Chapter 20 Heaven and Earth
Holmes made his way to his rooms without benefit of a house-elf guide. It was about midnight, and he was exhausted. His eyes burned; he had swallowed half of a sandwich and a cup of tea without tasting either, just to shut up the persistent house-elf who kept whining, "Master must eat something to keep up his strength!" That was sometime in the early afternoon; he had missed dinner.
Snape was still working in the dungeons. If he was in poor condition, Snape was worse; haggard, almost trembling with fatigue, and gaunt with worry. Holmes had noticed his behaviour with regard to Hermione Granger; how could he fail to see it? Holmes' mouth turned down at the corners as he took off his clothes and prepared to clamber into his bathtub.
She's barely nineteen, a mere child! She's been his student! Now she's at death's door, and he's frantic. Holmes brought himself up short. Had he not been fretting about Russell, in exactly the same vein? What if, and what if, ad infinitum, ad nauseam! He snorted and lay back in the steaming water. Well, he reasoned, it's not quite the same thing. Russell and I are colleagues, teacher and student, master and apprentice. Nothing more. It's clear that Snape's fallen in love with his apprentice. It's unsuitable; it's unseemly. Perhaps he needs a good talking-to.
He draped a wetted flannel over his head and lazily soaped a bath-brush. I shall speak to him, he resolved. He seems to be without friends, little wonder there, but as one gentleman to another, I can hardly deny him the benefit of my age and experience. One would think that he would have better control of his baser instincts; he's a grown man, and a teacher to boot! Soaping his leg, he considered his thin shanks. Drying up like a scarecrow, I am. Russell says I look like a skeleton when we're working on a case. He lay back in the hot water and thought of Russell. He thought of her thick strawberry blond hair, most often tied up in back of her head in a sloppy knot, trailing curls, or in two long plaits tied together at the end. He had brushed that glorious hair, feeling its electricity and silky weight…He looked down at himself. Damme, I'm still a man, not a scarecrow. He finished his bath and was about to don pyjamas when his hunger piqued him. The Headmaster had said that the kitchens were always open. He dressed, looking out of the window of his sitting room.
The window was open to the sky. A beautiful crescent moon hung in the heavens, surrounded by twinkling stars. He leaned on the window-sill and gazed at it. Somewhere a nightingale's haunting song neared and then faded. Russell would be fascinated by this place, he mused. She loves old buildings and would probably get along famously with these extraordinary people.
The scent of night-blooming cereus rose softly from the gardens below, sweet and romantic and sensuous. He had not had time, yet, to visit the extensive gardens and to observe the honeybees, which, he had noticed, were everywhere out-of-doors, industriously pollinating the flowers. Holmes reluctantly turned away from his window, walked out of his rooms and down a long hallway. He had discovered that if he thought of a place, such as the Gryffindor common room, the Great Hall, the Tea Parlour, the dungeons, the Infirmary – the capricious staircases would align properly in front of him, and he would soon find himself at that place.
The double doors of the kitchen swung open at his touch. House-elves worked quietly at stove and table, sink and cooler. He was about to approach one of the little creatures when he noticed the full sized person sitting at a scrubbed oak table, eating soup from a large pottery bowl.
"May I sit with you?" he asked courteously. "O'course, Mr Holmes, sit ye down and have some supper." Sister Brigit indicated the chair across from hers. "The soup's lovely," she said, supping a generous spoonful.
A house-elf put a bowl of soup, a small loaf of bread and a plate of sliced chicken and vegetables in front of the detective, flipped a napkin over his lap and then bowed himself away. "It smells delicious, " Holmes remarked, lifting his spoon and addressing himself to the food in front of him.
"Aye, it is," responded the redheaded nurse. "I take no meat, but they always give me somethin' to stick to me ribs." She ate some more of her soup. "How's Professor Snape? He looked fair to faintin' when last I saw him sittin' with Hermione." She patted her lips with a napkin and put down her spoon.
"Mr Holmes," she said, "Ye have made a friend in Professor Snape, although ye'd hardly know it from him snarkin' and snappin' at ye. That's just his way, mind ye. His heart is hurtin' and he's scared that Miss Granger's no better."
"The same consideration, I imagine, that he would have towards any student," said Holmes, reluctant to discuss Snape's unseemly situation.
Brigit looked at him keenly. He noticed that her blue eyes were lit with golden sparkles, most unusual. "Will ye men never learn! 'Tis manly to admit that ye love a woman!"
"Perhaps so, but under the circumstances it is inappropriate," observed Holmes. Whatever was the woman getting at? He felt vaguely uncomfortable. She was a Druid, he knew; since she seemed to know so much about Snape, what did she know about him?
They continued to eat in silence for a while. Then, Brigit set her bowl to one side. Holmes finished his dinner and drank some of his pumpkin juice. He looked across at the nurse aide. "I've not seen the gardens. Would you like to walk out for a bit?" he asked.
She smiled, the small, secret smile that has driven Irishmen to drink and to war for thousands of years, and she rose. "Yes, yes," she said. "Tis an excellent idea, to allow the dinner to digest." Holmes walked around the table to offer her his arm, and together they walked up several staircases, through the Great Hall and out to the gardens.
Holmes was acutely aware of the woman's small oval hand on his arm. She was little; her head barely cleared his shoulder, and he looked down on the wings of carrot-coloured hair lying smoothly over her ears, and the tidy bun, with wispy curls escaping round the edges. Hair. He loved women's hair. As if she read his thoughts, Brigit pulled the pins out of her bun and shook her head. Loose red curls tumbled over her shoulders and down her back. "Ahhh," she said. "Tis a blessin' to get those pins out o' me head."
She smiled up at him. "If I had me way, I'd always be wearin' me Druid robes, with me hair hangin' down, free and comfortable as the Mother intended us to be. Oh, and barefoot." She steadied herself with a hand on his arm, bent over and pulled off her shoes and stockings. She wriggled her toes in the cool green grass. "But I must be in uniform in the Infirmary, whilst I'm tendin' to the sick."
Holmes smiled down at her. Childlike she was, and yet old, older than time itself. He was aware of a subtle fragrance rising from her, the scent of fresh herbs and grass. He wanted to get closer to that scent…it had been years since he had touched a woman…had it been years? He had forgotten how long it was! Discomfited, he straightened. Talk about unseemly, indeed. Still, he was very far from dead. Lying in the bath, he had become aroused by the mere thought of a woman, and horrified when he realised that the woman was Russell. Russell – unattainable, unreachable, inappropriate. He looped Brigit's hand through his arm, and they walked on.
Holmes stopped suddenly at the edge of a bed of zinnias. "Look," he whispered to Brigit.
"Where?" she whispered back. Carefully, he neared a fully bloomed red zinnia. In its brown centre slept a fat honeybee, its wings folded.
"Ahhh," she marvelled. "It's entirely asleep, how lovely!" She looked up at him. "When will it waken?"
"In the morning, when the sun has dried the dew on its wings, it will awaken and go about its business," he said. "It will fly amongst the flowers, gathering pollen, and then it will return to its hive."
"In't the Mother wonderful, sir? She makes the bees for to pollinate th' flowers, and to give us honey! Those what don't see Her gifts are missin' the blessings she showers on us all!"
Holmes chuckled. "For all your mysticism, you are drawn to earthly and commonplace things. How do you reconcile the two?"
"That's the mystery! As above, so below; the heavens are reflected on the earth, and the doin's of the God and Goddess, so far beyond our ken, are as close as the little bee sleepin' in the flower. We are made out o'the earth; we come home to it in our time. We may look up at the sky an' twine the strings of our earth magic; we may lock ourselves up in a crystal, like Myrddin, an' meditate for a thousand years! We may take the form o'rock, or tree, or the wind even, but we are still o'the earth." She took his hand. "Male and female we are, the livin' embodiments o' the God and Goddess, like the plants an' animals. We are all made o'the same stuff, and for all the floatin' around the etheric regions ye may do in your mind, sir, look down: where are your feet? On the earth!"
Holmes looked down. His booted feet stood on the fresh green grass, and next to them were her small, bare white feet. They were irresistible.
"You will catch a cold walking barefoot in this damp grass."
"I will do no such! "Tis healthy to walk barefoot, though the grass is a little cool…"
Holmes looked around. He spied a bench and drew the Druid over to sit down. "Put your feet up here," he commanded. She put her feet up on his lap, tucking her skirts modestly around her legs. Holmes took a foot in his hands. So small, the skin so soft and smooth, the nails like neat little pink shells. He stroked the sole of her foot gently; her toes curled.
He heard her breath catch. "Oooh…" she murmured. Her eyes closed. A small smile played over Holmes' lips, and he cupped her heel in his palm, his sensitive fingers caressing the back of her ankle. "'Tis heaven," Brigit whispered. She reached out a hand to touch Holmes' cheek.
Holmes released Brigit's foot, scooped her up in his arms and strode towards the entrance to the castle. Brigit put her shoes on her lap, her arms around her neck and her head on his shoulder. "Am I heavy for ye?"
"No, you are as light as a feather." He carried her easily; in truth, she weighed almost nothing. Still, she felt warm and solid in his arms. They crossed the Great Hall and climbed the main staircase to the landing, and a stairway obligingly swung over in front of them.
"'Tis the third door on the right," Brigit said softly. As they approached the door, it swung open. Candles flared into life in candle-holders; a fire sprang up in the small hearth. Holmes looked around; the room was sparsely furnished, almost monastic, but it was cosy and pleasant. He deposited Brigit on her feet. Her shoes tumbled to the floor.
The Druid's arms remained around his neck. He put his hands into her bright hair; it was silky and warm. "Ah, Brigit," he said softly. "Teach me about heaven and earth."
Her smile brought two dimples to her pink cheeks. "It looks as though ye're goin' to teach me about the Standin' Stones," she answered. She shook back her red curls and tucked stray strands behind her finely pointed ears. Golden flecks sparkled in her blue eyes.