Chapter Three: Wormwood and Asphodel
Lili turned a black bottle over the cauldron with a heavy-handed wipe at her brow. Nothing happened.
She tapped on its bottom at first, then slammed the heel of her hand against it, then, finally, resigned herself to peeking inside. It was empty.
She allowed herself several breaths to work up to speaking. "Miss Granger, where is my powdered mugwort?" She held the empty bottle out loosely, doing her best to look severe through tired eyes.
Hermione was across the room, bent over her own cauldron, working on something that was, apparently, quite enthralling. It took Lili three more "Miss Granger"s before her partner finally looked up. "What? I'm sorry I didn't hear."
Lili laid a gloved hand on the cauldron's lip, supporting her fatigued body. For the last few hours she had been mulling over just how the meeting later that afternoon should go. She never relished her trips to Malfoy Manor, and, at the moment, the situation with Junia, and, indeed the possible danger to Snape and herself, was weighing on her so deeply that bickering with Hermione was the last thing in the world she wanted.
But, she mused, what I want hasn't mattered for some time…
She sighed. "I asked, Miss Granger, where my powdered mugwort is. I seem to have switched our bottles as this one is empty and mine was still half full." She spoke with exaggerated lip movement, as if explaining to a child.
This usually frustrated Hermione immensely, but now she merely went back to looking at her cauldron, pinching something in and refusing to meet Lili's eyes. "Oh, I used the last of it yesterday. Remember, I was making that second formulation for Restorative we had talked ab—"
"Why, Miss Granger," Lili pressed, a twinge of hot blood tingling under her skin, "Did you use my store of mugwort rather than your own?"
Hermione barely glanced up at the slumped, accusing figure looming across the room. "Mine was out, and if I hadn't added yours at just the right time, the whole batch would have been ruined."
Her heart was twisting, objecting with several slow thumps. Her body clearly was in no mood to pursue the argument. Her mind, however, continued to click and whirl, spitting words back to her like volleys of fire. "And now, Miss Granger, because you chose to use the remainder of mine without informing me, this potion will be ruined and I will have to wait three days to get new mugwort, grind it, and let it set properly." She scowled deeply at the other woman, tapping the edge of the cauldron, liquid draining out the bottom into nothingness. "I'll leave you to clean up this mess since it was, unsurprisingly, your fault yet again." Lili turned away, and, as an afterthought, sighed. "And, Miss Granger, next time you have the choice between leaving something for my potion or using it for yours, let's always stick with mine, shall we? I mean there's no point in wasting perfectly good ingredients..."
Apparently, Hermione wasn't up to a fight either; she simply nodded and returned to her potion, distant.
That's odd, Lili thought, taking a seat at her short desk and scrawling out an order for more mugwort. Hermione hardly ever missed a chance to retort or at least purse her lips in passive aggression. Today, however, something else was clearly on her mind, and, though Lili knew better, she wanted to ask the young woman what it was. Hermione had always seemed the type to have everything together, and Lili wasn't used to seeing her anything but content and businesslike.
"Lili."
She looked up. Hermione was still working at the potion, but half-heartedly, her eyes darting up to meet Lili's infrequently.
"I—I've put in for a job transfer."
Hermione's voice was soft, and Lili was amazed at its gentility. She had imagined Hermione would have shouted this at her accusingly; a sort of vengeful jab. Instead, her partner merely gave a wan half-smile.
"I see," Lili replied, pressing the quill harder to the parchment to steady herself. "And—and why is that?" She regretted saying this at once, knowing it to sound too concerned. In compensation, she pushed her face into an odd smirk. "Looking for something easier?"
Hermione swallowed, not rising to the bait. "No, well, it's just that potions have never really been my favorite. I took this job to get a good foothold here at Ministry research. And they were talking about giving me a promotion—"
Lili's stomach turned. You knew that would happen; you knew—
Her Slytherin ambition wailed out in pain.
"But I told them I'd rather just be transferred." She looked up at Lili apologetically, and Lili couldn't help but wonder why. After all the cruelty she had dished out, Hermione could still look at her that way, afraid to hurt the poor Slytherin's tender feelings.
I'll show her a Slytherin's tender feelings…Lili pursed her lips, sitting up and turning from Hermione's gaze as if she'd said nothing of importance. "I see."
The other woman's cauldron bubbled fiercely, filling the silence with its tympanic spattering and hissing static. Lili could still feel Hermione's eyes on her, but she did her best to ignore them. What does she want from me? It was a strange rending that she had not felt in sometime. Part of her—the real part, she tried to remind herself—felt like asking Hermione more, wanted to apologize for all their problems and tell her that, maybe, someday, if this all ended, they might go out and have a drink and talk more than shop.
But the shadow of her real self—the one she was forced to hold out to the world—demanded that she return to writing, silent, as if this was as unimportant as news about the weather. In fact, it told her, look happy. You're happy to be rid of that know-it-all brat…
"Besides," she heard the other woman mumbling as she took up with her potion once more, "we've never made the happiest of partners anyway." There was no bite in these words, and the tearing in Lili's heart ached even more acutely. Why did she have to be so damn generous about it? Just one sharp, punctuated word, and Lili's guilt would have melted. One indication that she was glad to be rid of Elizabeth Lee the Infamously Sour, and Lili would at least have felt no blame. Damn Gryffindors. Damn tender sensibilities…
Hermione fidgeted with her hair, skin glowing a healthy pink in her cauldron's light. "Honestly, I'd have thought you'd be glad to see the other side of me."
Me too, Lili thought, sure to keep her heavy, wounded eyes out of sight. Me too.
She swallowed, forcing her voice to flatten into deadpan ice. "Indeed."
The sound of clicking echoed on the stone steps outside, and the door came bursting open with a resounding, wooden thud.
"'Mione!"
A short, rather pug-faced woman came scurrying in, thick legs pounding the floor like the bass drum in a march. Her bright, painted lips were smiling broadly, eyes glittering at Hermione gleefully. "'Mione! I've just heard!"
Hermione looked up with a grin, removing her dragonhide gloves and absorbing a smothering embrace. "Oh, thank you Ann," she managed through the woman's shoulder.
Ann Watson was their department's secretary, and, rather fortunately in Lili's opinion, she rarely came down to see them. She and Hermione were closely acquainted, however, as Ann's husband had been good friends with Arthur Weasely, Hermione's father-in-law.
When the other woman released her, Hermione looked grateful. "Oh, I wouldn't have thought anyone here would know yet. We haven't actually told Mister and Misses Weasely…"
"Oh, bless me, dear," Ann said, waving one of her hands about excitedly, "that's not where I heard."
Hermione looked at her, perplexed.
"It's all around the Ministry by now, dear," Ann explained, grinning so hard Lili was certain it must have hurt. "Harry Potter has been telling every person he sees…"
"Oh!" Hermione growled, pursing her lips in frustration. "I told Ron not to tell him!"
"But why not, my dear? Why not! It's wonderful news, just marvelous." The woman seemed to be bobbing with all the veracity of a tugboat in a hurricane. "When did you find out?"
Hermione, blushing, tapped her cauldron, causing its contents to suspend in mid-boil. Even the flame beneath froze, and, without the crackling, the room seemed oddly silent. The scratching of Lili's quill echoed harshly for several seconds.
"Last night," Hermione explained, tiny smile hinting across her face. "Ron and I went to see a mediwizard to be sure." The grin seemed to deepen but did not widen. "I'm pregnant. They say I'm due some time in March of next year."
Lili swallowed, her quill scratching rather a sudden, irregular line. So that's it. That was what had preoccupied her all morning, keeping her so calm and distant. It wasn't about some job transfer: hell, maybe it was even another reason she'd requested the transfer. Potion-making would be difficult in later months—standing on her feet all day in the blistering heat…
A wound already torn across her heart objected again, widening. She didn't tell you. Wouldn't. Hermione was, no doubt, certain that Lili could care less. In fact, she probably imagined she'd only receive some snide remark in return.
She would have, and you know it. Lili forced the quill back under her control. Being honest with herself, she had already considered any number of cracks related to Ron Weasley and Contraception Charms. But still—this was a baby. Even Lili could afford some sensitivity there. She was, after all, a woman.
Not to them you're not, she thought with a sigh. You're a monster—a cold, unfeeling lump…
She was hit, quite suddenly, by the full weight of just how disliked she really was.
Glancing down, she noticed with a growl that she had written 'pregnant' rather than 'porcupine.' She scratched it through violently.
"Miss Watson," she snarled, looking up to meet the witch's pair of high-beam blue eyes.
The woman looked as if caught on the wrong end of a wand. "Oh, Lili. Didn't see you there," she attempted, propping a grin across her plump cheeks. "Isn't it great news about 'Mione?"
Lili wondered if Hermione hate having this nickname as much as she hated hearing it. "Thrilling," she replied flatly, sure her eyes had skewered the woman before continuing. "If you ladies are done with the morning gossip, I need you to check the emergency stores for mugwort. Any amount will do."
Ann seemed barely able to look back. "Er, yes, I'll look when I go back up." Her muscles looked tense, a deer prepared to spring at the first movement of its predator.
Good, Lili told herself again, scratching over her mistake even more fiercely. If it's heartless they want, it's heartless they'll get…She felt a familiar ice cool the emotion pounding through her veins, and she knew, sitting straighter, that she could once again work steadily, mask of shadow secured tightly over her face.
Hermione, obviously uncomfortable with Lili's terse response, reached out gently, laying a hand on Ann's shoulder. "Speaking of babies, how are those twins? Getting over their colds?"
It took Ann a moment to recover. Her smile twinkled with relief. "Oh, they're doin' fine, bless them. Those tonics you brewed up worked like a charm. You know just the other day little Alexis—"
Lili rubbed at her temples, clearing her throat deliberately. She had no desire to hear tales of anything as nauseatingly "adorable" as this was sure to be. She simply wanted her mugwort and a little peace to work in.
Eyes flitting nervously across Lili, Ann gave a short apologetic nod. "Well, it's a blessing, dear. Raising a child—there's nothin' more rewarding."
Oh please, Lili moaned internally, speeding across the parchment once again. Perhaps for someone as garish and simple-minded as Ann Watson nothing was more rewarding that shooting out a couple of kids, but for someone as intelligent as Hermione, this must sound a foolish and patronizing notion. Lili looked up to judge the young witch's response.
Hermione's eyes had grown distant, her mouth hanging limp in a way Lili had never seen from her before. It was a look of worry she knew only too well: it was a dark sorrow she saw every morning in the mirror…
"I don't know, Ann," Hermione muttered at length, leaning back on the rough wall behind her. "I must admit, I'm very nervous." She looked up at the other witch, wide-eyed, obviously trying to ignore Lili altogether. "These are—dark times. There'll be war soon. People are being killed—even children. I mean, Alex Silver. Who would ever have thought—but his whole family..." She swallowed, shaking her head as if not willing to pursue the thought. "I'm just not sure that now is the best time to have a child; to bring it into a world so uncertain…"
Plump cheeks sagging, Ann pressed her lips tight in consideration. "Well, there's no doubt it's dark times, 'Mione. But we gotta keep on livin'. If we don't, well then, Dark Lord's already but won."
Lili's heart sank, a heavy stone in her stomach. If only she knew. If only she knew that I have given up living; given up whatever might have been just to ensure that that life is in Hermione has a chance, even a slight one, of being able to live…
Her mind tutted her. Oh, so noble are we now? She would never have chosen that path had it not been forced upon her: engaging in such spurts of self-aggrandizing was not only delusion but far too masturbatory for her liking.
"Speaking of dark times…" Ann's face grew grimmer still, and she cleared her throat a little, shifting across her meaty feet. "No, this probably isn't what you want to hear right now—"
"What?"
Ann pressed her thick hands together, fingers tangling between one another. "The news about Junia Bell: they've found her."
It took every bit of Lili's control to remain on her seat. As it was, the quill fell from her hand, and her head whipped towards Ann violently.
Ann looked back at Lili terrified.
"What did you say?" Lili asked, standing and trying to keep her body from shaking—at least visibly. Inside, her heart quaked short and fast like a leaf in the wind.
It took a moment for the older witch to stutter into speech. "I-I just said they found Junia Bell. Everyone upstairs is—"
"Where?" she pressed, heat and blood racing past her ears and circling swiftly through her body. Snape was wrong. "Where did they find her?" Her mind sung the words, her extremities tingling with the beginnings of relief. They found her: they found her: perhaps optimism, in this case, wasn't such a foolish thing…
Ann shook off whatever shock still rested on her fleshy face and returned it to its former frown. "Oh, on a Muggle street actually. Right in the middle and all."
"A Muggle street?" Lili narrowed her eyes which seemed to make the other witch step back slightly. "What do you mean a Muggle street? A street here in London?"
Ann glanced over at Hermione who was also listening intently, hand resting lightly on the edge of her cauldron. "Oh, well, yes. Here in London. She was laying right there in the middle, Dark Mark over her and all. Tons of Muggles saw it: even some of their reporters."
Lili felt the cold of the stone walls in an attempt to balance herself. The heat and excitement drained from her to the floor, a puddle of hope at her feet. "Laying in the street? With the Dark Mark?" She swallowed. "So she's—she's dead."
Ann nodded, looking at Lili as if she expected the woman to, at any moment, turn into a man-eating dragon.
Without looking, Lili felt her way back to her chair and floated down into it, barely aware. They didn't find her—they found her corpse. "And the Dark Mark—they know it was You-Know-Who…"
The older witch's eyes flashed, widening like blue tea saucers. "Well, that's the really shocking part. The Ministry just finished with her autopsy. At first they'd figured that she'd been killed by Unforgivables: Cruciatus until she had a heart attack, they said. Another cut 'n dry case." Her eyes fell to the floor and her head shook slowly. "But then, when they were examining her arms they found—" The words emerged, a horrified whisper. "The Dark Mark." She swallowed. "Burned, deep under her skin. She was—one of them."
Hermione's tiny gasp seemed to crack Lili's heart in two. "Barbarians, beasts," she murmured, eyes sinking heavy towards the ground. "No, worse. Killing even among themselves: disgusting."
A horrible stillness settled on the room, worming deep in Lili's ears with all the thick discomfort of water, fear and sorrow squeezing at the root of her stomach. She clenched her teeth, jaw setting painfully square. Every part of her yearned to scream, to tell them what Junia had really been: what a sacrifice she'd made…And what this meant. For her. For Snape.
But all she could do was ring her hands on the chair's arms and avert her eyes which, for the first time in two years, were beginning to burn with tears.
Apparently, even turning away could not hide her obvious distress. She heard the older witch's thick robes swish, leaning forward. "I—erm--did you know her, Lili?"
Willing her eyes to control themselves, she turned her shaken face up towards the other two slowly. Ann was bent closer to her, face seemingly torn between the normal anxiety and a new-found sympathy. Hermione, however, remained standing rigid, watching Lili flatly.
She gave a sharp nod. "Yes."
When Hermione finally moved, it was with a jerk that seemed far too violent and unnatural. "Oh, you knew her? How interesting, that you knew a Death Eater." Her eyes were trembling, fraught with a hate Lili hadn't known was there. "And how, tell us, did you come to know a Death Eater? A surprising situation indeed!"
She looked up into Hermione's face, taut with fury, hot breath lashing out fast and furious. Finally. An expectant mother, raging against the evil, Lili realized, her own trembling hands reaching up to brush a curl behind her ear. And right now, in her eyes, you're the evil…
Lili's heart stung, but she took a breath to settle herself. Remember back to Snape. How many times did he tell you about this? How many times did he tell you the hate, the repulsion you would have to face?
And she was back in the Dungeons at Hogwarts, his voice, silk and baritone dripping from those stone walls. Stare it back, Miss Lee. Stare it back as you would a charging hippogriff. Don't let them see you; don't give yourself away to them.
You know the truth. That's all that matters.
She swallowed. "Actually, Miss Granger, I met Junia Bell through the Malfoys." Gratefully she realized her voice had returned to a stronger, strident drawl. "You might recall I was involved with Draco for some time at Hogwarts."
And make of that, she added mentally, whatever you like.
Apparently, she made of it precisely what might have been expected, eyes flashing with anger. "And why these sudden tears for her?" She spat, pushing past Ann until she stood right before Lili, looming over the seated woman tall and stiff. "What of the others? I saw you shed no tears for them! Great Aurors, Ministry officials, their families, children! Their names elicited no such sorrow: the Sneads, Bruce Lietzke, Elayne Crenshaw, Penelope Clearwater, Seamus Finnigan and his wife!" Her robes, black falls of trembling cotton, were brushing violently against Lili's knees. "But let a Death Eater fall, and it's tears and silence, from you!"
No more words were spoken, but the accusation hung as heavy as the scent of fairywing in the silent air.
Every bone in Lili's body was soaked through with exhaustion. Every muscle that cradled those bones was taut with rage. The skin wrapped about her suddenly felt too thin to keep from bursting.
Sometimes, Miss Lee, it will all feel like too much.
The memory ran through her head as if called by instinct.
And what do I do for those times, Professor? What can I do?
He had turned away.
Wormwood and asphodel in small doses, Miss Lee. A temporary but effective alternative to death…
Lili felt her muscles snap as she stood, rising almost to Hermione's shuddering eyes. She met them, with rage, with terror, with exhaustion and a thousand other waves of feeling she couldn't depress. "I would advise you, Miss Granger, to mind your own damned business."
She smoothed at her robes, and, grabbing the mugwort order, shoved it out sharply towards Ann. The older witch took it, hands trembling unabashedly.
Hermione hadn't moved, eyes grasping Lili by the throat, demanding of her every ache and pain and tightening of the wrack and the screw. Any Gryffindor compassion that might have once been there, was replaced by another trait of Godric's crowd—the knee-jerk judgment…
For such a know-it-all, you don't know anything, Lili snarled internally, picking up her bag and making for the door with a gait stilted by rage. You don't know what darkness really is…
Ripping open the door, she realized Hermione was following her, still demanding her pain. She whipped around, catching the other witch's eyes so violently, that, even through her rage, Hermione stepped back.
"Miss Granger, I will be overjoyed when you and that bastard child you're brewing are comfortably elsewhere and out of my sight," she spat, eyes narrowing and teeth grinding to dust in her mouth.
Seeing the other woman's lips part and sink from ire to hurt gave her a brief but gratifying rush.
She left, slamming the door behind her.
******************
A/N: I got it out by Sunday! Yea! Actually, it's rather a short chapter, but that's mostly because the next chapter is going to be long. Just to whet your appetite, I've been looking forward to Chapter Four since Chapter 13 or We Are the Night. :o) It will be the last chapter I'm able to write before going to Beijing, but I think it will be an excellent stopping point…
Oh, I forgot to mention last time; the quote "When I start forgetting things you can light my funeral pyre and put me on it" comes from I, Claudius, one of my favorite books/mini-series. I've used a few more references, but I can't think of them just off the top of my head…
I must give Fidelis Haven her/his dues: I used the phrase "Godric's crowd," which you mentioned in your review. Thank you: I need all the help I can get sometimes…
As always let me know what you think. Is Hermione still in character? Is Lili still interesting? (Actually this chapter is not much: mostly just a transition, but please, let me know your thoughts…)
Alright, well I'm off to have a fun 20th birthday! Hope everyone enjoys. Next chapter will be done by next Sunday, June 16th.
