...
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, PUT YOUR HANDS TOGETHER FOR
THE WONDROUS, THE MIRACULOUS, THE MARVELLOUS MR SCABIOR!"
...
Victorian London, mid 19th century. Marcellus Schabeor has fallen on tough times. Gambling, drinking and some frankly idiotic speculative ventures have all but depleted his fortune, and there's a few other reasons to lay low for a while. He's set himself up as The Marvellous Mr Scabior, an "illusionist", entertaining half-cut muggles in a Broad Street dive revue in Soho.
He's living the life of a dissipated slob. He's bored, he's skint, and the punters aren't exactly battering down the doors.
What he needs is a whatchamacallit. One of those frothy-girly-magician-helpers. An assistant. He needs an assistant.
I.
"NEXT!"
Scabior's head is getting all lurchy and spinny. He wants to go to sleep. He's too old for this. He's too drunk. ...No, no, hang on. He isn't drunk enough.
He pours himself another gin.
One young lady shuffles tearfully off stage, the next shuffles nervously on. They all look the same – either young and terrified, or old and defeated – all of them so abysmally desperate... Hades hang it, it's just so tedious...
...Well, at least this one has a pretty face.
She's dressed like a – what on earth is she dressed as? A shepherdess in déshabillé? … Nice legs, though... not particularly shapely, but slim and taught... Damnation, what's wrong with him? She'd do. Any of them would do.
"YOU'RE HIRED!" His voice reverberates around the empty theatre, more ferociously than he'd intended. The girl looks startled. Then … resentful?
"I haven't even done my routine yet."
Has he heard her right? "...The hell? - Do you want the sodding job or not?"
"Well. Yes. But."
He actually can't believe he's having this conversation. "...But..."
"...I ...I want to earn it."
He's too cut to argue with her. He waves his hand at her resignedly, unspecifically. Go on then. Bugger off then. Whatever.
She takes it to mean, "Go on then," and hurries over to wake up the pianist.
Scabior puts his head on his desk and waits until the music finishes, six, seven minutes. He can't quite snooze: his brain spins whenever he closes his eyes. But he can have a sort-of open-eyed nap.
When he finally peers up, the girl is triumphantly posing with a bunny.
With a blasted bunny.
"Well?" she says hopefully, shading her eyes with one hand, trying to see him through the blinding stage lights. "What did you think?"
"That was... incredible," he says, never too drunk for sarcasm.
"Really?" She's clutching her hands together like an excited little girl.
"No."
He loves seeing her face fall. The heavy stage-makeup emphasises her tragi-comedic, crumpled expression, straight out of a Harliquinade. Really he has quite a mean streak. "You're still hired, though," he adds.
She looks so adorably pathetic, he has a sudden impulse to Imperio her over to him and give her a good, hard rogering on the desk...
But. He's too. Damned. Sauced.
II.
He doesn't remember signing anything, but she's flapping the paper in his face. "You hired me, remember? You said to meet me here tomorrow at one. That's today, now."
His hangover is awful. Awful, but not worse than usual.
He's made a big mistake.
The girl is going to be a royal pain in the arse, he can see that now. She's got one of those pointy, stubborn chins. And her eyes are all big and swimmy. A crier. And a harpy. The hell was he thinking?
"Listen, sweeting, I'm revising my decision. You're not quite what I was looking for. At all."
As he expected, her little chin juts out, her brows rush together. "You can't fire me! We have a contract!" And she waves the paper right at him again.
"Oh for fu- get that out of my face." He snatches it off her; has a quick peruse.
It's true, it does say he's hired her, or at least someone called Ms Hermia Grosvenor, for a period not less than a quarter annum. And that is his signature – well, his fake signature. Well, what passes for his fake signature, when he's too swacked to hold a pen properly.
He screws up the contract and throws it over his shoulder. "Null and void," he says.
The girl scrambles for the ball of paper. Her swimmy eyes have just spilled over. Ugh, he knew it. A crier.
"You can't do that!" Her voice is a hiss and a sob mixed together. "You have a legal obligation to take me on board now! Don't think you c-can just f-fob me off, because I won't stand for it, I tell you! I won't, I won't! – I'll go to the authorities!"
He can't suppress his grin. She really thinks she's got the upper hand. If she only knew how NOT in control she was.
She's even prettier when she's all huffy and damp like this. Quite appealing really. The audience would take to her, undoubtedly. Especially the lecherous old bastards. And the lecherous young bastards. He wonders which category he falls into. Lecherous somewhere-in-between bastard?
And if he remembers aright, she did do an appalling bunny routine for him. That has to count for something.
"Alright, alright, calm your booties, sweeting." He's closing in on her, he can't help himself. He just wants to see her look all doe-eyed for a moment. Ah, yes, there it is.
"W-what are you doing?" She's screwing her little face up and trembling like a... bunny. Ha ha.
He restrains himself from actually touching her. "Just... inspecting what I've bought."
That's done it. Now she's a tiny tornado of offended dignity. "You have NOT bought me. WE HAVE A CONTRACT!"
He backs off, because she's shrill, and his head is pounding. "For the love of all that's holy, shut the hell up." He wouldn't usually swear at ladies, but she's his paid subordinate after all. And she looks so easily shocked, he can't help winding her up.
He's beginning to think he might actually enjoy this, after all.
III.
"Essentially you're a just another one of my props. But with legs." That was his basic overview of the job description. "Just do what I tell you, and don't get in my way or I might kill you."
Her eyes go all huge. "You c-could really accidentally kill me?"
"Hm. Well, yes, I could do it accidentally too, I suppose."
She glares suspiciously at him, but she doesn't reply.
He's gone over everything with her once, and only once, because he can't be arsed rehearsing all day. And it isn't exactly like his "tricks" are going to fail for want of practice.
She'll do.
Actually, she's perfect.
A prop with taught legs and tender eyes. They'll love her.
"Mr... Mr Scabior?"
Oh, here goes. She wants something, she's looking all hopeful and daunted. "Yes... ah, Helena?"
"Herm-."
"I meant Hermione."
"...Hermia."
He gives her a look. "Yeeees?"
She's actually shaking. "Umm, I just wondered if... you thought... I might be... be allowed to... to be able to..." – she gulps, then in a rush of tumbling words – "to-be-able-to-do-my-rabbit-and-milk-bucket-routine-just-as-a-little-break-between-your-acts."
He gives her another look.
"No..." she interprets his look aloud, "...no, probably not." He raises an eyebrow. "Definitely not," she amends.
She's such a poppet, really.
He watches her swallow down her disappointment. He's getting that ravishy feeling again. It's been a while… And he could always Obliviate her afterwards... No. Not a good way to start a working relationship. He has to try and keep business and pleasure separate. For now.
Plus he's not sure he could really do it. She would probably just cry, which would obviously spoil everything. He hates it when women blubber.
And his wife would never approve. Better he lies with a doxy witch than a filthy muggle: that was her mantra. He wonders what she's up to at the moment. Probably in bed. With Lafayette Malfoy no doubt.
IV.
He lets her do the bunny routine, because it's just so pricelessly absurd. Not that she realises it. She thinks she's really spell-binding. He chuckles. Spell-binding.
It goes something like this: she trots onto stage in a frothy shepherdess costume looking perplexed, evidently searching for a lost sheep. After muddling around with a pale of milk (Merlin knows why), she happens upon a handkerchief. She does an enchanting little caper with her crook and the handkerchief. The end of which culminates in a bunny (hidden all the while amongst her abundance of crinoline frills) miraculously appearing out of the latter.
It makes no sense. It's utterly inane.
And they love it – well, they love her. She's so delightfully gauche, like a skittish colt, all languishing eyes and fragile limbs.
By the end of the week, the house is twice as full as it was at the beginning. Which is not saying much, since at the beginning he could count the patrons on one hands. But he can see she's going to be a hit.
He should have thought of this a long time ago.
Mind you, it's not all plain sailing. The first night she dropped his top-hat no fewer than seven times. He's pretty sure that isn't normal, even by clumsy muggle standards. And he nearly cut her in half when she suddenly moved in the middle of a Diffindo spell.
But on the whole, he thinks it could work out pretty nicely. He'll get the costume lady to shorten her hem another inch, that should bring a few more punters.
If only he didn't have to pay her. He's not sure he actually can. He's six months behind in the rent as it is, not to mention the bill outstanding for his share in the theatre hire. And then there's the small matter to settle with Chadsgar Goyle. He's getting sick of having to Obliviate the bastard every time he bumps into him. It's not an easy spell to perform when you're boiled as an owl.
Well. She could just wait like the rest of them.
V.
"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU GOT MY NAME WRONG ON THE BILL."
She's caught him at a vulnerable moment.
He only woke up an hour ago, and he's at that delicate time between still-steaming and hung-over. "Go away, wretched girl," he tries to say. He staggers over to the cabinet. This is no moment for courageous abstinence. This is a moment for brandy. Brandy will certainly help.
But she's not having it. "Don't you DARE start drinking!" she yells – yes, actually yells – at him. "You already stink like a brewery!"
She grabs him by the elbow and tugs him through the double doors and into the theatre foyer, over to a large free-standing Bill-Board.
He thought it was a very good Bill. The artist has really captured his blue eyes, made them mesmeric and unfathomable, omitting the blood-shotting altogether. And he looks at least five years younger.
She stabs her finger angrily at the small name at the bottom of the board. He stoops over and peers closely at it. "That's the correct way to spell Hermione, isn't it?" he says.
"MY NAME IS NOT HERMIONE. IT IS HERMIA. H – E – R – M – I – A. HERMIA"
Ah. Well, how was he supposed to remember that? "We'll change it," he mumbles.
Her expression goes all soft. "Really? You'll change the Bill for me?"
He straightens up, stares down at her with incredulity. "Are you mad?" he says. "Do you know how much that would cost? No, I meant we'll change your name. Hermione is a far better name than Helena."
"Hermia."
"Exactly. It's longer. And it's much more... memorable."
VI.
The girl has started pestering him to show her some "moves." Apparently she really wants to be a magician. The irony of the situation is not lost on him. A muggle asking a wizard (who is pretending to be a muggle pretending to be a wizard) to show her how to do magic. Hum.
She's nothing if not persistent.
But he just shouts at her, or leers at her, and she backs right off. She's fairly terrified of him. Not as much as he'd like though. After all, she does keep on trying.
And she's been showing a rather alarming interest in his wand, considering she's supposed to believe it's just another prop. He's already caught her once, when she thought he'd passed out, reaching into his cloak. He grins wolfishly, remembering her frightened gasps when - his eyes still firmly shut - he caught her by the wrist and pried the little clenched fingers from around the half-extracted baton of wood, then groped her bosom for good measure. Next time, he'll give her something to really gasp about.
On top of it all, he's starting to suspect she's not quite as hare-brained as he first thought.
She's already been through his accounts. She took it quite well really, when she realised there was not a chance in Hades that he was going to be paying her for at least eight weeks. "I've got a little money saved," she said. "But once it's gone, it's gone, so you'll have to pay me eventually." It seems she's really serious about a career on the stage.
Then she started writing out a list of suggested retrenchments. Which he immediately Incendio'd.
She got the message.
One cut-back he can make is on rent. He's had an epiphany about it. He's discovered a broom closet in the theatre that would do nicely for rooms, with a bit of magical modification. No more rent to pay. No more walking to work. He can just wake up, fall out of bed, do the revue, fall back into bed. It's perfect. The theatre owners need never know.
He Imperiuses his landlady to help him move his stuff, then Obliviates her memory. She was a grumpy old sow anyway, always harping on about his arrears, and trying to set him up with one or other of her intolerably ugly daughters. He may have low standards. But they're still standards.
The girl arrives an hour early for rehearsals, just as he finishes putting the final touches on his newly furbished, charm-extended chamber. He enjoys a tingle of satisfaction, knowing that only a thin wall separates them from the intimacy of a large brass-framed feather bed.
But it seems that something is amiss.
Her eyes are red-rimmed and her mouth all wobbly. She's got a large, bulging carpet-bag with her, which she tries to hurl dramatically away, but which just kind-of drops to the floor with a dull thud.
"I've been turned out!" she gasps. "Cast upon the winds of fate! Thrown upon the mercy of the cruel world!" Then she wails out: "I'VE GOT NO-WHERE TO GO-O-O-O..." And, catching him entirely off-guard, she hurls herself at him and buries her head in his chest, sobbing loudly.
Well, this is a rather charming coincidence, Scabior thinks.
He aims for a brotherly murmur of concern, but it's hard to disguise the gleefulness in his voice. "What happened, my pet?" He can't help peppering her hot, wet cheek with kisses.
"M-M-Mrs Durselley said she wasn't going to permit an actress to drag down her establishment into the mires of ill-repute. I – I – I shall perish on the streets, like... like an orphan birdling blown from the nest in a storm!"
"Shhhhh, my pet," he says, not so much to console her, as to simply shut her up. She doesn't half go on.
He keeps on kissing her delightfully-flushed, tender-morsel cheeks. "Shhhh," - kiss - "you won't perish," - kiss - "I promise" - kiss, kiss, kiss.
She looks up into his eyes, and he's suddenly reminded of hunting season at Lafayette's. Doe-eyes never peeped out so timidly from a dappled thicket, as hers peeped up at him now. "Do you mean it?" she whispers softly. "You really p-promise?"
- Kiss - "Of course I do, pet," - kiss - "trust me," - kiss - "you just trust Marvellous" - kiss - "Mr" - kiss - "Scabior."
She throws her arms around his neck and gives him a strangling, triumphant, not-very-timid-after-all hug. "Oh thank you Mr Scabior," she cries.
Then she lets him go and grabs her carpet bag, her little stubborn chin jutting out, her mouth no longer wobbling in the slightest.
"So, where do I sleep?" she says briskly, pushing past him to trip-trap into his shiny new bedroom. "Oh, this is nice," he hears her muffled voice from inside.
Scabior's eyes narrow.
He's always rather enjoyed a game of cat and mouse.
But all of a sudden, he's not quite so sure he knows who's who.
...
FINI.
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