Chapter Three
I spent a disturbed night. Champagne sauce disagrees with me. I finally got up earlier than my wont, dressed in my darkest clothing, and managed tea and toast at a café across the street from my hotel. The papers, both Wizard and Muggle, noted nothing of interest happening in Britain. It was still startling to read one without finding an account of some horrific act, or a report of the death of someone you knew. I considered where to go. Kafka's house? The Jewish Cemetery? Further exploration of the Wizard quarter? No, all of that required thought, and after last night, thought was unattractive. I wasn't inclined to go sit in a damp church listening to Mozart, that trifling twit. After a bit more deliberation, I decided to make my way to the Castle.
Hordes of people, vast numbers of them, Muggles and Wizards and probably Dark Creatures were doing their tourists' duty, pouring across the Charles Bridge and up to the complex crouched on the hill like a huge, malevolent porcupine napping in a fort. Surrounding me were a myriad of languages; the crisp consonants of eastern Europe slicing through sinuous French and Spanish vowels, and I even heard a deep voice speaking Arabic. Ishaqi, again. Once, long ago, we shared a body for a brief period of time, and he still resonated within me under certain circumstances.
I hated him. I hated his grace, his talents, his confidence, his knowledge, freely gained, of the darkest, most arcane magic. No bitter tang of the forbidden and the suspected for this prince of men, no, he took such things as his birthright. She did, too. I dismissed him. Polite, as always, he left.
As the rabble poured into the buildings, I wandered off into the steppes of the gardens. It was quiet. It was green, and bright and altogether not in line with my mood, but I wandered there anyway. The tidy stone walls were attractive and soothed the feeling of incipient chaos that any time with Viviane always stirred up, and which was still lingering in me from the night before. Below, the red roofs of the city blended with the deeper reds and dark golds of leaves about to die. Taking the bag out of my pocket, I poured the fragments of the Talisman into my palm where they glittered in the morning sun. For a long moment, I considered casting them away and letting this wretched token of all my failures drift down upon the city in a personal act of defenestration, but I closed my fingers around the coarse golden dust, poured it back into its bag, and slipped it into my innermost pocket.
The castle, like all former haunts of the deposed and exiled, was bare, and the echoes of a million traveler's footsteps had stifled any of those who had once lived here. I sauntered through innumerable vaulted and paneled rooms, and caught myself wondering what scathing remarks Viviane would have made about Czech versus French domestic architecture. This prompted me to take the nearest exit and make for the cathedral, which was improbably named after a saint also credited with inventing some sort of dance.
And I had thought the exterior was outrageous. The interior - it was something that could have been decorated by Lucius. Amidst the by-the-numbers cathedral architecture hung angels that looked more menacing than exalted, and on the wickedly pointed gates of the chapels were stuck large blood-red stars, fashioned in stained glass and gilded lead, and lit from within. I walked along from alcove to alcove, morbid thoughts of my past rising to blend with the tang of incense and struck matches. As I counted the glowing stars, I told off the name of some person I had lost, or who I caused to die. Phineas Bones. Dennis Hopkirk. Giselle Marvolo. Goyle. Black. Minerva. Cordelia. At that last name, I gripped the bars to the gate of a chapel containing a cabinet carved with disapproving cherubim and filled with dripping wax candles. Placing my forehead against the chill iron, I realized that all the important failures in my life somehow came back to Viviane, and knew I wasn't finished with her. Not yet.
The gall of her. She told her concierge that she was unavailable to me, nor was I to be told of her movements. Ha. The number of korunas on the bill that I slipped him made him grin in appreciation and immediately give me all the information that I wanted to know. It was a pity that she was still overestimating the effect of her personal attractions.
She was in a café close to her hotel. It looked like it belonged in Belgium rather than here, with its high ceilings and dark walls, interspersed with huge mirrors. The difference was the hundreds of flyers plastering every vertical surface, offering everything from concerts to male performance enhancers. I slipped one off the wall to include in my next letter to Remus, in case he needed help in areas beyond dangerous transformations.
Naturally, she had appropriated the best corner table in the place. It was covered with newspapers, books and a large pot of coffee that smelled most inviting. She was dressed in black this afternoon, the stark color emphasizing the harshness of her face, but the long, narrow sleeves of her cashmere jumper came down below her wrists, throwing her elegant hands into prominence as they clutched a book.
I wondered if she would try to walk away again when faced with the results of all she had done, or left undone. She could try, but this time I would be prepared. What was it that I wanted from her, anyway? An apology? An acknowledgment of her complicity in all that had happened? To see her miserable? That last sounded attractive.
Making sure she did not see me, I slid onto the bench next to her. Trapped. She had been stupid enough take her lodgings and her pleasure in the Muggle section of the city, so I knew I was safe from her magic, and the heavy iron and marble table hemmed her in from all other avenues of escape.
"Louis L'Amour," she said, handing the book to me without a glance in my direction. "I assumed he must be a contemporary of Paul de Kock, but he writes the oddest stories about primitive America. There are lots of cattle and guns, and not enough sex." Yawning, she slumped into the angle of the wall. "How much did you pay him?"she murmured, picking up her cup of coffee. "I told him not to reveal anything for under 500 korunas."
What had caused me to forget just how much of a bitch she could be? But she was such a stylish one, that was the problem. You had to admire her methods. Then that moment in the cathedral came back, and I said, "Five hundred korunas is a bargain if I can make you understand what-"
I trailed off. I wasn't sure anymore, what it was I wanted her to understand, only that there was something unsaid and undone that needed saying and doing. I tried again. "Ten years ago, when you told me that you were leaving-"
That didn't work, either. It was horrible. I was floundering around like a fifth-year in front of the girl he wanted to ask to Hogsmeade, and Viviane just sat there, regarding me with a detached air over her coffee cup with her pale eyes that had no trace of humor or anger.
Taking a deep breath, I tried one more time. "Walking out on me last night was a sorry move, Viviane. Have you lost all of your fire? You've written me letter after letter these ten years, and now when I've come to talk to you, you won't discuss anything."
I nearly dropped the cup of coffee I'd decided to pour myself, to cover my confusion. She had begun to snort with laughter, and finally turned to me with her full attention.
"Oh Severus, how you manage to survive, I don't know. It must be Hogwarts. Only there can you ignore the rest of existence. You refuse to talk to me for ten years, then drop in and expect me to spill out all of my guilt over whatever it is you think I've done."
She set her cup down and took both of my hands, warmth beginning to glow in her eyes. "I've done terrible things, of course, awful things. It is why I stepped away, before they consumed me and I became a terrible act in myself. Severus, if it is so damned important to you that I say something, tell me what it is you want to hear. I hate to see you so wrapped up in this quest for - for - what? What do you want from me? What specific thing do you want me to atone for? I'll kneel down and beg pardon, if it will give you some peace. The floor here is particularly hard, and will procure genuine remorse from my joints, if not my soul."
What an extraordinary offer. I stared at her, wondering what she expected me to do with it. Viviane Chance couldn't have made it; her anger forbade any attempt at conciliation. Viviane Devereaux wouldn't have made it; her pride would not allow such a gesture. What, then, did Viviane Calloway mean by making it, here, in the middle of a crowded café?
I decided to take her at her word. I'd see just how much Chance, just how much Devereaux was left in her, and how much she recalled of our past.
"You used to flatter yourself that you knew me better than anyone. Get down on your knees, and tell me what you think I want to hear."
She blinked in surprise - still underestimating me, even after all these years - and slid off the bench and onto the hard marble, folding her hands over my right knee. After staring at the floor for a second, she lifted her head and gazed up into my face with a look that would have been earnest, had it not been for the mocking lift to the corners of her mouth.
"I beg your pardon for killing your old flame, no matter how richly she deserved it. I truly am sorry for using my arcane talents to rescue you from the Glossop's basement, thus denying you the opportunity for an heroic death and a posthumous Order of Merlin, Third Class. I'd apologize for foisting Ishaqi on you, but you did that on your own. Finally, I am more sorry than you know for ever thinking that Albus might have a good idea. I mean that last with all my heart, so I shall now grovel to prove it."
With that, she buried her face in my lap and began to wriggle about.
My thoughts on this outrageous behavior? Well, I wasn't thinking. Much. I grasped the edge of the bench and stared down at her hair, tried to concentrate on the intricacies involved in gathering bezoars.
Luckily, she decided on a short grovel, and soon, although not soon enough, she raised her head. To my surprise, her expression, initially amused, changed into wide-eyed, open-mouthed shock. I followed her gaze. The café had gone silent, and I caught a multitude of startled faces just turning away.
Exasperated at the uselessness of time against Viviane's propensity to get me into scrapes, I sighed, "At least we're in the Muggle quarter of the city."
The faces turned to us again as wild shrieks of laughter began to echo out from underneath the table. I was about to make my escape, but her hand reached up and she pulled me under and into a heap next to her on the cold floor. "Oh Severus," she gasped, "how I've missed you." The shrieks subsided into giggles. "Just imagine what those children out there must think of us."
Tilting my head, I peeked out at the crowd of surly young students and began to laugh myself. "If they had any idea of how very proper that was, in light of some of our previous encounters-"
I stopped. Those were memories best left entombed. We were Professors Snape and Chance, old colleagues and young enemies of a nebulous kind. Beside me, Viviane had tensed into thoughtfulness. "Living under constant pressure - during undeclared war - it does things..." Her voice trailed off, and she twisted her fingers together in a gesture I'd never seen before. "But Severus, those encounters kept us human in the face of such inhumanity, that I think I may owe you my life. It may have been a poor return, to leave you as I did, but sometimes, one must trade what one wants to do, or should do, for a chance at freedom." She shrugged and refused to look at me. "I suppose this is my real confession."
Resting my chin on my knees, I closed my eyes and tried to absorb the truth that was shaking dust from my soul. Since I had met her, back on the quay, there had been something missing from Viviane, but I had never been able to fathom what it was. Now, with her voice telling me things she had never had the grace to tell me before, I realized what was lacking. Anger. Resentment. Rejection. Now I knew that the enmity had been one-sided and we had never been enemies, but the distance the fantasy created had been far too convenient for me to deny. Only one enemy, and it had been me.
I do not know how long I sat there, but finally, I heard her voice again, quiet and subdued. "Come, Severus, let's stop providing perverse speculation for half of Prague." I opened my eyes, and followed her as she crawled from beneath the table. As I made an elaborate show of straightening my clothing, she dropped money on the table and stuffed her books and papers into a satchel. Sweeping one of her deadly glances across the room, she forestalled any potential snickers, and caused all heads to drop down towards whatever each was pretending to read.
"Where are we going?" I asked, still trying to find my footing on yet another new mental landscape full of rocks and bogs. "I'm not sure-"
"I don't know - oh, here, we'll go to this," she said, snatching a flyer from a young man dressed like a back alley coachman in need of a laundress.
Gathering the last of my wits, I made one demand. "No Mozart," I said.
"I should hope not," she snapped, thrusting the flyer into my jacket pocket and taking my arm. "He gives me the fidgets."
Even shameless Frenchwomen of overemphasized lineage have their advantages.
Dear Lupin,
The only reason I'm writing to you is out of boredom. I'm sitting in a voluptuous church somewhere in Prague, listening with relief to the orderly march of the Goldberg variations. However, I find I need to do something with my hands, so it is either writing to you, or strangling Viviane, and why interrupt Bach with murder?
Wipe that smirk off of your face. Yes, I saw her again and I am with her now, but it wasn't by choice; she indulged in one of her grand manipulative gestures with me as victim. As I recall, she was already an expert at such things when you met her all those years ago, when she was partner to that confidence man. Ah, yes, the very distant past, before respectability and redemption set in and it was the two of you against the world. You even displayed your delicate stomach when she murdered a man in front of you, she once told me. What a pity such scruples don't survive the transformation.
She lured me to a café, where she proceeded to dig her nose into my lap. The denizens of the café were appalled, of course, to see a woman of her age acting like, well, Viviane. Underneath the mortification, I did feel a sense of continuity that is rare for those of our generation. Great wizards may die and civilizations unravel, but you can always count on Viviane to go her shameless, aristocratic way no matter the time or circumstance.
One curious matter demands clarification, and you are the only person I can possibly ask for it. After removing her head from my lap, she indulged in a rare fit of introspection and said, in reference to her desertion of me, "one must trade what one wants to do, or should do, for a chance at freedom." Really. What did she want to do, Lupin? What she did was marry Calloway. I know her perfectly capable of creating the great romantic myth of her marriage out of nothing, and while I never did believe the myth, I am surprised to find such blatant evidence of my being right, and from her own lips. As I said, it is most curious. Just how much wool did she pull over the eyes of the world concerning her relationship with Calloway? I would bet the yield of at least a thousand flocks.
She's getting irritated. Her chin is tilting up, and her nostrils are beginning to flare, and those basilisk eyes of hers are narrowing. The musicians aren't quite that bad, and the eye nearest me is beginning to work its way into the corner, to try and see what I'm writing. Her hand goes up to push aside a stray tendril of hair that is in the way, and she tucks it back as she pretends she is checking the security of her hairpins. She can be rather enchanting when she thinks she's being subtle.
I await your answer.
Severus.