A/N: This took a while because of Christmassy things! Thank you for your reviews, follows, and favorites.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: THE CELLO SONG
The next morning, she arrived at the gates of Malfoy Manor more or less refreshed and perfectly respectable. The gates seemed to swing in for her when she arrived, as if the house were saying "Hello." Unfortunately, the greeting was superficial since she was still required to wear the blood of Lucius Malfoy in order to avoid ignominious death.
Luna had beaten her there and was already in the Dining Room, studying the house magic. Lucius was with her, and they seemed to be having a very pleasant, civil conversation. She didn't quite understand how he could be so very docile will Luna 100% of the time and with her, well, it was quite a completely different story. She watched them from the doorframe, like a stalker.
"And you've said that you believe the house is waiting, but you don't know for what it might be waiting?" Lucius was asking Luna.
"No, well," she said, stopping herself. "I can sort of sense it. It's waiting for something to happen before it acts."
"Do you have any idea how to perceive for what it might be waiting?" he asked. Hermione found herself appreciating his grammar. He also looked nice. Ugh. She really did like his hair Romanized. Suppressing the color which was trying to flush her face, she moved back slightly to extend her time unperceived.
"That's one of the things I've been trying to do," said Luna, "but it isn't easy to talk to a house."
"No, I suppose it isn't," replied Lucius with a wry smile.
"Granted, this manor is by far the most interesting house I've ever dealt with," said Luna with a smile.
"Thank you?" he asked, not sure if it was a compliment.
"Definitely," she said, and they shared mutual good will. Who was this agreeable man?
"Ah, I've a few books I think you might find useful," he said, as if he'd just remembered something. "One moment."
And then he turned straight towards the doorframe in which Hermione lurked and their eyes met, and he froze, and so did she, but to his credit he was caught off-guard by her presence so briefly that it would take a practiced eye to notice it. She saw it, though, and as he strode to approach her his gaze didn't leave hers for an instant.
"Good morning," he said, warmly, once he was close enough to where he could qualify as 'looking down at her', or perhaps 'gazing down upon her', or possibly even 'looming dreamily above her'.
"Yes," she replied, moronically, as if she'd never learned to greet anyone in the morning before, and her behavior could be qualified as gazing up at him in a lost sort of way that she preferred not to define.
"Would you like to come with me to fetch the books for Mrs. Longbottom?"
She got her senses back like a mental slap in the brain.
"You're willingly fetching books, now?" she asked him with a critical eye.
"What are you going on about?" he asked, pressing past her into the hall, his scent only momentarily distracting her from the teasing at hand.
"Oh, you know," she said, catching up to him to walk beside. "That's the sort of thing a house elf is for, wouldn't you say?"
"That's the sort of thing for which a house elf is," he said, correcting her grammar, but his profile was amused.
"The construction of that sentence, though correct, is not very effective," she said, smiling, "but I could kiss you for your effort."
"Could you?" he inquired.
"How far to the library?" she deflected.
"Have you already forgotten where it is?" he asked, being so bold to take her hand in his as they walked. "I thought you had a perfect memory."
She glanced down at their hands, being helplessly surprised at the act of affection and familiarity, so much so that she almost didn't notice when he reached up and turned a wall-sconce. A hidden door creaked open in the wall and he pulled her into it by the hand.
"A secret passageway!" she whispered, following him along a dark passage and then up a narrow flight of stairs. He cast a spell to light the torches along the way. "Where are we going?"
"You'll see," he said, refusing to let go of her hand, though she had to admit she hadn't tried to resist.
On they went, passing a few narrow archers' windows that led to the outside along the way and then climbing a couple of winding stairs. Finally, they reached a narrow set of spiraling, steep, extremely old stairs and he had to release her hand out of necessity, for it was impossible to climb otherwise. She was rapidly finding herself to be out of breath with such steep climbing, and she wondered what it was on Malfoy Manor that could be so high as this.
The steps at the top were worn and uneven with age, and ended with a heavy wooden door against which Lucius shoved with his shoulder once, then twice, and then a third time with a force that would not be denied until it opened completely and the morning sunlight flooded the dark stairwell like water.
They stepped out at the top of a tower that was likely once used for defense of the Malfoy grounds, and it overlooked the lands of Wiltshire for as far as she could see. The green hills of England stretched out before them, trembling on the very edge of spring, and the sun shone upon them with joyous warmth. Soon wildflowers would erupt across the grounds, and she could hardly wait to see it happen. She rushed to a rail overlooking the scene and leaned across it, sniffing the air and completely captured by the sensory landscape.
He came up beside her and took her hand again, urging her to go yet somewhere else. But where else could there be?
"This way," he said, indicating a small pathway that seemed to go along the edge of the manor roof itself.
"Ah," she said. Without any railings on the pathway, she felt a sudden, sharp pang of height fear. "Ah…"
He pulled her in front of him and held her around her waist to give her security, and she had to admit it helped, although it made her anxious in a different way. Leading her around a turret and then helping her up a clever little inset of stairs, the path ended on a small platform that she could only imagine was probably meant for snipers. Malfoy snipers. Lucius released her.
The platform was guarded by a rail, but was placed in such a way to allow those upon it to see all the grounds unobstructed while still maintaining obscurity. No one would ever know they were up there.
"Wait," said Hermione, and Lucius stopped to look at her. "This isn't the way to the library."
He laughed, and she smiled, liking his laughter.
"Do you come up here often?" she asked.
"I haven't been up here for a long time," he said.
"I would guess at least seventeen years," she said.
He smiled at her and said, "A lot longer than that, actually. I used to play up here as a child, but I've rarely been here since."
"On the roof?" asked Hermione, shocked that any Malfoy parents would allow such dangerous behavior.
Lucius almost-shrugged. "The whole house was my playground."
"I suppose playing up here would clear one of any fear of heights," she said.
"Perhaps," he replied.
"It's lovely," she said, leaning her hands upon the railing to overlook the mild rolling hills. "It's all lovely. The weather, the grounds, even the wildness of it all."
Lucius sighed beside her, his eyes uneasy upon the wildness.
"I know it bothers you," she said, taking his arm as an act of comfort. His arm ceded to her pliantly though he remained quiet. "But it's nothing that cannot be reclaimed, and yet even now it can be appreciated for its current beauty."
They stood in comfortable silence until she spoke again.
"I've grown fond of this house," she said, and he maintained his silence, so she went on. "It's so strange and full of matter and memories and pieces of this and that and one never knows what it might do next, maybe nothing, maybe everything. But the details… there is such beauty in the details and in its enviable, strange patience. There is beauty and tragedy and joy and sadness in this house, all mixed in together so one moment one shines upon you and then the next another."
Lucius looked at her, seeming to consider her words.
"Above all one can feel its deep, encompassing protection of you," she said. "If one … listens."
Something of a smile passed his face and he brushed an errant strand of hair from her cheek.
"How lucky you are, Lucius, what a thing to possess!" she said to him.
"I don't possess it," he replied.
"Does it possess you?" she asked.
"No," he said.
"You belong to each other, then," she said.
"I suppose that's more or less how it is," he said.
"I like that," she said with a little smile.
"Do you?" he asked, leaning against the rail and regarding her with an intent gaze that made her wonder what he was getting at. At what he was getting.
"Yes," she said, not sure what else to add. He looked as if he was thinking about something else entirely, so she waited for him to go on. It didn't take him long, but he released a restless sigh before he spoke.
"Is it wrong that I want to pretend, just for a moment, that you and I are simply what we are right now, in this moment of time?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" she asked. "What are we, right now?"
"What, yes," he replied, taking her hand to his lips. He kissed the back of her hand and looked out into the rolling hills without explaining.
"Aligned?" she ventured.
"Perhaps," he said, as if that were inadequate. "If we were to cut this piece of time out, to carve it out like a piece of a cake, and have it alone, how delicious would it be?"
She considered that, and then sighed, a sweet sorrow creeping into her consciousness.
"It's not our fault the rest of the cake is full of shite," he said.
"Lucius!" she objected, with an outburst of a laugh.
He gave a half-laugh and looked at her, tightening his grip on her hand.
"I want this piece. This one. This is the one I want," he said, as if she could possibly fix what was essentially the fault of all things contrived together to bring about their singular existences.
She looked down at her hand in his, and then lifted her gaze back up to the distant grounds.
"I do too," she finally complied, quiet.
"I'm afraid to hope this is happiness," he said.
The ever elusive happiness. That thing they both craved and never found, despite their equal but opposite dedication to ideologies and philosophies and moralities. But yes, this, right now, was it. She laced her fingers through his, if only for the current solidarity between them, and she could feel he was tense through his hand, and then his voice.
"I can never have it," he said. "It's only here, right now, and already I'm wasting it, allowing it to slip away from me because I fear losing it too much to experience it while I have it."
She turned to look at him. "Then, don't," she said.
"Don't?" he asked.
"Don't waste it."
"How?"
"Just … enjoy this," she said. "And remember it."
At least he'll be able to remember it. She would forget. She would have never experienced it. She felt a sharp jab of pain at that thought, at the thought of losing all of this completely, but she was determined to maintain this good, fair, pleasant moment for as long as she could, so she swallowed it and smiled up at Lucius.
He saw it on her face, he saw what she did, and her smile-against-all-odds crumbled the veneered vestige of noblesse about him and somehow, with a great release of constraints, she watched him become free, free to absorb her light and warmth into his emptiness without the barrier of control, and with the hope to someday, somehow be filled.
What he did next was done like parts that fit together in tandem to make one, complete, deep resounding note across the string of a cello. The mass of his body gracefully encroached upon her space, his hand took her face while his own face radiated new, terrifying, exhilarating freedom, and then he confessed: "Je t'adore."
He needed, at the least, that one barrier of language between himself and his emotions, and she let him have it.
"Do you?" she asked, her words an acceptance, allowing him to absorb her light.
"Yes," he whispered, wonder in his eyes.
She let her eyes close, sacrificial, and she gave him permission; she allowed him to kiss her, and after a weighted moment he did, slowly, bleeding into her, seeping through her like dark wine through white cloth. He was cautious and careful, meticulous, his movements expressing minute awareness of every caress of his lips and touch of his hand, and that awareness made her more aware, and not a sensation was allowed to be lost or to escape experience. They'd both come to the mutual, unspoken realization that every moment of this time was precious beyond all hope of purchase.
She touched the wrist of his hand as he touched her face, letting her fingertips travel along the back of his hand to his fingers, and he touched her face and he acknowledged the touch of her hand with his, and again he touched her face, and every movement melted into the next like the edges of colored wax under hot light and he, they, she… touched in a holy chaos of feeling and being felt, and so she kissed him back, no longer the sacrifice, but taking her own.
His response to her kiss was to catch his breath against her lips, and the shift in pressure, the sudden intimacy of such familiarity with him, his mouth, his breathing, the sounds he made, his scent, his taste, his whole, sent a charge after charge through her, and then him, and then her, and they became embroiled in a sensual feedback loop in which sighs begat sighs and caresses begat need until they had embraced with ferocity and kissed with complete, utter, white-flag, walls-crumbled-to-nothing surrender.
"I am finished," she sighed, meaning one thing.
"I am not," he said, meaning another, and he kissed her again.
So then she gloried in it, and they both did, glorying in the delight of the moment, of the freedom which they currently possessed, in rebellion of this happiness despite what they were and what they stood for, and they both willed that they might stay there eternally in the radiant radial glow of the sublime ring of their event horizon. Was this immortality? Was this exaltation? Was perfection only a moment stretched into forever?
What was next?
What could be next?
Was anything next?
"Hermione," he sighed against her neck after a kiss, his embrace loosened but engaged with fragile repose, and perhaps her sigh melded with his, as nothing was clearly discernable anymore as his or hers, but only theirs, as they had become a single something, something, something, and then from below a warm wind surrounded them and encircled them and then, up, up, they cast their eyes to the sky, blue, brilliant, blue, brilliant, deep, deep, soft blue.
Their eyes fell to each other. He was as breathless as she.
"What was that?" she asked him.
"I don't know," he said, honestly. His hair had been ruffled by the wind and he looked adorably mussed, and as he noticed her evaluation of his current state he began to smile, and then not, and then he seemed not to know whether to smile or stop it. It was beguiling in every way imaginable.
She threw her arms around him and kissed his cheek to whisper, "How I adore the real you!"
He returned her embrace, hiding within it, hiding the real him, in the only place where the real himself could ever be safe.
In time, she murmured into his shoulder.
"Do you think we should ask Luna if she noticed anything just now?"
He murmured back into her neck.
"Maybe."
"You don't sound like you want to find out."
"Maybe."
She laughed quietly.
"Come on," she whispered, "It could be important."
He moved to gaze at her soberly.
"I think it may be," he said, his voice soft.
She fell helplessly into his gaze like she'd fallen off the plank of a pirate ship.
He kissed her once, tenderly.
"Remember this for me," she told him, meaning it to her bones.
"I will never forget," he replied.
They mourned and they gloried, and they left the platform, and they traversed the narrow walkway, and down the steep stairs, and they mourned and they gloried along the deep, hidden arteries of Malfoy Manor, past archers' windows and around chipped, ancient corners, and they loved every moment and grieved the loss of each moment as it passed.
Luna looked up as they entered the dining room.
"Did you two feel that?" she asked.
"Uhm, feel something?" asked Hermione awkwardly.
Lucius looked amused.
"Pardon Hermione, she's out of sorts," he said. "If you mean a strange, sudden gust of warm wind, then yes."
"That was it!" said Luna, pointing at Lucius.
"What was it?" he asked.
"It came from the house!" said Luna, and she seemed very excited about it. "It came through the house, from within it!"
"Oh, no, now what has the house done?" asked Hermione, expecting the worst.
"Do you know, Mrs. Longbottom?" asked Lucius.
"I think I do, or at least, maybe I do," said Luna. "Hermione, come here."
Hermione came to Luna, hesitant, and perhaps dreading the possibilities.
"Do you have the flask of Mr. Malfoy's blood handy?" asked Luna.
"I do," replied Hermione.
"Good," said Luna, pulling out a handkerchief. "Now, give me your hand."
"Oh no," said Hermione, recalling the getting-sick-off-the-balcony-and-then-sleeping-in-the-bushes incident that occurred last time she wasn't protected from that particular ward.
"There's no harm in experimenting," said Lucius, who seemed very interested, and probably was not recalling the his-nose-getting-punched-as-a-result part of the aforementioned incident.
"Besides, we're both here beside you, full of blood," said Luna, smiling.
"That isn't reassuring, that's macabre," said Hermione, grimacing, but holding her hand out.
Luna rubbed away the dried blood that dotted the back of Hermione's hand, and there was a tense moment of waiting wherein no one moved or blinked or possibly breathed. Another second passed, and another… and another. Hermione dared not move, yet.
Lucius' hand touched her elbow, faint, gentle.
"Anything?" asked Luna.
"N-no," breathed Hermione, but still cautious, somehow afraid that if she moved or breathed too much the ward would find her and punish her for existing.
"Ha!" cried Luna. "That's it!"
She wasn't dying. She wasn't dying. Why wasn't she dying? Lucius' hand tightened on her elbow and he pulled her into his arms, into a sudden, crushing embrace, and she wondered why she wasn't dying, again she wondered.
"Why aren't I dying?" she voiced aloud, muffled a bit by Lucius, but realizing Luna was also embracing her, and then it was over, they'd both released her and were looking at her for answers, which she had none.
"It appears the manor has accepted you, Miss Granger," said Lucius, straightening his sleeve, regaining his respectability, and pretending he hadn't just bear-hugged anyone. "And exempted you from all wardings."
"What did you do?" asked Luna, wide-eyed.
"Ah-ha-ha," said Hermione hysterically, pretending she hadn't kissed Lucius on the roof so many times.
Lucius looked at her, as if gauging how much information she would be willing to allow in the light of day. Hermione realized they'd have to tell Luna something, in order for her to be able to properly do her work in figuring out what had just happened, it was just that Hermione didn't quite like the idea of telling Luna anything.
"Are you glowering at me?" asked Luna of Hermione, who then realized she had, in fact, been glowering.
"No," lied Hermione, and then she quickly changed the subject back to the matter at hand, "Mr. Malfoy and I have been getting along better lately."
"I noticed that," said Luna.
"Yes," confirmed Lucius. "We have."
It was all very vague, moronically vague.
"But just now, did you do anything special?" asked Luna.
"Uh," said Hermione.
"Oh, Merlin's grave," said Lucius, his patience finally at its snapping point. "Just tell her. I'll be actually fetching the books."
"Oh, the books," said Hermione, remembering the un-fetched books.
"Yes, the books," he said while stalking out, presumably for the library.
Hermione found herself releasing a sigh of relief once he'd left.
"Wow," said Luna, something between an amused smile and amazement on her face. "So… you say you've been getting along better, lately?"
Hermione could only let out a pained laugh.
"Mostly," she said.
"And, um, today?" prompted Luna.
"Yes, well, today…," started Hermione, and then she passed a hand across her eyes and drew a breath. "Well, you'll have to understand this didn't just come out of nowhere, it's kind of been growing for some time, and I don't know why, really, and I don't think he does either, but-."
"You like each other romantically, yes, I know," said Luna.
"Wait, what?" asked Hermione, shocked that anyone could suspect such a thing, ever, let alone know it. It was especially jarring to hear it voiced by someone other than herself or Lucius, and even moreso when said so directly, so plainly, so very matter-of-factly. It made it all come clear to her in crisp, unforgiving bas-relief. She and Lucius Malfoy harbored romantic feelings for each other. They both did. Mutually. Oh, cripes. She was clearly a complete idiot.
"It's been obvious for a while," said Luna, as if it wasn't a big deal.
"Why didn't you slap some sense into me?" asked Hermione desperately.
"Could I have?" asked Luna.
"What is wrong with me?" begged Hermione, looking for answers.
"Nothing," returned Luna.
"We both know who this is!" cried Hermione.
"Yes, we do," said Luna.
"And we know what he's done!"
"Quite," replied Luna.
"How can you be so calm?" asked Hermione, anguished.
Luna drew a breath and let it out, considering her reply. Then, she took Hermione gently by the arm and spoke.
"First, with age comes the understanding of nuance. We are nearly as old as Mr. Malfoy was during the war. I have my own family, my own children. How far would I go to protect them? Probably not that far, not like Mr. Malfoy, but I can begin to understand his motives, at least more than I could at seventeen."
"Secondly," said Luna, "he isn't all bad. He isn't all bad at all. Sometimes he even seems… penitent."
"Or manipulative," said Hermione.
"Well, I think he will always be that," said Luna. "Isn't it in his bones? But, there's something different about him, isn't there? Perhaps it was Azkaban, or the solitary time after the war being a prisoner in his own home… or perhaps even this experience we've had with him has changed him irrevocably. Perhaps even you have changed him, Hermione… or maybe it was all of it, everything."
Hermione sighed restlessly.
"I don't want him to go back," Hermione blurted out at last, anxiety rippling through her voice in a way she didn't like. She hid her face in her hands.
She felt Luna's hand on her shoulder.
"Hey, Hermione," said Luna gently.
Hermione braved meeting Luna's eyes, and was fortunate enough to receive not the shame she felt she deserved, but a comforting hug, one which she took with relief. After the hug was finished, Hermione wanted to tell Luna everything, and so she did.
Luna appeared amazed over the whole thing.
"Interesting," said Luna. "That is incredibly interesting."
"It sounds like you're not saying it's interesting just for sensational value," said Hermione.
"Well, it is certainly interesting that way, too," said Luna, laughing. "Quel scandale! But, otherwise, if you think about it, it's as if the house has identified you as an extension of itself as a protection of the Malfoy family."
"Oh, mercy, no!" laughed Hermione. "Not this house again!"
"At least you can add to your resume that you've come to terms with a house," said Luna.
"An unusual addition, to be sure!"
"It must be a lonely job, protecting a family alone for centuries," mused Luna, glancing about at the manor's insides.
"You think houses get lonely?" asked Hermione with a sharp laugh.
Luna just smiled, becoming her familiar dreamy, inexplicable self.
"Mrs. Longbottom, do you suppose you might take a look at Draco tomorrow afternoon?" asked Lucius from the doorway, where he had been lurking, just like Hermione earlier, for who-knows-how-long. Hermione found herself mentally recounting all she had said that could have possibly been overheard to calculate if she'd said anything incriminating, but all that thinking jammed to a halt as her eyes met with his.
What was it about him, now? Why did she want to drop everything and fall into the bottomless pit of his gaze every time he looked at her? What had happened to her? She broke eye contact as an act of self-preservation.
"I'd be happy to, Mr. Malfoy," replied Luna. "Do you plan on fetching him tomorrow?"
"If all goes well, yes," he said. "And perhaps Miss Granger would like to join me?"
"Of course," said Hermione, feeling weird about how polite everyone was being just then.
"It seems like we're getting closer to working this whole thing out, doesn't it?" asked Luna with a smile.
"Yes, I think so," replied Lucius, encroaching further into the room, and Hermione could simply feel his closer presence, as if she'd become instantly in tune with and aware of the unique frequency of his matter. It was as if the rhythm at which his electrons oscillated around his nuclei beat a cadence which her own electrons were simply dying to dance to, and with, and around, and never be parted. She resisted his subatomic orbital magnetism as well as she could, due to overall absurdity.
"Yes, soon Mr. Malfoy will be gone, and none of this will have ever happened… isn't it wonderful?" she blurted out, unable to completely suppress a certain tenseness in her voice.
Luna and Lucius seemed not to know how to respond to that, and Hermione was suddenly short of breath.
"Excuse me," she said, turning away and exiting the scene.
Within the privacy of the hallway, Hermione inner-monologued.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid," she said, variety eluding her.
It was time to take a walk about the manor.
It was time for Hermione to spend some time, mono e mono, with Malfoy Manor, and so she took to wandering it, considering its hidden corners and shadowed alcoves, its forgotten busts and weighty fabrics, and its ancient, massive, faded oriental rugs. Hanging heavy in every hall were Malfoy portraits, and most were so dignified, so controlled, that they'd hardly move, except their eyes, which watched her with bated breath. Was she to save them all somehow? How did it come to this?
In the midst of a hallway she found an inset bench which sat opposite a large window, framed by rich curtains, overlooking the tangled rose bed outside. On this little alcove bench was a faded pallet of sage green which might have once been a richer, more Slytherin color, and she took it in and placed herself upon it to gaze out of the window at the silent, wild rose branches.
A deep sigh escaped her.
She touched the inner wall of the alcove, pressing the palm of her hand against it, wondering if she tried hard enough, if she somehow acquired some special Luna-powers, she would know what this house was thinking. That somehow, she'd be able to actually communicate with the thing and know what exactly she was supposed to do. If only Malfoy Manor could spit out a to-do list, that would make everything so much easier. Why must things of such importance be solved using little more than intuition?
The house, of course, said nothing to her through her hand. It merely sat, silent, waiting, patient, knowing, and so she also sat, silent, impatient, frustrated and lost, watching a tiny red bud that had secretly emerged from the tangled rose bushes.