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"I stayed here for a while," she started slowly. "I hardly had a room."
His eyelashes flickered for a moment but he did not cast his gaze down at her relatively meaningless comment. She kept a room in his house, did she?
"What does it matter? The room you stay in, the room which belongs to you is your room. Are you ready only to return to the case or life in general, yet?"
There he was again, taunting her immaturity.
"I came here because you threatened me. You already knew that."
"Yes, that's what I'm always forced to do to get you to do anything, isn't it Angelina?"
At this she rolled her eyes, and tossed her head back slightly, her hands burrowed deep in the coat's pockets. It was impossible to get comfortable in this conversation.
He smiled winsomely at this and stared at her, long and hard, all fidgety and twisting to and fro against the confines of his trenchcoat. The coat she hadn't known he had given to her.
"Harry's said there are two more deaths linked with the case. I was just going over the case files for the first time when you...stopped in."
His hands remained calmly folded in his lap, and his expression was unreadable.
A smile curving lazily at the corners of his elegant lips, he enunciated smoothly, "I wouldn't take it to personally if I were you, dearest, considering Potter knows full well none of your devastatingly brave Gryff colleagues would touch this case with a ten-foot-pole after you and Weasley cracked up."
Not trusting her ears and sure she was being set up for an ego-crushing fall, Angelina pursed her lips and reached for one of the still visibly steaming cups of tea on the table opposite to her.
"I venture to say I'm still racking my brain for the reason they wouldn't assign anyone else in my place," she murmured softly. "I'm just trying to keep my head above water, here, all right."
"That's not good enough this time, Johnson. And it's true, nothing you do is ever good enough. Get used to it. You're too sensitive and you've wasted enough of my time as it is."
"Well, that's such a tremendous vote of confidence I'm already worrying about my ability to justify it," she began snidely. "Believe me, there's nothing I want more than to be out of your hair and minding my own business. Or don't you have some young hussy waiting in the winds to attend to?"
He smiled ever more broadly at this. So she had heard, at least. George had probably told her that he'd entertained a certain young Slovenian witch from Pansy Parkinson's modelling agency while she'd been away. She was a fairly recognizable face, and had appeared in many notable campaigns, including one for the Weasleys' joke shop only a few months earlier.
"What's that got to do with anything, Angelina?"
It was a trick. Of course it was. He wanted to probe the depths of her jealousy for his own perverse satisfaction, get at how much she knew before having the time of his life torturing her with it.
"Get to the point, Graham, or I'm walking out of here now."
"You're not going anywhere without my say so, Johnson. Potter's orders, or did he neglect to share that juicy tidbit with you during your almost certainly tearful reunion?"
Angelina tried desperately not to let her expression betray her shock. Harry had something to do with Montague staying on her case? He was the one keeping her here? No, not Harry.
"It just so happens I couldn't care less whose say so it is. Get to the point, or I'm leaving."
Montague stood up at these words, his lean frame straightening sleekly, and a mocking smirk spread slowly across his face.
"As a matter of fact, I should be getting ready retrieve Natalija later this evening," he purred, his voice oiled to perfection. "I just wanted to make clear to you that you have precisely three weeks to clear this business with Potter's unit or I'm putting your case up as intractable."
"WHAT? How the bloody hell are you empowered to judge me as intractable? I've returned to the Ministry! Harry let you do this?"
"Potter had no choice, so go easy on the poor sod when you storm into his office tomorrow morning. You'd already met the criteria for dereliction of duty before I'd come to your little Spanish hideaway that night to knock some sense into you. Potter had the option of asking for your reassignment to another Unspeakable, however, and he chose not to."
Angelina backed away from him slowly, watching his eyes shine with delight at her terror. She wanted some corner to cower away into already. Harry, Harry, how could you?
"Three weeks," she croaked, her voice hoarse with panic. "You're going to give me just three weeks."
"Three weeks, Angelina. And I was about to generously offer you your room back, should you want it, instead that of that hole in northcenter London you fancy calling home. But, judging by the standards of your last residence, I suppose your tastes just naturally run along in that vein."
Why was he doing this? Why was he being allowed to do this? Why was she always just barely dangling by a thread that he was waiting to snip away?
She no longer deluded herself that he might just be obsessed with her. No, this game they played was different. Montague was a man of leisure, and he only played gentlemen's games. He was doing this out of boredom and disillusionment with his lot in life. They had always shared that. She should have been happy with Fred, he was supposed to have Malfoy's drive and ambition, and instead they had grown up to be themselves, in spite of the expectations that had been built up for them. Instead, they floated out between the vestiges of the people they were in school and some amorphous thing they had to look to as the future. Montague, however, had never tired of plucking at her confidence where it hurt the most. Whether she was shit at quidditch or a rubbish lay, or, just inches from death, he took the same perverse delight in telling her.
At last she managed, "For fuck's sake then, what is it that you want me to do?"
"Move back in, Johnson, if only so I can keep an eye on your more self-destructive tendencies. As you yourself have suggested, get this case out of my expertly coiffured mane. Then I'll leave you alone. If that's what you really want, of course. "
She meditated on this for a moment, closing her eyes and attempting a deep breath in. Living with Montague was decidedly easier, in some ways. She hadn't yet mastered the finer points of living on her own, keeping the place clean, the bills paid on time, and so on. Montague had taken care of all of these things during their last stint together without so much as nagging her about it once. It seemed that all he asked was that she be there, accounted for and able to put up with his unending harassment as he saw fit. If there was some casual intercourse here and there to further inflate his ego, was it really so bad? She was a woman, was she not? The last six month long dry spell she'd experienced had taken its toll. Montague was not so repugnant as her conscience wanted her to believe, she knew. If she lived with him for a time, letting him handle the practicalities of resettling her life, what did she have to lose?
"Well, Angelina, one would almost think you're deep in thought, for once. Are you starting to see the wisdom of my proposal?"
She rolled her eyes and looked around the spacious parlour again; neglecting to respond. Could she really live here again? Could she stand the constant condescension and perhaps even the late-night romps that left her feeling so empty and void in the morning? What of this other girl? Could she continue to control what she considered to be her well-concealed jealousy long enough to get what needed to be done, done?
"If I do agree to live with you again, Graham, you will need to submit to a blood oath swearing not to enter my mind, ever again."
At this, he paled, taken well off-guard. He had been scissoring his long, elegant fingers together in impatient anticipation of her response, and suddenly stilled then. If he hadn't just barely remembered himself, he would have let his eyebrows raise and his mouth form a prim "O". She would try to have him swear a blood oath? He had entered her mind though legilmency just as he wold for anyone he consented to live alongside - for his protection as well as her. He had made no secret to her of having entered her mind; he did everything from having her meals prepared as he knew she would like them to directing their romantic interludes along the lines of things he'd seen in her mind. He knew these sorts of things unnerved her and yet he'd hoped she was sensisble enough to see the benefits.
"Every Montague in my bloodline has practised legilmency on those who enter their dwellings, Angelina. Tonight you allowed me to see that you did not want to discuss our living together, and just how afraid you are of being deemed intractable. I'm sure you guessed I knew all of this already yet I know you possess the tools to block my efforts. What other secrets are there that you would expect to keep whilst laying by my side at night?" he asked, his already deep voice taking on a darker dimension.
Angelina's brow furrowed and she closed her eyes again. I'm not hiding anything, Graham. That's not the point.
"My mind is my own, Montague. Despite knowing what you would do with the information, I'm not your plaything, or some puzzle you can piece through to pass the time. You practically have my life on file back at the Ministry. What you can find is not the point. The point is, I draw the line at giving over my mind to you. It's not yours, it's mine. I left you the last time, in part because I wanted to belong entirely to myself again. You've always thought you could control me by reminding me how hopeless and pathetic I already feel, but that's never been more than a dim reflection of how little I cared for my life in the first place. I care now, Graham, and I won't let you take that away from me."
Knuckles turning white from the clenched fists he was making in his lap, he looked to her with a venomous look flashing in his eyes.
"You know I can't let you live here without the benefit of entering your mind, Angelina," his voice betraying a dangerous edge. "And you'd do well to examine the likelihood of my letting you run around London just as you like, when previous to you I had perfect record of setting Aurors back on track. I won't make an exception for you."
"Then it appears we have nothing more to discuss," she said grimly, clutching her coat tighter around her waist and turning to enter the main hall.
"Angelina! You're not finished with this conversation," he called after her retreating figure. "You can expect to see me in your office tomorrow morning to finish it!"
Standing at the doorway, her gaze wandered to the luxurious garden at her feet, delicate petals being pelted by raindrops, and slowly up to the impressive Gallic façade being blurred by the storm. Such a lovely home, she thought, in spite of the brutal restrictions set up upon all who would live there. She could still see the light emanating from the room where she had sat with him. As she again glimpsed the enormous manor through a backward glance over her shoulder, wondering about the man inside, she could see little but darkness and rain.
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