The music was thrumming around them, so loud he could feel it, pulsing in his muscles and bones. The club was smoky and dim, lights kept low for anonymity's sake, although with the fire whiskey flowing and the subtle charms cast to keep everyone's mood light and otherwise engaged, preserving their own identities were hardly at the fore front of the club goers' minds. Everywhere he looked there were bodies. Some were crushed together, in what amounted to fully-clothed sex, others were writhing to the hideous screechings of the band that was playing on the stage. At the very front of the club, the main attraction, was the performance stage. Currently, three girls were suspended in the air, doing breathtaking aerial tricks.
Stark naked, of course.
The air was heavy with cigar smoke, expensive, over-powering perfumes, and the stench of desperation that always seemed cling to gentleman's clubs, no matter how posh they tried to be. Honestly, he didn't see what Blaise saw in this place anyway. It gave Draco a tremendous headache, and wasn't the point of going out with mates to forget about your problems, and relax?
"Excuse me, sweetheart!" his suave friend called to a girl. She didn't look an honest day over seventeen, but was wearing more makeup than he was sure his mother had worn collectively in her lifetime.
"What can I do for yous fellas?" she asked, sickeningly coy, popping chewing gum and shimmying herself in what he supposed was supposed to be an inviting fashion. The pearl strands that were all she was clothed in rattled, precariously close to revealing what little they managed to cover.
"Two fire whiskeys, please. Best you've got in the house," Blaise replied, quirking a brow. He removed a velvet bag from an inner pocket of his robes, and shook it lightly. The tiny shrew's eyes lit up at the clinking of coins, and she sashayed to the bar, pearls swaying.
Blaise watched every stilettoed step, practically salivating.
"You do realize she's probably the same age as your sister?" Draco asked dryly.
His friend glanced over at him. "Now, now. Plenty of Mariana's friends are of age. Or at the very least, they're coming of age." He smirked, and Draco suppressed the urge to roll his eyes.
"You're disgusting, Zabini."
"You wound me, friend. Now lighten up. We're surrounded by some of the most beautiful working witches in London!" he clapped Draco on the back, taking the drinks the witch presented to them, fawning over the galleons Blaise pushed her way. He led them to two plush armchairs, close to the stage and mercifully farther away from the band doing a very convincing impression of a banshee.
"I don't need to hire a girl if I want to get laid, Zabini. I'm perfectly capable of finding girls that are less likely to be crawling with disease. For free." Although he had to admit, to himself at least, the lovely blond doing spread eagles fifty feet off the floor was a notch more interesting than his last date.
"Well then if it makes you feel better, consider us here on business. Manchester has me here scoping out a girl. Some witch that's been creating a buzz. Says he's been hearing she's got the best voice in wizarding London."
Blaise Zabini was one of the few who had managed to come out of the war well and truly neutral. Martina Aguillon, his mother, had kept her family out of the reaches of the Dark Lord and his slew of followers, spiriting them away to Paris, the family flourishing from her modeling career, as well as her fruitful, if tragic (and suspicious) string of marriages. Even now, into her fifties, she was highly sought after, flirting her way through all the eligible, age appropriate men in Europe. And a few of their sons.
Draco wisely kept his distance from her when his mother had her round for tea.
Blaise had managed, through a few of his mother's connections, to begin working as a liaison for a wizarding talent agency. Witch Weekly featured him annually in their Most Eligible Wizards article, just last year as number three, a charming spread featuring his darling sister Mariana and his equally precious chateau in the French countryside.
A waifish redhead wandered over, a fox fur adorning her shoulders, the rest of her tawny body bare. "Evening, Mr. Zabini. Care for your usual company?" she demurred, sliding easily into his lap.
"Just, work, eh?" Draco asked, brow raising.
"A man must know his clientele, isn't that right Manila?"
"You want someone for your friend? Maybe Ari?" she asked, her voice grating. Draco was beginning to wonder if the club employed only impossibly young looking girls with ridiculously obnoxious voices.
"I'm fine, thanks." He interrupted, before Blaise could arrange for someone to sit on his lap. He nursed his drink, studying the suspended girls, interested in the mechanics of their maneuvers as much as he was in their lithe bodies.
The banshee wailing seemed to be at an end, many of the people previously dancing arranging themselves on the plush settees and lounges, some engaging in uncomfortably public displays. Zabini appeared to be in the latter camp. The lights seemed to brighten for a moment, and the aerial girls were lowered to the floor, unentangling themselves from the various swathes of fabric, bowing to their adoring audiences and collecting the different currencies tossed their way.
"Oh, hey love, hop off. It's business now." Blaise broke away from Manila, shooing her away from him unapologetically.
"Should have known. Seems like all the guys are here for her lately. Everybody else's suffering on their tips! It's a real shame!" she huffed, fox wrap askew. Blaise paid her no mind, shoved a couple of coins her way and ignoring her until she flounced off.
The stage was transforming itself, the brightly colored silks ascending into the ceiling. A massive crystal chandelier descended, a warm glow bathing the stage, now draped in rich red velvet curtains. He half expected a pole, or something similar to appear, but instead only a glossy, black piano emerged. Whoever had done the charm work was very good, the piano seeming to melt in from the air itself.
He snorted into his drink, pondering what sort of a man came to a strip club and admired the charm work done on the stage.
"Gentleman, welcome." A sultry voice poured over the audience. Everyone in the audience seemed to still, even the rowdier members. All attention was on the transformed stage, still empty.
"I thank you, again, for choosing to spend your evening here with us, at Heure de Minuit," the woman breathed, and Draco shifted in his seat a bit, feeling a bit warm suddenly. The voice was stirring, and lovely.
"I'm sure a great many of you have things...or wives…with which you could be otherwise engaged." A soft giggle came here, coquettish. A titter ran through the crowd.
"But, in any case, I'm most glad that you're here, especially to see me."
And suddenly, she was just there, on stage. No pop of apparition, no removal of an invisibility cloak. It was as if she had been there all along.
She was seated at the piano, back to the audience. And what a view it was. An elegant pile of curls atop her head, slender neck leading into a bare back, golden and glowing. At first he thought her naked, but he realized she was clothed in a backless gown, sparkling and emerald in color.
His innate house pride approved.
"I do so hope you enjoy tonight's performance. Of course, I do no gymnastics in the air, like Monique, Wren and Amelie. Nor can I dance as well as Georgina. And I'm quite a dreadful flirt, if we're being honest."
There were some chuckles from the audience, and a chorus of the girls clapped and laughed. Draco found it quite hard to imagine this mysterious seductress being bad at anything, at the moment. He was quite sure she could have convinced him he was a pygmy puff.
He turned to Blaise, wondering if he was just as curious. Blaise was writing furiously in a notebook, and Draco was in slight disbelief that there was a woman in their presence that he wasn't zeroed in on. Actually working, then.
"Who did you say this was, anyway?" he hissed at Blaise.
"No clue. Manchester didn't have a name for me."
"But, I've worked quite hard, practiced this piece for you all. So please, do let me know."
She fell silent. No one moved. No one breathed. Even Blaise's furious scribblings had ceased.
And then she began playing.
A few solitary notes at first. Then more. She slowly began painting a mourning, soulful sound, coaxing the notes from the beautiful instrument, elegant and unassuming in her grace and posture.
And then she began singing.
Draco couldn't tell anyone a single word she'd sang. He couldn't tell anyone what the song was about, or if he liked the lyrics, or if it was supposed to be sad or happy, or anything about it at all.
He could only tell a person that it was the single most beautiful sound he'd heard in his life. Smooth and low, sultry and rich, hauntingly, achingly perfect. It made him feel everything all at once.
And when it was over, it made him feel nothing, all at once.
She finished, many moments later, and the room was silent again. No one had wanted to break the stillness of her spell before she began, and the same was true now. She sat there still, back to the audience, the most beautiful girl he had ever beheld and he hadn't even seen her bloody face. Just when the silence seemed as though it would stretch forever, she began again. Something light and fast, and again the words were lost to him. This time he felt intense joy and excitement, such that he hadn't felt since his very first time riding a broom.
And so, this continued, for how long he was uncertain. Each song the enchantress crafted brought a new onslaught of emotion to him. Later, when he was alone in his flat, he would be extremely disconcerted at all the different feelings he'd felt in the pretentiously named strip club. However, these thoughts would only trouble him for a moment. For when the beautiful songstress had finished her act, fully clothed, not having exposed any part of herself to the audience, (excepting, of course, her soul), she would turn to address to her adoring crowd. And when she would turn to address her adoring crowd, he would recognize her instantly.
"Bloody hell." Blaise breathed, at the same time both of Draco's eyebrows rose.
"It's Granger."