Twenty-One
The remainder of their coffee date was tense. The waiter, who had previously refused to leave Hermione alone, avoided their table - probably due to their twin glares. She stared down at her cappucino, blowing on the delicate milk foam art until it was a smeared mess. Jude downed his espresso shot in a single swallow and, afterwards, cupped his hand around the glass like a vise.
Silence pooled, heavy and bitter, between them.
"This is ridiculous," he said, and she looked up, startled, as he gestured between them. "I'm not going to let your git of a friend-"
"Jude!"
"-Git of a friend," he repeated impatiently, "ruin this."
"You had a fair role in that," she pointed out, but still she listened. Despite herself, hope bloomed deep in her chest; was he going to apologise?
He let out another frustrated huff but didn't contradict her, which she took to be progress. "You obviously, for whatever reason, are extremely loyal to the man. I can accept that. What I can't accept, however, is this dull silence."
She eyed him, unimpressed. Was this supposed to be an apology?
His mouth was a flat line. He looked like he was struggling deeply with something, and his knuckles were white around his glass. She wondered, briefly, if it would shatter under his grip and whether she ought to remove it when -
"Fine," he spat. "Hermione, it was...imprudent to antagonise your friend."
He didn't, she noted, say 'I'm sorry,' but it was close as Jude was going to get to admitting guilt. "Imprudent?" she repeated.
He looked genuinely pained, like she was forcing him to swallow several knives and a lit flame to boot. "Wrong," he amended through gritted teeth.
She considered it for a moment, and his glare intensified. "Alright," she said airily. "I forgive you." Then, she smiled, feeling the weight lift from her shoulders. He blinked. And, reluctantly, returned the gesture.
"Now," she said, reaching forward to rescue the poor glass from his clutches, "I have to say that I disagree completely with your latest paper."
He scoffed, but his eyes glinted at the challenge. "What is there to disagree with? I have pages and pages of textual evidence to support my claims."
And so it began, the two of them leaning towards each other as they settled into the familiar rhythm. But something had changed, and she wasn't sure whether whatever it was that was now unveiled between them could be hidden again.
When they'd paid the bill and their cups had been emptied of every last drop of caffeine, they stood to leave. Hermione looked at her watch; it was late, later than she'd thought, and she threw Jude an accusatory glance.
"What is your ire now?" he asked.
"Admit it - you have some control over time, don't you? The afternoon is gone, and I have a deadline to meet!"
To her surprise, however, he didn't respond, didn't continue their game of testing barbs. His gaze was snagged on something to her right, and she made to turn -
He grabbed her arm in a too-tight grip, and she made a sound of protest. "What-"
"Leave this way," he hissed, pushing her towards the low, temporary barrier between the café's table and the sidewalk. She bristled at the command.
"Jude, what in God's-"
"What a pretty picture!" came a high, rough voice, and she froze.
Jude's hand tightened around her forearm as Bellatrix approached them. The artist's dark eyes caught the movement, and her scarlet lips pressed into a thin, dangerous line. She turned abruptly to Hermione. "You're the crazy fangirl, no? The girl chasing after Riddle? Harriet, was it?"
Hermione ignored Jude's steadying hand. She didn't need him to be strong; she could look after herself, and, from her years fending off Pansy's barbed remarks, she knew how to deal with bullies. "Hermione, actually," she said, keeping her tone level.
Bellatrix kept looking at Jude. Her eyes were so full of emotion - desperation? Anger? They must know each other. There was no reason for the two of them to be looking at each other like that if they were strangers. Hermione swallowed, feeling self-doubt drag its frigid fingers down her spine. Bellatrix looked at Jude like she knew him, like she was the only one in the world who truly saw him. It was the possessive look of a lover.
The artist's eyes flicked towards her, and Bellatrix must have seen Hermione's hesitation for she smiled. She leaned back with all the gracefulness of a snake poised to strike and said, "Well, Harriet, I hope your search is fruitful. Who knows? Art is all around us - even in the most unexpected places."
Then, with one last undecipherable look at Jude, she was gone, brushing past the bewildered waiter.
"What a witch," Hermione said. It was a feeble attempt to lighten the mood and, glancing back at Jude, she saw that it was unsuccessful. His expression was thunderous, and she wondered again how they knew each other, wondered if Jude had ever wrapped his hands around Bellatrix's arm the way they were curled around hers, now.
He was still staring at the spot where she had stood. He looked utterly murderous, and she was unused to seeing him wear his emotions so openly. Hermione thought she could have proclaimed that she was pregnant with octuplets and he would not have reacted.
"Jude." When the man didn't respond, she twisted to face him fully and touched his cheek. His hand darted up automatically and closed around her wrist. "How do you know Bellatrix?"
His brows lowered. He blinked and, with it, all the tension in his face was gone. She hated how easily he did that - how easily he flashed a handsome smile. "You said she was the one who led you on that fool's quest," he reminded her. "The one that got you mugged."
Ah - that was right. She'd almost forgotten about that, which now seemed impossible - how could she have forgotten getting mugged? She'd been so passionate about finding Riddle, about unfurling the mystery of his early death and the deathly hallows, whatever those were. How easily those interests had faded over the past months. She'd been busy, she reminded herself. Her writing career was finally beginning to take form, a career that she was actually excited about rather than merely tolerating, and Jude -
Jude had been a wonderful, exciting complication. She wasn't ready to let him go; the very thought of it made her throat tighten with grief. Jude smiled at her, but the gesture was tight. False. He was still thinking about Bellatrix - she was, too.
"Jude," she began, but he pressed a kiss against the corner of her mouth. "I have to go," he said.
She frowned and, sensing the impending storm, Jude laughed. It was one of his rare, genuine laughs - she always knew when it was real because it sounded rougher, like the sound didn't quite fit in his mouth. "Hermione, I will see you tonight. For my demise."
He meant it as a joke, but the word still sent a thread of unease through her stomach. "Don't be dramatic," she snapped. "It's only dinner with Cho and Ginny; they're curious about you!"
He scowled. "I'm not an owl for them to marvel at. I am-"
"-a talented, infuriating man, yes," she said, and this time she smiled, pushing all thoughts of black-eyed artists and hauntingly beautiful paintings aside. What mattered was that this beautiful, entirely too clever man was here with her now, and she wrapped her arms around him, suddenly reluctant to let him go.
He stiffened, as he always did, before bringing his own arms around her waist. Although he'd never been overly reticent about his childhood, she suspected he must have had a sad upbringing to be so unused to physical contact that wasn't fuelled by anger or desire. "I do have to go," he said again, but this time there was a note of sadness threading through the syllables.
"I know," she said.
It was only after he'd left that she realised she'd asked him the wrong question - that she shouldn't have asked how he knew Bellatrix but rather how she had known him.
It was January when the end finally came. She'd thought to surprise him for their one-year anniversary - God, she remembered thinking, how quickly those months had flown - and she'd gone to his flat when she knew he'd still be in a meeting with his publisher. She'd let herself in with the key he didn't know she knew the location of (she'd watched him carefully after one particularly drunken night at a poetry slam) and had brought a cake she'd baked herself, decorated clumsily with fondant cut to resemble parchment, and a deep emerald jumper she'd knitted.
And she'd settled herself in to wait, in that empty, dark flat.
It all seemed so foolish, now.
Hermione's curiousity had gotten the best of her, as it always did, and, after twenty-two minutes of waiting, she'd begun to snoop. It wasn't a malicious investigation by any means; she was merely looking for something to do, and if that something entailed rummaging through kitchen drawers, then so be it. There hadn't been anything particularly incriminating in the kitchen; no hidden baby photos, no embarrassing letters.
So she moved on to the living room, which revealed only a healthy collection of books. She'd lingered at his wall-length bookshelves for an unknown amount of time, just running her hands back and forth over the leather spines. She'd relished the feel of the raised ridges, the curling text under her palms.
How lovely, she'd thought. How perfect.
How wrong.
She found it in the bedroom, a small, scrap of paper wedged behind a Plath collection. She'd puzzled at the book, suppressed a well of affection, for Jude disliked the poet but knew Hermione loved Plath. She'd stopped to read a poem; the book fell open at "Crossing the Water," a particularly bleak poem she'd always interpreted as depicting a duo's cross from light to dark, dark to light. It reminded her of a conversation she'd had with Jude, all those weeks ago in his car. He'd asked her about binaries, she remembered. About a world of black and white, good and evil. She'd wondered why he'd seemed so desperate to hear her answer.
She thought she might understand, now.
Black lake, black boat, two black, cut-paper people.
Where do the black trees go that drink here?
Their shadows must cover Canada.
A little light is filtering from the water flowers.
Their leaves do not wish us to hurry:
They are round and flat and full of dark advice.
Cold worlds shake from the oar.
The spirit of blackness is in us, it is in the fishes.
A snag is lifting a valedictory, pale hand;
Stars open among the lilies.
Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens?
This is the silence of astounded souls.
It was behind the book - the paper. The paper which, upon retrieval, curled under the weight of oil paint - and there was a woman peering out at her, a woman with a wild array of brown hair flowing like armor around a small, severe face with eyes that were somehow warm and scornful all at once - her eyes, she'd realised with a start.
And she'd been confused because this work, this breathtaking, beautiful creation, was surely Riddle's creation, for she'd recognise those sharp, almost angry strokes of paint anywhere. But this was a painting of her face and it was in Jude's nightstand and -
And the pieces became clear. His odd behaviour at the Riddle gallery, his reluctance to enter Hogwarts, and, God, even his anger when he'd seen her on that train to Little Hangleton. She should have seen the pieces sooner, but she'd been content in her knowledge that dead was dead, and dead men could not walk or talk or kiss-
But Bellatrix had told her, hadn't she?
Art is all around us - even in the most unexpected places.
Jude was Riddle, and Hermione was a fool.
Author Note: thanks so much for reading! Thanks so much to curiousluna, leonix2009, NatTheOne, luxsolis, irisperson415 for reviewing. please consider dropping a comment - they honestly make my day, and all reviewers will get a teaser of the next chapter ;) Italicized poem is "Crossing the Water"