Later that night, a spire of smoke rose oblique from a center fire that warmed naked feet where men sat about in their weary bones gnashing on supper, fire-roasted plantains, from iron cups and jostling to a folk tune that played long-forgotten poetry. They passed around a bucket of fresh water like holy communion- not minding that it was peppered with algae and dirt and whatever else floated atop. Hermione noticed that the men savored their water supply as though it were pure gold; as if all that mattered was a rusty tin bucket that was circulated twice a day, with each meal. When the bucket reached her she accepted it, noting the dust and debris that polluted it. She passed it on without taking a sip, deciding to stick to a bottle of rum because, in truth, at least it was clean.
The sun was just down and gave way to the clusters of bloodred cumulus clouds that tumbled along the far horizon and eventually disappeared into the darkness, leaving them with nothing but a centre fire and their lanterns for light.
The centre fire made it look as though her face was glowing and she sat back and hugged her legs to her chest in thought. In her lap was a copy of sonnets she had retrieved from an armour in the captain's cabin. She had finished it already but carried it around in case she decided to re-entertain her favorite parts. She set the book open and flipped to a page she had marked, now nose deep.
Noticing this, Jack set his jaw to the side, deciding whether or not now would be a good time to speak with her. But he was left disappointed when the sailor, 'what was his name, Donovan?' approached her and took the space beside her. She welcomed him kindly, and it wasn't until a moment later did Jack realize how tightly he gripped his bottle. Diffusing, he took a long sip. Hermione took a sip from her bottle, too.
"How long have you been sailing, Donovan?" Hermione regarded him.
He filled his iron cup with the plantains that hovered over the fire before sitting back down to continue their conversation. "When my parents kicked me out at 11 years, I reckon."
Hermione remembered that she realized her magical abilities at about eleven, too. She held the bottle in her hands, studying it's texture, feeling a buzz already setting in from her first few sips. The rum was strong but it was sweet and, therefore, a dangerous drink to have.
She leaned over to Donavan. "One of my first incidents was when I couldn't reach a book on the top shelf of my parents' bookshelf." She held up her book of sonnets for example. "I wanted it, and it descended toward me, ever so slowly. My parents figured out I had been taking their books when they found them in my bed where I read them under the sheets. Granted, the books were beyond my age but not beyond my comprehension..."
She then held up her rum bottle and watched how the glass distorted the flame. Never before had she been interested in alcoholic ventures, but seeing as the alternative was a highly questionable batch of algae, she opted to test her tolerance. After an experimentally long sip, she brought it back down, satisfied. Her thoughts were interrupted when voices called out from around them.
"Oi, Hermione," the crewman called Brassteeth snapped his fingers in the air. "Since when did they start teaching women to read?" He motioned toward the book in her hand, to which she rolled her eyes in exasperation.
"You know what they say, Brassteeth," the man called Abraham chimed in, "those who can't think for themselves choose to read instead. The only book you'd best be reading is the Bible. Oi! I'd be happy to recite a few sermons for you, sinners." He jabbed at the crew.
Hermione, feeling her rum a bit, spoke her mind without hesitation. "You don't know the first thing about me... I am one of the best and brightest students of one of the most prestigious schools in the entire world, mind you."
"I bet she couldn't survive a day at sea on by her lonesome, though." Brassteeth snickered to the men beside him.
Hermione sat back, taking another sip of rum. She needed to channel her frustration wisely. When the moment diffused, she summoned a little more sobriety and whispered into her hand a jinx. It didn't take long for Brassteeth to leap up from his spot on the deck, throwing his empty cup of food and thrashing his hands about, yelling about maggots that no one saw but him.
During this excitement, Hermione saw fit to leave toward the cabin. She had her fill of their drunken nonsense! Not to mention, she was a tad too intoxicated to repress her magical impulses, what with a powerful, tingling feeling settled at her fingertips with every new joke they spent on her. Upon leaving, she shut the door to the cabin heavily.
"Oi," Brassteeth leaned to Twigg when the door had sounded shut. "Have a gander at the bird. Whew. What a beaut. You could almost see her ankles when she stood up just then."
Twigg chuckled aloud, "Don't you be dreamin' a lass like that could ever go for a greasy tosser like ye."
"Ah, but imagine…" His smile half-rotted.
The captain tilted his head upward with a dark frown, his eyes sharp and dangerous, listening.
"And what makes you think she'd shag you, anyway?" Twigg interjected, coughing on his beverage with a deep laugh.
"Don't tell me you don't dream of a good shag e'ry now and then! Aye? All these years of sailin' and I couldn't imagine a bird like her. And I'll drink to that." He raised his glass to the air and drank nearly half the bottle in a few long gulps.
"Cap'm," Abraham got his attention, "Bloody 'ell, you know 'er be'er than any of us. Ye think the lass would go for me? I mean we 'ave loads in common: we both know how to read, unlike you sorry lot!" He jabbed at the crew through the fire with an accusing finger.
Jack was uncharacteristically silent with his mouth held in a firm line. "She's brilliant. She'd be sellin' herself short if she settled for any of us degenerates." He finished with a tot of rum, noticing how the beverage began to taste more and more bitter.
"What's the ma'er, cap'm," another crewmember teased, "guess ye prefer to keep 'er all to yourself, then, eh? If I was captain, I would share and share alike!" Brassteeth spat drunkenly, wavering from side to side before throwing an arm around Billy who threw him off just as quickly.
"Yeh!" Twigg chimed in, "If ye think 'bout it, why did she want to sail with any of us? Does anyone actually believe she's a writer? I mean, her choice to join us sailors ought to be a whore's errand."
"That's enough!" A new voice bellowed from behind. The crew turned to find their quietest member had yelled at them from where he stood against the mast. His voice was firm; arms folded tightly on themselves with a vice grip.
"What was that, Donovan?" The crewmember charged him.
"Don't talk about miss Granger like that." He crossed his arms, trying to appear cool behind shrouded timidness. He finally raised his eyes to meet theirs. "She's a lady."
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before the crew erupted in laughter. Billy watched with a concerned eye as Jack merely turned his attention to the bottle in his hands with a quiet, thinking gaze. His pupils darkened and snapped toward Abraham who kept on. "Say, Cap'm, why 'aven't ye made a move on 'er yet? Tits too small for ya?"
Jack stood up.
The entire crew had their eyes on him and all was quiet save for the crackling fire. "What's the ma'er with you, Cap'm?" One of them shouted.
Jack looked around and realized how firmly he gripped the bottle in his hands, knuckles white. He cooled himself and made to leave, his hand resting uneasily on the hilt of his sword.
"Don't wear the lass out for the rest of us, boss!" A soused man bellowed from across the blazing fire to fall on Jack's ears. He stopped in his tracks and turned around, his expression fierce.
"Donovan is right." Jack now approached the fire. "You wankers 'ave had enough for tonight." He poured the contents of his bottle onto the burning logs until the fire was consumed in smoke, leaving shocked faces to stare in the dark. "Enough of this." His voice was deep and warning. "None of you will set a hand on Miss Granger. I'll have that hand lopped off. Mark me."
No one spoke when the captain left toward his cabin again with the empty bottle in hand. Billy looked around for a moment before running to meet his captain. He spoke in haste, but in a whisper. "Jack, what was that? I've never seen you like this."
"What would you 'ave done?" Jack snapped at him, his voiced hushed like the murmurs from the crew. "Nothing?"
"I might not 'ave made that scene, no. They'll think you've gone soft for her."
"By threatening them?" Jack's mustache twitched in irritation, his voice rising in anger.
Billy was alarmed by the captain's never-before-seen anger, and he deflated. "S'pose not."
Jack made no reply, and instead looked around with narrowed eyes at the crew who watched him from the darkness before entering his cabin, leaving the doors to slam behind him.
Inside he heard the soft rustle of bedsheets. In the moonlight he could make out unruly brown curls, Hermione's sleeping form, turning in the bed. He reminded himself to be quiet so as not to wake her. Jack breathed out deeply, shrugging off his coat and setting it on the coat hanger, topping it with his tricorn hat and effects, until all that remained was his pants and linen shirt.
He pulled his compass from his pocket and made to set it on a table, but he hesitated. Jack turned his gaze back to Hermione and realized how quickly his heart sped and how his stomach twisted and he felt both sick and overjoyed all at once. Impatient, he held the compass tightly in hand and opened it.
He fell back against the table in disbelief and the table audibly protested the abrupt movement, screeching loudly across the floorboards. He'd never thought it possible that the compass could point toward a person, yet, here it did.
"Jack, is everything okay?" A soft, tired voice sounded from in front of him and he realized that she was pushing herself up. Startled, he shut his compass.
He fumbled to stand up straight and he returned his compass to his pocket. "Nothing. I mean- erm- yes, love. I'm alright."
She could tell by the pitch of his voice that he was hiding something.
"Was that your compass, there?"
"Aye, yes." He shuffled nervously, scratching the back of his neck. "No worries."
"Your compass… Its bothering you." She sat up on the bed now.
"No."
"You're hiding something, Jack. What is it?"
"Am not."
"If there's nothing to hide then there is nothing you can't tell me. What does your compass point to?" She was clever. Too clever. But, so was he.
He waved a hand in the air as he spoke. "I don't bloody well know, love." He tossed the compass to her. "You tell me. What does my compass show you?"
She made no immediate reply after she opened it but tossed it to back him, because it pointed at him. "Jack, please, it's your compass. It can't tell me anything worthwhile." She shrugged, watching as the dial resumed its incessant spin while it rested, unheld, on the bed between them. "Pick it up. Please. Whatever it is, it's bothering you, and now me. I want to know the truth. Now."
He picked it up and returned it to his pocket, hearing her but barely listening. "I'll tell you… later." That was his father's favorite 'please leave me alone now' phrase.
"Jack Sparrow, I deserve to know." She sat up on her knees. "There is something more to this."
He quickly came around to her side of the bed. "You're right, Hermione," his eyes bore deeply and searchingly into hers as he stepped toward her and she, as if in turn to his dance, sat back. "Tell me, what did my compass show you?"
"It pointed to you, when I held it. But- I don't understand, Jack. What does that mean? That's why you're so bothered… isn't it?" He barely heard her speak after the first four words. His head was spinning and, somehow, he was still standing, leaving her without an answer.
"It means..." He focused on her lips, thinking about capturing them and keeping them forever, elated at the information she'd so easily and so unknowingly divulged to him. His eyes smiled devilishly. "It means you want me, love."
"Jack, I'm tired of your games. What does it mean?" She backed away, her expression remained serious but her chest grew speckled red with a newfound blush. He noticed this with a smirk.
"I'm not lying to ye. Go ahead, hold it. Open it. Walk around! You can't resist me, love, despite your best attempts at hiding it." His eyes were large and dark and searched her for answers that she refused to give him, but her body language betrayed her.
She was baffled by him.
For once, she was left speechless. "You're vile." She turned to leave, refusing to continue his game.
"No, no. Hermione, I didn't mean it," he ran to block her exit, dropping his seductive persona. "I'm not toying with ye, love. I'm tellin' you the truth." He paused while she listened, her eyes fixed and irritated, daring for him to say the wrong thing.
She imagined punching him, square on the nose, like she's done to Draco once. "Hermione. I'm telling you the honest truth. That compass points to whatever the beholder desires most."
"Is that why, earlier, it was rum?"
"The whole time, darlin'."
"Why did you lie to me?"
Her brow furrowed, on guard. At this point, she had totally forgotten about the compass pointing to him and what it meant.
He winced at this. "Erm, I withheld the truth because... not everyone can handle such… sensitive matters."
Her expression was now lethal. "Am I not capable of handling sensitive matters?"
"You're brilliant, Hermione." He picked up her hand. "I apologize to ye about lying. I'm tellin' you the truth." He covered his heart with his opposite hand. Honesty.
If she stayed there any longer he would have kissed her, but she sat back on the bed, thoughtful, before she huffed and rushed from the cabin. This time he didn't stop her and, instead, set course toward another bottle of rum.
By the time she returned for sleep Jack had passed out drunk on the bed where the rum, still held in his hand, had spilled over the rim and dotted the floorboards. She removed the bottle from his hand and, after inspecting him for consciousness and finding none, took a long sip from the bottle for herself. She coughed when her body rejected its strength but waved it off with a smaller, more controlled sip before discarding the bottle on a bedside table.
It was only then that she noticed the compass laying open in his palm, the needle still. Turning her head, she moved to examine its direction and the ship seemed to tilt alongside her. When she realized the red needle pointed toward her, she shook her head in disbelief. Hermione's heart raced when she knew what her reaction to him meant. She stumbled back and caught herself on the bed corner with an audible gasp. He was right. And, now, the compass he held pointed toward her.
This was a nightmare. Her project would suffer. She sat on the bed, the weight of the world on her shoulders. What did this mean? She returned her gaze to meet his sleeping form, feeling nothing but the rapid pulse in her eardrums. Should she return home, before this went any further, and let someone else complete her task? She leaned over and put out the candle before carefully laying on the bed beside him.
Hermione eyed Jack for a long minute, measuring his features closely. Was she admiring him? She would say no. But, yes. She attended to his tanned skin and slight facial hair, and the trinkets that lined his dreads, even. She let her curiosity wander and her eyes followed the parted neckline of his linen shirt, noting the warmth that emanated from his bare chest in waves. When she looked closer, so close she could almost touch him, she could see scars molded into his skin. Quickly and shamefully, she retreated, reminded of her own scars that she hid. She blinked once, twice, three times and she realized she missed his eyes.
Hermione gently took the compass from his hand and studied it, too, before rolling over and falling asleep. When she turned away, the captain let a small, knowing smile grace his lips.
