Chapter Seven: Qeteshite
As she fell into that beautiful and temperamental sky, she felt the way it held the fears and hopes of so many peoples across the globe. Even wizards of the Herbology persuasion knew the importance of the sun and Astronomy fellows embraced the planets and stars, lamenting the moon for all its fierce reflected beauty of solar illumination.
Hermione knew so very many legends of sky and earth. But one in particular radiated its strength at her in this moment. That of Ranginui and Papatūānuku. The lovers who breathed and sighed together for millennia before their children became tired of being trapped between them and one turned upon himself to force his parents apart.
That's what she felt that willing wantonness to become so dearly infallibly infatuated she would have to be forced apart from her beloved.
A crumpling pain hit her when her heart realised it had no such one to latch onto. Or perhaps she had too many.
She felt her heart try to place this new swelling for Theo there, but it felt all wrong. It was too new, too fledgling and in need of nurture. There was a dearth of knowing his touch which she surely would not feel again for some time.
She felt it in Draco, it was near what these strange artefacts wanted. The way they indulged in the taste of each other, their care and their devotion to a singular cause. All of this was so very close but skirted past where it was most needed. Hermione knew this, Draco knew, too. She thought at times it saddened both of them that they could be so very parallel to everything they wanted. She thought sometimes they pretended they had it regardless.
Worryingly, she felt in the back of her mind an echo of messy black hair and another set of green eyes. A so very platonic wavelength but a necessary and ardent sense of belonging, an understanding that she will follow him to the ends of his earth. She won't let him go alone again. They will navigate the dark together when oblivion met forever.
A knowing that if she was able to combine black and blonde the lachrymiform would resonate so fully within her that she would perhaps collapse under its weight, unable to ever feel anything separately again.
She thought perhaps the new addition to her life could be that if he stopped hurrying. If she allowed it. If all the many descents into the feeling were taken with deliberate, careful steps and she was permitted to feel every exquisite slip into the madness and sanity of being in love.
Please let him halt his impatience.
She knew what this was. Yet another impossibility. Something that shouldn't have been able to be birthed. Ancient, vivid magic that somehow came so naturally to the mingling of her power with Theo's.
"Do you think?" Theo asked her, realising she hadn't held these strange jewels before now.
"Qeteshite? I believe so," their cryptic ability to just know what the other meant making her contemplate how dangerous they would be together. Alone they were powerful, really quite powerful. But when their magics combined, even without intention, they could create, well, something wonderful and terrifying.
"What's Qeteshite?" Hermione turned to Draco. He had tilted his head with the question like he was interested again.
If he had any ability to disappear, Hermione thought he would make an astonishingly good Unspeakable. However, he was one of the most visible people she'd ever met, his mystery wrapped in effulgent charm and he had an unerring ability to look at people and make them crave being worthy of his time. A most pertinent inconvenience for a Spook.
It really was a special majesty to be tied to him, despite the fleeting nature of their connection.
She gave him an indulgent smile and his eyes lightened with excitement that he'd pleased her. Even if he wasn't sure how.
"Have you heard about the Love Room?" she floated the query, giving him the ability to describe what he knew.
"One of the purported rooms in the Department of Mysteries. It is always locked. Supposedly Unspeakables study the effects of love by imbibing Amortentia. Which I never fully understood as Amortentia creates obsession, not love," he used a knuckle to rub the underside of his chin, brow furrowed in thought.
"Well, you're right," Theo confirmed, but made a sweeping gesture with his hand like there was more to it. "The Love Room is not a particularly well-kept secret. And there is a large fountain of Amortentia where some Unspeakables do study the effects of love. But it is the fountain itself that is the most important ingredient. It is made entirely of this substance."
He held the lachrymiform so it caught the firelight of the cottage, dazzling a vernicose citrine hue over the tips of his fingers.
"Qeteshite," Draco summarily noted, earning a nod from his friend. "I've never heard of it before."
Hermione sank onto the couch, manipulating the small drops to sift around on her palm. Her gaze serene and not really quite there. Like there was too much inside herself to really bother with everything outside it.
"Qeteshite was thought to be an extinct material in our world. And it doesn't exist at all in the Leyland realms," Theo was explaining. Draco had taken a seat beside her, resting his elbows on his knees as he leant forward to catch the knowledge more quickly. "Qeteshite turns Amortentia authentic. It wears off eventually, of course. But Qeteshite in and of itself harbours powers of idyllic pleasure, so using it as a cauldron for Amortentia heightens the results. Those who partake of it experience real, true love in its purest form. Potently addictive. Hence why the door must remain locked at all times and those experimenting in that room are not permitted to leave."
Draco glanced at where Hermione was fondly stroking the baubles with her thumb. She gave him a small smile, her spine tingling with electricity.
"And you both somehow created a piece of something that was extinct? How did you even manage that? Did you know that was what you were doing?" the questions tumbled out, somersaulting over each other like he thought they may have stumbled over some xenolithic wyrd. As if these small crystals were a manifestation of a hidden destiny he was afraid of. There were tinges of anxiety in his words and Hermione wasn't sure if he hadn't remembered they couldn't touch each other for his own benefaction or if he was employing empathy for their plight.
"Darling mizshieré, be calm," Hermione traced the back of her finger down his arm and he immediately relaxed. She'd said it in a sort of yonderly fashion, but she caught the flash of hurt that glanced over Theo at the epithet.
She supposed he was right; it wasn't fair to use cherishing compulsion designed to adore your companion and settle them. It was Herrissian from the fourth realm and for a place so lawless and erumpent, they certainly had beautiful words to share their love.
Draco had turned to her as she frowned down at the lachrymiforms, wondering if they had influenced her use of the affectation.
"Is what I felt just then real?" he asked her, and she nodded. For once acquiescing to be plain and simple.
"It only works if it's sincere," she replied, blinking slowly. She was sleepy, the candles near the stairs were sputtering with hushed whispers, arguing amongst themselves like they were torn on some issue she didn't understand yet.
Draco was looking at her oddly like she was acting out of sorts. And maybe she was. Her hand had slipped under his jersey and T-shirt. He had such beautiful skin, she wondered if he knew that.
It was the skin romance novels called alabaster, that kind of soft stone that could be carved but she didn't think he was any kind of gypsum or calcite. Really he was moonlight shapeshifted from lunar pareidolia into the form of a man with flaxen starlight for hair and ice in his eyes that melted when he turned his gaze upon that which he cared about. Dripping glaciers that held that raw, howling kind of beauty that echoed through your skin to chill your bones. So austere and primitive you felt small in its presence. A comforting kind of small like you knew your place in the world.
"Miny?" Draco didn't seem like he knew his place the way he said it. He actually sounded like the boundaries of his world were being tested, like he was experiencing some sort of zeitgeber disturbance. Hermione attempted to disclose her intentions.
"You know, I've read a lot about cartography and I think I could quite easily add it to my skillset," she rambled. For it was surely a ramble, it stumbled over hillocks and waded through sodden divots and there was something off about her pacing, but she felt hot and tingly, and these words needed to come out. "I think you could be my first application of the art, it would be nice, wouldn't it? I suppose you may have to lay rather still for a time, and I wonder how I should travel to the moon to do the rest because you're from there, aren't you?"
Draco looked thoroughly bewildered so she supposed more detail of the process was necessary. She moved closer so she could better begin figuring out the topography of his spine with the hand that wasn't throbbing with heated pleasure from the fun little stones she made earlier.
"I think I have some dip inks that won't stain my fingers too badly to best map your planimetric features. Oh! What if it calls for an oral dissertation? I wonder if I still have those edible dye cartridges. How long do you think we could go before my tongue gets tired? It's best for me to use that so I fill my mouth with everything you are, so I know how to describe it best. I think it's quite rare for someone to be from the moon."
"Theo," Draco hissed. "What the fuck is happening right now?"
An avolitional force bade her tear away from her observation of Draco to rest upon their guest. A sweeping of staccato chops beat in her, the heat intensified, and she wanted some ice for the back of her neck. Maybe if she could cool Theo down it would help for if he made her this hot, he must be feeling it too.
"Mae hi'n bwrw eira," she uttered with a pulsing of magic and the eaves began drifting snow upon Theo's armchair and Hermione smiled like she'd achieved something.
Theo for his part, simply held out a hand to catch the feathering icicles and chuckled a little. Draco shook his hands exasperatedly at him.
"Drake, exactly how many of these things is she holding?" indicating the wonderful baetyl that had garnered her exquisite inspiration to perform a tactile foray into physiography.
Draco glanced at her hand and she curled around his back to open her palm in front of him.
"There's twelve, I think," he calculated.
"Right, well I'm only holding one and it has the rather curious effect of being pleasantly enticing. I'm honestly impressed with her constitution that she has clothes on right now and you aren't being ravaged," the föhn-windswept leas that danced right to the very azimuth of his irises were playful and daring in their regard of what was occurring. Snow settled in his hair, nestling amongst the chestnut locks. She wanted to run her fingers through it, the cool hush of snow melting slick against the warmth of her hands dragging and massaging his scalp, losing themselves in a forest of follicles.
Draco huffed a sigh and Hermione lightened her touch to graze down his vertebrae slow enough he shivered. "I implore you to be helpful," he gritted out. He seemed to be trying to hold something back.
Hermione leant into his shoulder and extended a breath into his ear, "Take one then."
"Yes, but be careful and-" Theo began, but Draco had already touched both the lachrymiform and her hand.
The cottage fell away. Hermione didn't even think her dear friend Time would be able to reach her right now. For when Draco touched her and together they held the crystal, her pasts, presents and futures all became his. The music that united her life plinked soft and tender notes not needing a melody or even chords to hum the magnitude of everything he now was to her.
He was perfection personified, a thousand-layered mystery and she wanted to lose count of the number of ways she used her body to uncover them. She was vibrantly aware of how close he had gathered her, like he wanted to absorb everything she was through osmosis. His schisted gaze brimming with a passionate need for them to become a symbiotic entity. His touch shocking with echoing promises as fingertips trickled over her clavicle in a way that made eternities feel like seconds.
His breath was stuttered, and she wondered how it was possible she could still see his lips when all she wanted in the world was to be connected to them. If the world still existed, that is. But since her world was now Draco and Draco alone, she thought it must be. However, if that was the case, his lips were just the very start of everything she wanted in the world.
His hand was now holding her taut against him, a force of gravity to ensure her orbit wouldn't wrest her away from him. She wondered how long it would take for them to expire if they only shared their own breath until there was nothing left but dizzying nitrogen. She would be entirely satisfied with her life if that was the way she left it.
His eyes held the souls of dying stars, quasars burning and pulsing their light beyond even the greatest force of the black hole of his pupils. They were a transcendent gray. The gray of diamonds, sparkling and dazzling her. The tear-staining wonder of the night sky falling to bury into her skin making her feel as if every follicle glowed with their caress.
His touch melted into her, his hand forming crop circle patterns, the indentations of which she was sure she would feel forever. She felt safe, secure but there was a burning edge, a screaming thrill of adventure. She felt wanted. So very wanted, highly combustible and volatile, a lit fuse hedging towards a gasoline-doused pit of fireworks. But still safe like the void space he held in his eyes would suck away any actual danger leaving the heady pounding of risk to play with.
She already was, but she almost didn't want to touch him. Like if she caressed the planes of his face, she'd be able to dip into them and lift ice and rock and astral dust like the ephemera that spun ensorcelled by the latter four celestial bodies of the solar system. Their hands entwined upon the jewels felt as if they kept galaxies betwixt their beings and who's to say they didn't?
For everything about him was cosmic, even his aura. It was black and silver like she'd known it would be. Just like the sixth Leyland realm. If you didn't know, it could look cold and unflatteringly, insidiously dark. But this wasn't that species of black. The silver was gossamer and delicate yet tensile and held a fortitude that could only be admired. The black was colossal. It spread wide and deep, akin to the comfort of darkness when you closed your eyes for a dreamless sleep. It was familiar and beckoning, the way light became obscured once you buried your face in the chest of a loved one.
She was learning him all over again and she travelled in light-years to look at his lips. Hermione felt the exquisite sluggishness of gravity twist at the very centre of her as she yielded gradually by millimetres. A cresting horizon rearing with a tantalising allure that something magnificently, wondrously alien was beyond it and would change her until Time herself halted her essence's journey within all planes of existence.
She was so very close now and there were words on her tongue, she felt them edging and curling, readying to expel air and make themselves real.
But one thing held her back, her own personal shoulder angel and devil: How and Why. She vaguely remembered it was not always this way. How had this incredible feat been accomplished? How could she feel for him with so much crushing pressure it had pulled them into a singularity? Why had it happened? If this had always been an option why hadn't she opted for it long ago?
So, she fought the words just a little until she figured it out.
It didn't matter though; the prayer was eulogised by him. It felt like the purest burst of ecstasy racing along her skin with the wonder of an aurora, the pulsing crack of lightning, the thunderously wobbling shudder of an earthquake.
"I love you."
Then the jewels were forcefully tipped from her hand.
She blinked, her sentience returning.
Oh no, no. What did he just say?