And I, Blinding Looking, Fall
By: ShinigamiForever
Summary: After 10 years of enmity and 2 and a half months of constant observation, Draco Malfoy finally decides it's time to approach Harry Potter, an Auror for 3 years. In front of a coffee shop, Draco, who is a prominent Death Eater, risks admitting his feelings when Harry brings up a little memory of the past. A slight bit of Draco/Harry slash.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all the related characters do not belong to me, much as I hate to admit it. So don't sue me, I'm just trying to have some fun! (besides, the money I do have isn't worth it, trust me)
A/N: Wrote this while isolating myself in a computer room with winter scenery outside, Scarborough Fair/Canticle (sung by Simon and Garfunkel) and George Winston's Autumn playing on my computer. So there might have been strange influence on the overall expression of this fic. If you like something really soothing, listen to Scarborough Fair. I really recommend it. The Sound of Silence is good too.
Regardless, enjoy!
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Someone, I forget who, once told me the reason I like rain is because there is something I regret. They were half right. Regret is part of the reason. Memory is the other half. If anyone asks me why I like rainy days, I would answer immediately, "Because it suits my gloomy and depressed nature," then smile, then laugh, because that thought is so very contradictory to the image I project. If pressed, I'd answer vaguely that I think the rain sounds like a pleasant song, a lullaby of sorts. If I am continuously pestered, I would say I like the way it feels on my skin, all soft and cool, and then I would change the subject.
It's raining now. The drumming of raindrops is repetitive in my head, a constant dripping and thudding that is both soothing and irritating. It is calming in its absolute serenity, as if nothing could disturb the steady drum roll. It is irritating in the way that it never ends, never stops. Just as the memory of rainy days never goes away, the rain constantly reminds me of what I have lost and what I have sacrificed. There is recollection of memory, and there is memory of recollection. In this case, it is the former.
The waitress looks at me, batting her eyes flirtatiously, then blushes furiously as I do the same. She looks away, cheeks a brilliant red, and I chuckle to myself. But the lightheartedness fades away as I look out through the window, where the rain is streaking down in corrosive streams. The cars are blurry and vague in the water's transparency. The people are simple forms of color. The sky is a brilliant gray, fading rose and streaking blue in its intensity. A blinding light. I look down to where my fingers are wrapped around my coffee cup. They are trembling, as if each finger had its own tremor. I can't think why.
I don't usually frequent coffee shops, although that statement must certainly be taken back as soon as I say it, seeing I have made a habit of it now. The first time I saw him passing by the window was purely accidental; in a way, though, I figure someone must have planned it, because it was too perfect. Coincidences only happen to some extent in life, and in my life, all events have an ulterior motive. However, the act of walking to work is about as innocent as anything, so innocent, in fact, that even I, who built my life on hounding out possible motives, cannot find anything suspicious about it.
He evidently passes through here every morning, but it was not until that particular day that I found out. I think the windows of the shop are mirrored, so that the passerby cannot see the occupants of the shop. All the more better for me.
He never notices me; he always walks straight on, determined and headstrong in his purpose. It is his love of reaching the goal that once made him a good Seeker, and that, evidently, passed on to him when he became an Auror. Just as I knew of his inevitable fame at Hogwarts, I knew of his inevitable fame in the wizarding world. I knew both, illogically of course, when I offered my hand to him on the Hogwarts Express some 10 years back. I knew it when he refused my hand, coolly appraising me with eyes of fire and ice. I knew, just as I knew in those same moments that he and I would never walk the same path again.
Yet still, I enter this coffee shop as regularly as he walks to his job in the mornings. I wait for him to pass. I can almost set my watch by him. At exactly 7:46, he passes the window where I sit. He never stops, never pauses. He walks on. Every time, I watch him until he fades into the throng of people. Then I get up, pay my bill, and leave. We are habitual creatures. Maybe he and I are more so.
And now I wait for him to walk by now, and now I listen to the rain.
He is taller than I remember. It might just be the fact that I am sitting down and he is walking past me. His robes are black, a plain black, similar to the school robes he once wore. He wears a plain white shirt under it, a tie, and black slacks. He looks like a secret agent from an old movie, holding back government secrets in his head, contemplating the enemies waiting to stab him in the back. In a way, it's true. He watches his back constantly and never lets his guard down, even when he's relaxed. It's in the air around him, tense and charged with a million particles of energy.
His hair has grown out a bit, and it curls around his neck in a way that draws your eye to them. Their luster is soft and teasing, contrasting with his slightly tanned skin. He was made to be perfect. Perfection is bred into his jeweled green eyes, two slabs of leaf shone to absolute beauty. Perfection is in his cheekbones, raised just so in order to bring out his face. Perfection is evident in his neck, long and slender. He is like an egret, all slim lines and delicate curves, but underlying all that softness is a bitter hard edge.
He's also changed his glasses. They're no longer a pair of broken frames, round and unseeingly cumbersome on his nose. Those have been replaced by a pair of slimmer, thinner frames that rest lightly on the bridge of his nose, balancing almost precariously. They make him look intellectual and cultured. They make others trust him.
I didn't notice all the changes to him the first time. It had been the shock of realizing that he still existed that predominantly covered my senses when I had first saw him. Not that I didn't know what became of him; everyone was curious about what happened to The Boy Who Lived, all in capital letters. But they were just stories, reports, articles. Not really seeming him alive, in flesh and bone, with air being drawn into his lungs and expelled again. I had expected the same boy I knew when we left Hogwarts for the last time: a grown adolescent who had lost his gangly awkward look but hadn't yet lost his boyish grace. He still looked like a teenager when we had graduated. I didn't think he would grow up.
Taking a sip of my coffee, I lean back slightly in the chair. This table is where I always sit. I think the waiters purposely keep other customers from sitting here. It is strictly reserved for me, and I find that curious. People have gone out of their way to do things for me, but it is usually out of fear, not kindness. Perhaps this gesture is also one of fear. I am, after all, son of Lucius Malfoy, Voldemort's most attentive slave. I suspect I now have that position, inherited father to son. It is yet another reason why I am sitting here, drinking coffee, instead of being actively engaged in something. Certain positions have certain privileges.
I catch sight of him walking down the street again, a silent tall figure, nodding absently to the greetings thrown his way. He is separated from ordinary life by an air of mysticism and charisma. I'm sure that girls have fallen for him in big flocking crowds. He is so different from the ordinary person. He is touched by a faint nobility that once was prevalent in aristocracy. I know that I have it too. We are made of the same dough, but pressed by hands of different bakers, and fitted in different molds. The slightest change in sugar and spices made the difference.
However, I am pulled out of my train of thought because he suddenly stops just in front of the window. He isn't following the schedule I have unconsciously set up for him, and it jolts the world out of focus a little, just enough to shift my glance. He is leaning against the wall of the coffee shop, taking a deep breath. He looks almost shaken. There is something strange about his eyes in the moment, and I wonder what has touched his mind so rapidly. But something else makes its way across my mind.
I am impulsive by nature. My maker obviously tossed in some wine into my mix, because there is something intoxicating about my impulses. They are flashes of vague burgundy and rich velvet black. I thrive on the impulsive insights. True, they have gotten me into trouble before, not to mention my rashness certainly didn't help my decision making, but rarely do those impulses ever completely fail me. They always present some opportunity.
So, following that impulse, I pay my bill ahead of time and step outside, my cup of coffee abandoned in a trash can neatly located in the shop. The door closes behind me without a sound. I am almost reluctant to the leave the soft womb of the coffee bean smells and warm chocolate air. But the crisp brisk air of rain water and spring is just as overwhelming. Immediately, the rain closes in on me. I've never minded the rain; in fact, I had once even been scolded for running outside on rainy days and coming back with pneumonia. There is exhilaration in the feel of cold water sneaking down your back. I can feel my old lover come back to me, and I smile at its familiar embrace.
I turn to face him, and he has not yet noticed me. He has regained his composure and now looks more cool and composed than I have ever remembered. Touches of ice and frost seem to crawl across his skin in fanciful patterns. He is different from what I had remembered and expected. But there is also some recognition. He has not entirely changed from that kind heartfelt boy in school. Instinctively, I know that he is still the same on the inside. 3 years as an Auror had not changed what Nature deemed appropriate for the young King Arthur. Relief is not the right word, but I know that he is approachable. Distant, but there is an anchor. He is about to leave, and I call out to him.
"Potter." Momentarily, I wince at the choice of using his last name. I wonder if he would make the same move as I did and call me by my last name.
"Malfoy?" His is a question, a not quite astonished remark that was more doubtful than surprised. I walk closer to him until he is facing me, a couple feet apart. He is smiling, a hesitant and not impolite smile. I notice that his right hand is in his pocket. He has his hand on his wand, and for a moment, I wonder if this meeting was his intention, an attempt to kill me. But just as quickly, his right hand slips away, and both hands are hanging, poised, at his sides.
"Surely you remember me?" I ask, tilting my head and letting the rain dance on my blond hair. His eyes glint strangely, then fade into a soft unobtrusive shine.
"It's been a long time," and somehow that sounds apologetic to me.
"Yes, well, can't say I've missed you," I drawl, a lazy smile. Liar, liar, liar, rings the siren in my head. An aching familiar buzzing is sounding in my ear, the floating drunk feel of a head rush that had been gone for some 3 years.
He draws his eyes across my figure, and I consider twirling around and asking him 'How do I look?' Instead, I stand still, feeling the hiss of raindrops. "You haven't changed." He's not stating that I had my hair grown longer until it reached the tips of my ears, that I grew, that my face has thinned out, that I look almost constantly like I'm smiling even when I don't mean it, that I look older than he does, even though we're the same age. I notice with some satisfaction that he is still the same height as I am.
"Neither have you, although I'm not sure if that's a compliment." Stupid, stupid, stupid, rings the siren again. No more than a few seconds into the conversation, and I'm already insulting him. Another bout of annoyed keening springs to life in my ear. Insulting him came as a second nature, as natural as breathing. My impudent nature is working, as always.
But so is his control, and I can just barely catch the quickening of breath before he calms down again, a neutral smile still painted on his face. "Thank you," he answers, and maybe it's dryness in his voice that makes him sound more mature too. I no longer sound like an insolent teen any more than he sounds like a lost choirboy. His voice had deepened over the years, just as mine had lost the unrefined edge and been replaced with wry courtesy. Both suit our images. Both make us uncomfortable.
"I see you're still wearing glasses," I say casually, watching him through slightly lidded eyes. Self-conscious, he pushes up his frames, smiling almost awkwardly. I don't even have to watch him to know that he still uses his right hand to do that gentle shove, just as I'm sure he still uses that same hand to push back his bangs.
"I had them fixed," he admits. "The glasses are just to help clear things up a little. I wouldn't want to go blind in the middle of a battle," and he takes off his glasses, folding and unfolding them in his hand.
The difference is shocking. For a moment, I am wrapped up by the utter beauty of that moment. I had never truly seen Harry with his glasses off, but now, he is meeting my gaze with his naked eyes, unveiled with the simple act of taking off his glasses. Eyes of crystalline pearls breaking on green silk- or did someone once use that description on Chopin's music? That was what his eyes were, music. Beautiful emerald green music. Time inhales sharply, and I am frozen, staring deeply into endless, endless green. His gaze does not falter, he is in control.
But then he puts his glasses back on, and the world suddenly and haltingly jerks back into view. I let my fingers relax, unaware that I had been clenching them, and I feel the blood slowly seep back into cold skin. The rain hangs down my face. I brush icy bangs away from my eyes, still trained on the unmoving young man in front of me.
"How have you been doing, Malfoy?" he asks, hands back in his pockets now.
"Same old, same old. A little bit of this, a little bit of that…" I trail off, gesturing fantastically into the rainy air. A little smile looms on his face, but just as quickly, it disappears, replaced by a grim expression.
"I'm guessing you too are a Death Eater now?" There is something sardonic in that tone of voice. Something so dark underlying the smooth richness that I shudder, trying to draw away from the sound.
"Considering you're one of the best Aurors out there, isn't it suicidal to tell you?" Back to the insults again.
He furrows his eyebrows, looking perplexed for a second, before he relaxes again, watching me intently. "Not really."
I scoff. "'Not really'? And what does that mean, Potter? That you're 'not really' an Auror and that you just kind of hunt Dark wizards and you kind of send them to their death? You're 'not really' a murderer, are you?"
Like me, he is taken back by my comments. There is a faint sour taste of regret in my mouth as I swallow, trying to calm down. The silence between us is smothering. I clench and unclench my fingers as he tries to think of something to say. Finally, I sigh, bringing both freezing hands up to my temples and gently massaging the sides of my head, will the pounding pulse to just go away. I look up, and he has his head tilted in a curious angle, wondering what was wrong. A little fluttering in my chest both sickens and excites me in that moment, and I have difficulty matching his gaze. My hands drop.
"Just forget it, Potter."
"Malfoy, I didn't-"
"I said, forget it."
"Malfoy, I-"
"Piss off, Potter."
"Malfoy. I'm sorry, okay?"
Was this Harry Potter apologizing to me? Yes, yes it was. "I'm sorry. For whatever I said."
Perhaps in older days I would have milked it for all its worth. Back at Hogwarts, I would have made it known to the entire school that Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, had apologized to slimy ol' Draco Malfoy who would sell his best friend for power. But we weren't back at Hogwarts. We were standing in front of a coffee shop, drenched in the rain of dissonance that fell from the sky above. And he and I had grown up from the squabbling playground children we were. And I know that it was my fault.
"It wasn't you," I reply softly, letting the opportunity for gloating slip. He sighs, a gentle rise and fall of his shoulders indicating his exasperation and confusion. I half expect him to turn away, and the idea of him doing so scares me more than the actual act. He is something sacred that had fallen from the sky. The butterflies in my chest start up their waltz again.
We stare at each other in silence again. His eyes are full of brilliance and a seething kind of energy, trapped within frozen layers of some indeterminable colors, green and gold and blue. I can almost see myself reflected in that energy, a little spot of white blond and pale skin spiraling down toward his pupil. That image is enlarged and thrown back in his glasses, distorted out of proportion until I am suspended in a pane of glass. Tearing my eyes away, I catch myself staring at his reflection in the coffee shop windows, but his voice drags me back to his face.
"Are you happy, Malfoy?" He sounds doubtful of himself, and looks as if he isn't quite sure why he asked that question.
I fumble for an answer. Are you happy, Malfoy? What was the answer demanded in that question? What would change if I said yes? What would change if I said no?
"Why must a person always be happy, or sad? Why can't we just be?" I counter his answer with one of my own, and regret it almost instantly.
"We can," he says vaguely, but he does not look persuaded. A flash of an old black and white movie, a hardball police man hounding a tired looking captive under a circle of cold stark lamplight.
"Am I happy? Perhaps," I say, guarding my answer, weighing each word.
The rain stings our skin in its feathery way. He gives me a thoughtful glance, tugging at the sleeves of his robes. "How long have you been here?" The question is irrelevant to his previous one, but I make no attempt to remind him of this.
"Oh, a few days," I answer airily. Liar, liar, liar-
Shut up.
"And you?"
"The same," he says, and it is my turn to look at him with curious eyes. He has been here at least 2 months and 16 days. Counting from the day I first saw him. But the ease with which he lies assures me that he has done this many times, and it is just another precaution, another barb wire fence for him to keep safe behind. As I do the same, I cannot blame him. Uncomfortable, I turn away again. His next statement stuns me.
"The day on the Quidditch field, a couple years back. In our seventh year. A few months before graduation. Remember that day?"
"Dimly," I reply, jacking up my lie count some more.
To tell the truth, as I had the habit of not doing, I could recall the exact date too. March 17, 2000, 4:05 PM to about 5:00 PM. We had been engaged in Quidditch practice when the Gryffindors invaded the field, payback for what we had done a few years before, I suppose. In a few blurred minutes, the practice had turned into a mock battle between the Slytherins and the Gryffindors. Both sides had ended up with a few injuries, not to mention a couple players had stopped flying and engaged themselves instead in fist fights. Harry had been the captain of his team, just as I was of mine, and we were perhaps the only two actually still flying by the end of practice. The Snitch had been elusive as always, but my attention had been attracted more to Harry than to the small flying gold ball.
It is one thing to watch Harry Potter fly from the ground, and another entirely to be up against him, in the air, and watching him fly. He does not really fly; he dances in the air. He and the broom are connected, he is not riding the broom, he is moving with it, grace and fluid motion. When he swerves, the air bends around him, separating to allow him passage. That is the beauty of true flight. He was meant to take wings. I was simply meant to fly around on a stick.
So watching him, I had not been disappointed that he caught the Snitch. He had seen it in midair, and with a lazy flick of the wrist, caught it with his right hand, like a butterfly catcher. A small movement, and the golden ball was trapped firmly in his palms and fingers. He had stopped, hovering in mid air, then did a unexpected about face to look at me, hand crossed across his chest, the Snitch struggling in one hand. From below, the sound of the other players shouting insults to each other had been faint. A remark had almost made its way up my throat, but he had spoken first.
"Why do you hate me, Malfoy?"
That would be Harry Potter, always asking questions, always direct, never wavering. "Why?" I had sneered, flying a little bit closer so that I would be on the same level as he was.
"I was thinking-" he had begun.
"What an accomplishment, Potter. 10 points to Gryffindor for rare display of brain activity."
A glare. "Shut up and let me finish. I was thinking, maybe we can be friends."
The weather had chose that second to start raining. The fat drops of water had assaulted our bodies, pounding down with ferocity. But his words had shocked me more.
"Well?" he had asked, looking slightly embarrassed now.
"I thought you hated me," I had answered, mouth seemingly not working.
"I do. Kind of. But we're almost graduating, and well…"
"You want to stop this rivalry," I had finished for him.
"Exactly."
So he had extended his hand, slipping the Snitch into his other hand, and I had flown close enough so that I had almost been beside him, and took the hand. And he had smiled, a true smile of happiness and relief that I had never seen directed at me.
It was at that moment, with the rain flying in my face, and his hand in mine, that I realized I loved him. Not the kind of movie love, or puppy love, or even romantic love. It was a subtle play of feelings, a little twine of golden flower vines that draped over my heart. He had suddenly become the most beautiful person I had ever laid eyes on, black hair and green eyes. It was that sudden, that instantaneous, that years later, as I think about it, I still don't know exactly how it happened. But at that moment, I had known that when I breathed my last breath, I would see him framed in the rain, slivers of black hair dancing across his forehead.
I had called out to him, as he fell from the sky, "Harry-" and stopped myself, hearing his first name slip from my tongue.
He had turned, the question, 'Yes?' scrawled across his face. And I could not bring myself to say what I wanted to say. He had stared at me for a moment, then, seeing as I had nothing to say, he continued to fly on, but not without glancing back.
We never spoke about that day. It became common knowledge that the two boys who hated each other the most had come to terms, and rumors spread like wildfire the first few weeks. It was not until I had openly spoke to him civilly in public that people had accepted our tentative friendship.
And now, he himself brought up that day.
I look at him, watching him think of a way to ask whatever he wanted to ask, fragments of words and thoughts ghosting across his mind, but leaving as quickly as they came.
"That day," he says, "when you called out my name… What did you want to say?"
I gape at him, both in surprise that he remembered the last few seconds of that exchange and that he cared enough to ask. I see his expression in his eyes, a mixture of triumph and interest. He is looking at me the way a child looks at something he does not understand. There is no shame or arrogance, no discomfiture. Just a cool, collected determination to find the answer.
"I didn't want to say anything."
"You lie," he remarks, not accusing me, but a confidence in the statement.
"Come now, Potter, why so interested?" I say, a familiar note of teasing returning to my voice. He doesn't answer. He is waiting for my explanation.
I grasp for words in the air, but nothing except for bitter rain is dangling there. Instead, I plunge recklessly forward, drawing from the depths of memory the words I had shouted silently into the air at his retreating back. "I wanted to say, I love you," I say in a small voice, each word constricted. Then, turning away, I let my eyes close, a sting of ashes behind the eyelids.
"Why didn't you tell me that before?" He is still unruffled, as if what I said simply confirmed his suspicions, and that it came as no surprise.
"Why?" I ask angrily, whirling around, the sound of rain loud in my ears. "Why? Because there was no use for those words, Harry. What use is there for them, now?"
"It could have changed something, Draco." The use of my first name sounds like mockery in a way, but the strangely regretful look in his eyes tells me that he is not mocking me.
"What could it have changed?"
"The path you took. The path I took. We could have become better friends, Draco."
"No," I whisper, a simple word of disagreement. "No, it wouldn't have changed anything. Do you know why, Harry?" He shakes his head, and a rueful smile graces my lips as I look up at him, the lightening bolt scar almost hidden behind his bangs. "That scar, Harry. That's why. That scar, and all it implies."
He reaches up for it, tapping it lightly as if in question. "But what does it-"
"In a few minutes, Harry, you will leave this spot. You'll turn around, and walk down the street, and arrive at the Ministry of Magic. You'll enter the office and approach whoever your superior is. They'll give you an assignment on a slip of parchment, and you'll take it. You'll track down your next target. When you find that wizard, you'll take out that wand of yours, point it at them, and whisper whatever curse you use, Avada Kedavra or otherwise." He winces at the use of those words. But I am not finished, and years of pent-up bitterness explodes in subdued passion. "And one day, the name on the parchment will be mine, and you will track me down. When you find me, you'll point that wand at me, and you'll use that curse on me."
He continues to watch me. There is no denial, no horror, no emotion in those emerald eyes of his. It is an answer itself.
"What use does that phrase have, Harry? Would it have made you a Death Eater? Would it have changed my path?" And it is his turn to turn away, the drops of rain still falling down, sliding down his skin.
"No, it wouldn't," he answers in a tired voice, shoulders sagging. "I just wanted it to." For a moment, my heart leaps at that thought of his disappointment, as if perhaps he cared for me. Just as quickly, I banish the thought, flustered.
"I'm sorry," I manage, trying to find the right words to say. He looks up sharply, studying my face, as if he thought if he could look hard enough and deep enough, he would see my soul.
Another flood of silence, so bottomless and dark that I feel like I am drowning in both the rain and the silence. He and I are transfixed in that moment of silence, a buzzing of rain again, splattering against our skin. He pauses, his breath catches, and he lets go of his breath. A hiss of air flows through his mouth.
"You should get going, Potter," weary now, as if I was creased with age. I turn around, about to walk off. Something hurts and a knot of pain is throbbing in my chest, but if I stay here, I know that I will start crying. Tears of heaven continue to cascade down in a torrent of silver.
"Malfoy- no, Draco."
"Drop by sometime, will you?" I throw over my shoulder, a careless farewell. He looks abandoned, lost even, but a silent statue against the moving background of the world. The last stationary thing left behind. His eyes are movement themselves though, and they stir with an unmatched intensity of a thousand emotions. One last look, I promise myself. One last look.
"I will," he answers, once again reverting to the tranquil, unmoved Potter of moments passed.
He leaves, just as I turn around. It is his retreating back again, the silent goodbye. His robes sashay with his body, a soothing wave of black fabric. There is finality in his departure.
A scent of incense lingers in the rain battered air. It rises from the wetness and into my nose, settling nostalgically in the corners of my brain. A song is discovered. It plays like the wafts of smoke from which it was born.
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.
Remember me to one who lives there.
She once was a true love of mine.
Tell her to make me a cambric shirt.
(On the side of a hill in the deep forest green)
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.
(Tracing a sparrow on snow-crested ground)
Without no seams nor needlework,
(Blankets and bedclothes the child of the mountain)
Then she'll be a true love of mine.
(Sleeps unaware of the clarion call)
Tell her to find me an acre of land.
(On the side of a hill, a sprinkling of leaves)
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.
(Washes the ground with so many tears)
Between the salt water and the sea strand,
(A soldier cleans and polishes a gun)
Then she'll be a true love of mine.
Tell her to reap it in a sickle of leather.
(War bellows, blazing in scarlet battalions)
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
(Generals order their soldiers to kill)
And to gather it all in a bunch of heather.
(And to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten)
Then she'll be a true love of mine.
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.
Remember me to one who lives there.
She once was a true love of mine.
I turn to leave.
There is something stinging in the corners of my eyes. I know it is not the rain.
Weaving through the pureness of abstraction, I catch the ghost image of his face, slipping away into the fragmentary mass of my thoughts.
Somewhere, a flower petal falls and lands on a pond of water, forming transparent ripples across the surface.
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A/N: The lyrics belong to Simon and Garfunkel.
"Real sharp of you to notice, ten points to Gryffindor for a rare display of brain waves"- belongs to Rhysenn, and I borrowed it without permission (bad SgF!). Read her Irresistible Poison, it's more worth your time anyway.
So, uh, reviews anyone?