Disclaimer: I don't own any of it! Except the plot and all the rambling, oddly constructed sentences.
()()()()()
Thick folds of silvery-grey mist crept across the sky; the increasingly chilly air washed over her and she twitched a little.
It didn't matter.
She rolled onto her side and groggily opened her eyes to see the long, surreally blue-green blades of grass encircling her, framing her view of the afternoon sky.
Her cottage was in the distance; warm, homey, and pleasant enough...although it would probably have been more pleasing to her had not all that had happened during these long months of summer occurred.
She rolled onto her back.
The burnished-gold rays of the waning sun seemed to melt right into her.
She was soon lulled back into a deep slumber.
()()()()()
Standing only a few metres from the tumbling old Catalonian villa, sequestered behind a crop of decaying rose bushes, someone was watching Angelina's unconscious form silently.
The scowling young man, slouching slightly with his hands in his pockets, turned his penetrating gaze from the sleeping woman to the old house. He grimaced at the small, squarish, marmalade-colored structure with its bleached terra cotta roof.
How could she live in such a place?
Montague Manor was, of course, far more accommodating and yet somehow not enough without her living there.
Had she seen him, she would've noticed that he was a sight thinner and sallower after their last heated exchange.
She had meant to leave him, of course. He didn't try to delude himself that she was here for any other reason. And he let her believe she succeeded, however, if only out of grave concern for her mental and emotional stability. He could appreciate what she'd been through. Perhaps their...relationship did in fact need to put on temporary hold.
He was willing to compromise to some extent. She had, over time, forced him to become this way. But he still knew where she was, still had taken the liberty of casting about two dozen protection spells within a 100-yard radius of the house, including an invisible barrier which would prevent her from her wandering off into trouble, and more importantly, out of his reach.
And he needed her within his reach, even if they couldn't speak.
She shifted again, and her eyes fluttered open. She thought for a moment that the wind hummed like a Brandenburg concerto. He had often liked to play the Brandenburg concertos. And, playing with such solemn grace, she had always thought he was trying to communicate through the music. Maybe the message wasn't expressly for her, or for anyone else at all, but it was certainly something he could not and would not express with words.
She wondered where he was and what he was doing. If he was thinking of her, cursing her, missing her, or just remembering what had been...what had been.
Her head fell back into the grass.
She was tired. And thirsty. Why didn't she go back inside for some tea?
He had always kept the tea brewing- hot, but never excessively so, the taste somewhere between sweet honeysuckle, mint, and chamomile. After much effort, she had never managed to make anything so satisfying, and he refused to share his secret. She visualised him, reading in the study of his dank, old Edwardian manor, pausing to reach for a cuppa.
She wondered if he still made the whole pot, if he still carried a service with crumpets on those exquisitely engraved silver trays. Was someone else there with him, sipping it precipitously and reading one of her novels?
He would be twenty-seven next week. Despite this, she knew his womanising days were behind him. Women bored him far too quickly. Even at Hogwarts, he was never as an enthusiastic playboy as Malfoy or Zambini, both of whom easily outshone him. He was very choosy about the times he would use that deadly Slytherin charm, although when he did, he got just about anything he wanted. Even though it seemed entirely possible that he was made of ice and plaster rather skin and bone, he could, at will, completely immobilise someone with his intent stare, and proceed to comfort and caress them in precisely the way they had always longed for. Speaking ever so tenderly, in that deliciously low, gravelly voice of his, he could convince anyone of his sincerity.
But most of the time he was just a bastard.
Perhaps he lived alone now, content to pamper himself and enjoy his own company. Who else did he believe genuinely deserved such a privilege anyway?
The git, she thought, smiling bitterly.
Smoothing out the creases in the lap of her long summer dress, Angelina rose and began walking.
It was getting much too cold now.
()()()()()