Chapter 11: Errands in London
The following Thursday night, Meli took her seat beside Snape at the head table, acknowledging with a smile his and Zarekael's nodded greetings.
"So, Severus," she said conversationally, "have you settled on a costume for the Halloween Ball yet?" It was a joke, or so she thought; Snape was not ordinarily one who would enjoy traipsing about in a silly costume unless it served a more vital purpose than simply having fun.
To her surprise, though, Snape smirked and replied, "But of course." He raised amused eyebrows, then added, "Have you?"
Meli's own eyebrows had gained substantial elevation, and she lost a bit of her momentum. She retained her poise, however, and said, a smirk on her own face, "Why, Severus, you're becoming positively social. I half-expected you to tell me that you'd managed to wrangle your way out of going at all."
"Don't think it hadn't crossed my mind," Snape advised sardonically. "You, however, seem rather excited at the prospect of attending a costume ball."
"Ah, there you introduce an interesting idea I'd not considered," Meli mused. "I had thought to go as a sprite, but perhaps, since it's not merely a dance but a ball, I should go instead as Cinderella."
"That would require the presence of Prince Charming," Snape pointed out. "And should he make an appearance, you may be obliged to marry him."
Meli looked at him in mock-horror. "Oh, that would never do!" she breathed. "I'm far too tall for Flitwick!"
This declaration elicited amusement from Snape and a puzzled expression—which slowly faded to understanding as the pun sank in—from Zarekael.
"Perhaps, then, you would fare better as a sprite," the apprentice observed solemnly.
"Yes." She smiled again, laying aside her deadpan countenance for the moment. "That reminds me: I'm going to Muggle London this weekend to buy various necessities for my costume. Is there anything either of you would like me to pick up while I'm there?"
"You're going to Muggle London?" Zarekael repeated, a spark of interest touching the words.
That's right, Meli recalled. He's never encountered Muggles. "Would you like to come along?" she offered. I doubt he'll take me up on it—
"May I?" He seemed at once surprised and pleased by the invitation, though, like Snape, he had far too much control of his voice and countenance to show it openly.
I'm batting a thousand tonight, Meli thought sarcastically. Aloud, she replied, "Of course—if you really want to. I don't mind your company . . . as long as you don't mind mine."
"By her own account, Meli isn't very pleasant company," Snape cautioned dryly.
"Ah."
Meli smirked. "Perhaps I should have been more precise," she allowed. "When going among Muggles especially, my actions have been known to be rather more disconcerting than they are usually."
"Disconcerting in what way?" Zarekael asked warily.
"She's quite irritable," Snape answered. "She tells people exactly what she thinks of them when she's at liberty to do so, and she's been known to kick troublesome dogs."
Meli sighed in exasperation. "Oh, stop dwelling on all the positive things, Severus!"
By now Zarekael had fully caught on that, while there was probably truth to what Snape and Meli said, the exchange was not at all serious. His eyes were narrowed in a mild amusement when Meli again looked at him.
"I think you'll survive," she told him, smiling again. "You could pass for a Muggle in the right clothes and with an ear-bobbing charm. Mind you, an unusually tall Muggle," she added, "but a Muggle nonetheless."
"That may prove to be a difficulty," Zarekael said. "I have no Muggle clothing."
Meli shrugged. "If that's the only problem, it's easily solved," she replied. Collum is going to kill me . . . "I have an entire collection of Muggle clothing; finding an outfit for you shouldn't be too hard, and alterations are easily done with a little charm work."
"I have no wish to impose."
She offered him a wry half-smile. "If it was an imposition, I wouldn't have offered," she countered. "If you have time, we can fit you out after dinner."
Zarekael considered a moment, then nodded his assent. "Very well."
They left the Great Hall together after the meal, and Meli led him to her new quarters in the dungeons.
"I should warn you," she said as they neared her rooms, "Muggle clothing is almost as interesting and diverse as Muggle music; this could take awhile."
"How diverse is Muggle music?" Zarekael inquired.
Meli was saved from having to offer an immediate answer by their arrival at her door. She took her time working past the wards preventing easy and immediate entrance, but even the two minutes it bought her were insufficient to formulate a proper response. How could one explain the difference between Nickelback and Sting, for instance, to someone who had never heard either? She doubted she could even manage a sufficient explanation of acoustic versus electric sound.
The wards relented, and she was obliged to offer Zarekael a hopeless look as she led him inside. "I don't know precisely how to explain it," she confessed. "It would be much easier to play a couple of songs for you, but my DiscMan doesn't work at Hogwarts."
To judge by his expression, Zarekael had figured out from the context of her statement what a DiscMan might possibly be; he proved her deduction right with his reply. "There is a charm that may be used to reproduce music."
"Really?" She raised surprised eyebrows. "I didn't know that."
Zarekael narrowed his eyes in mild amusement. "I specifically asked Professor Flitwick if such a charm existed," he told her. "It is the only means by which I can hear music from home now. It's not difficult, merely uncommon."
"Interesting." Meli smiled. "Well, in that case, if you could teach me the charm, I'd be only too happy to play a couple of illustrative songs for you."
Monty chose that moment to slide out of her bedroom and inspect the visitor. To Meli's dismay, the python clearly did not like Zarekael at first blush. He slithered to within five feet of the Potions apprentice, where he stopped, lifted his head, and glared at the object of his scrutiny.
"This is my domain!" he hissed venomously. "Leave!"
Meli was glad that Zarekael couldn't understand Monty's words; he didn't seem the type to take offense easily, but now was not the time to find out the hard way.
"Monty!" she snapped, well aware of her calculated risk. "He's my guest. Now shut up and be polite, or I'll cage you."
Zarekael was most definitely a cool customer. Presented with clear evidence that his hostess was a Parselmouth, he did not so much as blink in horror, though he did raise a mild eyebrow.
He probably isn't surprised so much by my being a Parselmouth as by my letting him know it, she thought. Well, here's another surprise for you: I'm not ashamed of it anymore, and I trust you with the knowledge.
She and Monty glared at one another, then the python decided to force the issue by lunging. He was checked by light application of her boot to his jaw, and as he drew his head back, she caught him, first by the head, then by the tail. Within ten seconds, Monty found himself in Meli's bedroom with the door locked and warded behind him.
"Sorry about that," Meli said calmly, returning to her guest. "He's just a bit territorial."
"Ah," Zarekael replied, clearly amused.
She smiled. "So, returning to the question at hand—I find music far more interesting than Monty's many quirks—"
"Like to say that to my face?" Monty demanded, throwing himself against the door.
Meli sighed and drew her wand. "Once more earns a silencing charm," she called. She didn't want to do it, and as it turned out, she didn't have to. Beneath his bluster, Monty was actually quite reasonable, and he knew when he'd overstepped his bounds.
"If you let me out, I'll go in my cage and shut up," he promised.
"Really." She couldn't recall him ever having volunteered to be caged, except on necessary occasions such as travel. He must be curious to see what's going on, she concluded. "All right." She relented, unwarding the door, and the python slithered out of the bedroom and into his cage, drawing the door shut behind him with an expert flick of his tail.
Satisfied, Meli turned back to Zarekael. "A minor disagreement only," she assured him. "But you were telling me about the music reproduction charm."
Zarekael looked evaluatively at her for a moment, then, still very much amused, nodded. "As I said before, it's a simple enough charm to learn and to implement. I learned it before beginning as a student here."
It was a simple charm, almost embarrassingly so. After hearing Zarekael's brief description of it, Meli was at a loss to explain to herself how such a charm could not be common knowledge. She filed it away in her long-term memory, then turned to her teacher with a smile.
"Would you like to hear some samples of Muggle music, then?" she asked.
Zarekael nodded. "Certainly."
Her smile turned a touch wicked. "I think I'll start out with 'Boom'." A few seconds later, Zarekael was treated to a strong dose of P.O.D., and Meli, catching sight of a wince, scaled back the volume a bit. There was no need to blast him, after all, and his hearing, she had learned, was far more sensitive than that of the average human.
His countenance was perfectly inscrutable; she had no clue what he thought of the song, beyond a notion that it had started out too loud. Once the song had played through, she turned to him inquisitively.
"It's . . . very interesting," he allowed. "No wonder you find Muggles so fascinating."
"Well, not all Muggles listen to P.O.D.," she told him. "There are countless styles of music, and most Muggles like a number of styles."
"For example?"
Meli shrugged. "Well . . . Celtic is a popular one. Here, try this." She cast the charm again, this time calling forth Máire Brennan's "To the Water". A greater contrast to P.O.D. could not be drawn; "To the Water" followed a definite meter, but it had no very strong percussion beat, and Máire, like her sister Enya, possessed a high, ethereal voice that in no way resembled Sonny's in-your-face rap. Where "Boom" bounced and crashed, "To the Water" floated and wafted; both were aptly named.
When this second song faded, Meli turned her attention to Zarekael. He had, as before, listened in perfect silence with a neutral expression, but now neutrality gave way to approbation. "A beautiful song," he observed. "I see what you mean when you say that Muggle music is diverse. The music of my home does not, perhaps, span such a wide spectrum, but there is still a variety of styles." He raised his eyebrows inquisitively. "Would you like to hear?"
Meli nodded and smiled. "I'd be honored," she replied, and it was true. The sharing of music was the sharing of part of oneself. She didn't particularly mind sharing only two songs, for she knew herself to be far too complicated to be easily known, and she had intentionally chosen songs that showed more of her surface than of her depth. However, it had been clear from the beginning that Zarekael knew far more of her than she knew of him; even if he went by the same policy she had used, choosing only surface songs, she was sure to learn something of him.
The first song he played had some elements similar to Celtic music: it was light and ethereal and brought to her mind images of fey creatures gathering in a wood to dance and laugh and, if struck by the fancy, to cast strange nets of enchantment about them. They were noble creatures and fair, with thoughts and purposes strange to the human mind, yet with a playful lightness that belied their wisdom.
Yet I doubt, somehow, that the singer's words are at all describing such a scene, she thought. The singer was a trained soprano, but the lyrics she sang seemed to fade into the blend of unfamiliar string and wind instruments—and in any case, they were not in English, so Meli couldn't have understood them anyway.
After an unknown duration, the faërie slowly crept away, taking their spell-binding music with them and leaving Meli to face Zarekael's questioning look. It was a long moment before she could loose her tongue to speak. "It's beautiful," she breathed. Even a world ripped apart by civil war and fear can retain aesthetic virtue, she observed silently. Its people can both produce and appreciate beauty.
Zarekael could not have failed to see how the music had affected her, but he made no obvious reaction. Whether that was because he was content merely to observe, or because he did not know best how to react, she could not tell.
"Not all of our music is like that," he reminded her quietly after another moment. "There are other styles, as well. For example . . ." He cast the charm again, and another song came forth.
This was not an ugly song by any means, but it was quite different from its predecessor. While the meter was regular, the music's treatment of it was not. It landed on one side of the beat or the other, with a strange, rapid syncopation that must have rendered it very difficult for the musicians to master. Its progress was steady, though not precisely fast, and it was a good way into the song when Meli suddenly realized that the various different instruments were all playing different, consistent patterns that blended to produce the apparent irregularity. Even the vocalists followed consistent patterns when listened to individually, though together they created a complex harmony that was impossible to follow as a whole. Yet harmony it was, artfully constructed and skillfully carried out.
When this, too, faded, Meli shook her head in admiration. "The musicians and composers on your plane are extremely talented," she observed wonderingly. "To learn even two bars of that song would have given me fits. I can see why you asked Professor Flitwick for a way to bring your music here—I see even more now than I did before."
Zarekael acknowledged her words with a small bow from the neck and a narrowing of his eyes that approximated a smile. "The music of this plane is also beautiful, though in other ways," he replied. "Were our situations reversed, I doubt you would wish to leave your music behind." He tilted his head. "Having experienced the diversity of Muggle music," he continued, "I am curious to see the diversity of Muggle clothing."
His comment reminded her of the purpose for his visit. "Ah, yes. Muggle clothes."
She led him across the main room of her quarters to a small anteroom that led in turn to her bedroom. The anteroom was actually a large alcove, into which she'd tucked a bookshelf, a wardrobe, and a full-length mirror. The wardrobe was filled with Muggle garments—women's to the left, men's to the right. Meli opened the right-hand door, surveyed the resources available, and grinned.
This was going to be fun.
Meli looked at Zarekael appraisingly. "Well," she said after a moment, "I have to admit, this will be something of a challenge." She grinned again. "But that's all right; I like challenges."
Anyone else—with the obvious exception of Snape, of course—might have withered at the sight of that grin; Zarekael merely raised an eyebrow.
"The first thing your height suggests is basketball," Meli continued, pulling a hanger out of her costume wardrobe. "So what do you think of this?"
Zarekael's eyes flicked briefly to the jersey, then back to her. "No," he said flatly.
She looked at the jersey, then her eyes widened in horror. "No, of course not!" she breathed. "Someone must have sneaked this one in as a joke. Naturally not the Denver Nuggets—you'll want a real team!" She switched it out for a Chicago Bulls jersey.
"No."
"Charlotte Hornets?"
"No."
"Utah Jazz?"
"No."
She sighed theatrically, though she knew full well by now that his objection was to the style of shirt and not to the teams; Zarekael did not strike her as a sports fan. "All right, then . . ." She pulled out another shirt. "Colorado Avalanche T-shirt?"
Zarekael's gaze seemed to focus exclusively on the sleeves. "No."
"Any kind of T-shirt?"
"No."
"All right . . ." She pulled out another shirt. "How about a polo?"
Zarekael was beginning to show wry amusement. "No."
"Hm." Meli whipped through several other shirts, then pulled out a short-sleeved button-up. "This?"
"No."
"This one with longer sleeves?"
Zarekael's eyes narrowed in a subtle, mouthless, smile. "Yes."
"Ah-ha! Got it!" Meli traded the short-sleeved shirt for one of similar style and with long sleeves. It was a matte black, which she deemed fortunate; a light color would look terrible with Zarekael's pale complexion, and a bright one would draw too much attention to his eyes, which were eerie and noticeable enough as it was. "It'll need some alteration, of course, but once you're wearing it, we can figure out precise measurements."
Zarekael seemed suddenly uncomfortable. "Could I change in your bathroom?" he asked.
Meli shrugged with feigned flippancy. "Sure thing." She handed him the shirt and pointed him in the right direction.
Only after he was out of sight did she allow her brow to furrow slightly. It was an odd thing for him to request, she thought, but perhaps it was a cultural thing. He came from a more formal society—that much was evident; perhaps it was a serious breach of protocol to change shirts in front of a female.
He re-emerged a few minutes later, having already lengthened the sleeves and torso and broadened the shoulders. Meli eyed him critically, then nodded once. "It's very . . . you," she announced.
"Thank you," Zarekael replied dryly.
"And now for trousers." Meli turned back to the wardrobe. "Jeans are just too informal, both for that shirt and for you . . . Those are a big no-no—never mix brown with black . . . Hmm. Maybe . . . Yes!" She whirled, a pair of black trousers in her hand. "These will definitely need alteration for height, but they'll go perfectly."
"Do Muggle men and women dress alike?" Zarekael asked curiously, taking the proffered trousers.
Long practice kept Meli from blushing. "No," she replied. "I actually have a friend who's left his Muggle clothes with me while he's gone . . . elsewhere." She could only imagine the look on Collum Fell's face at the idea of Zarekael wearing—much less altering—his clothes.
Judging by his expression, Zarekael could tell that there was more to the explanation, but he chose not to inquire further. "A fortunate arrangement," was all he said, then he returned to the bathroom.
Meli felt a pair of eyes on her and turned to find Monty staring at her from his cage. Was it just her guilty conscience, or was his gaze actually accusing? She reasoned blithely that it must be the latter; in this area, at least, she really had no conscience. And if Monty disapproved, well, that was his problem.
She felt no need to give Zarekael either warning or preview of what she would be wearing to London; he would not, after all, receive advance notice of what the Londoners would be wearing. He might as well have a head start at adjusting to other people's outfits, she reasoned, so she was quite curious to witness his reaction or lack thereof, to her errand-running costume when he arrived Saturday morning.
The first and most important principle Meli had learned about living among Muggles was to look as little like herself as possible while still being herself. Her stock of Muggle clothes had two very clear categories as a result: dark clothing for everyday wear, and pastels and brights from the juniors department for special occasions—such as running errands in London.
She always wore her hair down; today she pulled it up in a ponytail. She never wore cosmetics; today she wore the full range, from foundation to three shades of blue eye shadow and everything in between. She always (when not keeping a low profile) wore nondescript dark colors; today she wore stonewashed blue jeans and a blue camo T-shirt. On looking in the mirror, she thought she looked very much like a pale-faced Smurf.
Zarekael, as she had expected, was not so startled at her appearance as to gasp or make some vocal exclamation; he merely raised his eyebrows and narrowed his eyes in amusement. "Shall we go?" he asked dryly.
Meli smirked. "But of course," she replied. "You don't honestly think I'd stay in dressed like this, do you?"
As it happened, Zarekael got a bit more culture shock than even Meli had anticipated, and in a concentration that she would never have expected. They arrived at the fabric store without incident, and since Meli already had a fairly good idea of what she needed, it was very little time at all before they stood at the cutting table.
It was there that their problems began.
The store clerk was not what Meli had come to consider a typical Muggle. She was rather overweight and wore a tight bare-midriff tank top sporting a badge that named her "Lydia B." Below this top was a filmy Indian skirt with bells sewn around the hem and sandals made of something like industrial hemp. Her hair was piled erratically atop her head, held in place with pins and combs studded with clear plastic beads intended to look like crystals. Jangling bracelets, multiple odd earrings in each ear, and a necklace with a strange amulet completed the ensemble, augmented further by a misty smile to rival Trelawney's.
Uh-oh, Meli thought, but there were no other clerks available. She glanced at Zarekael, then took a deep breath and presented her cloth for cutting. Please, one of you, just keep your mouth shut.
Lydia soon proved that she would not be that one. She intuitively zeroed in on the fact that Meli was making a costume, and in between strange, adoring looks at Zarekael, she chattered about her own extensive costume wardrobe.
"I outgrew my wench costume," Lydia sighed at one point. "The blouse fit just fine, especially across the front, but the skirt didn't work anymore."
Translation: The blouse was low-cut enough that she spilled out, so, beyond a nasty sunburn, it wasn't too terribly uncomfortable.
"So then"—here Lydia smiled flirtatiously at Zarekael—"I made up a gypsy costume, and that worked just fine. Since it's all scarves, I don't have to worry about outgrowing it at the waist!"
She was rewarded with stony silence.
"Now this one, dear," she went on, oblivious, "is just perfect for a gypsy costume." She held up a length of translucent blue across her chest and winked knowingly at Meli. "Lord, how that gets attention!"
"No doubt," Meli replied dryly.
"Of course," Lydia continued, "you seem to have gotten at least one boy's attention already." She smiled at Zarekael again. "There's a hot fiancé you've got there, I must say."
Meli glared at her. "He is not my fiancé," she said through her teeth, then immediately regretted it when Lydia's eyes lit up with glee.
The clerk leaned a bit too far over the table to hand Meli her cloth, and Zarekael was presented with an even more generous view than he'd had previously. "Are you Italian?" Lydia asked him huskily.
At this juncture, Zarekael looked down at Meli in a manner that bordered on pleading. Think! she snapped at herself. Come on, you champion liar, think!
"Are you a Libra?" Lydia continued, leaning six inches further. She was practically prostrated on the table by the time Meli's mind re-engaged.
"He doesn't speak English!" she snapped, then picked up her fabric and turned toward the cash register. Zarekael followed, quite closely.
"Pity," Lydia sighed behind them. "We could have made beautiful music together. I love Italians." She sighed again.
"I'm feeling a dry heave coming on," Meli muttered viciously.
When they at last stepped out to the street, Zarekael looked mildly at her. "What does 'gypsy' mean?" he asked.
"In her case," Meli replied darkly, "it's an excuse to show far more skin that God ever intended for anyone to show, least of all her. Synonyms in this particular case include 'slut', 'hussy', and 'hoochy-mama'."
"I see." Zarekael raised his eyebrows in wry amusement. "Where next?"
Their stop at the chemist's went a little better. Meli led Zarekael down a handful of aisles, pausing only long enough to compare prices between brands of makeup. Having filled her basket with the necessary cosmetics for her costume, as well as a few other indispensable items unavailable in Hogsmeade (namely, several bags of Doritos), Meli stepped rapidly to the front counter to pay.
Here, however, they hit another snag. The cashier, a scrawny youth no older than seventeen and no taller than five-foot-four-inches, was too busy staring up at Zarekael with mingled terror and awe to ring up Meli's purchases. After pointedly clearing her throat at the cashier several times, Meli silently appealed to Zarekael, who cleared his own throat.
The cashier jumped several feet in the air and came in for an uneven landing. "Ah, y-yes, sir?" he stammered.
"The lady is waiting for you to calculate her payment," Zarekael said wryly.
"Oh." The cashier glanced at Meli, then realization struck. "Oh!" He rapidly scanned everything, mis-scanning one bag of Doritos and a package of eye shadow, and ending up, as a result, quoting a total several pounds lower than was correct. When Meli pointed out the error, the cashier cowered as if afraid that Zarekael would bludgeon him to death.
It was several more minutes before the error was straightened out, and when she and Zarekael finally left, she had the impression that the cashier wilted in relief behind them.
"You certainly have a way with people," she remarked.
"Perhaps it was my breath," Zarekael rejoined.
"Well, if it is, you'll have to endure it," she retorted. "I'm not going back in there for Altoids."
They left the heaviest of Meli's purchases in a train station storage locker, then proceeded to lunch. Meli led the way to McDonald's, where she explained in an undertone just what everything on the menu was. She was sorely tempted to enlighten Zarekael with jokes about the "true" content of the food, but, not yet fully knowing his sense of humor, she refrained, considering that such a move might be counterproductive.
Zarekael ordered a super-sized Big Mac extra value meal, while Meli settled for a cheeseburger and water. The events of the morning had inspired her appetite to flee for its life, and she was afraid to speculate about what the afternoon would do to it.
She and Zarekael ate in silence for a few minutes before a very disturbing sound reached their ears. Two tables away, three teenage girls were giggling furiously.
"Oh, no," Zarekael said under his breath, but he had no time to say more; a shadow crossed their table.
Meli looked up to see a fourth girl, obviously also a member of the giggling club, standing there, teenage mischief dancing in her eyes. Oh, no, indeed, she thought sourly. The girl was perhaps fourteen and dressed like one of the Olsen twins. Everything about her smelled like a disaster waiting to happen.
"Um, hi," the girl said, somewhat shyly, to Zarekael.
Zarekael sighed and looked reluctantly up from his chips. "Hello."
"Um, I just wanted to say . . ." She turned to look back at her friends and started giggling. "My friend Breanna—the one in the blue shirt . . ." Breanna's shirt was in view, but her face was buried in her hands as she tried ineffectively to hide. "She thinks you're really hot."
Whatever the girls had been expecting, apparently it was not twin impassive looks. Zarekael seemed too nonplused to answer, and Meli was determined to get rid of the teeny-bopper without getting her hands dirty.
After one or two minutes of such silent treatment, the girl's smile slipped and her face went red. She backed away and made a break for her friends' table, no longer giggling.
"Perhaps we should have gotten lunch to take away," Zarekael suggested.
"Perhaps we should have brought an invisibility cloak," Meli growled. "I'm ready to leave when you are."
Meli's next stop was a dance supply store, where she bought a pair of leather-bottomed satin slippers and cobalt blue tights. Here Zarekael endured both fawning looks from female customers and the attention of a determined and aggressive sales representative who was under the mistaken impression that he wanted dance equipment, as well. Meli's verbal addresses to this individual went a long way toward demonstrating that her patience was wearing thin.
Next, Meli went to a shop to purchase dye for her white dance slippers. The clerk there was far too shrewd either to fear or to offend a prospective customer; Meli seriously considered leaving her a tip.
That mild relief was overridden and trampled when they entered a book shop. Books were ordinarily a refuge for Meli, but this time the clientele distracted both her and Zarekael from that prospect. By the time Meli successfully located and bought the book she needed, Zarekael had unintentionally sent three people cowering out of his way and had, also involuntarily, drawn veiled or overt passes from half a dozen females of varying ages.
Her major shopping finally done, Meli led Zarekael to a small Indian restaurant she'd stumbled over once. She again explained the menu to him, then devoted her attention to praying that they could eat in peace. She had retained enough of her appetite to justify eating, so she ordered lamb curry, then returned to her praying.
They had a pleasant, uninterrupted dinner, and they even drifted into conversation once it became clear that they would be left to themselves. Meli was just beginning to breathe freely as they stepped out on the pavement, but fate conspired to disillusion her. A group of university-aged girls walked past, stopped corporately to stare, then rushed away, all giggling uncontrollably.
Meli looked up at Zarekael and judged that he was badly in need of a drink; she could hardly blame him. Unfortunately, the nearest establishment with which she was familiar that was equipped with such supply was not a pub, nor was she in the mood to spend much time tracking one down. With a sigh and a silent, fervent hope that they would go unnoticed, she led Zarekael into a nightclub.
Loud techno music assailed them, accompanied by flashing lights of every color imaginable. People thrashed around the dance floor, most under the influence of chemicals legal or illegal to look at them, and those not on the floor were otherwise engaged at tables scattered throughout the club.
Zarekael looked nearly ready to fall over under the sensory assault. Meli sighed again and led him to an empty corner table, praying he would forgive her for bringing him to such a place.
"Any preference for your drink?" she hollered over the music.
He winced but shouted back, "I don't know. Something strong—very strong." He looked around him. "I'm rather . . . stressed."
"I'm sorry to leave you," she sincerely apologized, "but I'll be back in ten minutes!"
He nodded stiffly, and she headed for the bar.
The barkeep, most unfortunately, was a blithering idiot. It took a near eternity to communicate to him what was meant by "amaretto sour" and "a double of scotch straight up." It was another near eternity before he returned with the scotch, and Meli's blood was beginning to boil by the time he arrived with a second drink.
"Your Sangria, miss," he said, plinking the glass down in front of her.
Meli's eyes first widened in horror, then, as the comprehension dawned that he was talking about the drink, narrowed in anger. "That is not my drink!" she snapped. "I ordered an amaretto sour, you moron!"
It was another several minutes' work to convince him of the reality of his error, and by the time she actually left the bar with Zarekael's scotch and her amaretto sour, Meli was near her breaking point.
When she reached their table, she found there a ready target for her hostility. A criminally underdressed girl sat in a chair far too close to Zarekael for anyone's comfort, much less his. She giggled furiously—and drunkenly—as Zarekael caught Meli's eye and glared venomously.
The drunk girl leaned in close and hollered, "So what's your sign, honey?" directly into Zarekael's very sensitive and already overloaded ear.
He tried to pull away, but looked at her in puzzlement. "My sign?" he repeated flatly.
"His sign is Stop," Meli broke in, coming to the table and handing Zarekael his drink. He neither looked at it nor sniffed it but bolted it down directly.
The girl made a bleary attempt at a glare, then changed her mind and went instead for an exaggerated pout. "In case you haven't noticed, this table's full!" she sniffed. "I was here first, so bugger off!"
Meli, being stone-cold sober and on the teetering edge of her temper, was far more effective with her glare. "Well, I came in with him, honeybunch," she snapped. "So why don't you go sniffing around in another barn loft?"
The other female ignored her, however, and leaned in to talk with Zarekael again. "You're a Libra, aren't you!" she yelled.
Meli downed her own drink in one swallow, then smashed the glass on the table directly in front of her friend's tormentor. Even Zarekael looked a bit surprised at that, but the girl nearly toppled off her chair dodging shards.
"Got your attention, have I?" Meli shouted over the music, arching an insulting eyebrow. "I'm only going to tell you one more time to go away!"
Her opponent smirked and reached over to stroke Zarekael's cheek and run her hand down his beard, causing him to stiffen almost to the point of rigor mortis. "I think it's pretty easy to tell which of us he prefers more," she slurred.
Zarekael, I'm sorry to do this to you—"Right!" she retorted, then held up her left hand to prominently display Andrew's ring. "Me!" She grabbed Zarekael around the wrist, shoved the drunk girl to the floor, and stomped out, half-dragging him behind her.
They were nearly two blocks from the club before she finally stopped and let go of his wrist. He couldn't have been too bothered, though; he was strong enough that he could easily have pulled away at any time. She slumped against a lamppost, seething.
After a moment, she got enough control of herself to look up. "I am so sorry, Zarekael," she said through her teeth. "If I'd had any idea that would happen, I would never have taken you anywhere near that place."
He raised an eloquent eyebrow. "Indeed," he said dryly. "I gather, then, that this is not normal Muggle behavior?"
She perceived his attempt to lighten the mood and strove to respond in kind. "What, for women to constantly throw themselves at you?" she replied. "No, not really."
They began walking slowly, and it was a moment before Zarekael spoke again. "Then what, pray tell, is it that makes me so irresistible today?" he asked.
Meli let out a snort of laughter, then turned to look appraisingly at him. Other than the basic mechanics of his appearance (pale face, freaky eyes, black hair, and really flippin' big), she'd never really considered his looks. "Well," she said after a moment, "I have to admit you're not terribly bad looking." She smiled mischievously. "And the ladies often go for tall, dark, and handsome . . . which, I will concede, you are."
Zarekael smirked. "Perhaps we should return tomorrow night, then," he suggested.
She looked sharply at him.
He caught her eye and raised his eyebrows. "And we should most certainly bring Severus," he continued smoothly. "They would greatly enjoy meeting him."
The mental image of Snape's reaction to the screwy antics of the club regulars and any woman stupid enough to make a pass at him was far too much for even Meli's restraint. She threw hack her head and laughed out loud, the sound of her full-bodied guffaws echoing up and down the street around them.