The Eye Of The Gazer

Chapter 29

Cho sat in one of the armchairs in the well appointed bedroom she and Lucius were sharing at the Château Delacour. It was the lull in between the wedding banquet and the evening party. Many friends of both the bride and groom who had not been invited to the wedding itself would come to the château for the dance, while some of the older wedding guests had already departed after a tiring day. Now was a chance for everyone attending both parts of the day to relax a little: take a nap, read, sit quietly on a garden seat and admire the grounds, ask the house elves for a cool refreshing drink or a calming tisane; or make love.

Cho's head was resting on the back of the chair, and she was gazing out of the window at the spacious park surrounding the château. Lucius, in shirt sleeves, his cravat discarded and Narcissa safely put away in the adjoining dressing room, approached Cho from behind, and slid his arms over her shoulders, cupping a silky breast in each hand. Cho looked up, giving him an upside-down smile. He bent over and kissed her, but although she responded to him, he felt she was holding something back. When their lips parted, Lucius looked at Cho carefully. It was too difficult to read her expression from this angle, so he removed his hands, and walked around Cho so that he was facing her. Lucius stood, arms folded, his back to the window, and examined his consort's face minutely.

"There is something wrong," he said. It was not a question. Cho did not reply. "Tell me," he commanded. She still remained silent, but a small sigh escaped from her. "Cho, I can't help you if you refuse to speak to me. Was it the Bitch Witches? I told you, Narcissa dealt with them. Nobody cares what they think."

Cho raised her dark eyes to his. "I wish that were true, Lucius. You know that there are always people willing to listen to women like them."

"Cho, why do you care? We both have enough money not to bother about public opinion. You refused to marry me when I asked you many years ago, yet we lived together openly. Cho's Chic is a successful business. Your couture is so popular that you have customers queuing for your services."

"Lucius, haven't we forgotten someone? What about Jane?"

"Jane?" Lucius looked searchingly at Cho. "What do you mean? Are you beginning to regret your offer to her? I warned you that we could be shunned by polite society. You insisted that the Chinese managed these matters in a more practical way. I wanted to gave you time to reconsider. You told me to ask Jane immediately. You have had months to become accustomed to the idea. Now we are almost on the eve of finally carrying through what we planned, and you are the one having second thoughts?

" 'What about Jane?' indeed! How do you think she will feel if you tell her you have changed your mind? And," he added cruelly, "Are you so sure that if I have to choose only one of you, it will still be you?"

Lucius was feeling angry. He knew Cho's idea had been a daring suggestion, but he had believed she was sincere. Jane had been so uncertain. She had wavered for months; one moment hardly able to believe her luck, that she could actually belong to Lucius Malfoy, and the next moment saying no, she must leave, the whole suggestion was so unconventional, she was sorry she was not braver, but she felt uncomfortable at the idea. Even after speaking to Cho on the matter, and being reassured that it was what Cho really wanted, Jane had been unsure. Lucius had been the one, at Cho's urging, who had finally convinced her to accept the plan. But, said Jane, they must wait until after Draco and Gabrielle's wedding. She did not want any hint of a scandal to spoil their day.

The recently married couple had changed their plans some months ago, once they realised that Cho and Lucius were reconciled, for they had deduced that Cho would eventually return to Malfoy Manor. "An 'ouse cannot 'ave two mistresses," said Gabrielle firmly, little guessing the irony of her words. "Draco and I, we will not live at ze Manor, we will find an 'ouse of our own nearby. Also, maybe we will spend more time in France." Lucius had instead offered to build them a house of their own in the grounds. "There is, after all, plenty of space for more than one house on our land."

Now, at the furious expression on Lucius' face, Cho shrank from him slightly. When she spoke, it was obvious that she was keeping her voice steady with an effort. "Lucius, please believe me when I say that I am thinking of Jane now. I am sorry, I was foolish to propose such a plan without thinking it through. What you said just now – you said that you and I both have enough money not to care about public opinion. You are right. But Jane is poor. You know as well as I that reputation and a good name are much more important when a person is not rich; indeed they are often all that a poor person has. I have just been faced with a group of witches who criticised my morality. And how did Narcissa deal with them? By reminding them that the Changs are a very rich and influential family. She could not have said as much to defend Jane. It is lucky that Narcissa also knew that those five witches are in fact hypocrites who say one thing and do another. But not everyone who believes our morality is questionable will themselves be open to such criticism.

"Lucius, I think I must tell Jane what occurred here today, and let her decide."

Lucius Malfoy's eyes had clouded over. Any amorous thoughts he had been entertaining, following a day spent in the company of Veela, had been driven away by this conversation with Cho. His nostrils flared, and he stood unmoving before the window, dark against the bright afternoon, staring at her. His cold words cut through Cho like a knife:

"Cho, do you know what you have done? You have given false hope to a young and innocent girl. Jane is not a fool. She has spent months deciding whether to follow her heart or her head. At your behest, and against her better judgement, I finally persuaded her to follow her heart. Now you are planning to present Jane with this obstacle, and you will pretend it is a new thing, something you could not have foreseen. We all foresaw it, you included. Cho, look into your own heart. Those witches hurt you today. You claimed you would not care for public opinion, but when they spoke their minds in front of your face, you found you did care. You are using Jane as an excuse, using her pain to mask your own, and to mask your guilt at being the one of the three of us who instigated this idea. Now you want to be free of it all, but you are not even brave enough to admit this to me, much less to poor Jane. Cho, you are being dishonest, and I am sadly disappointed in you.

"When you tell Jane, you know she will leave. She will know that you have thought better of your plan; that although you might have believed for a fleeting moment that you were a traditional Chinese witch, in reality you are not your great grandmother, but you are a modern woman with the values of today.

"And you must be the one to tell her, because I will not. You have used me to bring Jane to your way of thinking. I love Jane, and I will not be the one who finally shatters her impossible dream."

Lucius then turned on his heel, and strode out of the room without a backward glance.


Three people, caught in a love triangle: which of them is the most unhappy?

Cho Chang has spoken to Jane Currer. She has realised that Lucius was right when he spoke those harsh words to her in France, ruining for her the rest of that already marred day. Cho has tried to be selfless and noble, believing that she could learn to share Lucius, for she knows that he genuinely loves Jane: thinking that such an arrangement was far more honest than his marriage to Narcissa, to whom he had never been faithful. But now she knows she was fooling herself; it is not in her nature to share without jealousy. Although she would at first seem happy, it would not be long before the resentment began to show: she would start to hate Jane's constant presence, to wish her gone. She was not raised to expect a relationship of this sort. The Bitch Witches were the catalyst, not the cause, of this change of heart: this concern for the opinion of others has always been there. Cho chose for these past few months of unreality to ignore it, and allowed her arrogance to lead Jane to expect what Cho cannot give.

Jane has heard Cho's story. Now she sits in her room at Gildenford Hall, silent tears running down her cheeks. For Cho has related to her the words of the cruel witches, and how Narcissa rebuked them with her own brand of vitriol. Cho has said she is concerned for Jane: how would she react if the same thing were to happen to her? But Jane sees through the half truths, the prevarication. She knows that her first instinct was right, that Cho does not really wish to share Lucius, that she had suggested they should be joint consorts because she believed it would please Lucius; but she had not fully considered her own true feelings. Cho's recounting of the event is a coded message that she has changed her mind. Jane will not stay where she is not welcome. It only remains to decide when she will leave.

Jane has a secret she has not told anyone. She ponders whether she should share this, or keep it in her heart. There are reasons to tell, and reasons not to.

Lucius lives alone now in Malfoy Manor once more. His son and new daughter-in-law are on their honeymoon in Venice, lodging in Signor Stregone's spacious Lido residence. Lucius spends a great deal of time sitting in his study. Although he still enjoys a glass of whisky, these days he avoids excess, and his mind remains clear. He ponders the two women he loves, and knows he must choose. He has threatened Cho with a cold warning that he might choose Jane. He thinks this over. He loves Jane, and he believes the love is real. But he has experience enough to know that this is still the excitement of the new; the first flush of lust, and of forbidden fruit: the governess, the virgin, the lure of youthful flesh.

Would he tire of her if he stayed with her? She is learning from him, willingly and eagerly. But she is very young, younger even than Gabrielle. There is time enough for her to find a mate of her own generation. She should not have to put up with the varying moods of a middle aged wizard with a dubious past.

Lucius smiles to himself wryly. Why is he even contemplating a choice? There is no choice. There is only Cho. He was angry with her in France, but she did not deserve his censure. It was for him that she was prepared to make the sacrifice: to share him with another woman, even though the sight of it would kill her softly with each successive day. He has loved Cho for so long now, yet he has already experienced three empty years without her. He cannot imagine life without his daughter, a reminder each time he looks at her of her mother's beauty. He lost Cho once before: he cannot lose her again.

But he is not yet ready to tell Cho of his decision. Part of him wants to punish her because of what she has done to Jane. Part of him knows he should not feel this way, but if he goes to her now, he will use more bitter words against her: his barbed tongue will wound as much as a physical weapon. He must wait until he is calmer.

Jane decides to leave immediately without divulging her secret; without saying goodbye to Lucius. She tells Madam Chang, who does not ask why she is leaving, but wishes her well, and says she will provide a testimonial for any future employer. She offers to help Jane find another position; but then she pauses significantly for a moment, and asks her, what will she do in a few months' time? She gives Jane a promissory note for Gringotts Bank, and Jane looks astonished when she sees the sum written on the parchment. It is too much, she protests, I am not owed so much. Madam Chang looks at Jane steadily, and Jane then realises that one person at least has guessed her secret.

Jane pauses a moment, considering. She then kisses Madam Chang once on each soft cheek, and smiles into those wise all-knowing dark eyes. She folds the note and tucks it into her pocket, and as she does so, unconsciously places a protective hand on her belly.

What of Neville, who also loves Jane? He, the tender of living things, has seen Jane walking in the garden together with Lucius Malfoy; has seen the way they recently strolled so close beside each other, seemingly careless of prying eyes; has seen them kissing, totally absorbed in each other. He has not guessed the extent of their intimacy, but if he had been told, it would not have surprised him. He knows he has lost Jane. He has asked himself if he would still wish to marry Jane when Malfoy tires of her, as he is sure to do. But Neville has a long memory, of a battle in the Ministry of Magic, when Malfoy the Death Eater would happily have killed him. The hurt that he feels, knowing that sweet Jane Currer has been seduced so completely by this man, cannot be eradicated even by imagining her in his arms responding to his own eager kisses. Neville could not bear to be forever compared as a lover to this man, his former enemy. He wishes Jane well, but he knows that she will never be part of his future.

Bryony Chang greets Jane Currer eagerly, her white cat at her heels. When Jane tells her she is to leave early on the morrow, Bryony is distraught. She cries, she pleads, she demands to know why; she asks in a small voice, is it because she disobeyed Miss Currer last week? Jane replies in her sweet, quiet voice that it is not Bryony's fault, she will always love Bryony, but something has happened to change everything, and she must go. She is immovable in her resolve, while simultaneously unable to stem her own tears. The governess and the child cry in each other's arms, and for both of them the rest of the day is spent in complete misery.

The magical photos of Draco and Gabrielle's wedding, that Bryony was so looking forward to admiring with Miss Currer, lie discarded on the table. The happy couple walking the circle form a sharp contrast to the present atmosphere in the classroom: at one side of the room a smiling child binds the hands of her brother and his wife, while in the other half she weeps as if her vulnerable young heart will break.

When Cho comes home from work, Bryony, fresh tears starting in her eyes, asks her mother why Miss Currer must leave. Racked with guilt, Cho is as evasive as Jane. She tries to console her child with a bedtime story, but Bryony barely listens, and instead cries herself to sleep. When early the next day she goes to find the governess to say her final goodbye, she finds that Jane has already departed: she rose with the house elves, and slipped away unremarked via the floo network.

Nanny makes Bryony her favourite breakfast, but her charge is inconsolable.


A week later, Lucius apparates in Cho's apartments. He sees the sorrow on her face for her daughter. He knows himself how upset Bryony is, for he has been to see her daily. He takes Cho in his arms, and wraps her tightly in his embrace. He feels a swelling in his groin as he kisses her deeply and lingeringly.

"It is just the two of us once more, Cho. This is how it should be. We both know it. I lost you once, and I never want to let you go again. I love you. This time, I want you to marry me. We can have a large ceremony with all your family, or a quiet Handfasting before two witnesses, just as you prefer. This time I will not accept your refusal."

He releases her, and bends before her on one knee, his movements less fluid than the younger man who first seduced Cho. He takes both her hands firmly in his. He asks her, "Will you be my wife?"

Cho smiles for the first time in many days. She cannot speak, but she nods her head, tears in her eyes.

Lucius stands, lifts her, and carries her into the bedroom.

The End


Acknowledgements

Most true is it that "beauty is in the eye of the gazer." – Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

As many readers will have spotted, there are heavy influences in this story from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855), including the quotation forming the title.

The original character Jane Currer is named after Jane Eyre and Currer Bell. Charlotte Brontë and her sisters Emily and Anne originally wrote under the male pseudonyms of Currer Bell, Ellis Bell and Acton Bell respectively. Even Charlotte's publisher, George Smith, did not initially know that she was a woman.

The character of Jane Eyre is believed to have been based on Charlotte herself: Charlotte worked as a governess, and was small and plain in appearance. She was painfully self-conscious of her lack of beauty. She needed glasses because she was very short-sighted, but often did not wear them because they were so unflattering (no designer frames available in Charlotte's day).

Charlotte and Emily both taught English at the Pensionnat Héger in Brussels, Belgium, where they worked to pay for lessons in French, as the three sisters planned to open a school at their home in Haworth, Yorkshire, England. They chose Belgium because it was well known at that time as a place where one could live frugally – as the daughters of a poorly paid curate, economy was essential. Brussels had its own community of expatriate British who had moved there to take advantage of the low cost of living. Jane Currer, like Charlotte, is English, but lived in Belgium for a time.

Lucius' temporary addiction to drink and laudanum echoes Charlotte's brother Branwell's addictions. The family home at the Parsonage in Haworth was only a short step away from Branwell's favourite pub, The Black Bull. Whereas the Brontë sisters eventually achieved literary success, their only brother, who initially had hopes of being an artist, became a drunkard, and his most famous works are the portraits of his sisters. Laudanum is 45 strength alcohol with the addition of opium. Users therefore had symptoms from the alcohol as well as the opium.

Some of the references below to events in Jane Eyre contain spoilers for anyone who has not read the book.

In the book, Jane Eyre is appointed as governess to the illegitimate daughter Adèle of her employer, Mr Edward Rochester of Thornfield Hall. She falls in love with him even though he is not conventionally handsome, and is much older than she is (the age difference is less than that between Lucius and Jane Currer: Rochester is "near 40" and Jane Eyre is only 18). Rochester has much experience of women (in a nineteenth century Victorian novel, we are not told any details!) whereas Jane Eyre is an innocent girl who has just left the school where firstly she was educated, then became a teacher. However, in spite of her youth, Jane is not afraid to speak up for herself to her employer, and she has very definite opinions.

Edward Rochester is apparently single at the beginning of the book, so there is seemingly no barrier to the mutual attraction between him and Jane. Eventually, it is revealed that he is in fact married already, just as Lucius has an existing partner. Charlotte herself also fell in love with a married man – Monsieur Héger of the Pensionnat Héger. The attraction in this case appears to have been totally one-sided. Charlotte's love letters from England were intercepted by Madame Héger, who stopped the correspondence.

There are two fires at Thornfield Hall in Jane Eyre. The first occurs when Mr Rochester's bed has been set on fire, and at the end of the book, Thornfield Hall burns down. Rochester is hurt and blinded in this last fire. Jane marries him in spite of his injuries: the final chapter begins with the famous line, "Reader, I married him." In my story, Lucius is scarred in the fire at Malfoy Manor, and Jane Currer finds his injuries unimportant.

Some scenes in The Eye of the Gazer are adapted from scenes in Jane Eyre, and contain passages taken from the novel. These are:

The conversation between Jane and Lucius in the stone pavilion in Chapter 2 is partly based on the conversation between Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester in Chapter 14 of Jane Eyre.

Chapter 4, where Lucius reads Jane's palm is based on Chapter 19 of Jane Eyre, where Mr Rochester disguises himself as a gypsy fortune teller.

Jane's speech in Chapter 4, "Do you think I am a machine without feelings…" is based on Jane's speech in Chapter 23 of Jane Eyre, where Jane believes Mr Rochester is about to marry the beautiful Miss Ingram.

In Chapters 14 & 15, Jane hearing Lucius cry out her name is based on Chapter 35 of Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre is staying with St John Rivers and his sisters. St John asks Jane to marry him and accompany him to India as a missionary, then Jane "magically" hears Rochester calling out to her. Neville stands in a similar position to St John Rivers in my story; but Neville really loves Jane, whereas St John only wants a wife as a companion and fellow teacher.

Lucius' unusual "proposal" in Chapter 26 is based on Rochester's marriage proposal to Jane in Chapter 23 of Jane Eyre. Like Lucius, Rochester teases Jane rather cruelly, and makes her think that she must leave Thornfield Hall.

The story of Cho Chang's great grandmother is based on that of Jung Chang's grandmother in her autobiography Wild Swans.

I would also like to acknowledge the invaluable help offered to all Harry Potter fan fiction writers by that wonderful online encyclopedia of the Potter universe, The Harry Potter Lexicon.

Finally, thank you to all the readers who have come along with me for the ride. This story started out as a small tale based on Jane Eyre, and grew into something much more when Voldemort decided to stage his last reappearance. I thank everyone who has left reviews here and elsewhere, and those who have offered me their encouragement to continue.

Servalan xx