All That I Am
Pairing: Rita Skeeter x Esmeranda Zabini (I mean...ish...about as loosely as it's possible to have a pairing)
Universe: I don't even know
Rating: K...ish again
Background: Sunset-oasis asked me to write something about Blaise Zabini's mother x Rita Skeeter. I was playing with halloween-y ideas and this is what happened. I would describe it as a creepy fairytale, which is loosely inspired by the italian story 'Penta of the Chopped-off Hands' (cute right?)
Here we go, anyway...
Rita Skeeter has a nose for a story.
She prides herself on it.
She can sniff out falsehood; scent intrigue.
There is nothing more satisfying, to her mind, than lifting the veil on a mystery - than showing the world that even great men have feet of clay.
Albus Dumbledore might have taken down Grindelwald, but it was Rita who took down Dumbledore, never let it be forgotten.
Secrets are not safe from Rita.
She'll find the truth.
She always does.
x
The road through the hills is long, switchbacking again and again as it gradually climbs. In the summer she imagines the landscape would be lush, green and fragrant.
It is not summer.
The wind bites through her dragon-leather gloves, and she huddles herself closer to the broom handle, squinting, even with her charmed glasses, at the darkening ground below.
In the last village they had told her that the woman lived in a house at the end of the road, overlooking the valley.
The muggle man had crossed himself after giving the directions, and then made an odd, superstitious gesture with the fingers of his left hand.
Rita hadn't needed the translation charm for that, nor for the flash of fear in his eyes when he looked her up and down.
"Strega," he had whispered, before he slammed the door in her face.
She hadn't minded. She knew that she was getting close.
x
The story has come to her in dribs and drabs, piecemeal smallnesses that when assembled make for just enough information to whet Rita's appetite.
There's blood in the water.
She can smell it.
x
Esmeranda Zabini has been married seven times, or so it is said, and widowed seven times as well.
The stories have it that she is astoundingly beautiful, and certainly no one who has seen her son would have difficulty believing this to be true.
That's the thing though: Esmeranda seems to exist only in stories. Rita hasn't been able to find a single person who's actually met her.
She had thought that the husbands would be easier; after all, wizards are meticulous record-keepers.
But she has drawn a blank. Seven is no small number, but Rita has found nary a whisper as to the identity of the men who have made Esmeranda a widow many times over.
If she was intrigued before, now she is hooked.
Rita smiles to herself as the blocky shape of a villa emerges at the top of the hill. She has the story between her teeth, can see her name on the byline once more.
Rita Skeeter, Investigative Journalist.
She's always enjoyed the sound of it. It feels good to be earning the title again.
It's taken weeks of work - laughing and lying and transforming herself into her animagus form in order to access locked records - but she finally turned up the name of the village in the valley.
She lands a short distance from the villa, concealed behind a stand of poplars. The frozen ground gives a satisfying crunch when her boots touch it.
Rita transfigures her broom and bag into two distinctively coloured rocks and tucks them out of sight. She is on the point of transforming into her animagus form when the front door of the villa opens, and a tongue of buttery light spills out.
Rita freezes in place, uncertain whether she has been spotted.
"Hello."
The woman's face is in shadow; the light behind her too bright for Rita to see whether the beauty of myth has been exaggerated.
She steps forward into the light, unable to stop herself.
"Won't you come in?"
x
Esmeranda Zabini's hand rests a moment on the doorknob. The fingers are long, and when she lifts it, it drifts languidly through the air.
She wears white silk gloves, as though she were an old-fashioned Muggle film star.
x
"You must be tired," Esmeranda says, as she drifts through the house, Rita following behind. "It's a hell of a journey to get here."
x
Esmeranda Zabini's voice is low and gentle, like mist curling across the ground.
Every word is clear as a bell, a gentle, musical lilt.
If she has an accent, you cannot hear it.
She sounds like a spell.
x
"I've heard stories about you," Rita says.
Why is she telling Esmeranda this? Part of her wants to be aghast, but she simply cannot stop herself from speaking. "I wanted to see if they were true."
Esmeranda nods slowly. Every line of her is elegant, every angle graceful. She plucks at her wrist, where white silk meets dark skin, with a delicate motion.
"And what have you concluded?"
x
Esmeranda Zabini has a wonderful mouth, full and pink.
It curls into a smile like a lick of smoke.
It isn't a nice smile - it isn't the sort that tells you that you're friends.
But you want it to be.
And when her smile widens -
When her smile widens you want so badly for it to be that sort of smile.
x
Rita's mouth is dry. She has gone from speaking too much to having no words.
Esmeranda turns away, steps through another doorway.
Rita doesn't move, but then the other woman motions her forward with a slight gesture.
"Come."
x
Esmeranda Zabini's hair is braided tight to her scalp, in complex patterns that dizzy the eye.
There is something about them - you want to run your fingers across them, follow the paths that they trace and learn the contours of her skull.
Can the shape of somebody's bones be beautiful?
Desire manifests itself as a twitch of the hand, longing to touch.
x
Rita is holding a glass of wine. The flavour of it on her tongue is cool and crisp, but it doesn't seem to bring down the heat in her cheeks.
"Is it true about the seven husbands?" she asks.
If her mouth is going to run away with her, she might as well be blunt.
Esmeranda goes still. For a long moment she stares down into her own glass, and then she seems to make a decision, and looks up at Rita.
x
Esmeranda Zabini has astonishing eyes, a brilliant gleaming shatter of green and gold.
When she looks at you, you feel seen: every inch, inside and out, good and bad.
They are edged by the finest of lines, suggesting laughter and long afternoons in the sun.
She isn't laughing now.
x
"What will you do with my story, Rita Skeeter?"
Rita knew the answer to this question this morning. She knew it as she flew up the hill, as she landed among the poplars.
She doesn't know the answer now.
Esmeranda sips her wine, and Rita watches the bob of her throat as she swallows.
She wonders what her skin tastes like.
x
Esmeranda Zabini's skin appears lit by an internal glow, shining like polished wood.
It seems to reveal itself between the drifts and folds of her green silk dress.
A whisper of temptation.
A hint of hidden treasure.
x
The small clink when Esmeranda sets her glass down makes Rita jump, and she flushes, looking down and crossing her legs.
"I don't know," she says, and her voice sounds soft and small.
She hears the rustle of silk, and when she looks up again Esmeranda is standing in front of her. The lamplight burnishes her dark skin, and she is so glorious that Rita's stomach clenches.
"I will tell you," she says simply, and Rita hears herself sigh with longing.
xxx
Once, a long time ago -
Longer than you would think, Esmeranda laughs, and the lines around her eyes crease with pleasure.
- there was a young witch and a young wizard, brother and sister, prince and princess -
In the days when we still had such things, Esmeranda adds.
- and she, in all the world, loved no one so much as him, who loved her just the same.
Years passed and they grew, as children will, into young adults, and the boy wizard, who was by this time a king, married a lovely witch from a foreign land.
But the witch sickened, and she died.
So overcome with grief was the king that he turned to the woman that he had always loved, the sister who lived in the closest chamber of his heart, and implored her to be his wife.
Men, says Esmeranda. Incorrigible.
Why me? asked the young witch. Why, when I am your sister, should it be me that you ask to be your wife?
And the young king took her hands in his and told her: you have lived all your life in my heart, and there is none so beautiful as you in all the land.
Beauty is nothing, his sister said. My face will age; my beauty will die.
I love you for your hands, the young king said, turning them over in his. Your hands like two white doves, that I know as well as my own and should never wish to let go.
Then you may have my hands, his sister whispered, for I will not be your wife.
And she cast a severing spell upon herself and ran from the palace, leaving her brother holding her hands in his own.
The king was cast into despair, now mourning the loss not only of a wife but also a most beloved sister. The heart where he had held them both was broken, and he soon grew sick with grief.
As he lay, close to death, the king shut his eyes tight and made a promise with his broken heart, that if he could only see his sister one last time, he would give all that he was - all of his magic, all of the unspent days of his life - to repair the wrong that he did to her.
And because magic is a curious thing, it brought his sister to him on his deathbed.
She sat and wept at his side, the bandaged stumps where her hands should have been held tight to her chest.
And her brother whispered, I will give you hands again, my dearest, and all the magic of my being besides.
With that, he breathed his last, but as he did two white doves flew in at the window and landed at the girl's wrists, becoming a pair of hands so fine they looked as though they were made of silk. And as her brother's magic settled upon her, the girl found that where she had been tired and hungry from her long journey back to him, she now felt no discomfort.
And so, Esmeranda says quietly, that was the first.
The first what? Rita asks. She's leaning forward, avid with interest.
Esmeranda cocks her head, then reaches out with one gloved hand and runs the backs of her white-silk fingers gently across Rita's cheek.
Hush, she whispers. There's much more to tell.
After her brother's death the people petitioned the girl to become queen, and she agreed.
For a time all was well, but the queen was pale, and sad, and lonely, since for all that she had rejected her brother as a suitor she had still loved him dearly.
At night she would walk in the gardens of the palace, where the scent of lemons pierced the warm air. She would trail her white hands through the low shrubs, sighing deeply, and every so often she would sing: a haunting melody sweetened by the delicacy of her voice.
And so it was that one night a young gardener, who had fallen asleep in the shade of a lemon tree, awoke to hear his queen singing to herself.
His heart soared; his skin broke out in goosebumps; and he declared that never before had he heard something beautiful.
The young gardener soon returned every night to the garden, hoping to hear his queen once more; to catch a glimpse of her lovely face.
After many months, he finally summoned the courage to step out of the shadow of the lemon grove, and speak his heart to her.
My queen, he cried, bowing low before her. Many nights have I visited these paths and avenues to listen to your song. I am but a humble gardener, but I must tell you that I love you, and ask only that you will love me in return.
The queen turned to him, and in the moonlight she was beautiful, and strange, and sad.
Why do you love me? she asked the young man quietly.
For your voice, he said. For your voice that could charm the birds from the trees and has so bewitched my heart.
The queen sighed and said, Then you may have my voice.
And she drew one of her white-fingered hands across her long throat, gathering her voice as a glow beneath her fingers, and she gave it to the young gardener, who held it reverently in his hand.
He took it to his home and placed it in a jar, and the young man lay on his bed and listened, first for hours, then days, then weeks, to the beauty of his queen's voice.
But the song was always sad; always filled with heartache; and soon the young gardener grew tired and sick, and he realised that though he loved the voice it could never truly be his.
One night, beneath the quiet moon, the young gardener closed his eyes and made a promise that if he could only see his queen once more he would give her back her voice and all that he was or ever would be besides; right down to the touch of his hands, that made plants grow green and strong.
So it was that magic brought the queen to him, and though tears traced silver down her cheeks she made not a sound, for the young gardener had taken her voice from her for the sake of love.
The young gardener gazed up at his queen's face and smiled, and died, just as the clear, sweet voices of the church bells chimed out. And their songs curled together in the air, mixing with the magic of the young gardener's unlived days, and made their home in the queen's throat so that when she spoke her voice, beautiful before, now sounded like the clear chime of a bell.
That was the second, Esmeranda says, running a finger around the rim of her glass until the crystal sings.
Rita says nothing, for to hear her own voice would be to break the spell of Esmeranda's.
The people loved their queen, though she was so strange and sad. They whispered that she had been touched by unusual magics, and indeed she seemed often to be not quite of this earth.
When she had reigned for some years, a painter came to her court. He had travelled from a country to the north, where there was a city built on water where the painters were renowned for the way that they captured light.
When the painter saw the queen he was overcome by longing, for she was quite the most perfect thing that he had ever laid eyes upon. He swept his wide hat from his head, bent to one knee, and beseeched her to allow him to paint her portrait.
This the queen did, and the painter spent many happy hours gazing at her face as he rendered it in oils.
It took months for the painter to complete the commission, such was the delicate care he took, with every stroke of his brush, to capture the queen's incomparable loveliness.
But complete it he did, and when he had done so the queen came to see his work. And the painter was so overcome by her presence once more in his studio that he dropped to his knees and pressed kisses to her white hand.
My queen, he said. My love, my light. Your lips are like nothing I have ever seen, and I am quite overcome with love for you.
Love for me? the queen asked. Yet you say you love my lips.
And so I do, said the painter.
Very well, said the queen. And she sliced the lips from her mouth and gave them to the painter to kiss.
He travelled home to the city that sat on the water, but he found himself quite without the desire to paint. His only care was for the queen's lips, perfect as the swell of summer fruit, and soon he fell victim to a consumption which ate the meat from his bones. He sold all of his paintings save one, which was a still life in which the dusky flesh of a peach seemed to glow.
And soon the painter was brought to the poorhouse, with nothing but the queen's lips and his final painting to comfort him as he sweated his sickness. If only she would return, he whispered in his delirium. If only she would return and press her lips to my skin, I would give all that I am or ever will be; my artist's eye that sees the true shape of all things.
So it was that as he drew his final breath, magic brought the queen to his side. As the air left the painter's lungs in a sigh the magic of his wish settled on her, and the queen smiled. As his eyes fluttered closed the painter saw that that her lips had become as full and pink as the flesh of the peach he had painted, and then the queen leaned forward and kissed him gently on the brow.
He died too? Rita asks quietly.
Esmeranda looks up at her and nods slowly. He was the third, she says, and purses her ripe pink lips.
Now the queen had travelled far from her kingdom to come to the painter's side, and she knew that were she to return her people would find her changed by the magic of the men who had loved her.
Instead, she went to the port of the great city built on water, and there she found a captain who agreed that she could travel on his ship to the new world.
I have nothing with which to pay you, the queen said in her voice like a bell. She spread her white hands wide to show their emptiness, and bit the peach-flesh of her lip.
No matter, said the captain. You may travel for free.
Now the queen knew that nothing came without a price, but she said nothing, merely nodded her agreement, and boarded the ship.
Over the weeks of travel she proved herself an invaluable passenger. At the sight of danger she would call out in her clear voice; if a sailor sickened she would mop his brow and kiss comfort to his skin. When a great storm swept the ship up in its arms she held fast to a sheet with her silk-fine hands, and the sail stayed true, and the vessel was saved.
When they arrived in the new world the captain called her to his cabin, and the queen knew that he would now demand his price.
You are a wonder, the captain said. I have never seen beauty such as yours, and I am certain that I love you.
What is it that you love? the queen asked.
The captain considered her for a moment, then smiled. Your hair, he said. Your hair that is like ebony silk, that I long to run my fingers through as I whisper words of devotion.
Then you may have my hair, the queen said. And she tore it from her scalp, leaving herself bald as a newborn bird, before she left the captain alone in his cabin and stepped from the ship to the new shore.
Every night the captain would bury his face in the queen's hair, delighting in the feel of it against his skin. But soon he realised that without the warmth of the living woman her hair was as a dead thing, and he grew pale and thin with desire.
If she would only return, he told the moon. If she would only return I would give her all that I am or ever shall be; all the passion of my wanderer's heart.
And magic listened, and it brought the queen to the captain's side where he sat in a tavern, deep in his cups and deep in his melancholy.
The captain sighed to see her, and smiled, and his heart, weakened by storms and seas and nights under sail, beat once and then no more.
The magic of his wandering soul settled itself on the queen, and with it brought a tarred rope that wound itself in patterns across her bare skull, gleaming in the light of tapers.
The fourth, Rita says. Her eyes go to her quill, which records every word.
Yes, Esmeranda says. Unconsciously, or so it seems, her hand lifts to smooth across the tight braids that coil over her head.
In the new world the queen was a queen no longer, but she had her magic, and she had her dove-white hands, her chiming voice, her ripe lips and the lustrous braids of her hair.
She wandered many leagues on foot, sleeping beneath the moonlight and becoming a friend to the magic of the land.
One day, she came to the banks of a river and knelt to drink. The wind whispered through the trees, and when the no-longer-queen looked up she saw a man watching her.
He was out hunting, he told her, showing her his quiver of arrows. He had seen her by the riverside, he said, and he had been so stricken by her beauty that he knew he had to speak to her.
The witch looked up at him, and the hunter reached out a trembling hand.
Your eyes, he said. A man could count himself lucky to die in their sight.
You love my eyes? the witch asked, and the hunter nodded, overcome by the dance of the colours in them.
Then you may have them, the witch said. And she whispered a spell that plucked her eyes from her head, and gave them to the hunter.
He took them home to his tribe, and lay in his pallet bed, and gazed and gazed and gazed into the eyes that shone no longer, that were dim and devoid of life.
Ah, the hunter sighed to himself. Ah, but when she looked at me it was like two precious gems glittered. For one sight of her I would give all that I am or ever shall be; all my hunter's speed and accuracy.
Soon the witch came to his side, her eyeless face turned towards the rattling noise of the hunter's breath, now the only thing that filled his body, which had wasted and shrunk as his longing had grown.
But the hunter had two stones of malachite set in gold, and as his breaths grew shallow he offered them to the witch. She blinked her empty sockets, and then looked at him with eyes of green and gold, and the hunter smiled, and reached a hand towards her face, and died.
Esmeranda looks off to the side, and Rita thinks that she catches the glitter of tears in her jewel-bright eyes.
And he was the fifth? she asks.
Esmeranda says nothing. She is staring out of the window at the night sky.
The witch's travels took her back and forth across the new world, and she learned the shape of it in her feet. One night as she sat with her back to a tree, she realised that what she had thought was a trick of the moonlight was in fact a small fire, and she realised also that it had been many years since she had enjoyed another's company.
She made her way to the fire, where a man sat warming his aged fingers. He looked up at her, and she saw his face grow pale at the sight of her beauty.
May I sit with you? the witch asked, and the man nodded his assent, scrambling to make room for her in the small circle of warmth cast by the flames.
I am a cartographer, he told her. I have travelled these lands back and forth, noting their hills and valleys, their forests and rivers, and inking them onto my maps. But never, he said. Never have I seen a map of beauty to equal your skin.
The witch was quiet for a moment, and then she looked up from the flames to the old cartographer's face.
You love my skin? she asked him, and he nodded eagerly.
Well then, the witch said. And she peeled the skin from her flesh and gave it to him, and the cartographer sighed as she laid it in his hands.
When he looked back at her, the witch was gone.
The cartographer travelled onwards, but he found that the land no longer held any joy for him. He no longer had a care for the curve of a path or the shape of a rock, for the witch's skin was the most perfect of maps.
But when he unfolded it from his pack and ran his hands across it, he found it cool to touch. And though it was lovely it was empty too, and so the cartographer whispered, late one night, as he lay beneath the light of the moon and felt the cold piercing his old bones, that he would give all that he was and all that he ever would be; all the singular attention to detail that made his maps so beyond compare; just to see the witch once more, and lay eyes upon the hills and valleys that her skin's map described.
When the witch came to him she shivered, for the winter cold was cruel to her exposed flesh.
The cartographer smiled to see her, and the cold that had invaded his bones settled there as death stole upon him. And the witch smiled too as the cartographer's last glimpse of the great night sky, itself a map of vanished stars, settled about her shoulders like a dark and glittering skin.
Six, Rita says, and Esmeranda nods.
Six, she repeats.
For many years the witch looked on as men changed the new world from a wild place into a strange one, and gradually she came to realise that she missed the fragrant earth and soft colours of the land where she was born, and so she determined to travel home.
When she arrived on its sun-bathed shores she found it much changed too. Nevertheless she travelled back to the castle where, many lifetimes ago, she had lived with her brother.
But the castle was a ruin, its stone having long before succumbed to the march of time. And the witch sat on the weathered steps and wept for all that she had given, and all that she had lost.
A young man came across her there and was filled with pity, for she was beautiful, and strange, and wholly alone.
Let me help you, he said.
He took her to his home, which was a modest place, and there he gave her food, and comfort, and never asked a single thing of her, until one day the witch turned to him and said, Do you love me?
The young man blinked in surprise, and considered his answer. Yes, he said. Yes, I love you.
The witch felt her heart grow heavy, for she knew that love carried a terrible price. What is it you love about me? she asked.
The young man frowned. All that you are, he said.
The witch considered her answer, and then she smiled. Then you may have all that I am, she said quietly.
They lived many years together, and the young man made his fortune. His home was no longer modest, and their life no longer frugal, and soon he was no longer young and it became clear that the witch would not age and die as he would.
I would not leave you alone, he said one day, and the witch turned to him and asked what he meant.
When I am called to my maker, the man said. I would not leave you with nothing to love.
And so he gave her all that he was, and all that he ever would be, and the witch wept that he must die, but he kept his promise and did not leave her alone.
The son that she bore was as lovely as his mother. He had a king's grace, a gardener's touch, a painter's eye, and a wanderer's heart. He had a hunter's quickness, and a mapmaker's precision. And he had his father's name, the most precious thing of all.
xxx
Esmeranda has been quiet for some minutes, and Rita watches her, entranced by her beauty.
"The seventh man," she says eventually, and Esmeranda starts, and turns to look at her.
"What of him?" she asks.
"He didn't take anything from the witch," Rita says.
"No," Esmeranda agrees. "He did not."
She rises from her chair, and comes to kneel before Rita. "Is it what you imagined my story would be?" she asks.
Her hands are pale silk.
Her voice is a chiming peal.
Her lips are ripe fruits.
Her hair is a radiant twist.
Her eyes are bright gems.
Her skin is an inky gleam.
Her story is a wonder.
"I loved it," Rita says, and Esmeranda smiles sadly.
"Will you take it from me?" she breathes, and Rita's own breath catches in her throat.
"If I did -" she starts, then stops herself.
Anything that is taken from Esmeranda carries a price.
In her mind's eye Rita sees the riches, the fame that she has long craved. Before her Esmeranda waits, her lips slightly parted, and Rita decides.
She leans forward and kisses Esmeranda gently. Her mouth tastes sweet.
"I would give all that I am," Rita whispers. "And all that I ever shall be, the blank pages of all my work to come, for such a story."
"Then I am glad that I told it to you," Esmeranda smiles. She holds Rita gently as the other woman sags in her arms.
When Esmeranda stands she is lighter, younger, different.
Blank parchment unfurls in her soul, in the place where she carried her story for so long.
A/N: Don't ask, because I've really no idea. Happy (belated) Halloween!