall come in, and if I have to blast the door open I shall be very upset indeed.”

Narcissa continued to brush her hair with long, even strokes. The glistening fall of it obscured her eyes, hung in a straight silver curtain almost to the floor. Her face betrayed nothing as Bellatrix cursed and stamped outside, she displayed no reaction as the burst of white light filled her room. The chair shot across the floor and crashed into the far wall. She continued to draw the brush through her hair.

“Narcissa,” Bellatrix said, her voice low, barely controlled. “I asked you so politely.”

She said nothing.

“Not speaking again this evening?” Bellatrix sneered. “It’s not as though you’ve got anything to say anyway. Little mute,” she said, suddenly tender, drawing close behind her. “Beautiful little silent Cissy.” Bellatrix reached out and placed her hand on Narcissa’s hair, and she flinched.

“Don’t be afraid, darling,” Bellatrix cooed, lowering her face so it was parallel with Narcissa’s. “Look at us,” she whispered, cupping Narcissa’s chin and forcing her to face the mirror. “You and I. So different.”

Narcissa’s lip trembled as she stared at her own reflection. The bruises bloomed along her jaw, streaked lividly down her white throat.

“Look at us,” Bellatrix whispered again, her eyes sliding closed. “You’re like an angel, Cissy. You’re so beautiful.” Bellatrix’s fingers began stroking Narcissa’s lower lip, forcing their way into her mouth. “So beautiful.”

A whimper escaped her despite her best efforts to keep it tight inside. Bellatrix smiled, her sharp teeth glinting in the candlelight. The tip of her tongue slid over her lip and she shivered.

She is like an animal. I am like an angel.

Narcissa did not make a sound. She did not move. She stared at herself in the mirror, stared at her pale blue eyes until she could make them into doorways and she slipped deep inside them. She couldn’t feel Bellatrix touching her any more, couldn’t hear Bellatrix’s dark murmur.

“Oh, little sister,” Bellatrix said softly. “My darling one. You know that I love you more than I have ever loved another creature, except Him. But I do not love even Him in the way that I love you.” She plucked a strand of hair and twisted it between her fingers. “He is coming to take me away, Cissy, and I shall be gone from you for a while. But don’t cry, my darling, you have Mummy and Daddy to take care of you. Of course,” she breathed, slowly working the strands into a thin silver rope, “they won’t take care of you like I do.”

Narcissa remained silent. She was lost inside her own reflection, but it wasn’t herself she saw any more. It was a deep, quiet pool and she was falling soundlessly down, down down.

“You must be very good, Cissy. You must do just as they tell you. And—shall I tell you a secret, my darling sister?” Bellatrix wound the fine filament around her wrist. “They are bringing someone for you. Lucius Malfoy. Are you surprised?”

Down, down, down

“I didn’t think you would be. You’re such a . . . pair. But don’t worry, dearest. He won’t mean anything. Nothing will come between us.”

Bellatrix stood, pressing her body against Narcissa’s immobile frame. She traced her fingers up and down the planes of Narcissa’s face, down her slender neck. Her hand stroked the mottled expanse of flesh there and she began slowly to unwind the long strands of hair she had twisted around her wrist. “He will be your pet, I think, as he once was mine. Oh, nothing like that, but he’s so easily led. And with someone as beautiful as you to follow behind . . .” Bellatrix brought her arm around in front of Narcissa’s face and slowly, carefully began to wind the silver rope around her throat. “Your own little pet, my darling.”

Bellatrix sucked in a breath as she pulled more tightly on the rope of hair that circled Narcissa’s neck. Narcissa’s eyes began to water, and Bellatrix pushed herself harder against her sister’s body.

Narcissa felt herself so near the bottom of that deep, dark pool, so close to the crushing silence she yearned for. She was reaching out her hand to touch it, it was just there, and suddenly she felt herself pulled back, jerked hard upward, flying away from the endless expanse of dim silence and back into herself.

She saw her face in the mirror, ice-white, her lips fringed with pale, nacreous blue. Saw the fine silver rope bound about her throat, and through the tears pooling in her eyes she first mistook it for a chain.

Bellatrix was murmuring wordlessly, pushing herself hard against Narcissa’s body. Narcissa began to struggle a little, to try to breathe, and Bellatrix’s lips parted and she slowly tipped her head back, one hand still holding tightly to Narcissa’s hair and the other stroking her throat, stroking down her body, Narcissa felt so unspeakably filthy then as she always did, the warm flush of desire beginning to spread throughout her, the tangling of her hatred, her lust, her hot black love for Bellatrix making her dizzy, making her weak.

She calls it love.

“Cissy? Narcissa, darling?”

Narcissa’s eyes flew open and she sat up, smoothing her hair quickly. Lucius’s footsteps were coming nearer.

“What is it?” she said, trying to keep her voice from wavering.

Lucius pushed open the door to her room cautiously. “I was just wondering where you were. I hadn’t seen you.”

“Oh,” she said quickly. “I was just—resting.”

Lucius looked relieved. Narcissa felt a momentary sting of resentment. Can he never leave me in peace?

My own little pet.

Lucius entered the room and stood next to Narcissa’s dressing-table. He reached out and ran his hand down her hair, smiling contentedly. “You’re so lovely, my darling,” he said softly.

She reached up and clasped his wrist. “Yes,” she said without emotion.

He looked at her reflection in the mirror for a moment and then dropped his eyes to her face. “Well,” he said.

“Well.”

He looked at her again, slightly quizzical. “Are you nearly ready?”

“Ready?”

“Cissy, my love, our guests will be here at any moment.”

“Guests?” She was confused. She thought hard about what day it was. Her thoughts of Bellatrix always threw her into a dreamlike state. “Oh—of course. Yes, darling, I’ll be ready shortly.”

Lucius smiled again. “Wonderful. I’ll go down to greet them.” He lifted her hand and pressed his lips to her fingers. Narcissa barely repressed her shudder at the touch. He released her and left the room, closing the door behind him quietly.

She listened until she couldn’t hear his footsteps any more and rose, crossing to her armoire. She must look perfect for their guests. Karkaroff and that Frenchwoman were coming to her house tonight. Lucius had invited them, though she wasn’t entirely sure why. Karkaroff, of course, had been loyal to the cause so many years ago, but had turned on them as so many had.

As Lucius might as well have, she thought. But he did it for me. For Draco.

She turned around and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. For a half-second she thought she saw another figure, dark and slim, standing behind her. Bella.

Repulsion and yearning coursed through her as she imagined Bellatrix, locked deep within Azkaban.

She blinked and turned back to the wardrobe, pulling her gown from its hook. She must prepare to meet the guests. Must not upset Lucius. Though he would be at a loss for what to do with me, she thought, a faint smile touching the corners of her mouth.

In the dining room the table was laid with exquisite care. Lucius sat at the head, Karkaroff to his right. Across from the wizard was an enormous woman, strangely elegant despite her size.

“You must be Madame Maxime,” Narcissa said graciously, extending her hand.

“Ees a pleasure to meet you,” Madame Maxime said, standing and enveloping Narcissa’s hand in her massive grip.

“And Igor, it’s been too long,” she said, crossing behind Lucius and offering her cheek to Karkaroff.

“Narcissa, you are beautiful as I remember you. You have not aged a single day.” She smiled prettily and took her seat at the end of the table.

“Well,” Lucius said officiously. “Narcissa and I would both like to welcome you to our home. We are both extremely honored by your presence. Of course they’ve been treating you well at Hogwarts, I have no doubt, but my wife and I both feel you ought to meet some of the more . . . notable families, shall we say?”

Karkaroff laughed. Madame Maxime smiled and nodded.

“We are honored to be here as well, Lucius,” Madame Maxime said. “It is true, we are very well treated at ‘ogwarts, but for myself I am used to zee, ‘ow you say it, formal society?”

“And indeed you’ve found it,” Lucius said. “Narcissa? Would you ring for the elves, darling?”

“Of course, Lucius,” she replied, forcing her smile. These dinners always made her so weary. The pomp and circumstance fitted Lucius perfectly but she was so much happier when she could be left to her thoughts. She rang the silver bell next to her place.

“Madame Malfoy,” Madame Maxime began.

“Oh please, you must call me Narcissa. You are among equals here,” she said. Madame Maxime smiled again.

“But of course you must call me Olympe. Narcissa, I was just remarking to Monsieur Karkaroff zat you resemble so closely one of zee girls I have brought with me. She has also such long and beautiful hair.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, my darling Fleur is zee most beautiful of all my students. Of course, you must not be telling zee others zat I say this!”

“Your secret is safe with me, Olympe.”

“Oui. Yes. Fleur I must tell you, she is zee one zat I am thinking will be our champion in zee tournament. She is so talented! And of course she will go very far in zee world, especially with her other . . . gifts.”

“Other gifts?”

Karkaroff leaned in conspiratorially. “Well, I cannot be saying for myself, but I am thinking this girl must be a veela the way all of my students are following her.”

“You have guessed it, Igor! Ahh, it is such a relief to be among clever people. Of course I do not mean to say our hosts are not clever, but . . .”

“No need for apologies here, Olympe,” Lucius said. “We have some very definite ideas about that lot. Why, the students they allow in--”

“Lucius,” Narcissa said sharply. “Another time, perhaps.” She detested his way of delving into blood supremacy at the table, especially in front of guests. With Bella it’s different. Lucius is filled with false pride and fear. Bella understands it.

Lucius coughed. “Of course, darling. Our dinner has arrived as it is.”

The elves moved quickly around the table, serving the first course as unobtrusively as they could. Madame Maxime roared with laughter at the sight.

“Oh, in France we have nothing like this! At Beauxbatons one never sees zee servants. We do not like our students having to mix with such creatures.”

“We do not have these at Durmstrang either,” Karkaroff said. “Our students must learn to prepare their own food. We believe it makes them stronger.”

“Well.” Lucius raised his glass. “To each his own.”

“Oui,” Madame Maxime chime, and drained her goblet. “Ees elf-made, no?”

“Yes,” Narcissa said. And then, “How many veela do you have at Beauxbatons?”

“Oh, not so very many.” The woman refilled her glass. “Ees very difficult to have zem among zee other students. Jealousy, you see. And also it becomes difficult for zee male teachers sometimes.” She laughed again. “But at Beauxbatons we believe in training all zee girls to use whatever their natural abilities are. So, la.”

“The girls are jealous of the veela students? Because of the attention they get from their professors?”

“Taken an interest, Narcissa?” Lucius half-smiled. “We’ll have to go on holiday to France this summer, perhaps you can meet one.”

“Oh no, nothing like that,” Narcissa said quickly. “I’m just curious. I’ve only met one veela in my life and I didn’t even know it until later.”

“Ah yes, zee girls are quite harmless to zee other women. Zee jealousy, oui, it ees from zee attention they are getting from zee boys.”

“Well, I must agree with you, Madame,” Karkaroff said. “I have met one or two veela in my travels and they are most captivating.”

“Indeed.”

The guests and Lucius began to talk of English wizarding society. Narcissa felt herself slipping away from the conversation. She wondered idly about the veela girl, Fleur, who looked like her. Perhaps she would ask Draco about her. Perhaps on one of their visits to the school he could point the girl out. Perhaps it would be like looking in a mirror.

Her thoughts turned unbidden to Bellatrix, forcing her to look at her own reflection. The crawling feeling of exposure, of nakedness as she stared at herself. She had never looked at Bellatrix when she had been held captive there, had only looked deep into her own eyes.

*********************************************************************

I’ve never written a Narcissa-centric anything before (well, one, kind of, but not really). Oh well.

Good times!

Tapestry, Chapter 2 (Circles)

Tue, 27 May 2008 06:02:57 GMT

Title: Tapestry: Circles
Pairing: Oh, so many! Rarities, commonalities, past, present . . . future? (no, not future)
Summary: A sprawling epic of lady loves and bad girls.
Word Count: 2850
Rating: PG
A/N: For thuperlithp, who wanted awkward break-uppy-ness. And let me tell you, friend, this is a subject I am well-versed in. Also a shout-out to michi6877, for reasons that will doubtless become clear. I love requests! It’s so much easier than making my own decisions!

*****************************************************************

“Hermione?”

She cringed slightly and ducked into the nearest doorway. She felt bad for doing it, but she’d been followed for days and was desperate for a bit of solitude.

“Hermione?”

Hermione held her breath and stood as still as she possibly could until the figure passed the door. She thought she’d seen the slightest pause, as though her pursuer could sense her there, and heaved a huge sigh of relief when she saw the shadow moving down the corridor away from her.

“Have you seen Hermione?” farther off.

“No, not recently. Did you try the library?”

“Yeah, of course. I’ve just come from there. I could’ve sworn she was just in front of me.”

“Sorry.”

Hermione heard Ginny grumbling in frustration as she wandered off in search of her quarry. She reached out and snagged Ron’s sleeve as he walked by.

“Bloody hell, Hermione, you scared me!”

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“You know Ginny’s looking for you?”

“Yes,” she said through gritted teeth. “She’s been looking for me for ages.”

“So what’s the problem?”

Hermione sighed. Ron could be so thick sometimes. Of course, it was good he didn’t understand her frustration, since it meant he didn’t know. And Ron’s not knowing was one of the very few requirements she’d demanded of Ginny.

“I just need a little space to . . . do homework?” she said, hoping it didn’t sound too suspicious. Ron grimaced.

“Merlin’s beard, Hermione. You and homework.” He shook his head. “Well, what should I tell Ginny? She’s starting to bother me as much as she bothers you. You’d think she had no friends.”

“Tell her . . . tell her you didn’t see me. It’s the simplest thing. I hate to make you lie, Ron, but . . .”

“Say no more. Secret’s safe with me. So—what are you studying? I’ve finished all my homework. ‘Course it’s pointless to ask you, since you don’t seem to understand that concept.”

“Potions,” Hermione said quickly. “Studying Potions. Still working on that Grindylow essay for Snape.”

Ron rolled his eyes. “Bloody hell. Please tell me you figured out the antidote. All I managed to come up with is don’t get bitten.”

Hermione smiled. He was thick, but sometimes it suited him. “Flavia blossoms. And mallow root.”

“Sounds like a ruddy love potion,” he said. “Thanks.” He grinned and punched her shoulder. “Oh,” he said, turning to her. “Harry wants to know if you’ve made any headway on the Goblet.”

“I’m not helping you get your name in there, Ron,” she said, trying to hide her smile. Ron shrugged.

“Bloke can’t be blamed for trying,” he said and sauntered off.

Hermione leaned against the doorway and closed her eyes. How do I get Ginny to leave me alone? Short of giving her a draught of something, of course. She smacked her forehead. Had it really gotten so bad that she was thinking of poisoning her? No, of course not. She was overreacting. But still, a bit of Instant Enemy Serum couldn’t hurt, just a drop in her pumpkin juice. Just to get Ginny to avoid her for one bloody day—

“There you are!”

Hermione sucked in a breath and almost choked. Ginny was standing in the corridor, hands on her hips, an exasperated look on her face. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

“Oh?” Hermione said weakly. She fumbled with her books, and tried to make it look as though she had been interrupted deep in thought about Grindylow venom.

“Yes. I was just about to go down to the pitch, thought you might like to join me.”

“Oh . . . umm . . .” Hermione stalled as best she could. The walk down to the Quidditch pitch had been one of their favorite things, back when Hermione had been interested in the many detours among the outcroppings of rock and secret pathways through the trees. Now, however, the idea made her wince.

“You all right? Nobody’s seen you, not even Ron. And the way he follows you around . . .” Ginny giggled. “Honestly, you’d think he was the one snogging you.” She leaned in to kiss Hermione, but Hermione dodged and spun into the corridor.

“Look, Ginny, I’m really busy with this essay. You know what Snape’s like.”

“Snape.” Ginny waved her hand dismissively. “Your essay is probably fine. It’s probably perfect, and anyway, you know he’s not going to give you the marks you deserve on it. Come on, let’s go!” She hooked her arm through Hermione’s and dragged her down the hall.

Just a drop in her pumpkin juice.

“Oi! Parvati!” Ginny cried to the crowd of girls clustered in the hall. Parvati stopped and turned.

“Hi Ginny. Hermione,” she said, looking the pair of them up and down with the appraising way Hermione hated.

“If you see Padma, will you ask her to ask Dean to ask Seamus to please stop putting owl nuts in my cereal? I mean, how immature can you get?”

Parvati sighed dramatically. “I know! Just the other day Dean was talking to Hannah who was telling Michael Corner that she saw Seamus trying to turn water into wine again and nearly blew up the common room!”

Ginny and Parvati rolled their eyes in unison. Hermione cringed inwardly. She found herself wishing for the days when Ginny had been too in awe of her and Harry to even speak in their presence. Long past, she thought ruefully. Never should’ve kissed her that day.

Hermione thought back to the end of the previous year, when she had been so overwhelmed with worry and schoolwork and had just needed a break, had only needed someone who didn’t care about intrigues, about grades, about any of it. And Ginny had been so quiet, so sweet to her that it seemed a tremendous relief that she had been able to disappear with her for hours, talking about nothing, not talking at all. And then Hermione had kissed her behind the rocks leading to the Quidditch pitch, which she imagined was part of the reason it had become Ginny’s favorite stroll. Hermione had never pegged Ginny as sentimental, but appearances had proved deceiving.

“Laters, Gin,” Parvati called after them. “Hermione.”

“Ginny,” Hermione huffed as the other girl pulled her out into the courtyard. “Ginny, stop.” Hermione planted her feet and Ginny came to a halt with a jerk.

“What?”

“I really am busy,” she said. “I really need to finish this. I’m sorry--” shouldn’t say you’re sorry—“but I’ve got to go.” She wrestled her arm out of Ginny’s and turned without letting Ginny speak. She strode quickly back to the castle and thought she heard Ginny calling after her but didn’t turn back.

She was walking fast, head down, making her way for the library when she ran straight into something. Someone, by the sound of it.

“What ees this? Watch where you are going, silly leetle girl!”

She looked up and was struck momentarily dumb by the sight of Fleur Delacour, who stood in front of her rubbing her arm and scowling. Even scowling she’s beautiful. She took a breath. It’s because she’s part veela, she reminded herself. But it shouldn’t have any effect on me, I’m not a boy.

That idea didn’t seem to make a difference, as Hermione stood unable to move or speak in front of Fleur. Someone bumped her arm as they passed and knocked her out of her stupor.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I wasn’t looking.”

“I can see zat,” Fleur said coldly. The group of Beauxbatons students flocking around her tittered. Hermione glanced at them, noticing their uniform long blond hair and perfect noses. Her eyes flicked back to Fleur, who was looking her over in the same way that Parvati did. Not the same way, Hermione thought. It felt like Fleur was taking her measurements differently, somehow. Like she was an examination. Hermione wondered briefly if she had passed as Fleur and her friends stalked away. One of them glanced back at her and whispered something to the girl next to her, both of them giggling behind their hands.

Hermione watched them walk away, still shaking off the dazed feeling Fleur had cast over her. It shouldn’t have any effect on me, she thought again. She couldn’t help but wonder about it as she stared at the back of Fleur’s head. She hadn’t encountered any of the Beauxbatons students directly since their arrival, which she supposed was just as well. She’d already gotten tired of Ron’s simpering over Fleur, despite repeated reminders of why exactly that was. If I have to hear one more time about how pretty her hair is . . .

But her hair certainly was quite pretty. Hermione tried to pretend she hadn’t noticed it herself at the welcoming feast, tried to pretend she wasn’t mentally agreeing with Ron’s insipid commentary. It must be Ginny’s fault, she thought suddenly. Though how could that be? Ginny doesn’t have anything to do with the tournament, she hasn’t even met any of them. Still, Hermione had the distinct impression that Fleur Delacour wouldn’t have been such a distraction if Ginny hadn’t primed her for it. Ginny’s primed me for all sorts of distraction. Merlin’s sakes, she’s got me wondering how I can slip a potion into her drink.

Hermione shook her head and straightened her books. She considered going to the library to work on her essay, but the thought of studying antidotes made her feel sleepy.

“There you are!” a voice cried from farther down the corridor. Hermione groaned. She’d never been so popular in all her life as she was today. She looked up. Harry was running toward her.

“What, Harry?” she said, realizing it must have sounded harder than she meant it to. “What’s going on?”

“Ginny’s been looking for you.”

Hermione clapped her hand over her eyes. “Bloody hell.”

“What?” Harry looked confused.

“I know,” she moaned. “She found me.”

“Oh,” Harry said evenly, doing a fine job of disguising his befuddlement. “Well, I take it you’ve got it sorted.”

“Indeed,” Hermione said. “Look, Harry, I’m really busy right now, I’ve got loads of homework--”

“Any ideas on this Grindylow antidote? I didn’t even know they were venomous.”

“Flavia blossoms. Mallow root.”

He grinned. “You’re the best.”

“So they tell me,” she said as he ran off. She sighed heavily and decided to take the longest, least-traveled route to anywhere there weren’t likely to be people. Which, she realized, was probably the library. She ducked around a column and made her way for the far side of the castle.

Madame Pince looked over her spectacles as Hermione huffed into the library. The longest way was quite long, and Hermione was winded by the time she reached her destination. Pince frowned disapprovingly and Hermione tried to catch her breath more quietly. She ducked down one of the narrow aisles and found an empty table. It wasn’t difficult; as she’d suspected the library was nearly deserted.

She sighed and opened her book without looking at the page. After a few moments of blank staring she closed it again and stood up, examining the shelves. The Habits and Habitats of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack and Other Fantastical Creatures. Thirty-Seven Uses for Newt Skin. Witches and Wizards of the Far East. A History of Notable Wizards and their Pets. She leaned forward and rested her head on the shelf. Very sleepy. Perhaps she could crawl into a dark corner and—

Suddenly the spine of a book caught her eye. It had elaborate gilding and was bound in soft, velvety pale leather. The Lure of the Veela.

Hermione glanced around her, feeling slightly ridiculous. Who would care that she was interested in veela? She could always say it was to better understand the Triwizard guests. After all, nearly everybody had figured out what Fleur was, seeing as how most of the male students spent most of their free time trying to get near her. She bit her lip and slid the book off the shelf. By Niobe Athenaïs.

She flipped through the book, which seemed to have a disproportionate number of illustrations, displaying various veela in various shimmering settings. They all seemed to have flowing blonde hair and long, languid bodies, and Hermione halfway felt their pull through the pages. But why? Certainly they were very beautiful, since that appeared to be their entire purpose for existing. Indeed, she discovered as she flipped the pages, it was only relatively recently that anyone had figured out that veela were capable of doing the same things as perfectly ordinary witches. Since most researchers are men it’s not surprising it took so long, she thought, half-amused. Still, she couldn’t understand why Fleur’s charms were affecting her.

The lure of the veela is nearly impossible for any man to resist. Their charms stem from a deep magic traced back to the far Mediterranean, and are thought to originate from two particular locations: a small peninsula in what is now southern France, and a set of islands in modern-day Greece. Many veela still reside in or around these areas, and as a result their most highly-concentrated populations are to be found in Continental Europe.

Which explains why I’ve never encountered one before.

She flipped through the pages, skimming over the broader outlines of veela history, before finding a short chapter near the back. Rare Effects of Veela Magic on Non-Male Persons. She stopped flipping through the book and began to read intently.

In certain very rare situations, the charms of the veela can be detected by witches and female Muggles. While this is extraordinarily uncommon, it is thought to be a result of the veela’s own intention. Researchers believe this rarity is being eradicated from the race, since the veela’s charms are passed from mother to daughter and therefore is not carried on by non-reproductive specimens.

Hermione felt a twist of disgust in her belly. ‘Specimens.’ Because a veela fancied girls, girls would fancy her. She supposed it made sense. But still, the way this Niobe Athenaïs talked about it you’d think such women were monsters. And who was she to imply it was a disease of some kind?

“Thank Merlin it’s not contagious,” she muttered. There was a soft cough from behind her and she jumped, slamming the book closed. She heard Madame Pince’s reproving tut from across the library and smoothed the cover gently.

“I am sorry,” a deep voice said. “I was just noticing that you was here and I thought maybe I would come and make hellos.”

She turned slowly and saw one of the Durmstrang students standing awkwardly behind her. Viktor Krum. She remembered Ron’s awe and excitement as Krum had come thundering through the Great Hall. Some sort of Quidditch player.

“Hello,” she said without inflection. Bollocks. Can’t even be left alone in the library.

“What is it you are reading?” Krum asked. Hermione flushed and coughed slightly.

“Just a book,” she muttered. He nodded.

“Yes, a book.” He didn’t seem to care much beyond that.

“Well . . . hello,” she said again.

“I am Viktor.”

“Yes.”

“And your name is what, please?”

“Oh . . . Hermione,” she said quickly. “It’s very nice to meet you, Viktor, but I’m--”

“Is very nice to be meeting you as well, Hermy-own.”

Hermione swallowed hard. Clearly Krum had no intention of leaving her in peace.

“Yes . . . well,” she said.

“I am noticing you since our boat arrives at Hogwarts,” he said, still standing behind her. “But I am seeing you always with the red-haired girl and boy and I think it is better that I do not talk to you.”

“No—it’s fine,” she said. “They’re just—friends.”

“Ah,” he said, never taking his eyes from her face. She felt herself redden and realized she ought to make some sort of effort.

“Would you like to sit?” she asked, indicating the seat across from her.

“Thank you,” Krum said, sitting down beside her. He didn’t look at the books or the papers, but continued to study her face. Never so popular . . . she thought. But then another thought occurred to her. Krum clearly didn’t want to know the secrets of Grindylow antidote. Perhaps she could—

But it felt wrong to even think of using someone else’s affection for her. Even if it would most likely have the benefit of chasing Ginny away. Hopefully. Hermione didn’t want to think about what would happen if Ginny thought she and Krum were an item. Didn’t want to imagine the tears. Still, it was better than Instant Enemy Serum. Her fingertips grazed the book in front of her. And if she was spending time with one of the visiting students, maybe she’d have the opportunity to spend more time around Fleur at one of the many Triwizard functions. After all, if she was swayed by the veela’s charms, it could only mean . . .

I should feel bad about this.

Hermione took a deep breath and traced the gilt lettering on the cover of the book.

“So Viktor,” she said. “I hear you play Quidditch.”

*****************************************************************

Neat!

Tapestry, Chapter 1

Tue, 27 May 2008 00:52:29 GMT

Title: Tapestry
Pairing: Oh, so many! Rarities, commonalities, past, present . . . future? (no, not future)
Summary: A sprawling epic of lady loves and bad girls.
Word Count: 3100
Rating: PG

A/N: The first section is for willowsvampyre, who thought the initial idea was both uncommon and drastic, two things I love more than . . . most other things. Also, I think JKR’s insistence upon continuing to make canonical decisions post-publication is crap, but I will accept it so long as she accepts I’m not making anything but friends from the use of her work. Now that she’s accepted it, I say it’s crap to give historical birthdates to fictional characters, to the effect that I’ve obviously erased the ten-year age difference between Bellatrix and Lily (again). So there!

Also, there are a few other things that I have adjusted. I don’t think it’s anything world-ending. It’s possible you won’t even notice! If you do . . . suck it up. With love.

****************************************************************

Apolline.

Apolline.

Apolline.

Lily whispered the name as quietly as she could. Still, a couple of girls at a nearby table glanced up at her. She bit her lip.

Apolline, she thought. Apolline.

The pleasure of thinking, Lily decided, was that one was allowed to think as loudly as one wanted, even in the library. Even if one was thinking about things that shouldn’t be thought about anywhere, even the library. Almost funny, that there were things one ought not think about in a library, which was, after all, a room designed for thinking.

Not that funny, she decided half a second later. But thinking about Apolline made her giggle whether something was funny or not.

Apolline.

She must’ve been giggling aloud, as the two girls at the next table were now staring at her quite pointedly. She shoved her half-completed Potions essay into the dusty book she’d been pretending to study and tripped a little as she tried to leave. Blushing, she glanced around. Nobody had seen, not that it mattered, since the only opinion she wanted was at that moment most likely tucked securely in an enormous gilded carriage.

Apolline.

Lily was so wrapped up in her thoughts that it took her several seconds to realize she was still standing at the library door, tugging at the potions book that stubbornly refused to follow her out.

“Forgetting something, Evans?” someone snickered. She blushed more deeply and walked meekly to the checkout desk.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. Madame Pince stared down her thin, beaky nose, her eyes made even sharper by the pince-nez perched on it.

“I should think so,” Pince snapped as she marked the book. “Two weeks.”

Lily nodded and backed hastily out of the library. More snickering followed her, but the only voice Lily cared about was hers.

Apolline.

Lily walked down the corridor, her mind filled with thoughts of Apolline, her long, slender fingers, her long, shimmering hair, her long, delicate neck. She could almost see her, could almost touch her, could almost—

“Watch where you’re bloody going!”

“Oh!” Lily collided with something—someone, by the sound of it, and dropped her book, the parchment rolling down an adjoining corridor. “Bloody hell,” she grumbled, chasing after it. She unrolled it and studied the text, trying to see if any of the ink had smeared. Slughorn wouldn’t have minded if the paper had been missing three whole inches, but Lily was determined to prove she could do more than coast on her talents.

“May I recommend not walking with your eyes closed?” A hand held the potions book out to her.

“Sorry,” she mumbled again.

“And Madame Pince wouldn’t be at all happy to see how little care you take with school property, especially after you tried to steal it.”

“I didn’t try to steal it!” Lily cried, before realizing it was the same person who had laughed at her earlier. She looked up from her parchment.

Bellatrix Black was holding the book out impatiently. “Do you not want it? I’ll just run it back to the library, then.”

“No, I do—want it,” Lily said, snatching the book away. “I just had to make sure there was nothing wrong with my--”

“Fascinating,” Bellatrix said dryly. “If you don’t mind.” She turned to go.

“Thank you,” Lily called awkwardly after her. Bellatrix made her nervous. Not because she was an older girl, after all, she wasn’t much older, and not because she was a Slytherin or a Pureblood or any of that class nonsense, certainly not because they had once—

“Eyes open, Evans,” Bellatrix said over her shoulder. “Don’t want people thinking you’re clumsy.”

“Right,” she said as brightly as she could. Right? That’s the best you could come up with? Lily shook her head and made her way carefully to the common room.

Bellatrix stared after her, her dark eyes clouded. She shook her head and strode quickly off down the corridor.

Lily ducked through the doorway clutching her book. The common room was nearly deserted, it was late and most of the students were in their dormitories, preparing for bed. She sat in a large plush armchair and unrolled her parchment. Six more inches on the preparation and use of antidotes for Grindylow venom. She hadn’t even known Grindylows were venomous, but she supposed it was good to know that mallow root and flavia blossoms would work in a pinch. Not that she planned on getting bitten. She sighed and cracked the book.

The bite of the Grindylow produces lethargy, paleness, paralysis and eventual death. Should the antidote not be administered promptly the victim will exhibit these symptoms along with delirium, shallow breathing, and heightened sensation in the hands and feet.

Doesn’t sound so terrible, Lily thought. Except for the paralysis and death bit.

Apolline stretched out on the grassy bank of the Black Lake, her long slim body pale and cool, her lips parted, air whispering gently into her lungs as she cried out faintly for Lily, Lily who knew the cure. Lily frantically grinding the roots and flowers into a fine poultice, spreading the mixture so carefully, so tenderly across the scarlet wound, Apolline moaning faintly, her eyes sliding open, a smile breaking across her beautiful face as she blinked and saw Lily leaning over her, Lily who had saved her—

“Don’t let Peeves catch you in here,” a male voice said from across the room. Lily started and the parchment and book fell to the floor with a loud thud.

“James! You startled me,” she muttered, collecting her things. She wondered briefly how long she’d been lost in her thoughts. Couldn’t have been too long, the fire was still crackling merrily in the grate.

“Just one of my many and varied talents,” James said, a smirk in his voice. “Still working on Slughorn’s essay, eh? I gave up on it ages ago. Good thing I stand next to you in Potions, or else he’d be on to me in a second.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that being associated with the professor’s favorite student gives one a little more freedom than one might otherwise have.”

“You’re not cheating off me again, James,” she said, a flush spreading across her cheeks. “I’ve worked really hard on this essay. I don’t mean to have you take the credit for it.”

“Slughorn knows I’d never have figured out it was—what was it?” He snatched Lily’s parchment. “Flavia blossoms? Sounds like a load of rubbish to me, but what do I know?”

“Not much, that’s clear,” she huffed, snatching the parchment back. James didn’t let go of his end and with a loud rip the paper tore in half. “Potter, you bloody bastard! I’ve been working on this for ages!” Anger flared up in her. “Give it back!”

“Hey now, no need for name-calling,” James said, sounding slightly wounded. “I’ll have it fixed in a tick, keep your knickers on.”

“You’re getting nowhere near my knickers,” Lily growled as James pulled out his wand.

“Here, give me your half.” He grabbed it out of her hand and tapped his wand on both sides. The parchment mended itself easily.

“Thank you,” Lily said stiffly, holding out her hand for the scroll. James examined it closely, waving her hand away.

“I figure I ought to at least pretend I know what you’re on about,” he said as he stared at the writing. “Flavia blossoms and mallow root? Sounds like a bloody love potion.”

“Yes, well, that’s why you’ll end up cold and stiff when the Grindylow gets a bit of your arm,” she said feebly. I must be slipping. I’m usually so good at the clever retort.

“Better cold and stiff than—what’s this?” he said, peering more closely at the paper. “Who’s Apolline?”

Lily felt a cold rush of fear in her limbs. Her throat constricted, and she struggled to breathe normally. So this is what a Grindylow bite is like, she thought. “Nobody,” she choked.

“But you’ve got it underlined. And circled. It’s not—hey, are you trying to make friends with those bloody French wankers?”

“Yes,” she said, relief crashing over her. “I’ve got a—study appointment.”

“Everyone knows Beauxbatons girls are only good at one thing,” he said knowingly.

“Oh yes? And what’s that?”

“I shouldn’t say,” James grinned. “Ladies present.”

“Why don’t you go back up to your room, then? That would take care of that problem.”

He gaped at her for a moment, then handed the parchment back without a word. “Goodnight, James,” she called sweetly. He didn’t make any indication he’d heard her as he stomped up the staircase to the boys’ dormitory.

Lily took a deep breath and clutched the parchment to her chest. How had Apolline’s name gotten there? She must have written it while she was daydreaming. She unrolled it quickly, though taking care not to tear it again, and scanned the writing. She didn’t see the name anywhere.

She took the parchment nearer the fire and knelt down on the carpet, carefully reading every word. Aside from a few missed punctuation marks she saw nothing out of the ordinary. Nowhere did she see that lovely name, certainly not underlined and circled.

The coldness seeped back into her limbs. If it hadn’t been written there, James had—but how—he couldn’t—there was no—bollocks.

Lily resisted the momentary urge to throw her essay into the fire. She flopped back down in the armchair and rubbed her eyes. He’s just playing a trick. It’s James, after all, that’s what he does. But how would he have known to—perhaps he heard me whispering. Have to be more careful.

She closed her eyes firmly and took a deep breath. The vision of Apolline flitted across her mind and she smiled. She could certainly think it as loudly as she wanted.

Bellatrix stole across the grounds silently as a ghost, her long black cloak slipping easily though the trees. She stepped quickly over the gnarled roots, dodging low-hanging branches and swotting leaves away from her face. Ahead of her a twig snapped and she stopped, her breath catching in her throat.

“Bella?” a high, soft whisper. “Ees zat you?”

“Apolline?” she murmured back.

“Oui, yes, ees me.” A tall, slender figure emerged from the brush, pulling back a deep blue hood to reveal a shining fall of gleaming blonde hair. Bellatrix gasped automatically at the sight. Apolline’s face was as pale as the moonlight, her fine profile standing in sharp relief against the deep night. Her eyes glittered in the faint silver glow filtering into the atmosphere around her.

“I’m glad you came,” Bellatrix said, feeling slightly awkward. Apolline was the only creature she had ever encountered who could make her feel inelegant, could make her feel ungainly and ill-at-ease.

“But of course I would come, Bella,” Apolline whispered. “You ask me, and I am not rude.”

“No, of course not,” Bellatrix mumbled. “Not rude at all.”

“Anyway,” Apolline said, stealing closer. Bellatrix felt slightly faint as the girl approached, the glow of her skin and hair seeming to reflect onto her. “Ees as much for me as for you I come.”

“Oh?” Her breath refused to obey her, coming in short, shallow bursts. She felt drunk around the girl. She felt very nearly powerless. It was part of the attraction, Bellatrix thought. Nobody else can do this to me.

“Oui,” Apolline murmured, reaching out to stroke Bellatrix’s cheek with her slim fingers. Bellatrix could trace where they had been long after Apolline broke contact, it was like her fingers had left warm, glittering trails across her skin. “Not every day does a beautiful girl ask to be meeting me in zee woods after dark.”

Bellatrix tried but couldn’t make words come. The nearness of Apolline had wrapped her in a fine, shimmering mist. The air itself seemed to sparkle, every breath tasted like honey and flowers. Bellatrix knew in the back of her mind that the girl was veela, at least partially, but she didn’t care. It didn’t matter, she had thought earlier, why the girl possessed her so, it was only that she did. She mumbled wordlessly, leaning in close to Apolline, basking in the girl’s fine silver glow.

“Ah yes, Bella,” Apolline murmured, brushing Bellatrix’s cheek with her lips. Bellatrix half-whimpered and parted her lips. “Ees not so every day zat I am finding such a belle fille who . . . what is zee word? Who responds to me.”

“Yes,” Bellatrix whispered, reaching out to stroke Apolline’s long silvery hair.

“Tell me,” she breathed, her mouth close to Bellatrix’s ear. “Why ees it taking so long for you to ask me?”

“What—do you mean?” Apolline’s lips grazed her jaw. She clutched a little at the girl’s cloak, drawing her even closer.

“I am looking at you ever since we arrive at ‘ogwarts, and you act like you do not see me.”

“Ever since you arrived?”

“Oui. Yes. Since almost zee moment zee carriage land on your field.”

“Love at first sight, then?” Bellatrix nearly laughed. She’d noticed Apolline immediately as well, but she supposed everyone had. She doubted if all the Beauxbatons girls were veelas, beautiful as they were, but only Apolline had drawn every set of eyes in the Great Hall. And it wasn’t as though it would’ve been so simple, just to walk up to the lovely French girl and ask her if she’d fancy a shag. Bellatrix had a reputation to protect. She had her pride to consider, since it had seemed inevitable that the girl would’ve laughed, would’ve flipped her silken hair in Bellatrix’s face as she turned to go.

“Oh no,” Apolline breathed. “We do not fall in love at Beauxbatons. We are of course trained in the arts of . . . hospitality? Ees the right word? Hospitality. Something you British are not, I am thinking.”

“So you’re just being polite?” Bellatrix kissed the tips of Apolline’s proffered fingers.

“Non, non, absolutement non. What I am feeling about you, ees not polite.” She giggled, and it sounded to Bellatrix like chimes. “And besides, as I already say, ees very difficult for a girl such as me to find another who is . . . sympathetic?”

“I didn’t think your charms were supposed to work on women,” Bellatrix breathed. “Isn’t the idea for a veela to lure a mate?”

Apolline’s face twisted prettily. “Of course zat may be,” she said. “But not all veela are wanting some thickheaded oaf panting on top of zem.”

Bellatrix guessed she had learned the phrase from one of the Hogwarts students. She smiled.

“And so,” Apolline said, drawing very close to Bellatrix’s mouth, “it ees taking a special girl to understand me. And I, I am very lucky zat it ees one who ees so . . . charmant.”

She leaned near and ran the tip of her tongue across Bellatrix’s lower lip. Bellatrix moaned softly and pressed Apolline’s body against hers, capturing the girl’s mouth in her own. The glow around Apolline expanded, intensified, until it enveloped both of them and flooded their little hollow with fine silver light.

Bellatrix was spinning inside the warmth of Apolline’s kiss. She didn’t feel the panic of not being in control of the situation, she didn’t feel the strong urge to dominate, to command her. She allowed Apolline to dictate the terms of the kiss, allowed Apolline to take over and guide her. The relinquishing of her power excited Bellatrix, made her kiss deeper, hungrier.

“Oh Bella,” Apolline whispered against Bellatrix’s lips.

Bellatrix didn’t make a sound except the soft whimpers that seemed to come from a place she didn’t know existed. Always so controlling. Always so dominant and perfect. But not now. Not with you. Apolline, Apolline, use me. Make me yours.

“Bella?” A voice from farther off. Bellatrix managed to break away from Apolline’s embrace and had her wand out in an instant. “What are you doing here?”

“Lucius.” It was Malfoy, slinking through the undergrowth like a rat. Bellatrix trained her wand on him, her face frozen in a mask of loathing and dangerous focus. “I might ask you the same question.”

“Who is—who was that?” he asked, pointing after Apolline’s rapidly-vanishing form.

“Nobody you need to concern yourself with, Lucius,” she said coldly, not dropping her wand. “Now if you’d be so good as to tell me how you just happened to stumble upon me . . .”

He stared after the figure and answered without looking at Bellatrix. “Your sister noticed you’d gone. She was worried about you. I went to where she told me you might be.”

“Oh Cissy,” Bellatrix sighed. “How she manages to draw breath without permission is a mystery to me.” Lucius said nothing, but was now looking at Bellatrix with a strange gleam in his eye. “Well?” she said, flicking her wand at him. A few sparks landed on his robes and he scrambled to brush them out. “You’ve found me. Unhurt. I suggest you return to the castle and inform my dear sister that she may go to sleep at last.”

“Was that . . .” Lucius nodded meaningfully in the direction that Apolline had gone. “Was that a Beauxbatons girl?”

“You have completed your duties, Lucius,” Bellatrix said, her words sharp and icy. “Feel free to go.” A few more sparks shot out of her wand, larger and brighter than before. Lucius swallowed hard and nodded, his watery eyes bright. “And if I hear of you telling anyone what you’ve seen--”

“Nobody, Bella, I swear to you,” he said nervously.

“Not even Narcissa,” she warned. “Don’t forget, Malfoy, she and I are very close. We tell each other everything.” She let her tongue roll over the word to enjoy the effect it had on Lucius. He swallowed again and ran his hand over his hair, slicking it back. Nodding, he took a few halting steps backward. “Don’t fall,” Bellatrix said, a hint of amusement in her voice. “You can tell Cissy I’ll be in to tend to her momentarily.”

“To tend . . .?”

“Go, Lucius. Now.” She shot a thin jet of red light at his feet. He gasped and ran from the forest as quickly as he could.

Bellatrix smiled. Apolline may have her completely powerless, but it was nice to flex her muscles every now and again. So she could enjoy the sweetness of the distinction.

**********************************************************************

Hooray! I have this mostly plotted in my head, and I counted . . . six different pairings spanning . . . thirty years? It’s gonna be awesome. I think. I hope!

Also, I am sorry about the title. I am really bad at titles.

Not fanfic, just the regular kind.

Sun, 25 May 2008 18:23:44 GMT

    “I think my face is shrinking,” Laura says, staring at the mirror. She works her mouth around, opening it wide like she’s trying to make her jaw longer. The oversize aviator sunglasses bounce on the bridge of her nose and slide down, showing the heavy curve of her eyelid.
   “Your face isn’t shrinking,” I say, trying to focus on the road.
   “But you can hardly see any of it. I mean, my cheekbones are completely obscured.”
   “Could be the dinner plates you’ve got strapped across your eyes,” I say. The lights are getting closer. It’s impossible to focus. Laura is pulling faces in the mirror, dropping her seat back and pulling it close. “Or maybe it’s because you’re looking in a mirror the size of a playing card.”
   “The size of the mirror has nothing to do with it,” she snaps. “I’m sure it’s shrinking.”
   “Why would your face be shrinking?” The mirror I’m glancing in is at least two playing cards wide, end-to-end, and if anything it’s making the lights behind me bigger.
   “I don’t know,” she says plaintively. I glance at her and she’s still making faces, pulling at her cheeks.
   “I thought you’d want your face to shrink.”
   “Why the fuck would I want that?”
   “I don’t know. To provide the illusion of youth? A little baby face?”
   She hits me. I don’t swerve, hands not even shaking a little at ten and two. “Are you calling me old? Christ, you’re right. Look at this,” she says, lifting the shades. Her eyes are huge and glassy, the pupils like an ink bottle spilled into a teacup. A thin rind of blue. It’s just the drugs that make me think her eyes are like rotted cheeses. She points at the nacreous skin beneath her lower lid. Stretched tight, drum-tight, and shot through with spidery veins.
   “What am I looking at?” The road. Looking at the road in front of me. Not Laura’s phantom wrinkles. Not the swirling brights behind me.
   “Baby, look,” she whines. “It might as well just fall off.” She fusses with her face some more, then drops the sunglasses back down.
   “It’s dark now,” I say more to myself than to her.
   “I can’t stand to look at my face.”
   It takes me a second to understand that she’s said it because she’s still wearing her sunglasses. Not because she’s sickened by her own reflection.
   “That’s a big one,” she says as a semi truck shoots by.
   “They’re all big ones,” I say, letting a little shake creep into my hands. No lights behind me any more. Nobody to look and see how white I am, how scared. Laura sees.
   “They’re not coming,” she says, almost exasperated. “They would’ve come if they’re coming.”
   “They might come.”
   “Baby, they’re not coming.”
   “You don’t know.”
   “Oh yes I do,” she says, and the way she says it makes my hands shake worse. She sighs loudly and punches at the stereo. Just static. We’ve been driving a long time. We’re definitely out of the county, maybe out of the state. They would’ve come if they were coming. Daddy would’ve been on us in a second if he’d gotten the call. Daddy wouldn’t have let this car out of city limits. He’d have stopped it at the end of the block. He’d have stopped it before it even got to the house in the first place, and none of this would be happening.
   Laura fiddles with the dial, a low hum that might be music leaking through the fuzz of static. “Fucking country music. Why is it that when you’re a thousand miles from anywhere you can always find fucking country music?”
   I don’t say anything. It doesn’t matter, Laura isn’t listening. She keeps talking. I don’t even know what she’s talking about, there are more lights creeping up behind us and all I hear is static. The lights getting closer, fast. Like they’re coming for us, like they know who we are and what we did, and they’re coming for us. Like Daddy would be coming for us.
   Suddenly there are sirens all around, my grip so tight on the wheel I’m half-convinced they’ve squeezed clean through the plastic. I get that falling feeling. I know it so well, that feeling. The first time was when I was six and I accidentally killed a bird with John’s air rifle. I saw its little brown body twitching in the grass, its wings half-fluttering, and I fell and fell and fell inside. The brightness of its blood, bright like a bird’s eye before you shoot it with a pellet and it turns dull. The softness of its little breast. Up close it was so much smaller than I thought. The tufting feathers on its breast were whitish and puffy where they weren’t slicked red. Falling and falling and falling inside, feeling like I was going to land on that little bird’s soft breast and put my head down, like that little soft breast was my pillow. I remember not touching the bird but running fast and throwing the rifle in the tall weeds to make the falling feeling stop. Daddy coming to me later, finding me in the little closet under the staircase where it was dark and quiet, and asking me if I knew where John’s rifle was. I told him everything, took him to the spot where the bird had lain but it was gone.
   I took Laura to the spot. She dropped her cigarette where its soft little breast had been and ground it out in the dirt.
   “Big one,” she says. Another trailer truck hurtles by. She snaps off the radio and the siren stops. “Good to know we can get an emergency broadcast in the fuck middle of nowhere.”
   “For real?” I ask, trying to hide the tremor in my voice.
   “Didn’t listen,” she says, flipping the visor down again. The thin light from the vanity mirror make her face sallow. “Christ,” she mutters and snaps the visor back up. “Baby,” she says. “Baby, where’s my bag?”
   “In the back,” I say. Lights coming the other way, blinding lights. Too big for one car. Painting the interior with lights, showing Laura with her small face and enormous sunglasses even though it’s hours past sunset. Showing me with my white knuckles and my clenched jaw, biting my lip so hard I must be drawing blood. But maybe they would think the blood on my shirt was from my lip, they might think that. I bite my lip harder. The pain helps too. It cuts through the high and makes things more real. But the lights keep coming, getting brighter, Laura is halfway in the back seat digging through her bag. Don’t let her come back up with it in her hand, don’t let her show it to the lights.
   Daddy was very thoughtful and serious. He held my hand. He made his steps small so I didn’t have to chase after him when we got the flashlight to look for the bird. He didn’t laugh when I told him how I thought its little soft breast might be my pillow. He didn’t shout at me when I cried, or tell me I was stupid like John would later. Daddy dug through the brush for the rifle so I didn’t have to touch it again, and he told me very softly that maybe the bird had pulled itself under a leaf so it could go to sleep in the dark. That’s what he said. So it can go to sleep in the dark.
   “Got it!” Laura crows, hauling herself back into the front seat. “Big one.” She unscrews the tiny vial carefully, more carefully than I imagined she’d be capable of. Her hands don’t shake. The lights are gone. Another big one. She dips her little finger into the vial and pulls out a crescent of white. Holds her finger out to me. I shake my head, she doesn’t even notice my bloody lip. But it’s dark now. Even the last truck’s tail lights are just tiny pinpricks of red in the rearview mirror. She sniffs hard and coughs. “Fuck.” I hear the sharp screech of the cap screwing back on to the vial and she twists back and rustles in her bag again. “Baby, you sure you don’t want some?”
   “No.”
   “I don’t want you falling asleep at the wheel,” she says, a little laugh in her voice. “Don’t want that at all.”
   “I won’t fall asleep.”
   “I’ll sing to you,” she says brightly. It’s better than her talking, I think. She starts to hum a tune I almost recognize. “Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and--”
   “Not that song.” I always thought Laura had a pretty voice, thin but sweet. Like a sparrow. Right now it hurts my ears like the lights hurt my eyes.
   “But you like that song.” She sounds upset. She sounds like she did earlier, when I wouldn’t stay at the house. When I wanted to go before they came and found us there.
   “Something else,” I say. I don’t even try to think of a reason. I’m suddenly very tired. There are lights behind me.
   “For a deserted highway this road sees a lot of action,” Laura says. “How about Joni Mitchell?”
   “Fine. Just not “Big Yellow Taxi,” all right?”
   “I fucking hate that song anyway.”
   “Good.”
   She starts to sing something else, something that might not even be Joni Mitchell. All I can hear is static again.
   In the morning I felt the falling-ness again as I lay in my bed. I had slept with my light on so I wouldn’t feel like the bird and John had called me stupid. Daddy had come in and found me crying again, it might have been still crying. I didn’t know, maybe I had cried in my sleep. He told me it’s what everybody felt like when they made something die, but he might not have said it that way. Might not have said “die” like that. And he had ruffled my hair and said I was as good a shot now as he was, like maybe that would make me feel better. The sunlight streamed in through the windows and made big shadows on his face. It burned my eyes.
   “Big one,” Laura says, stopping in the middle of a verse. The truck swerves around us, the wind shear making the car rock slightly.
   “They’re all big ones.” My hands are still clamped on the steering wheel.
   “Hey, lighten up,” she says. “Baby, it’s gonna be okay. They would’ve come if they were coming.” I didn’t say anything and I could feel her mood change. “Fuck you, then. You said you were good for this. You promised.” She starts singing the Beatles again, loudly, her voice cracking on the higher notes. She’s doing it to annoy me. I try to block it out. Daddy would’ve stopped us before we got to the house. Her voice cracks again and she laughs. “Fuck Lennon. I certainly haven’t been waiting all my life for this shit to arrive.” She sighs and tries the radio again. The emergency broadcast signal fills the car.
   “Don’t turn it off.”
   “It’s probably just a test,” she says, her voice tipped with irritation. “We’re in the desert. If it’s nuclear war we’re safe anyway.”
   “They keep all the silos in the desert,” I say. “If it’s nuclear war, we’re screwed.”
   “Then we don’t have to wait for the fallout to kill us,” she says happily. Laura is good at silver linings. The hard pulses of the signal swell and swell until I feel like my bones are going to pop out of my skin. It’s the last bitter edge of the high, I feel flayed raw. Every beep and scream of the signal cuts across my body.
   I was a good shot. As good a shot at six as Daddy was at his age, whatever it was. Old. Daddy’s face lined, his hands broad and heavy. He showed me the real gun that day, and it looked so cold and mean. When he held it up, palm on the handle, his finger resting next to the trigger, it made him look cold and mean. I begged him to put it away and John called me stupid again. But Daddy had looked him straight through and said I was right to want that. And he said maybe he’d just give me the rifle because I was so much more respectful than John and a better shot anyway, and John looked mad and stalked away. Then Daddy had put the gun down, and the sunlight didn’t even seem to touch it as it lay in its hard plastic case, the sunlight just seemed to disappear into it, like it was a black hole.
   “I told you it was just a test,” Laura says nastily. She’s mad at me. The drugs make her like that, is what I say to myself. She starts singing again, Carole King.
   “Don’t you know anything after 1975?”
   “Nothing after 1975 is worth knowing.” She starts the song again, louder. Part of me wishes I could hear it clearly, instead of this static in my ears like cotton. It’s been that way since the house. Almost since before the house. I lick my lip and it takes a half-second for me to remember that I’d bitten it through and that’s why I taste blood there. More lights ahead, two blazing dots and they’re bearing down, getting bigger and more ferocious.
   He showed me a picture then, from the big bird book he kept on the table in the living room. A little drawing of a little bird, brown except tufted with white on the breast. It didn’t look soft in the drawing, it looked prickly like a thistle. He pointed to the white spots and said it was what happened when a baby bird became an adult bird. Molting. Instead of making me sadder, he said, it should make me happy because now the bird didn’t have to have all the grownup problems. I nodded and sniffled and said it was good, and said it was the light from the lamp that hurt my eyes and made them water. It was the falling feeling, though. It was so fast it made my stomach hurt and made the tears come. I fell and fell and fell there on his lap as I thought about the little bird, how it wouldn’t have any grownup problems because of me.
   “Jesus, keep your eyes on the road!” Laura cries, grabbing at my wrist. I feel the tires just grab the soft shoulder before she wrenches us back onto the hardtop. “Do you want to kill us?”
   “No,” I say dully. “Lights in my eyes.”
   “We’ve passed like a hundred trucks, you’d think you’d be used to them by now.”
   “Where are we going, Laura?” I ask suddenly. I realize I have no idea.
   “To freedom,” she laughs. “Baby, you and me are so fucking free it boggles the mind. Free as birds,” and she laughs again, louder. Reaches behind her for her bag.
   “Maybe you should stop,” I say halfheartedly.
   “You kidding?”
   I just shrug. Not that she can see me through the dark, through her sunglasses.
   “You’re not getting scared, are you?” she asks, her voice deadly. I feel her breath on my neck. “Because it’s done now. We’re on the run. We have to keep running, baby, or it’s all over. You, me, this,” she says.
   “Doesn’t sound much like freedom.”
   “Don’t you fucking dare turn on me,” she hisses. Her breath acrid and sour, like aspirin. “Remember who pulled the fucking trigger.”
   My throat constricts. Lights barreling down the highway, a corona of red and blue, like her eyes. They’re coming so fast now, faster than before. Their flickering halos coalesce, split off from the white lights of the headlamps. More lights from behind, the car is pinned in by them, everything visible. Laura’s glasses, huge on her face. A dusting of white under her nose. Her hands clenching and unclenching the seat.
   “You said he was hurting you, Laura,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady.
   “Who doesn’t hurt me?” she says, her voice twisted with mocking self-pity.
   “You said he beat you.”
   The lights are advancing from both sides. The car is blisteringly illuminated. The red on my shirt like a beacon, like a target.
   “Yeah, well, I had to get you to help me. You weren’t going to do it just because you loved me, now were you?” She starts singing Carole again. Like nothing’s wrong.
   “Laura.” She doesn’t answer. I don’t feel betrayed. I don’t feel scared. I don’t feel the weight of realization, or the sickening thud of terror when I understand what she’s had me do. I feel like a little bird, whose feathers are coming. Like a little bird.
   When he didn’t come home John came in and sat on the edge of my bed and didn’t say anything. He had brought me the stock from his rifle, the rest of it in pieces in the yard. He set the heavy butt on my little desk and sniffled, trying to keep from crying. He was the man of the house, he said finally. I had to listen to him now.
   The lights getting bigger, getting impossibly brighter. Slowing down. I’m slowing down.
   “Jesus Christ, don’t stop!”
   I don’t say anything. Laura is frantic, she’s pawing through her bag, spilling the little vial, the gun tumbling under the seat. I keep slowing, the two sets of lights from either side joining together in my eyes and I am falling, falling, falling.
   “What are you doing? The fucking cops! Look at this shit, baby, if you stop we’re dead!” Laura is screaming at me now. I only hear static.
   I lay my bed with all the lights off and the curtains shut tight. My room made dark as a cave, dark as a leaf I had crawled under to fall asleep.

Grrr!

Sat, 17 May 2008 02:34:02 GMT

I am so moving out.

Fucking ex-girlfriend. Making my life shit all the time.

Fortunately one of my best friends may be kicking her fiancee out and I'll get to move in with her. She lured me with the promise of swinger parties . . .

Don't act coy. It doesn't suit you.

Wed, 14 May 2008 21:59:31 GMT

Well, it suits me fine.

I am contemplating writing up a whole thing about this Seven Deadly Sins party and how amazing it was, but then I remember I have to be working on the Seven Deadly Sins Theme Dance Party Fundraiser of Awesome.

Lame.

But the dance party will be rocking. And it will cement my status as a premiere party girl on the (granted, pretty small) theater party circuit in this town. Actually, it's not that small, since my town has more theaters per capita than . . . a lot of places. And everybody knows theater people are the best at parties. Like I said about tits and theme parties, invite a bunch of actors and . . . you'll probably end up having a weird sexual encounter that may or may not be incredibly awkward the next day.

Fortunately mine was not incredibly awkward. And today I begin laying down the framework to become a player in someone else's open relationship, which is foreign to me, but hey, it's a time of discovery and openness.

Whatever, parties are cool.

And if you're in the area (which I deeply, deeply doubt you are) in mid-July, come to the Theme Dance Party Fundraiser Event. $15 cover, 21+, open bar, DJs, sexy raffle, and a kissing booth.

Good times!

General applause

Sun, 11 May 2008 19:48:57 GMT

So last night was the Seven Deadly Sins theme party and I must say it was an unqualified success. At least for me. Because I . . . am . . . a . . . slut.

Okay, that's not true. But I am a giant tease. Always fun for me. Plus now I have a gold kimono. Can't be slothful without a kimono, that's what I always say.

Also, if you ever want to see a lot of cleavage, invite people to a theme party. Maybe I just have a disproportionate amount of lady friends with big tits, but even if you don't, a theme party is all but guaranteed to bring the girls out.

Anyway. I just had to be all excited about it somewhere, and due to the fragile nature of social politik, I couldn't be all excited on the MySpace, since not everyone got invited. Especially not my ex-girlfriend-current-roommate. Awwww, snap!

Trouble Is My Middle Name, Chapter 8

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 05:33:53 GMT

Title: Trouble Is My Middle Name, Chapter 8
Pairing: Hermione/etcetera.
Rating: R
Summary: The End.
Word Count: 3750

*********************************************************************

Blackness. My old friend. We were getting to be pretty familiar these days. So was the feeling of total helplessness. Body-bind again. The cool breeze, though, that was a new one. I groaned softly, trying to fight off the last of the poison. I was in as tight a spot as I’d ever been, and when you’ve built your career on getting into tight spots that was saying something. I could hear voices murmuring. More than one. I thought I could hear Ginny’s low whisper but I couldn’t be sure. The potion was taking its sweet time.

I managed to crack one eyelid. Blurry shapes in front of me. Could’ve been anywhere. Nothing to do but wait. And think.

She’d double-crossed me. It stung more than I’d thought it would. I’d suspected her a little right from the beginning. I decided I had. Made it easier to take. But why? I didn’t think she still had anything going with Pansy Malfoy. I couldn’t say why I thought that, it was just a feeling. Like that little prickle at the back of my mind, only this time I decided to listen. Still, it didn’t make the shit luck of it all any easier. Not that luck had anything to do with it. But why? That was the part that hovered just out of reach, like a rune with one of the lines drawn crooked. I thought as hard as the potion would let me, but I was stumped. I loved her. That was what hurt the worst. I knew it was a mistake. It had always been a mistake. But I hadn’t been able to help myself.

I tried my eyes again. They were feeling a little more cooperative. The blur was coalescing into the far wall of Ginny’s bedroom. I must still be on the bed. That would mean the cool breeze was from—Merlin’s balls. I strained my eye in its socked. Rewarded with a sharp pain. I’d felt worse. Like what I felt as I took in the sight of my clothes still piled on the floor. At that point, the hierarchy of betrayal took on a whole new look. A doublecross was one thing. Immobilizing me naked on the bed right after you’d double-crossed me, that was something else entirely. The voices were getting clearer. It was definitely Ginny. Sounded like Pansy Malfoy as well. Couldn’t make out what they were saying, but it sounded nice and cozy.

There was another voice. Male. Familiar again. I strained my ears but I still couldn’t quite make it out.

“I think she’s coming to,” Ginny said. There was a smile in her voice. Malicious. I blinked again, hard. Everything snapped into focus. I was there, on Ginny’s bed. Naked. Frozen stiff. She was standing on the other side of the room. She’d had the courtesy to dress herself, at least. Pansy Malfoy stood next to her, arms folded, staring at me with one eyebrow cocked like I was the latest broomstick propped up in a shop window. Take it in, you fucking bitch.

Neither one of them had their wands drawn, and I couldn’t tell if Ginny’s was strapped to her leg. Not that they’d need them. Would’ve made me feel better in a perverse way. A little more formidable.

I heard a scuffling sound by the doorway and strained my orbs once again, trying to make out who it was. The man, I guessed. He hovered just out of sight.

“Darling,” Pansy simpered, crossing to him. At least she wasn’t looking at me any more. Ginny, on the other hand, circled around the bed like a vulture.

“Nice of you to join the party,” she murmured. She flashed her teeth. Not a smile. I struggled to speak. I didn’t know what I’d say, but I figured it wouldn’t be proper in mixed company anyway. Ginny sat on the edge of the bed next to me, her eyes suddenly dark and serious. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly so the others couldn’t hear. I’ll bet.

I was in a bind. Literally. Figuratively it could’ve been worse. Ginny could’ve just pulled out her wand and with a little breath she could’ve sent me home down the lazy river to join all my old friends. Dumbledore. Fred. Hell, even Crabbe. But she’d chosen to keep me around. Why? Why had I gotten mixed up in whatever this was anyway? It’s not like anybody needed my help to bilk Harry Potter out of a few Galleons. It’s not like I was crying out for some two-Knut dame to break down my door. Sure I’d gotten a couple of nice nights out of it, but on the whole the arithmetic was shady.

And what was Ginny doing in this whole business anyway? It’s not like she needed the money. It was probably her money anyway. She’d done just fine for herself. The briefcase? But she could get it any time she wanted it. She said herself she’d be able to figure out how to get at it. And with Harry out painting the town Gryffindor red with his boys, she seemed to have all the time in the world. What was in it? The curiosity was killing me. Ginny’s eyes on my body were killing me. Everything was killing me, I just wasn’t dead yet.

“Is it time?” Pansy’s voice. Hard. A muffled yes from the mystery date. “Let’s go, then,” she whined. “Let’s just get it over with.”

“Not yet,” Ginny said suddenly, her voice louder than it needed to be. She caught herself. “A few minutes couldn’t hurt anything,” she finished, a little softer.

“Well hurry up,” Pansy snapped. “Someone could catch wise.”

I found myself wishing they’d hurry up too. Suddenly that lazy river was looking mighty nice. After all, what did I have? A shitty flat and a broken heart. Not a lot to build a life on. I looked hard into Ginny’s eyes trying to figure her out. Trying to figure anything out. Trying to tell her to just go ahead and Avada Kedavra my ass into oblivion, since she’d taken care of everything else so handily.

Ginny looked at me strangely before she sat up. Like there was something she wanted to say.

“Hold on,” the muffled voice said. Ginny looked over at him and I could feel the heat from her eyes. It was nice. I was freezing.

Suddenly my jaw seemed to melt a little. My tongue flopped around uselessly inside my mouth for a second and I realized someone had knocked the charm back a little. “What the fuck is this?” I rasped. “Ginny, what the fuck are you doing?”

“It’s not me, Hermione, I don’t--” she started. Interrupted by the gentleman caller. How chivalrous.

“Ginny’s just been . . . erm, tying up a few loose ends,” he said. Pansy howled with laughter. A little much, I thought. Ginny was a much better actress. But something—

I realized with a thunderbolt who was talking to me. No way. No fucking way.

Harry Potter strode into my line of sight.

“All those months in the woods and I never once saw you naked, Granger,” he said, malice oozing off him like grease from Malfoy’s hair. “Pity.” I wanted to spit at him but it was clear from the way the saliva gurgled in my throat they hadn’t bothered to lower the charm enough to allow me even that simple pleasure. I coughed with difficulty. Found myself wanting a drink. Even Ginny’s poisoned firewhisky. Potter walked around the bed, examining me. I felt lower than a flobberworm with a head cold.

“I’ve got one up on you then, Potter,” I said as nastily as I could. Not my best retort, but I had to start somewhere.

“Yes, well,” he said dismissively. “Ginny, be a darling and fetch me my wand.”

Ginny shot him a cold look. Set her lips thin. Stalked out of the room.

“She’s such a good girl,” Harry said almost fondly. “So useful.”

“Not your girl, Harry,” I said.

“Not yours either,” he smirked. “She doesn’t belong to you, remember.”

Of course I remembered. Of course it was him warning me to stay away from her. Of course he had enchanted his voice so I wouldn’t recognize it, the bastard was supposed to be rotting away in some dank cellar somewhere. But if she was a part of this plan why had he gone to all the trouble?

“Had to keep you interested, didn’t I?” He smirked again. Of course he’d had ample training in mind-reading. Probably picked up a few tricks from his tricks along the way, too. Have to make sure they’re not out to steal his gold.

“I would’ve stayed interested, Potter. A girl like Ginny, you stay interested without any help.”

“That’s where you and I differ.” He leaned close and flicked something off my collarbone. I could feel his breath. I would’ve shuddered. I would’ve punched him in the mouth. “A fly,” he said. “Don’t want to make you look silly.”

“What’s this all about?” I said again, trying to make myself sound a little more forceful. Pretty tough to sound forceful when you’re immobilized from the neck down, but I was doing my best. “It’s your fucking money. It’s your fucking briefcase.”

“That may be,” he said. “But I had to make it look like so much more. That briefcase,” he leaned close again. I tried to keep down my nausea. Didn’t want to meet old Mad-Eye with a gullet full of vomit. “That briefcase can’t just be opened.”

“So it’s a pretty nice one, then? Dragon skin and goblin fittings? Saving it for a special occasion?”

He hit me across the face. Hurt like a bastard. That bastard. I could feel blood oozing out of my nose. Could taste it on my tongue. Pansy gasped a little.

“What is contained in that briefcase is more important than you or I could ever be, Granger,” he hissed.

“More important than The Boy Who Lived? The Boy Who Lived And Went On To Be A Dirty Doublecrossing Shit?”

He raised his hand to hit me again and Ginny shouted from the doorway. He smiled a little. Raised the hairs on the back of my neck, that smile. At least I figured it did. “Yes,” he said, his voice pinched. “More important than that.”

“So what is it? Come on, Potter, it’s pretty clear you’re going to off me anyway. Let’s have it.”

Harry just smiled again. “It really is a shame we didn’t get to know each other better out there,” he said. The slimy fuck. “Pansy, darling, don’t you think so?” Pansy crossed next to him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Made my skin crawl, I guessed. At least the skin on my face.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said sweetly. “You’d have to ask Ginny.”

I wanted to strangle both of them with my bare hands and to hell with a wand. I wanted both of them to look into my eyes as I did it. They were just that kind of people.

“Fuck you,” I croaked.

“You had your chance,” she shot back. I had to admit it was a pretty snappy retort.

Harry stood up sloughing Pansy off like an old boomslang skin. “My wand, Ginny.” She gave it to him, but I could see that her hand was trembling. Her other hand drifted down to her thigh. Fingers twitching. She must have her own wand snapped safely against her skin. I caught Ginny’s eye. Not hard to do. She was looking at me. A pleading look, I would’ve said if she hadn’t poisoned my whiskey and bound me up naked on her bed. But there was something in that look, something that made me want to play for time. Maybe Dumbledore and the others could wait a while. Play another hand of Exploding Snap, or whatever it was they did over there. Take some time before dealing me in to the game.

“So Potter,” I called after him. “You didn’t finish telling me why you kidnapped yourself. Unless it was just because even you were tired of being around you.”

He stopped. Turned back. His eyes were almost black. Never a good sign. But my ploy seemed to have worked. I figured it would, since the bad guy can never resist the opportunity to brag.

“I needed it to look that way, Granger,” he said silkily. His fingers sliding up and down his wand. “The briefcase won’t open unless I’m in mortal danger.”

“But you were never in mortal danger.” This seemed obvious enough even for Pansy, who was looking interested.

“It won’t open,” he said, “unless it thinks I’m in mortal danger.”

“And how, pray tell, did you go about doing that? Faking your own kidnapping wouldn’t fool a Hufflepuff.”

“Fooled you, didn’t it? More importantly, it fooled Ginny. At least for a while. And the spell I put on that case included her. It wouldn’t open until one of us believed my life was at stake.”

“Touching,” I spat.

“Isn’t it? She believed it just long enough for the enchantment to break. Until I had Pansy here send her a little love note filling her in. Once she knew the plan I must say she quite took to it.”

“Five days later?” I asked. Eyes back on Ginny. She was bright red. Still clawing at her leg. Shook my head. Would’ve. “So she brought me in. What the fuck for? So your life was allegedly at stake. Just open the goddamned case already and be done with it. I was doing just fine without all this shit, thanks.”

“Ginny?” Harry said. She opened her mouth a few times. Good impression of a goldfish.

“I . . .” She didn’t seem to be able to continue. Harry pointed his wand at her. The blush was sucked back into her cheeks in an instant. She was dead white. Took a deep breath. I suddenly wanted to kill Harry even more. I wish I knew a little necromancy. I wanted to kill him and bring him back to life so I could kill him again. Even his zombie corpse. Even though Ginny had screwed me but good, I still held that little flickering flame for her. Right in the part of my brain that controlled stupidity.

“Ginny?” he said again, bearing down slightly.

“Ron,” she cried finally. “I did it because of Ron.”

I would’ve frozen if I wasn’t frozen already. Ron. Her brother, who I’d loved and left. All because of her.

“It’s not my fault what happened to him,” I said quietly. “If it’s anybody’s fault it’s those two.” Harry. Pansy, who was trying to slink away.

“I know that now!” she all but shouted. “I know! But Hermione, when Pansy told me what was going on, I was still so mad at you. I wanted to kill you. You didn’t see him,” she said, tears starting to gather in her eyes. “You didn’t see what he’d turned into. My brother, Hermione!” she cried. “I loved him, and you didn’t see it, but . . .” She broke down. Fell to the floor. I didn’t think she was acting now. If she was it was to make Olivier throw down his CBE.

“So you just thought you’d use the opportunity to take care of a few outstanding problems?” Nothing like kicking a girl when she’s down. I ought to know.

Ginny didn’t say anything. She was crying too hard. She must’ve saved up all those sobs over all the years that I’d known her when she never shed a tear. She’d cried more in the past two days than the past decade.

“Answered all of your questions?” Harry snapped. He was clearly itching to get down to business.

“What’s in the case, Potter?”

“Ahh, the case.” I wanted to slug him right in his melodramatic kisser. “It contains something more powerful than--”

“You and me and baby makes three, yadda yadda yadda. What’s in the fucking case?”

He smiled again. That same creepy smile. Stroked his wand. “A spell. A very ancient, powerful spell. A spell that will cause all the good works--” his mouth twisted at that—“done by all those well-meaning witches and wizards fall into dust.”

“So you’re bringing back the big man?” I said. I didn’t even bother to be shocked. I’d wondered before if Harry might have gone a little mad with power. And seeing as how I was all but dead already it didn’t seem worth the effort to get worked up.

“Don’t be stupid, Granger, it doesn’t look good on you.”

“What then?”

“Voldemort is gone. Nothing will bring him back. And this spell, this set of spells, will make him look like Flitwick in the scheme of things.”

All right, maybe my stomach got a little cold at that one.

“That’s why it was so well-protected. Dumbledore’s last gift to me. I put the enchantment on it because if I was ever in mortal danger Ginny was to destroy its contents. That was how it looked on paper, anyway.”

“Cozy,” I muttered.

“It’s easy to be nonchalant about it when you’re going to miss all the fireworks,” Harry said coolly. “And on that note,” he raised his wand.

“No!” Ginny cried, struggling up from the floor. She’d used her time down there to fish her wand out from under her skirt. She brandished it at him. The room exploded in action as much as a room with three people and one mannequin can. Harry whirled around to face her. Pansy screamed and dove behind him. He kicked at her and she yelped like a struck puppy. Pulled out her own wand. Probably a reflex, since she didn’t seem to know who to point it at. Ginny leapt onto the bed, her body shielding mine, still pointing her wand at Harry.

I needed a drink like Merlin need a fucking pointy hat.

“Hermione,” Ginny said still looking at Harry. “Hermione, I’m so sorry for all of this. I’m so sorry. I love you, Hermione, I swear it. I never would have gone along with this, I wasn’t thinking.”

I was. I knew she was thinking it was just like Ron all over again. I don’t know why I went along with it, Hermione. I don’t know why I did and I’d take it back in a second if I could.

“Get away from her, Ginny,” Harry barked. His voice was cold as ice. Colder. It would’ve frozen water and made the ice cubes break out of sheer terror. “Get away from her. I will kill you.”

“I know. I don’t care. If I have the chance to get you first I’m taking it,” she said. Like a whole different woman. Nothing timid. Nothing remorseful.

“I mean it, Ginny. Nothing must stop me.”

I stepped out of my body then. Watched everything happen. Harry talking like he was in a bad movie. Pansy cowering down low, her wand vacillating between targets. Ginny straddling me, wand arm straight and unwavering. She loved me. My hovering consciousness was able to drink that thought straight down without worrying about how many bodies would be slumped in this room in just a few seconds. That thought would push my little boat calmly down the river to the grand old cardroom where my friends sat waiting. They’d probably have good scotch there. And Ginny loved me, and she was sorry.

And then, in a flash, it happened.

If I could slow that flash down, it would’ve looked like this: Ginny dropped her arm to my body and shouted. Suddenly my limbs were loose and fluid. I called for my wand, don’t know what possessed me to do it, but sometimes you just know. In that second there was a terrible scream that filled up more time than standing in the queue at Gringott’s. It filled up that whole moment.

Harry’s lips moving. Pansy’s too. Except her wand was pointed at him. He was making those words that strike fear into a witch’s heart just before those words strike you dead. Couldn’t tell what Pansy said, but her white light knocked his green light off course and it slammed into the mirror on the wall next to the bed. Flying glass everywhere. Harry on the floor, not moving. Pansy shaking like a leaf. And Ginny.

She was warm in my arms. Warm and sweet. At first I couldn’t tell what it was that was making everything so warm and I thought it must just be her. Then I tore my eyes away from hers, wide and unblinking. Blood everywhere. But she hadn’t been hit.

“Ginny?”

Nothing.

“Ginny?” I was getting a little panicked. I realized the blood was hers. Shards of glass from the mirror protruded from her body like little icebergs. She coughed. More blood.

Pansy screamed again. Dropped her wand. Harry started to stir and I whipped my wand to face him and fired off something, anything to keep him down. “Call somebody,” I hissed at Pansy. “Go!” She nodded and bolted. I hoped she’d do it.

“Ginny?”

“Hermione?” she said weakly, her voice faraway. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t waste your breath on it,” I choked. I held my wand over her and tried to pick out the shards of glass. I didn’t have much time. My hand was shaking hard.

“I love you,” she whispered. More coughing. Merlin, I had to stop the blood. But I couldn’t. She was too broken. My little broken doll. I kept trying to pull the glass out of her, to stanch the bleeding. She was getting lighter.

“Don’t go, Ginny,” I mumbled feverishly. “Don’t go, I love you.”

But I could see her getting into her little boat. Climbing into it. Stepping in daintily, just like a lady. I saw her turn back and wink at me, lifting a cigarette to her lips. Just like a dame.

I leaned over and kissed her lips. Still warm. Still soft. Still my girl.

**********************************************************************

Okay, I totally made myself get all misty. Don’t be mad at me, it’s the genre’s fault. The gumshoe can never have their love, it distracts them. Plus it makes them more hard-boiled and world-weary and gives them a gruff romantic core and a tragic backstory. It’s not me, I promise.

*sniffle*

Trouble Is My Middle Name, Chapter 7

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 06:52:55 GMT

Title: Trouble Is My Middle Name, Chapter 7
Pairing: Hermione/etcetera.
Rating: R
Summary: OMG! Suspense! Emoticon! Insert obligatory phrase about my hating summaries here!
Word Count: 2000

*********************************************************************

“So Pansy Malfoy’s after Harry’s briefcase,” I said for the thousandth time. I pulled the last crumbling cigarette out of its beat-up pack, checked for Muggles, and lit the end with my wand.

“Yes,” Ginny said. Good girl, not half as exasperated as I would’ve been. I had been trying to puzzle the whole thing out as we walked toward her house. It was making me crazy. I used to be so good at puzzles.

“What do you think is in it?”

“I told you, I have no idea. He never said.”

“Just don’t give it to anybody. Could it be a weapon?”

She shrugged. “It could be anything.”

Right. Anything. But what would Pansy want? More to the point, what did whoever she was giving it to want? Who was it for?

“I don’t have any idea, Hermione,” Ginny said, a slight hint of weariness creeping into her voice. Must’ve said that last part out loud.

“Okay, then, who is it not for?” Process of elimination.

“Harry,” she said. “That one’s obvious.”

“I guess so,” I replied. Though I was beginning to be less and less sure of that. Not that I thought he would’ve kidnapped himself and demanded a ransom that already belonged to him, it didn’t make any sense. Though not very much of it made any sense. Still, had to keep my options open. “Who else?”

“Malfoy. He saw us at the party. It wasn’t him Pansy was talking to.”

“It could be a team effort,” I said. She shook her head.

“I don’t think so. You don’t go to all that trouble to sneak around on your husband on the off chance that someone might be listening, I don’t care if you are a Slytherin.”

She would know something about sneaking, all right.

“Harry didn’t give two damns who I slept with,” she said. Reading my thoughts again. Come to think of it she had done pretty well at those Occlumency lessons. “I never had to pretend.”

“But Pansy did?”

“Malfoy might have been a lot of things, but a permissive husband he wasn’t,” she said. I ought to give her half my take on this case. Of course, the way she was dressed, she probably didn’t need it. “And anyway, unless there was a big vial of Polyjuice Potion in that briefcase nothing in there would really do him any good. He’s got the most known face in town.”

“Ugliest, too,” I said offhandedly. “Malfoy was on to her, anyway.” Ginny looked surprised. “What did you think I was doing at Zabini’s that night? Malfoy hired me to find out who she was running around with.” She blushed. I grinned. “So what other man would be involved?” She shrugged.

“I really don’t know, Hermione.”

“It has to be someone. Someone who worked with Harry. Someone who knew about that briefcase and what was in it.” This was getting me nowhere. “Zabini’s out.”

“How come?”

“Well, for one thing he doesn’t strike me as the type to run around with Pansy. Or any woman, for that matter.” Ginny nodded, smiling. “Anyway, he doesn’t seem like much more than a two-bit sleazebag. And he’s scared of her. It’s easy to fake a lot of things, but a Slytherin faking being afraid of anything but a bar of soap, that’s not so easy.”

“So it must be someone else. I don’t know ninety percent of who Harry was in business with. Could be anybody.”

We were at a dead end. Literally. I hadn’t noticed it but the road had turned wide and smooth. Trees lining the sidewalks. A nice little suburban lane.

“Here we are,” Ginny said, half uncertain. She looked at me closely, then took my hand and squeezed it.

I took a deep breath as I stared up at the front of Ginny’s place. Being on the front lines of the biggest battle in history couldn’t prepare me for the thought of going inside. The war begins at home, so they say. So it was.

“Come on,” Ginny said, tugging at my arm.

“Yeah,” I muttered, throwing my cigarette on the curb. I ground it out with my foot. Shame to disturb the neatness of the place, but I had other things on my mind.

The house was located in one of the nicer suburbs, a far cry from my squalid inner-city digs. There was a yard. Well-tended. Some nice trees, if that’s what does it for you. The house itself was smaller than I expected, which is to say it was only about two-thirds the size of Malfoy’s place. No peacocks, either. Just your standard suburb avian life. A sparrow or something cheeped from a branch. Through one of the windows I caught a glimpse of an aspidistra. “Homey,” I said as civilly as I could. Didn’t feel as bad as I’d feared, though. Despite all its middle-class pristine gleam the whole setup looked as phony as a ten-Knut wand.

Ginny was walking up the little concrete lane that led to the front door. She tapped her wand on the lock and the works sprung open. The house was dark inside. Silent. She went in. I hung back. Steadying myself. Focusing on the sham of it all. I took a deep breath and followed her in.

The interior of the place was as blandly bourgeois as the burbling water feature planted next to one of the oaks outside. Bourgeois, with little flashes of taste that must’ve come from Ginny. Light wood floors. Pale walls. An anonymous sitting-room set complete with tasseled ottomans. I could tell from the factory creases that it hadn’t been used much. So far no sign of family life. If it kept on like this I thought I might just make it.

Ginny disappeared down one of the dim corridors. I followed her. Nice tapestry carpet runner. Pictures flickered on the walls. I didn’t look.

“They came with the frames, most of them,” she called from a room at the end of the hall. “Harry wanted it to look like somebody actually gave a damn.”

I breathed a little sigh of relief. Not too loud. The place was quiet as a mausoleum. All of a sudden I got a funny little prickling feeling. The old Sneakoscope started whirring in my head again. Like I was being watched. I shook it off and followed Ginny’s voice into the kitchen.

It was sunny. Not warm, but it’s hard to make a stainless-steel vault feel comfortable. Every surface looked untouched. There were some modern Muggle appliances mixed in with a good old-fashioned stove. Old-fashioned but brand-new. Ginny trying to replicate a real home, I guessed. She was fishing in a cupboard for something. Pulled out a bottle of firewhiskey. “Not your brand, but I figure it’ll do,” she said with a half-smile. Took a couple of glasses from another cupboard.

“Where’s the safe?” I asked. Didn’t want to disturb the little domestic scene she was working up but the prickly feeling was damned persistent.

“Upstairs,” she said. “In Harry’s office.”

“Good.” I took the glass she handed me and swirled it around. It’d been a long time since I’d had any real firewhiskey. Took an appreciative sip.

“Like it?” she asked. I nodded. Merlin’s beard, I liked it.

We sat in the kitchen silently for a few minutes. I looked around a little more. Everything steel, everything polished. Give a girl a headache from the glare.

“I don’t really come in here much,” she admitted. “I’m not much for cooking.”

“Guess we’ll be taking our meals elsewhere,” I said. “I can’t boil water with three wands and someone else to do it for me.” She giggled. I loved that sound.

“Hermione,” she said, and stopped. I raised my eyebrow along with my glass. She bit her lip. “I didn’t mean it. Pansy,” she added. “I didn’t want it. I didn’t like it. But it was . . . it was contact, I guess.”

I held up my hand. I didn’t want to talk about Pansy Malfoy. Not that way. Ginny crossed to me and took my hand. Her touch was magic. Not spells and potions. The real stuff. I pressed her fingers to my lips. She tasted like nicotine and heaven.

“Can I show you something?” she asked. Like she needed my permission. I swallowed the rest of my drink and set the glass on the countertop. She led me out of the room and up a set of well-carpeted stairs. A few doors, some open to reveal quiet rooms. The toilet. What looked like a spare bedroom. The rest closed. “Harry’s office,” she said as we passed a room with one too many locks on the door for my comfort. I thought we would stop there but she kept moving and I kept following. She came to a halt at the farthest door. “My bedroom,” she murmured.

“Not Harry’s?”

She shook her head and pointed back down the hallway. “His is through there,” she said indicating a small passage I hadn’t noticed. I kicked myself mentally. I should notice these things. But trailing after Ginny meant my ability to notice was severely diminished.

“Cozy setup,” I said. She grimaced. “I like it,” I continued. “No complaints here.”

She turned the knob and the door opened without a sound. Unlike the rest of the house Ginny’s bedroom was genuinely warm. Not just the temperature. The room was spacious without feeling too big. Nice furnishings. A big bed. Not the time to think what I was thinking.

Ginny seemed to have other ideas. “It’s over here,” she said almost coyly.

“What is?”

“This,” she whispered, pulling me close. It might have been the firewhiskey but all of a sudden my legs turned to jelly. She pressed her mouth to mine and I thought I’d pass out. Her tongue worked all sorts of tricks against mine. I felt her fingers fumbling against my body, and it took me a second to realize she was unbuttoning her jacket and not mine. Not that I minded either way. She slid it off her shoulders. Smooth and white. Little constellations of freckles. Just like I remembered.

“I thought you might like to see,” she breathed. Did I ever.

She pushed me onto the bed and unbuttoned her skirt. Long row of buttons all down the side. The kind of skirt you wear when you want to torture someone with taking it off. It slid to the ground to join its partner.

“Ginny,” I mumbled weakly, “it’s not that I’m not crazy to see you taking your clothes off, but is this really the time?”

She shushed me with a look. “A little longer can’t hurt,” she murmured. “I want to. I want to do it in his house.”

“Kinky,” I breathed hoarsely as she slid her wand from its garter. She waved it over me and like a dream my clothes were puddle on the floor. She leaned in and the sensation of her bare skin on mine was like an explosion. I groaned as her fingers wandered deftly across my body. “Ginny,” I whispered. And then like I knew I shouldn’t, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she replied softly, her mouth making little expeditions down my throat. My head was spinning. The drink had been a strong one. Ginny was making me feel all kinds of things. She pushed me farther up on the bed and settled her body on mine. “I love you, Hermione.” Her fingers. Her mouth. I brushed her long curtain of red hair away from her face. Eyes glittering like diamonds. Lips like whatever the poets say they are.

“I . . . I love . . .” Something was going wrong. My head spun faster and faster. My mouth was getting dry. I blinked. She was all out of focus. I saw her face coming towards mine with a wide smile crossing from ear to ear. A hungry kind of smile. A predator’s smile.

“Goodnight, darling,” she whispered. Everything went black.

*********************************************************************

DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNN!

Trouble Is My Middle Name, Chapter 6

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 06:09:52 GMT

Title: Trouble Is My Middle Name, Chapter 6
Pairing: Hermione/etcetera.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The next morning. Explanations. Extreme heaviness ensues!
Word Count: 2850

*********************************************************************

The morning dawned gray and cool. Mist from the river saw fit to wind itself through the flat. Like everything else that ended up there it was thick and dirty. Not as dirty as I was. I had gotten home from Malfoy’s party a little worse for wear and after drowning those particular troubles in the remnants of my scotch I had passed out, still wearing the fancy tux.

When my eyes cracked open I was face to face with the cold reality of another day. Not to mention a hell of a hangover. I rubbed my eyes gingerly, then stretched my legs. A large scrape from the gravel drive pulsated with pain. I fished my wand out from under the sofa and tapped the skin carefully. The wound closed. Couldn’t fix the pants. Tough break.

A knock at the door. I groaned. That door had seen more action in the past two days than it had in the past two months. Too bad none of the action included cash. My visitor didn’t bother waiting for me to answer and pushed the busted plank open.

“Nice party?”

It was Ginny. Merlin. She looked cold, and not like she’d just come from a winter scenic tour of the Arctic Circle. Her hair was pulled back tightly and the rest of her was just as tight, a long black fitted suit, the skirt penciling down to a hem so sharp it looked like it was about to cut her off at the knees. She was wearing gloves. I worried for a moment that she’d come to finish me off. Though once again her outfit clung so tightly to her body that the outline of a wand would’ve been a dead giveaway. Did she ever carry it?

“I’ve been to better,” I mumbled. My mouth felt like it’d had a cotton charm put on it. She crossed a little nearer to me but didn’t get close enough to touch. Her lips were set in a hard line. Her eyes were flat as Knuts. She didn’t look happy to see me.

“I’d say you had a grand time,” she said, the hint of a snarl in her voice.

“I was poisoned, Ginny,” I snapped. “I thought you’d at least have worked that out.” What I really thought was that she’d had a hand in it, but I figured I’d play nice until I knew whether or not she felt like buying me breakfast.

“I know,” she said. I’d hoped it’d make her soften a little toward me but she was about as soft as a centaur. Hell, I didn’t feel decent about what had happened. Thinking about Pansy Malfoy crawling all over me was as appealing as a dinner date with a boggart. I chuckled. No doubt that’s exactly what my dinner date with a boggart would be.

“What?” Ginny said crossly. I didn’t feel like telling her. I didn’t feel like telling her much, not with the suspicions that were ticking in my head.

“Just wondering where you keep your wand,” I replied. A look of disgust flitted across her face. Against my better judgment and sense of self-preservation I couldn’t help but think of what a knockout she was. Even when she was being disapproving. “And what brings you to my humble abode this lovely morning?” I said, standing up and brushing the gravel dust and other assorted wreckage from my suit. Ginny was silent for a moment, watching me. I felt a little flush of victory. I could still make her stare. Of course, that little flush of victory headed right to the spot where it had no business being.

After another second she blinked and coughed slightly. “Turn around,” she said.

“Me?”

“I don’t see anyone else, thank Merlin,” she replied.

“And I’m turning around because . . .”

“Because I asked you to,” she said irritably. I shrugged and faced the wall. Snuck a peek. Couldn’t resist. She was lifting one side of her skirt. I gulped. She had pins to make a Death Eater plead for Dumbledore’s mercy. Her fingers inched up the long white expanse of her thigh, revealing her wand. It was held flat against her skin by a snug black garter. The girl had style.

I must’ve made some kind of a sound. It didn’t seem possible that I wouldn’t. She flushed a deep red and pointed her wand at me. “I asked you to turn around!”

“Did you honestly think I would? Turn my back on someone who very probably wants me to suffer great physical pain?”

“For good reason,” she added, lowering her wand.

I shrugged again. “So what’s the stick for?”

She glowered at me and removed her necklace. I hadn’t noticed she was wearing it. A thick gold chain with a large round pendant. A moon or something. She’d worn it last night. I had definitely noticed it then, since it had been nestled comfortably in what I’d so fleetingly thought of as my personal cleavage. She set the pendant down on the desk and tapped it with her wand. I opened my mouth to ask a stupid question but she held up her hand. A few seconds ticked by and the unmistakable sound of Pansy Malfoy’s voice filtered into the room.

I shuddered. I couldn’t help it. Ginny shot me a dirty look and I shook my head. “I’d rather dance a tango with a troll,” I said. I thought I saw a half-smile try to crack through her icy veneer.

“—we’ll have it,” Pansy was saying. “She didn’t bring it, I got word from the guards at the gate. I think that Granger bitch convinced her not to.” A muffled male voice. Couldn’t make out what he was saying. Then Pansy again, laughing. “Don’t worry about it, love. I’ve poisoned the champagne. She’ll be putty in my hands.” More muffled words. Sounded like a protest. “Of course not! Do you think I want to put myself through it? But it’s for us, my darling. Oh, wait, Blaise has just seen them come in.” The voices stopped.

I looked at Ginny with admiration. I wanted to kiss her. At the very least I wanted to throw her down on the sofa to get a good look at that garter.

“I charmed it to pick up Pansy’s voice from a hundred feet,” she said. “I didn’t know if she’d be up to anything, but I thought it would be smart just in case.”

“I’ll say,” I said.

“I knew you were poisoned before I heard it,” she said a little quietly. “I thought it might happen. Because you wouldn’t--” she stopped.

“Never in a million years. Not for a million Galleons.”

“It still hurt,” she went on. Her lip trembled. “Seeing it.”

“I know,” I said softly. “I’m sorry. Thinking about it now, well, it makes me want to throw up. If I had anything to throw up.”

She reached toward me tentatively, then stopped. She shook her head like she was shooing away a pixie. “I don’t know who she was talking to,” she said brusquely.

“Draco?”

“Couldn’t have done, he met us at the door.”

“Yeah. Right.” I sat back down on the sofa and kicked off my shoes. Have to be pretty pissed to fall asleep with shoes on. “I didn’t see Zabini there. But I wasn’t really looking for him.”

“Didn’t have much time, either,” Ginny said a little sharply.

“Come on, Ginny, are you ever going to let it go?”

“Not for a little while,” she replied. “I figure I can use it against you for at least a few weeks.”

I didn’t take the time to fully savor her words. A few weeks. I tucked them back in a nice warm little corner of my mind for later.

“So who was she talking to?”

“I have no idea. But it proves she wants the briefcase for someone else. Someone not her husband. Did she ever—I’m gonna ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind, and some of them you may not like, but I have to.” Ginny nodded, her eyes downcast. She looked like a nun. The image almost made me laugh again but I held it in. “When you two were . . . running around, did she have anyone else that you knew of? Any men?”

Ginny thought for a while. “Nobody serious. She’d go around with a few guys she met at Zabini’s, but it mostly just seemed like a good time. I’d see them one night but never again.”

“Anybody you knew?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t make it my business to know too many of Pansy’s friends.”

“How did you—and here’s where we start the ones you might not like—how did you two start . . . you know.” I felt like a fool for not being able to say it. But I just couldn’t ask. How did you two start seeing each other? How did you two start fucking?

Ginny blushed a little. I tried to keep up my suspicions but her pretty face was making it a hell of a job. “It was . . .” she paused like she was trying to work up the courage. “It was Ron,” she said finally.

It hit me hard. My mouth went even drier than it had been. I clutched at the dirty cushions. “Oh yeah?” I said weakly.

She took a deep breath. Like she wanted to get it all out at once and I loved her for it. “After you two split up, well, he wasn’t too happy,” she said. Putting it mildly. I wondered briefly where she’d learned such diplomacy. I guess being a con man’s wife has its fringe benefits. “Moaning about how he’d lost the will to live, all that stuff. Got so bad I couldn’t take him anywhere any more. He was living with me and Harry then. Making Harry crazy. Making me crazy too, but I’m his sister, I’m supposed to be supportive. Besides, I had other reasons for being crazy about it,” she paused. “But I figured I’d be able to hide it easier if I helped him out.”

“Harry was his best mate, isn’t that his job?”

“Well, Harry was starting to develop . . . other interests,” she said almost embarrassed. “He wasn’t too keen on listening to Ron whinge on about his ex-girlfriend.” She shuffled through the papers on my desk. Looking for a cigarette. She lit it with her wand and inhaled deeply. “So anyway, Harry had started hanging around with some Slytherins, shady characters, and I figured it would be best if I took Ron around too.”

I raised my eyebrow.

“Slytherins don’t ask questions,” she said. “And they’ll sell you anything if you’ve got the gold.” She took another drag. “It was Harry’s idea, really. Said if Ron was so desperate for a woman why didn’t I just go get him one. I tried to explain that it wasn’t just any woman he wanted, but Harry didn’t care. Said get him a woman and get him a good potion and he’d be fine. I don’t know why I went along with it, Hermione,” she said quickly. Her eyes were starting to well up. “I don’t know why I did and I’d take it back in a second if I could.”

I could see it clearly. Ginny had taken Ron to Zabini’s. Gotten him started on some bad junk to take his mind off things. I didn’t doubt that she hadn’t meant for it to get out of hand, but what I remembered of Ron made him an easy target for fast living. “And Pansy?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral.

“After the war Draco didn’t have a lot of options. Not a lot of legitimate ones, anyway. Zabini’s was the perfect place for him to set up shop.”

Draco Malfoy a potions peddler. How the mighty have fallen. Explained how he managed to keep the manse so immaculate. An underground business, nothing on the books, nothing anybody else would have to attach their name to. Merlin, I needed a drink.

“So that’s how I got hooked up with Pansy. Malfoy never shows his face in public if he can avoid it. Pansy runs everything on the street. She was more than happy to . . . help Ron out,” she said bitterly. “Giving a blood traitor that first kick to help him slide into the gutter seems to be a favorite pastime of theirs.”

“But why did you . . .”

“Because I missed you!” she cried. “Because I’d been hanging around Ron for months, listening to him go on and on about you. How do you think it made me feel? When I’d been going through the same thing, only longer? And I couldn’t even talk about it!” The tears were falling fast and thick. “And so Pansy and I used to see quite a lot of each other. And sometimes we’d . . . get into a little bit of the merchandise.”

It stung to hear her talking about it like that. Like a professional. A nasty wave of guilt washed over me. The kind that comes pre-loaded with driftwood and dirty needles.

“I told her about you,” Ginny whispered. “We’d been up late. We were both pretty gone on the stuff, and it just came out. Before I knew what happened. And she looked at me funny and said she’d always wondered about me and then she was kissing me. At that point I just didn’t care. If I couldn’t have you I didn’t care who I had.” She was crying hard then. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and kiss the tears away. I wanted to throw her out of the flat. I just sat there.

“I’m sorry, Hermione,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry.”

“But it’s all over now,” I said. She nodded. “And Ron?”

She went silent. Shook her head.

“He isn’t . . .”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I haven’t seen him in almost a year. Last time I did he was living in some filthy place and he barely knew who I was.” She took a deep breath. Lit another cigarette. “I can’t tell you how hard it was for me to leave him there,” she said, her voice barely audible. “My brother. My own brother, and I’d done it to him and all I could do was leave him.”

“You didn’t do it to him,” I said. My voice was hollow. Mouth felt like the Serengeti. I wanted a drink so bad I thought I’d pass out.

We sat in heavy silence for a few minutes. Ginny’s sniffling faded out.

“So what about the briefcase?” I asked dully. “Anybody been around to inquire?”

“No,” she said. She sounded dead tired. I wondered if she’d slept last night.

“Little odd,” I said.

“Yes.”

“I could have a drink,” I said.

“Me too.”

We headed for the door. Got there at the same time. Stiff little dance for a moment and I let her go out ahead of me.

Nobody was in the café. “Two of Joe’s special,” I muttered to the waitress. “Hold the joe.” She shuffled behind the counter silently. No crosseyed looks. It’s why I love this place.

Ginny sat silently at the table, engrossed in the peeling Formica. “We have to find out who Pansy was talking to,” I said. She nodded. “We have to find out what’s in that briefcase.” She nodded again. “You know how to get into it?”

“I can figure it out,” she said. Of course she could.

“Anybody at home?”

“Just me and the mice.”

“Sounds like it’s time I paid a visit to your place.” I tried to keep my hands from shaking. Even though I knew whatever cozy family life I would see there was a joke, I still didn’t want to have to put myself through it. The waitress set two mugs half-filled with thin amber liquid in front of us. I downed mine immediately. Felt good. Ginny fiddled with the handle for a moment before taking a sip.

“I’m going to leave him,” she said. “When I get him back, I’m going to leave him.”

I coughed a little. Must be the whiskey. Must be the whiskey making me so warm. Not Ginny leaving Harry. Couldn’t be that. “You don’t say.”

“I do say. First thing I’m going to do is punch him right in the jaw, second thing I’m going to do is pack a suitcase. Do you think . . .” she paused and threw back her drink. Her cheeks flushed a little. “Do you think you might have a little room?”

“It’s all I’ve got,” I said. “But you’re welcome to it.”

“Good,” she said, looking out the window. “I want out of all of it.”

“Good,” I repeated. It was the best news I’d heard all week.

****************************************************************

Plot twists! Yaaay! It’s some Rube Goldberg action up in this bitch!

Holy crap!

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 04:46:56 GMT

Well, not so much. But Fiona Shaw and Saffron Burrows? I love finding out factoids on the internet.

That's all.

I'll go pretend to write some more stories now.

Trouble Is My Middle Name, Chapter 5

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 07:56:24 GMT

Title: Trouble Is My Middle Name, Chapter 5
Pairing: Hermione/etcetera.
Rating: R for Language and Le Sexy.
Summary: Party at Malfoy’s. Hermione forgets a cardinal rule: when the enemy hands you champagne, for the love of God don’t drink it.
Word Count: 3250

*********************************************************************

Malfoy’s place was lit up like the old days. Should’ve been my first clue. But I couldn’t see much aside from Ginny. She looked spectacular.

I’d managed to get myself cleaned up all right after my busy day making the rounds. Sleep that night didn’t seem like a possibility, but I dug deep and managed to come up with enough loose change to buy a potion off one of the less reputable dealers in my building. So at least I’d woken up not looking like something Crookshanks had coughed up. Crookshanks. I let a little wave of regret wash over me for a minute, but a glance at my watch had made me drop the sad stuff and hustle down to Diagon Alley.

Ginny had met me at the Leaky Cauldron. Seeing her in full daylight had taken my breath away. She was knock-down drag-out beautiful. Just like I remembered. I had let her lead me around like a dog on a chain, first to Madame Malkin’s and when none of the dresses I’d tried on had met with her approval we wandered down the half-crowded streets to a dim shop. Everybody inside looked about a thousand years old.

“This is exactly right,” she’d said when the tailors had finished the last stitch. I examined myself in the mirror. The tux fit like a glove. I’d never worn such a classy suit, or any formal wear involving trousers, but the gleam of approval in Ginny’s eye made me wonder why I’d never tried it before. And I won’t lie, the idea of waltzing into Malfoy’s wearing a monkey suit with a gorgeous woman on my arm wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

Of course, that was before I found myself standing on the stone steps staring up at a giant Slytherin coat of arms. And even though Ginny was holding my arm tightly I still felt less than eager about going in.

“Come on,” she hissed. “You’re making a scene.”

Which I thought was unfair. So maybe I was hanging back a little. So maybe I was holding up the line. Wasn’t it more important that I determine why there was such a line to get into a party given by Draco Malfoy, sleazebag par excellance? I couldn’t wonder over it too long, though. Ginny was pulling at my arm. I decided to follow her. Who wouldn’t follow a red-headed goddess in a skintight golden dress? Only idiots and blind men, and at least a blind man would’ve followed her smell of honey and amber. To the ends of the earth.

My little reverie was interrupted by the sucking sound of mucus being pulled through a particularly tight nasal cavity. Draco Malfoy himself had come to greet us at the door. From the sneer on his face it was evident that I hadn’t been expected. Or it was just his expression. I didn’t know. I hadn’t seen him in awhile.

I studied him closely. Wondered why he had taken the trouble to greet us personally. Of course, one glance at Ginny was enough to make anyone greet her personally. She had decided on a gold sheath, long and faintly shimmery, tucked neatly under her breasts. She had worn her hair long, and it fell in a smooth red ripple over her right eye. Malfoy’s eyes flicked up and down her body, like anybody’s would have, but it still took some doing to keep myself from giving him a sock in the jaw. Didn’t want to cause another scene. Instead I gave him my best shit-eating grin and shook his hand heartily.

“Draco, pal. Good to see you. Place looks great. Open bar, am I right? Good to hear it.” I hooked my arm around Ginny’s waist and hustled her inside. Tried to do it quickly enough to keep Malfoy from noticing Ginny wasn’t carrying a briefcase.

We had decided leave the briefcase and the money where they were for the time being. Rather, I had decided it and Ginny had eventually gone along with the plan. When I had assured her if anybody was gonna get cursed if the bad guys didn’t like it was gonna be me. I wanted a little more time to work over the connections that were starting to form in my brain. At least this way I’d know who it was who wanted the damn thing, instead of Ginny handing it over to some dumb troll who made a career of being a bagman. Amazing how quickly people make things personal when you don’t give them what you want. And if things got sticky I always had my wand. Ginny said she had hers too, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where she had it stashed. A half-sheet of parchment would’ve stood out if she’d tried to hide it under her dress.

“I’m nervous, Hermione,” she breathed next to my ear. “Don’t leave me alone.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, baby,” I said out of the corner of my mouth. “We’re a matched set tonight.” We crossed through the large entrance hallway to the livelier party in the first drawing room. If “lively” was a word that could be used with this crowd. Their entire purpose for being there seemed to be an unkind curiosity about Malfoy’s sudden re-emergence on the social scene. I had to admit I was more than a little curious myself. Eyes raked over me as I escorted Ginny through the throng. I knew they were looking at me because they were whispering behind their hands as I passed. If they’d been looking at Ginny they would’ve been dumbstruck. At least I would have. But the sight of a not-altogether-welcome face, especially atop an exquisitely tailored tuxedo, was enough to make them choke on their own smarm for half a second.

I knew I couldn’t avoid Malfoy forever. He’d be stuck doing the courtesy rounds with his invited guests for at least half an hour. But I suspected top of his list of things to do when pleasantries were dispensed with would be tossing my sorry ass out on the street. I wanted to get a little information before that happened.

Ginny squeezed my arm as two tall wizards approached. I recognized one of them as my friend from the street. Not the one who jinxed me, but still a little too comfortable for my liking.

“Nice party,” I muttered. The goons recognized me and went for their wands, but suddenly one of them punched the other on the arm. They looked just over my shoulder and backed off, disappearing into the rest of the party. I turned around and saw Pansy Malfoy slinking over to us. Easy now. I tightened my grip on Ginny’s waist a little. Felt like a heel for doing it, but even though she didn’t belong to me, as I’d been so politely reminded, I still felt like reminding Pansy of whose date she was. Not very sporting, but I’d never been one for Quidditch.

“Ginny,” Pansy drawled. She was wearing a tight little purple number, short enough to make half the room blush and the other half drool. I didn’t know which camp I belonged in. Her hair was cut in a blunt bob, sleek and glossy. She had enough lipstick on to kiss everyone in a ten-foot radius and still leave a mark on a champagne glass. I’d never gone in for Slytherins, but Godric Gryffindor himself might’ve made an exception if he’d seen the way she was wiggling her hips. “And is that Hermione Granger? Goodness, aren’t you a sight.” She meant it as a compliment, near as I could tell. She leaned in and planted a kiss on Ginny’s cheek, a long purplish smear trailing across her skin. “Oh, look what I’ve done,” she said coquettishly, and leaned in again and licked lightly at the spot, rubbing at it with her thumb. She meant it to be provocative. It was, but fortunately I was too busy thinking about getting the bruiselike splotch off Ginny’s face before someone thought I’d clocked her one. As soon as Pansy had backed off I pulled out my wand and ran it gently over the spot, siphoning the color away.

“Pansy,” I said curtly. Ginny pressed a little closer to me. Not out of fear but because that’s the kind of girl she was. Her fingers played with the buttons on the tuxedo jacket. I wasn’t used to being used like this, but I figured if this was what being a trophy meant I could do a lot worse.

“So lovely to see you,” she purred. “And don’t you look dashing. I’ve always had a weakness for a well-cut suit.”

“Isn’t that nice,” I said, relieved that a waiter was passing by with a tray full of champagne flutes. I flicked my fingers and two of them drifted off the tray and into my and Ginny’s hands. I said a little silent thank you to Merlin for letting me pull off a little bit of magic without making an ass out of myself. Charms had never been my forte. Not like the two hot little numbers flanking me. They had enough charms for the three of us. Not to mention everyone else in the room. I realized I was getting looks. Some nasty, most plain envious. Pansy noticed it too.

“Why don’t you come into the office where we can have a nice chat?” she said silkily. I looked at Ginny. “Keep away from prying eyes. And ears,” she said. There was a naughty promise in her voice. Good thing I kept my naughty promises away from Slytherins.

“I’m a little busy, Pansy,” I said. I wasn’t. I wished I was. Busy finding out just what the hell was going on, and what Malfoy knew about Harry. About the friendly encounter I’d had the day before. My head was still awfully tender. I hadn’t told Ginny about it. She’d get worked up.

“Come on now, Granger,” she said. Her voice stayed light and teasing but there was an undercurrent of something dark and urgent. “Let Ginny flirt with the other boys.”

Ginny didn’t seem the least interested in flirting with the other boys. She kept her hand tight around my wrist. Her body pressed close to mine. If I hadn’t been surrounded by people who doubtless wanted me to come to some kind of harm I would’ve called it close to heaven.

“Not interested, Pansy,” I said, turning to go. She reached out and brushed my arm. It felt nice. Nicer than I’d expected. Nicer than I’d hoped.

“Come on,” she whispered. “For old times’ sake.”

“The old times were a long time ago,” I said as quietly as I could. “And you and I were never friends.”

“Been around to Blaise’s, I see,” she said just as quietly. So she’d been listening in. What for? “Why don’t we go somewhere and talk, Hermione?” she said again. “Somewhere nice and private.”

I don’t know what came over me. It felt like something hot and fizzy had been let loose in my bloodstream and was making me want Pansy Malfoy something awful. I looked at Ginny. She might have been looking at me strangely. I didn’t know. I didn’t care. All I knew was right at that moment I was ready to kick her into the arms of whatever passing man happened to step in my line of fire. Or woman. I was ready to follow Pansy Malfoy into whatever nice, private place she wanted. Provided, of course, she kept working that little dress the way she was.

I realized with a sinking feeling there must have been a potion in my champagne. That’s why I stick with the hard stuff. It didn’t matter that I knew I’d been drugged. I knew vaguely I’d regret it later, but right now all I wanted was Pansy. “Be back in a minute, baby,” I muttered. I slipped out of Ginny’s grasp, which later I would realize hadn’t been as easy as it seemed, judging from the livid purple bruise on my wrist. I saw the red blossom on Ginny’s cheeks. It might’ve set the air on fire it was so hot. But then I felt Pansy’s cool hand slide between the buttons of the tux jacket and I let her lead me down a series of stone corridors to a dim room.

It might have been an office. There was a desk that matched the heavy dark paneling. The remnants of a fire glowed in a grate set into one of the walls. Heavy drapes were closed against the night. She shoved me down on the plush sofa. A girl could get used to this.

“So Granger,” she hissed, her mouth leaving hot tracks up my neck. “We were never friends.”

“No,” I stammered. The potion was a good one. A little part of my brain, same place I stored my reason, objected. The rest of me was putty.

“But we could be friends,” she murmured. Her fingers were making short work of my jacket.

“Yeah?”

“Oh yes.” She straddled my lap, that little skirt riding up. Best belt a girl could ask for. I was dizzy as I’d ever been. Pansy’s mouth was hot. Her hips moved like they had a mind of their own. “I think we could be very good friends.” Merlin, I wanted her. Like I’d never wanted anything before.

“So what’s a girl got to do to be your friend?” I mumbled. Whatever it was, I seemed to be doing it.

“Just play nice,” she whispered, biting my lower lip. She sucked it into her mouth and I groaned. I vaguely hoped she’d led me far away from the party. I didn’t want Ginny seeing this. Didn’t want her seeing how little resistance I was putting up.

“I can play as nice as you want me to,” I said thickly. Hard to talk when half your face is occupied in other pursuits. I ran my hands over Pansy’s body. She whimpered. If it was for effect it was a hell of an effect. My bones were melting or something like it.

“I have no doubt.”

I closed my eyes and let her do whatever she wanted. Felt like a bastard for it, but there was nothing I could do. I was helpless.

“Tell me about the briefcase,” she groaned, thrusting her hips against mine. Writhing like a snake. Not that it surprised me.

“The briefcase?” That little rational part lit up again. Started beeping as loudly as it could. Not as loudly as Pansy’s heavy breath, too bad for it.

“Yeah,” she murmured as she undulated against me. Merlin her hands were quick. “Tell me about it.”

“I don’t have it,” I panted. I knew I shouldn’t be talking to Pansy Malfoy about Harry’s briefcase. It was pretty damn clear she was playing a bigger part in all of this than I’d originally thought. I knew I shouldn’t be doing it, but there were a lot of things I shouldn’t be doing at that moment and I seemed to be doing every single one of them. “I don’t know what’s in it.”

“Too bad,” she whispered. Suddenly she was off my lap and halfway across the room. My body wasn’t at all happy about the change of plans. Without any input from my mind it flung itself off the couch and crawled across the floor to her. She kicked me away. “I was so hoping we could come to an understanding, Granger,” she said coldly. It was like a bucket of ice water dumped right on my head. Not anywhere else, though. I kept reaching for her like some kind of lust-crazed animal. Which I was. Fucking potions. At least now I could think a little more rationally, even if I led from the hips.

“What do you want with it?” I managed to get out. She snorted derisively.

“As if I’d tell you,” she hissed. “What a brilliant idea.”

“Are you just trying to get it for Draco? Since Stunning me and smacking me around didn’t seem to accomplish anything?”

A look of confusion flitted across her face. “What are you talking about, Granger?” I believed her. So she didn’t know about my little interrogation.

“Well, it’s pretty obvious to me that Draco wants whatever’s in that briefcase,” I said, barreling on ahead. I was just talking. Didn’t know how much of it made sense. Of course, I didn’t know how much of what I was thinking made sense. Pansy didn’t have anything to do with what had happened yesterday. But she had known I’d end up back at Zabini’s. She knew about the briefcase, but didn’t seem to have any interest in giving it to Draco. Did she want it for herself? Was Malfoy really that untouchable, that his wife could run such a fast game on him? Did he have anything to do with it at all?

Malfoy’s goons had delivered the note, Ginny had said. Ginny. I hoped again that she wouldn’t be able to find us. Even though Pansy’s sudden change of heart had made me realize what I was doing it hadn’t caused the potion’s physical effects to wear off any. Malfoy’s goons. But which Malfoy? That was the new question.

Pansy reached down with a speed and agility I almost envied. She wrapped her hand around my throat, hard and cold as steel. “I want that briefcase, Granger,” she said. Her voice was dangerous. “Ginny should’ve brought it to me like I asked.”

“Ginny . . . should’ve . . .” I choked.

“Yes,” she snapped. “I asked her so politely.”

“You’ve . . . got Harry?”

She tightened her grip. Blackness smoked the sides of my vision. She didn’t say anything. Didn’t have time to. At that moment the door swung open. Ginny stood silhouetted against it, along with a few other partygoers. The rage on her face was unmistakable. It would’ve been clear at a hundred paces.

I have to admit it didn’t look good. Me on my knees in front of Pansy. My hands on her hips. Her hand around my neck, though she’d used that same quickness to slide it around to the back of my head as soon as she’d heard the door opening.

I struggled to my feet. “Ginny--”

It was all I managed to get out. She swung back and slapped me hard across the face. Tears were glittering in her eyes. Mine too. She still had quite an arm. She turned and fled from the room.

The crowd at the doorway parted. Draco Malfoy glowered at me so hard I thought all the glass in the room might break. “Get the fuck away from my wife,” he growled. With that, the two goons rushed me. One of them got me around the throat. The other one grabbed my legs.

Just like that, my party was over. Or maybe it was when they threw me out. Literally. I landed hard on the gravel drive a good ten feet from the doorway.

I stood up slowly. I was sore already. I could only imagine how it’d be in the morning. And I’d have to talk to Ginny. Not the sort of sniveling apology she’d be expecting, either. I had the distinct feeling I’d been set up in more ways than one.

Dames. Pretty as a picture. Cold as ice.

*******************************************************************

Hot! Dangerous! Mystery!

I think that’s what I’m going to call my band’s album.

Trouble Is My Middle Name, Chapter 4

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 04:22:12 GMT

Title: Trouble Is My Middle Name, Chapter 4
Pairing: Hermione/etcetera.
Rating: PG-13/R for language and violence. Not a lot of violence, but I’m pretty anti-violence, so there you go.
Summary: It’s a busy day for our Girl Hero.
Word Count: 2550

***************************************************************

I came to who knows how long after. I blinked slowly, mentally checking over my parts. As far as I could tell, they were all still there. Still there, but not moving very well. A second of panic, then I realized I was being held in place. Body-binding spell. A good one. Whoever had me knew what they were doing.

“Good morning, Miss Granger.” A low voice from across the room.

“I see the maid hasn’t been in,” I said. I might not be able to see much but it smelled like a dragon’s cave.

“Clever.” The voice sounded vaguely familiar, though I couldn’t immediately place it. “Though I’m afraid your legendary cleverness won’t be of much use to you.” I blinked a few more times, trying to adjust to the dim light. It didn’t take long. One of the benefits of nocturnal living.

The room was empty except for a low-hanging shaded lamp. Hanging right over me. I was seated in a straight-backed chair in the middle of the place. Interrogation-style. The voice was in front of me, must’ve been coming from the dark shape lurking in the corner. No windows. Could’ve been morning, for all I knew. Most likely it was one of those pseudo-witty things the bad guys are always saying.

“What’s this about?” I said, hard as I could. Might as well get off to a good start.

“No need to be defensive, Miss Granger. This is just a friendly chat.”

“Oh yeah? That explains the Body-Bind. And the comfortable décor.”

“I’m sorry if the accommodations are less than your usual standards. Though from what I’ve seen you should feel right at home.”

“What are you talking about?” This guy had been in my flat. None of this was sounding good. Especially since it could be about anything.

“You have something of mine.” The shape moved around the room, just out of the light. The voice was making me crazy. I ran down the list of people who might want to knock me out and bind me up. I stopped when I got to the G’s. It would take more time than I figured I had to work my way through the entire alphabet.

“Oh yeah? What’s that, your back issues of the Prophet? Or maybe you’re after four crates of empty bottles.” Being flip was never a good idea when you’re trapped in a windowless room by an unseen bad guy. I was reminded of this by a sharp jolt of pain. “Easy there, pal,” I groaned. “You’re gonna hurt somebody.”

“I was hoping not,” the voice said, just behind me. I thought about trying to turn, trying to dredge up some of my old magical skills to break the spell, but the blunt pressure of a wand against the back of my head made me think again. “But that depends entirely on you, Miss Granger.”

“Enough of this “miss” business. I haven’t been a “miss” since Hogwarts.”

“Fair enough.”

“So what’s this about? You say I’ve got something of yours. I hate to break it to you, but you’ve obviously been at my place. I don’t even have something of mine.”

A piece of parchment materialized in front of me. Malfoy’s dossier.

“Malfoy?” I cried. “What the fuck?”

“Not Malfoy,” the voice replied. Didn’t sound like him anyway.

“So who, then? Come on, buddy, I’ve got plans later.”

“Oh, I know.” I hated it when the villain tried to outsmart me.

“So you think you could give me a hand? It’s great that we get to play Baby’s First Interrogation, but I can save you the trouble and just let you know all I’ve got on Pansy Malfoy is a little hearsay and a little gossip.”

“I’m not in the least interested in Pansy Malfoy,” the voice hissed.

“So . . . Draco, then? Sure he’s a slimy fuck but I suppose he’s not without his charms.” The pain shot through me again. “All right, all right. Please kind sir, do enlighten me. I promise to be a very good girl and listen quiet as a church mouse.”

“I don’t recall that being your style, Granger.”

So I did know him. Whoever he was. The voice. I racked my brain, trying to identify it. Problem was it only sounded half-familiar. Like they’d applied a transforming charm to it to fool me. If that was the case I was sunk. I’d have to try wit and charm. Unfortunately my stores of both had been pretty much exhausted over the years.

“So what is my style, then? I’d hope it’s a little more subtle than yours.”

“It’s all a matter of degrees, Granger. A matter of experience.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re someone with a great deal more . . . experience than you let on. Very adept at hiding. At sneaking around. At not getting caught.”

“That explains my present situation, then, doesn’t it?” My captor didn’t bother with a spell and whacked me hard upside the head with his wand. What I wouldn’t give to rub that spot. Or to use a little rough stuff of my own.

“You’re not the only one good at hiding. At sneaking around. At taking things without getting caught.”

This guy was starting to get on my nerves. I didn’t mind it when people threatened me. It made the day more interesting. But when they went to such lengths to be mysterious it always struck me as more than a little showy. “Enough small talk,” I snapped. “I’m a busy girl.”

“Oh yes. Very busy.” It sounded like the bastard was smiling. Not smiling. Smirking. “Terribly sorry to interrupt your packed social schedule, but I’m sure Mrs. Potter won’t mind waiting just a little.”

My blood boiled. It was one thing to Stun me and stick me in a foul-smelling room. It wasn’t the first time, Merlin knows. But to bring Ginny into it took it to a whole other level. “Stay away from her,” I growled.

“I might advise you to do the same thing, Granger.” He was pissed. And not like I wished I was. “I might advise you to stay just as far away from her as you can.”

“Oh yeah?” This asshole was clearly looking for a fight. If I had only been able to move my fingers I would’ve shown him all the pain he wanted.

“Most definitely.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Because she doesn’t belong to you.”

“Doesn’t belong to me? Last time I checked, pal, she doesn’t belong to anyone.”

I must’ve said something he didn’t like because there was a bright flash and then everything went dark.

When I awoke again I had a splitting headache. And my cheek was cold and damp. In fact, my entire body was cold and damp. And sore. And gritty. I twitched my fingers experimentally and felt what seemed to be wet pavement. I groaned and opened my eyes. Street level, judging from the proximity of the car barreling down the road straight for me.

I jerked hard and rolled out of its path. It barreled past me without slowing down. Close call.

I pushed myself up gingerly. Whatever the mysterious bastard had hit me with had left a lasting impression.

“I thought I told you not to come back,” an amused voice sneered from behind me.

“Yeah, well, listening isn’t one of my strengths,” I grumbled. I turned around. Zabini was leaning against the door of his club, arms crossed, a thin smile slicing across his face.

“Clearly,” he said.

“So you were just gonna let that car hit me?”

He shrugged. “Accidents happen.”

“What about the old days, Blaise? All that inter-house camaraderie?” I needed a drink and how.

“The old days were a long time ago, Granger, and we were never friends.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” I muttered. “So are you going to invite me in or what? I’m parched.”

“Not open yet. Only four-thirty. So sorry.”

“Come on, Zabini. I know you want to.”

“You couldn’t pay for it even if I did let you in.” He had a point.

I couldn’t believe I was about to say what I was about to say. “Please?” The hope of a drink made a person do crazy things.

He smirked. “Since you asked so nicely.” He stepped into the dim Grotto, not bothering to hold the door. I caught it just before it latched shut. Pompous prick.

It was empty. I could still feel the malice in the air, though, and I reminded myself not to stick around too long. Didn’t want to catch something. Zabini walked behind the bar and poured out a glass of scotch. Good stuff, too. The wages of sin bought some fancy drink. “Put it on my tab,” I said and tossed half of it back.

“Don’t worry about it,” Zabini said, obviously forcing the words out. “This one’s on Pansy.”

Pansy?

I didn’t know whether to ask Zabini about it or just finish the drink. The pain in my head urged the latter. As I threw it back Zabini sighed heavily. “I’m not staying long, pal. It's pretty clear I got dumped in front of your dump for a reason.” He stiffened. “And a very charming dump it is, too,” I added hastily. “So why is Pansy Malfoy buying my drinks?”

“Don’t ask me,” he said. “I don’t know why Pansy does half of what she does.”

“But she’s been around since . . . last night?” It felt like it had been a week.

“She was here last night, Granger, you idiot.”

With Ginny. I didn’t want to think too hard about it.

“So why the sudden largesse?” Sometimes I could fish a fancy word out from that brain of mine.

“I don’t ask too many questions,” he said. He looked nervous. It couldn’t be. Zabini, proprietor of one of the shadiest of the many shady businesses on this side of town, nervous about a dame? “Last night she just said if you ever came back I should give you what you asked for.”

“I didn’t know you were in the business of taking orders from the wives of disgraced wizards.” The comment cut deep. Zabini’s eyes flashed.

“Malfoy’s got more power than you know about, Granger,” he snapped, then immediately clenched his fists. Not like he was going to hit me. I knew what that looked like. This looked like he was going to hit himself. For saying something he shouldn’t have. I was about to open my mouth and probably say something I shouldn’t have when the door swung open. Zabini jumped. It was the same bored-looking waitress from the night before. Her eyes narrowed when she saw me.

“Am I interrupting?” she asked coldly. Zabini shook his head.

“Miss Granger was just on her way out.”

“Cut it out with the “miss” stuff, Zabini. Do I look like a “miss” to you?”

He eyed me. “You look more like a “what” to me,” he sneered. I didn’t care. I knew his pride had been shaken. Always happy to help out a friend. I set my glass back down on the counter with a little pang of regret. It was good stuff, all right. Pansy Malfoy had my number. Must’ve gotten it from—

I shook my head and turned to leave. As I was going out the door Zabini called after me. I looked back at him.

“Pansy says you look good, Granger. Can’t say as I agree with her, but we have very different tastes.” So I was right about him.

“You tell Pansy she can tell me in person next time,” I replied. “I usually don’t go for her kind, but hey, I owe her one.” Let the door swing closed behind me. Stood on the street for a minute rubbing the sore spot on the back of my head where it had had a friendly conversation with the goon’s wand.

As I trudged back to my flat I mulled over the conversation I’d had with Zabini. Malfoy had more power than I thought. But how? He’d been practically in seclusion since the war. Hadn’t started any businesses that I knew about, and I made it my business to know about those things. And Pansy. What was she doing in all of it? She was just Malfoy’s arm candy. His cover. Never thought a Parkinson would lend anybody any respectability, but when you’d sunk as low as Malfoy I guessed you took what you could get. But she seemed to have a little power of her own, if she could make Zabini quiver. And Pansy would’ve know about my penchant for the good stuff from Ginny.

Ginny. Her face flashed through my brain and along with it a little pinch. She was mixed up in something, all right. I thought about the mysterious voice from earlier. Because she doesn’t belong to you. But who did she belong to, then? Whoever it was who had whacked me upside the skull? It was somebody I knew. Why else would he hide in the dark and charm his voice?

Something started buzzing in the back of my brain. Where I kept what little sense I had left. I didn’t know what it was, but it didn’t feel good. Felt like Arithmancy, but all the numbers were jumbled up. Something about Harry’s disappearance. About Malfoy. About Pansy. About Ginny.

I huffed up the stairs to my flat, not even noticing the landlady screeching at me from her doorway. I fit the key into the lock and realized a second later I shouldn’t have bothered. The lock was broken. The door swung open to reveal a state of disarray not even I could’ve come up with. Papers were scattered everywhere, pulpy sludge tracked across the floor. My desk had been flipped, the drawers scattered around the room. The couch, where I’d found heaven only a few hours earlier, was shredded. I sighed, reached in my back pocket for my wand. Fortunately it hadn’t been damaged as much as I had. Only a couple of minor scratches. I flicked the wand around the room and managed to clean up most of the mess. Not that it mattered that much anyway. I knew nothing was missing, except Malfoy’s case file. I couldn’t say how I knew, it was just a way I had.

I wondered briefly why whoever had done it had gone to so much trouble. Breaking the lock when they could’ve just used Alohomora. Making a point, I guessed. Point made. Didn’t change my mind about going to Malfoy’s party any. If anything, today had reaffirmed my decision even more. I’d have to be careful about Ginny, though. If she was mixed up in this it wouldn’t be good to find myself in a compromising position. I thought about the previous night. I’d miss those compromising positions. But sacrifices had to be made.

I halfheartedly looked to see if my bottle of scotch had escaped unscathed, and was more than a little shocked to find it sitting intact on the windowsill. More than a little shocked, and more than a little grateful. The alcohol burned going down and made me miss the smoothness of Zabini’s drink. Oh well. Hopefully I’d come out of this with a little money. Enough to buy a bottle. Hopefully I wouldn’t come out of it dead.

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You think Ginny would look good in a party dress? So do I. We’ll find out next time!

Trouble Is My Middle Name, Chapter 3

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 06:36:27 GMT

Title: Trouble Is My Middle Name, Chapter 3
Pairing: Hermione/etcetera.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The plot thickens. But first, breakfast!
Word Count: 2750

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I couldn’t believe it. Of course, I don’t believe much after years of lies and obfuscation, but this was one thing I really couldn’t believe. Namely the fact that Ginny Weasley, one-time love of my life, was laying next to me on the sagging couch of my dreams. And that she was naked under my robes.

I watched her chest rise and fall as she breathed evenly. I’m not a saint—it was quite a chest. And she was quite a girl. The intervening years had obviously taught her a few tricks, and I was pretty confident she hadn’t learned any of them from her husband.

The thought of Harry made me shudder involuntarily. He had been my best friend. We had been through thick and thin—mostly thick. But once he had married Ginny it had all fallen apart. It’s not like I hadn’t seen it coming. Even in those days I had a knack for prognostication, not the kind peddled by Trelawney and her band of charlatans, but the kind developed over months of living in a tent with someone who tried very hard to keep his voice down in the middle of the night but more often than not failed. I shook my head to erase the memories of Harry groaning in his bunk.

Ginny’s eyes blinked open and she smiled. “Hey there,” she murmured and stretched in a way that was probably illegal.

“Hey,” I said. Post-coital small talk had never been my strong suit.

She yawned and sat up, rubbing her eyes. I steeled myself for her reaction when the cold light of day illuminated my living conditions. “What a dump,” she said.

“Yeah, but it’s my dump,” I replied. “At least for now.”

“What happened to you?” Ginny asked. I looked at her, trying to read her meaning. She wasn’t being unkind, it was just a way she had.

“Things got hard,” I said simply. “I made some enemies.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Do you?”

She nodded and shook out her hair. Even the light that filtered into my flat was mangy, but somehow it made her more beautiful.

“I’m starved,” she announced and stood up, my robes sliding off her body. I took a moment to drink it in. Not a lot of beauty around here. The girls I’d managed to finagle might look good through a pair of scotch-colored glasses, but when the hangover set in they were always as cheap as their price.

She strolled through the flat, picking up her things. I was struck by a wave of nostalgia, remembering all those early-morning scrambles for clothes and knapsacks before breakfast. I shook it off. Nostalgia was dangerous. And even though I loved her, had always loved her, too much water had passed under the bridge for me to be able to indulge in this little ritual worry-free. “So what’s the plan?” she asked.

“Breakfast,” I replied, pulling on my own shirt. “And then I’ve got a few things to do, as I’m sure you do.”

“Kicking me out already?” she said, the hint of a pout making her lips even more luscious. That mouth would be the death of me.

“Not exactly. I just think it might look a little odd, you know?”

She shrugged. “I suppose. Though you certainly do know how to make a girl feel unwanted.”

“Are you kidding me?” I cried. “I want you like the House Cup.”

She grinned. “That’s better. Get dressed. I’m buying.”

We ducked out of the building, Ginny not even asking why we took the back stairs. That’s my girl, all right. Never questions subterfuge.

I led her to a dirty little café around the block. The waitress grunted when I walked in and I sat down at my usual booth. “Eggs,” I said. “And sausages. Cup of Joe’s special blend.” Code word for “plus whiskey.” Ginny raised her eyebrow. That girl could see right through me.

“A little early, don’t you think?”

“Hey, I don’t question your entertainments. Don’t question my breakfast.”

She frowned. “I told you why I was at Zabini’s.”

I shook my head. “You told me part of why you were at Zabini’s. Meeting some cohorts of Malfoy’s. But—and this is no comment on the dress—you looked awfully comfortable.”

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. The waitress plopped a cup in front of me and I took a deep swallow. The booze helped immediately. “Get her one too,” I said. The waitress grunted again and shuffled off behind the counter.

“I’ve been there a couple of times before, all right? Nothing serious.”

“I didn’t know you traveled in such exclusive circles.” It wasn’t the best way to start my day, but I figured my luck from last night had overstayed its welcome anyway. I didn’t want to upset her, but the years had worn away my sensitivity. Sure I loved her, who wouldn’t? But there was still a job attached, and if I was going to do it I had to create a little distance.

“I used to hang around with Pansy a little,” she admitted finally.

“Oh really? Just a couple of girls out on the town?”

“She was my friend! She was my only friend for a while,” Ginny said defensively. “You know what Harry was into. It’s not like I had a lot of choice,” she added, shooting daggers at me with her eyes.

“If you’re implying it’s my fault--”

“Of course it’s your fault!” she hissed. “You left me! You left me all by myself with nobody to talk to!”

I sighed and took another swallow of my coffee. “I’m sorry, all right? But once Harry started getting mixed up in all that dirty business I had to back out. I didn’t want to be the one who brought him down. I know we had our differences, but there was too much history for it to be me. And you . . .” I had to stop. Couldn’t get misty-eyed. It doesn’t look good for a gumshoe to get all gooey. Not professional.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Damn. Tears again.

“Yeah. I know.” It might not have been true, but I had to change the subject. “So,” I said a little louder than was necessary. “Tell me everything, from the beginning. Harry’s been missing two weeks. When did he disappear? Where from? What about the note?”

Ginny swallowed hard, and looked inordinately grateful when the waitress brought her cup. “Well,” she began. “He went out to meet with some of his business partners. And I don’t know who they are, so don’t ask. He doesn’t tell me anything. All I know is it has something to do with the Ministry, and once he mentioned something about the Department of Mysteries.”

“But that’s been disbanded!” I said.

“Mysterious, isn’t it,” Ginny replied dryly. “Anyway, when he left all he took was his wand.”

“That’s good, isn’t it? He could defend himself.” Harry might not have been the shiniest Sickle in the sack but he always seemed pretty capable of fighting back. It was one of the few things I was happy to say I’d picked up from him.

“I guess,” Ginny said doubtfully. “He didn’t come home that night but I . . . wasn’t very worried,” she finished quietly.

“Habit of staying out late?”

She nodded.

“Women on the side?”

She squirmed uncomfortably.

“Don’t tell me.”

“I won’t.”

I was flabbergasted. No amount of private-eye training could keep the surprise off my face. “I lied. Tell me.”

“It wasn’t serious,” she said. “At least that’s what he told me.”

“And you believed him?” I cried.

“It’s not like my marriage was serious, Hermione,” she admonished. “What did you think I was getting up to with Pansy?”

That one hit me like a ton of bricks. Let Harry gallivant around with all the fancy boys he chose, but hearing that Ginny, my Ginny, had been two-timing him with a Slytherin, made the whiskey-infused coffee churn uncomfortably in my stomach. Unfortunately it was right at that moment the waitress decided to slap the plate with my greasy eggs and gelatinous sausage right in front of me. I thought I was going to be sick. On the other hand, she’d just solved my case. On the other other hand, no way could I bring that back to Malfoy.

The day was quickly clouding over.

“So,” I said with difficulty, “what else?”

“I’ve upset you,” Ginny said, sounding dismayed. Of course she had, and she knew it. It made the little Sneakoscope inside my head start whirling again. Time had driven away almost all of my sentimentality. I wouldn’t put a doublecross past her. She was a Weasley.

“So he didn’t come home that night,” I said firmly.

“No.”

“And how long did it take before you decided to get worried?” I had to play it cold as ice. I was on shaky ground as it was.

“Until I got the note,” Ginny said, a little abashed.

“And that was . . .”

“Five days later.”

“Five days, huh.”

“Yes,” she snapped. I had forgotten that she could be a real firecracker when she wanted.

“All right. Harry disappears. Five days later you get a note demanding ten thousand Galleons and this mysterious briefcase. And you have no idea what’s in the briefcase.”

“No idea. He never said anything except I wasn’t ever to give it to anyone.”

“That’s a little funny,” I said. At last the booze was starting to help my reasoning along.

“Funny?”

“Not, ‘make sure this stays safe’ or ‘don’t touch it.’ Just ‘don’t give it to anyone.’ Like he knew someone would want it.”

“If you take the trouble to have a safe installed in your house I’m guessing it’s not much of a stretch to think someone would want it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “But still. How did you come to hear from Malfoy’s goons?”

She took a drink of her coffee and grimaced a little. I shrugged. “They’re the ones who brought the note, remember? Then they showed back up again last week. Said someone wanted to meet with me and that I wasn’t to take any action on the demand.”

“That’s fucking ridiculous,” I said. This whole thing was fucking ridiculous. I suddenly had a hell of a headache. “First they demand the ransom and then tell you they don’t want it.”

“You think it makes sense to me? I’m just trying to get through this with a clean nose.”

Good girl. “So why Malfoy? Harry wasn’t dealing with him . . . professionally, was he?”

“No, thank you, Harry had nothing to do with him. As far as I know. Anyway, Malfoy’s damaged goods, nobody in the city will touch him. Not after all the war business came out.”

It was true. In the grand tradition of hypocrisy the world over, the people who had been outspoken in their support of Voldemort had been shunned, if not imprisoned, while the ones behind the scenes, even the ones everyone knew about like Zabini, managed to come out of it smelling like a rose. Malfoy had been living on what little of his family’s money remained, which wasn’t much. No wonder Pansy was running around. But I couldn’t think about that.

“Near as I can tell, Malfoy just wants the money. And the briefcase. Which makes me think it’s got something in it, documents or something, that will help him get a little power back.”

The girl was smart. Always had been. Maybe not book smart like I was, but what she knew of the streets could have filled the Hogwarts library five times over. The old thought of “if she’d only applied herself to her studies more” came rushing back to me. I smiled a little, then pushed it away.

“So what did his little henchmen tell you last night?”

“First of all, they weren’t little,” she said. “And they told me Harry was still alive, that he was safe, and as long as I played along he’d stay that way.”

“What did they want you to do?”

“They want me to go to a party,” she said.

“A party?” I was gonna need a lot more liquor to make it through this day.

“At Malfoy’s.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow night. I’m supposed to bring the money and the briefcase. I’m guessing the people I’m supposed to give it to will be there.”

“Good guess.”

“Look, Hermione, we’re not all geniuses like you.”

“Most days I doubt if I’m one.” It was true. Sometimes I’d try to do Charms in my head and there were days I couldn’t even figure out Alohomora. But it was a small price to pay to escape from the horrors of the past few years. At least that’s what I told myself.

“Anyway,” she said. “Do you think I should go?”

“Do you want Harry back?”

There was a long pause. “I dunno. He’s an awful git.”

Merlin, I loved her.

“Thing is,” she said, “I’m afraid. I’m afraid of what they’ll do to me if I don’t follow through.”

“Did they threaten you?” I made a mental note to practice my old DA skills. Sure she might be a dirty double-crosser, but damn it, if anybody tried to hurt her I’d have to do something about it. Just the kind of person I was. Too bad honor doesn’t come with a paycheck.

“Not exactly. But I get the feeling Malfoy sent his giants for a reason. Hermione,” she said tentatively, and tentatively on her was like a smile on a centaur—something you noticed.

“Yeah?”

“Would you—would you come with me to the party? I mean, you can say no.”

Like I could say no to her. But it would be a tight spot getting through Malfoy’s security unnoticed. I supposed I could make some excuse about working on his case, though I knew how Malfoy felt about people getting on his case about anything.

“With my million-Galleon wardrobe? I’ll just saunter right in,” I said. Hey, I had to make it look like I was tough. Pretty tall order when you’re sitting across from the girl I was. Even if she had broken my heart a thousand ways.

“Of course we’ll get you some new things,” she said hastily. “I didn’t mean--”

“I know you didn’t mean anything. Don’t worry about it.”

Speaking of picking up the check, at that moment the waitress lumbered over and dropped the bill on the tabletop. Ginny picked it up and fiddled with it. “Muggle money?” she asked. I nodded. She reached into her dress again and fished out a credit card. Amazing the things she kept in there, and why hadn’t I seen her put it back?

“I’m a witch, Hermione,” she reminded me, reading my mind again. Come to think of it, she had gotten out of her clothes pretty fast last night.

“Well,” I said.

“Well.”

“I really do have some things to do today.” Like rack my brain for another possible playmate for Pansy.

“Yeah. So I guess we should meet tomorrow before the party? To get you some proper clothes?”

“Sounds good. Where?”

“Why don’t you come to the house?” I inhaled deeply, the air whistling between my teeth. I didn’t know if I could do it. I was pretty tough, but I didn’t know if I was that tough.

“Or we could just meet at the Leaky Cauldron. Two o’clock?” Bless her.

“Two o’clock. The Leaky Cauldron. Check.”

We went up to the counter and paid. Headed outside. I was about to turn away to go back to my flat when she caught my arm.

“Hermione,” she said. I turned back, but before I could speak she pulled me close and kissed me. One of those whiz-bang kisses that’ll make you forget your own name. She was quite a dame. “Don’t be late,” she whispered. I nodded dumbly and stared after her as she sauntered down the street. Hypnotized by her swinging hips. You’d think a girl who played sports most of her life would’ve been a little less . . . I don’t know. All I knew was she moved like a veela and twice as sexy, which was saying a lot.

After she’d disappeared around a corner I managed to make my legs start working again. I was nearly to my flat when I noticed two bulky wizards loitering in front of the door. I can’t say how I knew they were wizards. Could’ve been intuition. Could’ve been the wands. Could’ve been the jinx that knocked me cold on the pavement.

Could’ve been that.

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Ri. Dic. U. Lous. I’m gonna go watch Double Indemnity. Good times!