Chapter Ten
Hermione was surrounded by Marcus. She couldn't move without his eyes tracking her. Everywhere she looked she saw him. For the last several hours she had been engaged in a silent standoff with his image but no matter how long she studied him for, it all remained an elusive mess and it was driving her spare.
Leaning back against the oblong table that dominated the war room, she rapped her freshly manicured nails on the underside, scowling at the dozens of articles he had featured in. Something about the entire situation was nagging her. She had allowed her feelings — whatever they were because she no longer knew herself — to cloud her judgment and because of it, she had missed something. Though she didn't know what, she could feel it in her gut. Buried somewhere amongst the stories, the photographs, the timelines, and his own personal recounts, there was a thread that connected it all. Something existed at the eye of the storm that made it all make sense if only she could find her way through to the false calm in the center.
Scooting her notes aside, she hoisted herself up onto the table and laid back to stare up at the ceiling, her face pinching as she tried to find comfort amongst the soft rollers in her hair, she gave in and asked, "What am I missing? What am I not seeing?"
With her eyes closed so she could no longer see the wall that was covered with his familiar ocean gaze, she started her puzzle over again; this time starting with what wasn't there. Going back to the start of it all, he had begun playing for the Ibizan Hounds during the the fall of 1995. Then shortly after the season kicked off, he had begun commanding not only the pitch but the tabloids, his exploits on both making it all the way back to Britain. Prior to that however, there had hardly been a whisper of his name. In fact, Lavender had already verified that before that first story hit, there had only been a single line of entry in the sports section about the Spanish team's acquisition of the former Slytherin who had declined Puddlemere's offer of a starting spot amongst their chasers.
Falling into another tick the longer she pondered the past, Hermione pulled the chain of her ring out from her blouse and began to glide it back and forth, muttering, "Where were you and what were you doing? How did you not land on their radar until October even though you were a rookie starter and the lead? Viktor couldn't so much as attend classes without it being reported, so how did you manage it while living in Ibiza of all places? Especially with your birthday having been before even preseason started."
"I arrived two weeks before training camp started. During that time I hardly left my flat for little more than groceries," Marcus answered, startling her into shoving the necklace back down her shirt as he came to sit at the table. As she lay back down and resumed her meditative state, he continued, "Wasn't much worth seeing in my opinion."
"'Wasn't much worth seeing?'" she scoffed. "You mean aside from the beautiful beaches, the wonderful food, the shopping and museums, not to mention your personal favorite, the globally recognized nightlife. Must have been truly dreadful for a newly single, freshly inherited eighteen year old."
"I had more important things to do instead of whiling away my nights in a club with some witch whom I wouldn't care to remember come morning and who couldn't give two fucks about me either. Besides, I didn't consider myself single at the time.
"So yes actually, living there was hell. I hated it. Every fucking second of it was excruciating in those first weeks and months. And as for my birthday, I went to practice that morning, got hazed, and then came home in the afternoon to do what I did everyday at that time; write and wait."
Shooting up, Hermione spun around on the table and glared down at Marcus as he swiveled from the windows that were covered with his face to her. Feeling herself lose whatever reason and rational thought she was able to still possess in his presence — a frighteningly frequent occurrence these days — she said, "If you didn't want to consider yourself as being single, then maybe you shouldn't have left me after fucking me, Marcus. Then you wouldn't have been."
Reclining back in the chair, his face half shuttered but his richly colored lips betraying his attempt at remaining indifferent as they started to curl, he seethed, "You say fuck you and leave you as if that night didn't mean everything to me. Your memory is as good as a bloody Pensieve; so I know you still have perfect recall about how important it had been to me to only share that with the witch I had intended on spending the rest of my life with."
Snorting at the reminder of how he had claimed he wanted to retain his virginity for whomever he would marry and how easily she had fallen for the pretty, romantic lies, she retorted, "Oh yeah, I remember… What was it you said? Something about how, 'sex is too vulnerable, meaningful, and connecting of an act to waste it on someone you don't love.' That you would only, 'go that far with a witch if she were the love of your life, the person who showed you forever in their eyes.'
"Yeah, I remember that conversation very clearly. I also remember thinking how in the moment as you spoke of it like it was some transcendent act that would forever entwine two people, that I wanted so desperately to be the witch you saw forever with. That I would be the only one you ever gave that part of yourself to. The only one you exposed that soft soul of yours to. That I would be the only witch to ever turn your head and raise your cock for the rest of our lives.
"Gods I was such a fucking fool, falling for that shite," she laughed bitterly. "You didn't even wait four bloody months after leaving me before you started seeing forever in the eyes of every slag who so much as batted her eyelashes at you."
Jackknifing up from the chair so that it went careening across the room, Marcus slammed his hands down on either side of her and hissed, "You keep saying, 'I left you,' like you aren't the reason we imploded and like you didn't fucking kill me that summer. You destroyed me, Hermione; broke me beyond fucking repair
"And now you sit here judging me for the man I became, the man you made. A man who ten years later still can't get you out of his fucking head and find a way to not be so pathetically in love with you; a man who who continues to foolishly hope that maybe enough time has finally passed and you're now ready to take what I offered you then.
"But no, you weren't then and you aren't now. You never will be and I'm the sodding idiot who has to live with a broken heart for the rest of his life while you carry on like some cold, unfeeling bitch, tossing me scraps as it suits you and like the pathetic fool for you that I am, I'm sticking around to pick up and covet each one."
Opening and closing her mouth several times as he pushed back from the table, Hermione found her mind to be as empty as the room had been when she had begun talking aloud. There wasn't even a spark to be found of a short circuiting. Her entire train of thought had derailed and fallen into the abyss under his words. She was left empty, unable to even string enough words together to indicate she had heard anything he said.
The only thing that seemed to show any sign of her having not suddenly suffered a stroke was the inflating of her heart as it swelled with hope. It was threatening to burst as her mind started to sputter back to life — or as much life as a broken record possessed — playing a continuous loop of him saying he still loved her. Was still in love with her. That he — after all this time — still wanted her.
Shaking his head as he watched her for even a glimmer of a reaction, Marcus chuckled mirthlessly, "Nice to know I'm not the only one who hasn't changed. You're still as silent as ever." Walking towards the door, he muttered, "Good talk, angel. Let's not wait another ten years to do this again, yeah?
Watching as he walked away without looking back, she finally snapped out of her daze and whispered, "I didn't give up until the fall."
"What?" he asked, stopping at the threshold but not turning around.
Swallowing past the sudden lump in her throat and rubbing away the tightness in her chest, she said, "I wanted it. Whatever you offered me, I always wanted it. Even after you left I wanted it and waited. I didn't give up that want until the fall. Not until…" she trailed off, looking at a copy of the tabloid article and its accompanying photos that had forced her to let go of the thin threads of hope she had retained. "Not until I saw that."
Finally looking over his shoulder, Marcus looked past her, to what she was pointing to. Studying it for only a moment before giving her one of his poorly sculpted veneers of having no reaction, he said, "Don't lie, it's unbecoming of someone who's normally so forthcoming. You gave up long before that night. If you hadn't, that — and everything after it — wouldn't have occurred because if I wasn't at the pitch, I would have been in my flat waiting for you as I was the entire summer."
Then as the clock tower near her office began to chime the half hour, he lightly slapped the door frame and reminded, "We'll be expected in London for the gala in an hour. Since this is all 'fake,' and I'm paying you, making myself a, 'job,' let's try not to be late, yeah?" before exiting, his heavy steps giving sound to his otherwise ghostly retreat, each one hurtling for the hope she was allowing to run wild as it blossomed and for the first time, bouncing off and leaving it intact.
With her ring pulled back out and getting worried along its chain, Hermione summoned what was easily her favorite photo from the wall. Tracing her fingers over the moving image of his back, she studied the tattoo that just a few months ago had her ready to throw away the years of hurt and finally bend to reaching out to him. Even through the several times copied image, the detail of the wings and their feathers leapt out. Each one was singularly unique in its color pattern and the way it lay in place with the others, resting as real feathers would, even ruffling in the breeze. The wings moved and rippled with each tick of his muscles as if waiting for him to shudder and open up their expanse. Their arches curved up his shoulders and spread out along the blades before tucking in towards his spine and falling down his back, shadowing the tapering of his waist as if they were trying to stay concealed from those looking at him head on.
The most heartbreaking detail however — the one that had truly sent her into a spiral for the night, talking through every option and its possible outcomes with Lavender — were the feathers that had fallen off. They floated and drifted down his back, slowly incinerating until they reached the base of his spine to collect in a pile of ash. Ten of them, caught in a loop of being plucked from his back and left to die. One for each year they had been apart.
It was for her.
The entire piece that stretched across his back had been placed there for her.
She had been sure of it the moment she saw the picture on the newsstand that night with Adrian. And as she had studied every detail of it with Lavender, trying and failing to poke holes in her own theory before she got her heart shattered again believing him to be as torn apart by the past as she had been, she had only become more convinced of it.
That night, nothing of the last ten years mattered. He was still in love with her, addicted to her, and clinging to what could have and should have been. Marcus still wanted her and for whatever reason, had been unable to voice it to her himself. Whatever had happened, she had been ready to forgive and work through with him, staying up the rest of the night to draft, write, and write again, a letter for him a dozen times over. Then as morning had pushed night out of its way, the universe decided it had other plans for her; that she needed to be reminded of exactly why she kept herself closed off.
Splashed across the front page that morning for the first time since he had begun to go media silent — at least in regards to the parade of witches frequenting his bed — was the recounting of his wild night in London. The one that had ended with him drunkenly stumbling out of a club with an equally intoxicated witch who happily and blatantly had her hand down the front of his trousers.
Hermione could forgive a great many things, and over the years she had. What she couldn't forgive though, was him making her look like a fool. Something Marcus had received a mastery in doing. She wasn't going to humble herself before him and offer to clean the slate of his sins against her if every time he was left to wait for her, he would grow bored and seek out someone else.
But now hearing him talk and actually hearing his words and listening to everything he said and everything he didn't, she wondered how much time they had lost together. How many years could they have had if she had simply put aside her own stubbornness and broken heart and picked up a quill and written to him demanding answers, instead of waiting for a letter as proof that he loved her? A letter that never came.
How much more could they have shared together if she had sent word to him in Ibiza after finding out at least a vague address with which to contact him at? How many lonely, empty, passionless nights that she had spent in someone else's bed — thinking of him as she allowed others to try and live up to him but never succeed in learning her body the way he had — could have been spent in his arms had she not resented him for his sudden and publicly promiscuous ways? Had she not allowed herself to be poisoned by the idea that Marcus was just a wizard telling a witch what they needed to hear to get what he wanted.
Would they have lasted the years she had left inside Hogwarts? Would they have both survived the war? Would they be married? Getting ready to have babies of their own as Blaise and Lavender were? Would the plans and dreams they had lovingly whispered about while tangled together in that poorly equipped bed — his release coating her inner thighs as their sweat cooled and dried on their skin, her fingers drifting under the sheet, already addicted to what they had done and wanting to seek him out for more — when the cottage had been little more than a shamble of bricks have come true?
Tracing her fingers over each of the ten feathers as she held the chain of her necklace in place over her lips by scrunching up her mouth, Hermione continuously spun each question in her head wondering if it was time to finally ask and put them all to bed. However as she made up her mind, the clock tower again chimed, singing out the hour and alerting her to how much time had elapsed while she had been trapped inside her own head.
Swearing as she flicked her wand at the mess of Marcus to have it pack itself away, she scrambled off the table and slid on the hard floors as her stockinged feet lost traction.
"Shite," she muttered as she felt a run begin up her calf.
Hobbling out of the room on one leg as she tried to free the ruined nylon from her garter and hearing the wizard who plagued her thoughts getting into a snit with Blaise down below, she shouted out, "Five minutes! I just need five minutes and I'll be ready for the Portkey. I swear!" dashing into the bathroom to finish stripping, but not before Blaise and Marcus both grumbled some variation of, "Yeah, five minutes my arse."
Ripping off her blouse and dropping her bra to the floor, Hermione tugged the zipper on her skirt down and let it fall from her waist into a puddle before violently tearing herself free of the other stocking. With her wand in her teeth and her rollers bouncing and falling from her hair, she started to change out of her knickers to pull on the unappealing foundation set she had packed that morning. Scowling as she held the plain pair in her hand, she decided to forgo them in favor of the quietly alluring, flesh colored lace set she currently wore. Brutalizing a new package of hosiery, she slowed her frenzy down long enough to roll the delicate material up her legs and thighs and get them attached to the straps of her belt. Stepping into her heels and opening the garment bag that held her white, double slit gown, she unfastened the halter top and lowered the zipper to step into it. Freeing her wand from her teeth, she flicked it at her back to pull the zipper up for her and started to stampede down the stairs, snapping the halter closed as she went.
Sliding into the reception area where Marcus's vexation was on display for all to see, adding to the devastating figure he cut in his light absorbing tux, she declared, "See? Five minutes," while pulling the rollers that were keeping her blown out curls bouncy and smooth from her hair.
"Salazar's chamber, witch," he snapped, walking over to her with her coat. "I used to find your habitual tardiness endearing. It was a small flaw that reminded me you were in fact human. But for the love of magic, if you're going to treat me like a thorn in your side that you can't wait to pluck free, try to be on fucking time."
Stopping and waiting for her to turn around so he could cover her against the cold, his eyes dropped down to her chest, his irritation vanishing as he stared and asked, "What's that?" reaching out to lift the necklace she wore.
Slapping her hand over her chest to conceal the ring she had forgotten to remove though he had already seen it, she stuttered, "Um… well… uh…" beyond thankful for the interruption Lavender provided as she stormed through the floo in a cloud of righteous fury, forcing Marcus to drop the necklace they were frozen over.
Her reprieve was short lived however as her friend yanked on his shoulder and turned him around, her hand slapping across his face with such force its sound reverberated through their offices.
"What the actual fuck, Flint?" she screamed. "We had one rule that existed above all others. You tell us everything! Do you know how hard it is for us to do our job when our clients are lying to us and hiding shite from us?"
Sliding between them, Hermione pushed Marcus back behind her and asked Lavender, "What the hell is going on? He's been a pain in the arse but he hasn't hid anything from us."
"The fuck he hasn't," the blonde snarled, shoving a folder into her chest. "He's being blackmailed, Hermione. Every month at least one payment leaves his account and gets transferred through several others before arriving at this one," she explained, taking the folder back and showing the trial of evidence.
Snatching it from her desk, Marcus ripped the parchment in half before throwing it in the fireplace, growling, "How did you get that?"
"So it's true?" Blaise demanded, saving the evidence from curling in on itself and repairing what he could of the charred edges. "You're being blackmailed and didn't think that was information we should know. Fucking Merlin's sac, what the hell is wrong with you?"
"Don't worry about that, love," Lavender dismissed. "That's only a copy I brought to gauge his reaction. By the way, thanks for being predictably late, Hermione."
Sticking her tongue out as she squinted at her friend, she grumbled,"Happy to help," before turning on Marcus and forcing him step by step back into her office as she drawled and over enunciated, "You are going to tell us every single detail, right fucking now," punctuating her words by pushing him to sit down on her couch.
Tacking her wand that dangled from her left hand, he waved it at her bar cart, muttering a summoning spell to bring her portion of the commandeered firewhiskey over to him. Not bothering with a tumbler, he removed the decanter's stopper, and took several large swigs before hissing and wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his tux, offering it to her and Blaise in turn. Shrugging when neither of them moved to take a drink, he helped himself to another before placing it on the floor at his feet as he said, "I've been paying blackmail and complying with their demands on your behalf for five years this May.
"When the first letter arrived, I dismissed it. Then a few weeks later when I hadn't responded, they gave me another chance. This time proving their claim with photographs."
"Photographs of what?"
Looking up at the three of them, he scrubbed his hands over his face before ripping the rug out from under her by saying, "Of you two disposing of Greyback's body in Sicily. Ades has been paying on Zabini's behalf but yours…" he trailed off, looking up at her with woeful eyes. "You're Hermione fucking Granger: paradigm of all things just and moral. Your secrets are worth a hell of a lot more than the son of a black widow. Regardless of how you ended things between us, I still love you and would do anything to protect you. I couldn't let this get out and risk what would happen to you."
Blocking out his confession and the subsequent swooning sigh of Lavender so that she could focus on the most pressing issue of the moment, Hermione turned to her friend and said, "Please go to my flat and pack me a bag for the week. You know where to take it. And if you could stock the kitchen, that would be much appreciated and save us a stop. He eats about seven times a day, so shop accordingly."
Pointing at Blasie, she instructed, "Fabricate whatever details you must but get it out there that with Marcus's schedule free of matches for the week, he impulsively whisked me away for a small Valentine's Day holiday. It'll explain our sudden absence and please send my apologies to A Hero's Legacy for not attending in the form of whatever size donation you think will smooth this over."
Then finally addressing Marcus, she explained, "You're going to take me to your home in Montrose and pack your things for the week along with anything you have that is even vaguely connected to all of this. Afterwards, you're coming home with me and you're going to stay there while Lavender and Blaise dig. She'll need at least three days to trace the owner of the account you've been paying and we'll need several more to plan accordingly. Until then, you and I are about to get real cozy with only one bedroom and one bathroom."