Part 2 - the Starving Artist
"Many of the pictures I painted were not beautiful.
For what, then? For a truth I did not know how to put into words.
For a truth I could only bring to life by means of color and line and texture and form,"
Chaim Potok, My Name is Asher Lev
1947
New York, New York
She's here.
She's actually here. In the Big Apple. New York. Manhattan.
It's nerve-wracking.
Hermione looks out the windshield of the swanky car she's riding in, at the fringe of pine trees and tower-like iron gates guarding an even bigger mansion behind them. They're on Long Island, in a neighborhood where houses are the size of the Chrysler building and lawns wide as Big Ben is tall separate old money families into neat little rows. She can't believe she's going to be living here.
Somebody from the other side sees them coming and opens the gates, which part backward in slow, graceful sweeps. She's so rattled her hands are shaking. She sticks them in her pockets to hide it. The mansion is roaring rich-gorgeous.
The driver comes around to let her out. Hermione sends him a tentative, jittery smile and steps onto the walk. The grounds are lush green and peppered with austere lawn ornaments, marble statues and fountains and a long dock far off that overlooks the glittering blue bay. There's a pool in the back. The mansion – no, not mansion; castle – is all bleach-white and stone entablatures and French doors. Butlers and maids flutter everywhere, like insect netting caught in the breeze.
How much money does this guy have? she wonders.
The front doors open before them. And it's time to find out.
Someone, somewhere, is playing the pipe organ. The music of it swells and echoes through the castle-like manor. Pipe organ is usually heard in church, but whoever plays it now doesn't make Hermione feel like she's in Sunday service. Better yet, she feels like she's stepped into the heart of a theater, a stage set ready for the play to begin.
But that's just paranoia talking, surely.
Surely?
The butler escorting her doesn't say a word. Hermione looks around, at the art spread throughout the mansion in gilded frames taller than her height times two and heavier than cargo boat anchors. She sees collector's items, abstract sculptures, wooden African masks, Mexican alebrijes propped up on shelves, teardrop-crystal chandeliers hanging from domed ceilings and photographs of places she's never even heard of. She doesn't see any pictures of people. No portraits of Mr. Malfoy. No family either, as far as she can tell.
But she's read about her new host. He's got family, stinking rich family who are bred to work the world of business and strike gold easy. Mr. Malfoy himself works on Wall Street, specializing in bonds with a business degree from Oxford under his belt.
Hermione wonders what Mr. Malfoy is like.
"Here you are, Miss Wilkins," says the butler, speaking for the first time since she's arrived. And getting her name wrong. His voice is rather croaky, thin hair graying, and he wears fine white gloves, as if he's just popped out of an Emily Brontë novel. He puts her trunk on the floor. "If you require anything, just let one of the help know and they'll retrieve it for you immediately. Mr. Malfoy has taken the liberty to purchase you a wardrobe. It is in that closet there." He points. Hermione, stunned, looks where he indicates to see a door leading to who-knows-what. That's… gracious, she thinks.
Finished, the butler bows stiffly in goodbye, but before he can leave she speaks up.
"Um, excuse me, but where exactly…" She hesitates. "I mean, where is Mr. Malfoy?"
The butler blinks at her blankly. He's clearly offended that she doesn't know already. He says, croaky voice laced with thinly veiled disdain, "In the city, of course, Miss-"
"Granger," she quickly supplies.
He nods. "Mr. Malfoy is there on business."
On business. Hermione thinks this is a reasonable answer and nods. She'll have to thank Mr. Malfoy for his hospitality later.
"Will that be all, Miss Granger?" the butler says, reminding her of his presence. Hermione is startled by the request. It's odd to be waited on, beck and call…
"No, I'm alright," she says awkwardly. "Um, thank you, Mr..."
"Kreacher," the froggish butler sneers.
"Yes, thank you, Mr. Kreacher." She smiles quickly, uncertainly. The butler barely makes an effort to hide his revulsion at her fumbling and makes his departure with a loathing grumble.
It's so big. Hermione looks around at the grand room he's left her in. Her new bedroom. It's a polished paradise of some sort, with gleaming hardwood floors, creamy peach-colored furniture and a balcony offering a flawless view of West Egg and the city skyline. She can still hear the pipe organ player electrifying the halls of Malfoy's mansion.
This is nothing like any place she's lived in before. Not like the cellar the Dursleys let her stay in, not like the orphanage where…
She shakes off that last thought.
Hermione sits down and curls her hands around a cup of green tea one of the maids has brought her, warming them. She's cold despite the summer heat pervading this place. She's exhausted after the trip here. She's going to need to convert her money tomorrow morning. She'll have to find Malfoy later, she thinks again, to thank him for letting her stay here.
Why did he buy me clothes? Why has he even invited me here? He's just a stranger.
She writes it off as excessive kindness. Madame Pomfrey did say that Mr. Malfoy is an extremely generous man. She meditatively sips the green tea. It doesn't help the queasy flip-flopping in her belly though.
She closes her eyes. Fresh start, she reminds herself. Fresh start.
A week goes by, and another and another. Hermione doesn't find Malfoy the first two nights of her stay, and soon after, she abandons this task to look for work. She forgets about her quest to track down the mysteriously absent host in her search for it.
But the States don't seem to be the American Dream they're all chalked up to be.
Nobody wants to hire a woman in this century. Hermione scowls at the dinner set before her, pushing the delicious contents around on her plate and making a mess of them. She's dissatisfied. She'd had higher hopes when she first came here. Those hopes, however, are already burning out like flames in a dying candelabra.
Malfoy won't let her stay in his house forever.
There has to be work somewhere, she thinks. Things have to get better.
She sighs.
Lost in thought, Hermione mulls over Malfoy – Abraxas Malfoy, as she's discovered with the help's assistance – and she wonders why she never sees him. His staff say it is because he's a business man and as such is always in the city or in his office, making important phone calls, going to meetings, et cetera. He can't be disturbed. He returns to his mansion long after she falls asleep.
He could be a ghost for all she knows.
She's lost her appetite. Hermione shoves back her plate, stands, and looks around at the austere yet elaborate interior she has slowly grown accustomed to over the few weeks she's been here. And her heart stops.
Because just behind the doorway, two eyes are staring at her.
She blinks – and they're gone.
Abraxas Malfoy. She knows it's him. But why was he watching her? Why didn't he come in and introduce himself? Moreover…how long did he stand there in the darkness, staring? She frowns and touches her cheek.
She's blushing furiously.
It's been one whole month that she's lived in Malfoy's mansion. Hermione can't find work. She finds herself thinking back to the night in the dining room, when she caught Mr. Malfoy eerily watching her as she ate dinner. Mr. Malfoy who bought an entire wardrobe for her – a wardrobe that's worth thousands and thousands of dollars – and who lets her stay at his million-dollar mansion out of the kindness of his heart. He even purchased a typewriter for her when she mentioned to a servant that she wishes she could spend her weekends writing, but that she'd been running out of notebooks and kept drying out all her pens.
He'd disappeared too fast for her to say hello.
She is sure Malfoy is avoiding her now. She muses the possibility of his being a shut-in. Perhaps he is some sort of introverted hermit who hides behind his staff and fancies studying people's eating habits…? No, that doesn't make sense. He can't possibly make as much money as he does from home.
She must find Mr. Malfoy then. And confront him.
So late at night on a slow Saturday, she sets out.
As luck will have it, however, Malfoy's mansion is even larger than she originally thought it to be. It's vast and labyrinth-like, with never-ending halls and misleading footsteps that could be a cook or stray servant just as easily as it could be her enigmatic host. Hermione spends the entire night trailing around aimlessly, trying to find the office Malfoy apparently works in, to find him. But she doesn't reveal a shred of evidence that proves he even exists.
Long after midnight, she returns to bed – plush and splendid with goose-down pillows and silk duvet – but she's wary. She wears the velvet pyjama set supplied to her by Mr. Malfoy and it makes her skin itch, her resolve solidify. She must leave. It's not safe here.
Something isn't right here.
Kreacher, who Hermione has always thought hated her with all his amphibian-ish guts, is strangely agitated when she tells him of her plans. He persuades her to sit down and wait while he informs 'the master of the house' of her departure. She reluctantly agrees.
Some fifteen minutes later, Kreacher returns, hopping in fast and looking anxious. His relief at finding she hasn't left yet is extremely apparent. "M-M-Mr. Malfoy," he croaks pathetically, "implores you to stay. He apologizes that your schedules conflict so, but he would hate to see you on the streets-"
"Those are his words exactly?"
"Yes."
"Then no." Hermione stands, taking up her trunk again. Kreacher gives a rather displeased ribbit at the sight. "If he won't see me, I can't stay here anymore. I'm sorry, Mr. Kreacher. I just don't feel comfortable…"
"Blah!" Mr. Kreacher is so wretched that Hermione would not be surprised at all if he suddenly started to attempt a butchering of himself by the aid of a nearby lamp. But instead he slaps his bald head and says, quickly, "Wait, wait a moment, Miss Granger. Just one moment."
Hermione hesitates.
Kreacher smiles widely – she's never seen him smile before, she realizes, and it's a wink scary – when she agrees and he hops off again, hobbling away in a hurry. She sighs.
Another number of minutes later, he returns.
"Mr. Malfoy agrees to meet with you," Kreacher gasps. He's about to keel over from exertion. "In two days' time, you two will dine at the-"
"Two days?" she says skeptically. Kreacher's greyish features twist in displeasure at the interruption. "That's an awfully long wait."
"Mr. Malfoy is a very busy man, Miss Granger. Surely, you can understand that."
She bites her lip. And although a part of her tells her to get out of there now, to not give this fishy bait a chance, another part of her calls her coward and makes her stay. And then there is another thought, a thought that fears he might see her with someone else, that he might – just might – be the one watching…
These last musings are ridiculous however.
"Alright, two days." Hermione is firm. She's leaving the past behind her – or trying to.
Kreacher croaks in relief.
Malfoy is not what she expected.
He's not warm. Or kind. Or gracious or generous or charismatic or any of the things Madame Pomfrey has said he is.
He's completely average actually. And a bit of a big, fat snob.
All in all, he's disappointing.
"I trust that everything is to your liking, Miss Granger?" Malfoy says, after a pregnant pause in which he thinks very hard and squints at the silk napkin in his lap like he's looking for a secret code to be disguised there. Hermione confirms this. Malfoy goes back to the napkin squinting business.
"And…ah…you are content?" he asks.
"Yes, quite." Hermione frowns at the oddly phrased question, but shakes it off. She needs to be gracious. "Thank you, by the way, Mr. Malfoy. I appreciate your hospitality very much in allowing me to stay at your home. I promise I'll be out of your hair by next month-"
"No, no!" shouts Malfoy, astonishing her. It's the first time he's shown any emotion beside Stuck-Up Robot. His white-blonde hair looks even paler against his suddenly flushed face. "That's quite unnecessary. I mean, you're welcome to stay as long as you want, Miss Granger," he adds hastily.
"Oh, um… thank you?"
It's very awkward after that.
"So." She scrambles for a conversation topic. "You are very busy with your meetings?"
"Yes. Er, quite busy." He squints at his toilette again. He seems agitated, but he's trying to hide it. Hermione's eyes narrow.
He's faking. Someone's putting him up to this. She's not sure how she knows it, but she does. She doesn't know what the purpose of this pretending is, but she knows there is one. She can see this Abraxas Malfoy is a liar – and a very poor one at that.
"Thank you for lunch, it was lovely," she says pleasantly when the luncheon is finally over. "I'm sorry to have imposed on your time, Mr. Malfoy. I know how very busy you are…" she trails.
Malfoy looks away. "Er, yes. Well, it's not really any trouble. Your company is…enjoyable." He's lying through his teeth.
"And yours." She smiles. "Goodbye, Mr. Malfoy. Maybe I will see you at your home again?"
Again. It's a test. Because if he's really the man who owns the house she's currently staying in, who has bought her a wardrobe of clothes and whose watched her dine once upon a Thursday night, then her comment will fluster him. She watches closely.
But Malfoy only pastes on a false cheery smile.
"Yes. Maybe." And he stands, quickly shaking her hand and parting with obvious relief. She watches him leave the restaurant.
She's being scammed.
Because this Mr. Malfoy is most certainly not her host and her real host is most certainly not at all what he seems to be. So what's the purpose of all this? Why the theatrics, the unnecessary lies? The mystery? Who is the real Mr. Malfoy?
She doesn't know, but she intends to find out.