Thank you to Kitty Qin for your review. Here's the next chapter for you.

10: Barefooted in the snow

Comfort, yes, that was what she needed. Comfort, and an open, understanding friend. Someone to rely on, someone who would not try to force her onto a path in life that she had already decided against. There was only one person she could think of that might listen to her without a preconceived opinion, without fixed expectations, without 'only wanting the best for her'. How could what was best for her hurt her so much? Merlin, she hoped he would not turn her away! She ran and ran through the halls, her long, fern green dress billowing out behind her, the heels of her shoes clicking loudly on the marble, tears running freely over her face. Getting away from all of this was all that she could think of. He was her only link to the world outside of her narrow confinement. He represented everything she felt drawn to. She barely knew him, but she needed him now.

Please don't turn me away!

In the usual formation of six, they flew through the thick snowflakes. In the valley below them, a lonely lantern guided them. It was held by one of the two women who lived with them. In her other hand, she had a tray of steaming mugs. These were the last minutes of the last day in December after all. They had chosen mulled wine instead of champagne to clink 'glasses' due to the coldness.

Reg and the others got off their brooms and eagerly seized a mug each, glad of the warm liquid running down their throats after six hours out in the cold. Warming charms only helped so much against the icy wind. Roughened voices thanked their benefactor, and slowly they made their way toward Reg's office, their breaths coming out in big, white clouds that were illuminated by the lantern.

Suddenly, a dump sound made them turn around. About a dozen feet from them, someone crouched in the snow. Reg frowned. It was a lady – with bare arms in what seemed to be an expensive dress. He stepped forward and helped her up, her delicate frame shivering in his hands. Her face turned up to him. The first thing that caught his eyes were full lips painted in a bright red. The second were her bright grey eyes, brimming with tears, and the tracks of dark make up that had wound their way past her freckles down her round cheeks. Despite them, she broke out into a smile at his sight. 'Reg,' she whispered. 'Miss Søgaard?' he wanted to reply bemusedly, but the young lady (that she definitely was tonight) had already flung her arms around him, clinging to him tightly.

Catcalls resounded behind Reg. He ignored them. Seeing so much naked skin in the middle of a snow shower (and way too close to five slightly drunken men who rarely saw a young woman with such enticements), Reg unclasped his outer cloak, re-enforced the warming charm, and wrapped her tightly in it (as far as he could with her clinging to him as if she were clinging to dear life). He swept her up into his arms and turned back toward his colleagues. He wished them a Happy New Year and a good time celebrating it and popped off.

The girl would not let go of him when they entered his new house. With the help of his wand, he managed to get rid of his boots and carried her into the library, where he sunk into an armchair, the girl in his lap. Some swishes and flicks, followed by an 'Incendio!' later, the fireplace started spreading warmth in the room. The white snowflakes in the coffee-coloured hair of the distressed damsel in his arms slowly melted away.

'Now,' he sad softly while brushing damp tendrils out of her face that once had been part of an elaborate hair dress, 'tell me what brings you to me.'

Reluctantly, the girl stirred, and slowly extracted a hand from under his warming cloak, presenting the button-shaped portkey he had given her and her mother to return home in August. 'I know I should have sent it back to you, but I…,' her voice broke off and she buried her face against his neck.

He smiled. He had never asked for it to be returned, nor had he chosen to give her the common one-use-only-portkey. 'I doesn't matter. Tell me what's happened. Why are you so distraught?'

She wound an arm around him and pressed herself tightly against his chest. Whatever it was that had shaken her, it had temporarily deprived her of any shyness. The cloak slipped and unveiled the great expanse of skin that was left uncovered by her dress. Her shoulders, adorned by tiny freckles, the upper part of her back, the long curve of her neck, her arms, her collar bones, the swells of her breasts that pressed against him – he had gotten to know her as a nice, young, talented girl, but this was a highly desirable, sensuous woman. Her state of dress was almost obscene for a girl her age. He could not help but gently brush over the soft skin of her back, feeling her move beneath his hand as if she drew comfort out of his touch. This was a dangerous game. He had not expected finding himself in such a situation with her this soon. Too soon.

'Calm yourself,' he said in a firmer tone, deliberately trying to wrench her out of the stupor she seemed to be in. He lifted her up as he rose once more and set her down on the armchair by herself, slipping out of her embrace. She looked forlorn, but the smallest trace of recognition on her face also told him that she started realising the awkwardness of the situation she was in. 'I'll go and prepare some tea, and then you'll tell me what is going on,' Reg told her in a soothing voice.

Viola sniffed and gazed bleary eyed into the flames to her left. A strange numbness engulfed her. She felt stranded in the world, strangely indifferent to her surroundings. Slowly, the last shivers left her body, and the warmth of the fire crept into her limbs. It was a while that she sat alone like that, only distantly being aware of tiny noises coming from an adjoining room. The heavy coat that had already half dropped from her shoulders grew too warm, and she folded it and draped it over the backrest. Minute by minute diving a little further out of her stupor, Viola started to take notice of her surroundings. Most of the room was dominated by a huge book shelf that formed a semi circle and even surrounded the windows. Some books had already been sorted to their proper places, but most of them still rested in enormous stacks on the floor. Everything in the room (except for some of the tomes) looked new.

On shaky legs, she rose and went over to one of the windows to peer out into the winter night that was still veiled by masses of white that tumbled down from above. She sniffed once more and wiped the tears from her face. When she looked down on her hands, she noticed that they were smeared with black. Numbly noticing that she probably looked like a mess, she shuffled to the door to look where Reg had disappeared to. On the opposite side of the hall, a door stood ajar and light fell through the crack. She pushed it further open to find herself in a big kitchen, with Reg sitting on a stool right in front of her, waiting for the water to boil. 'Could I use your bathroom?' she asked meekly.

'It's upstairs,' he calmly replied. 'Opposite the windows, there are two doors. Take the left. You'll have to use your wand to fill the basin with water. The water supply's not installed yet. But you find towels on the shelf.' He smiled benignly and stood up to take the whistling kettle from the hearth.

Since it was hard to tell under age magic from mature magic in a magical household, many European countries were less strict with their regulations and put the responsibility of ascertaining that their children neither performed magic in front of muggles nor used illegal curses in the hands of the parents instead of prohibiting under age magic in general, as the Brits and the Germans did. Thus, Viola muttered a 'Lumos' to find her way without accident up the winding staircase and into the bathroom. Looking into the mirror after lighting some candles in the room, she had to concede that she really did look bad. Her hair was tousled, her eyes were puffy and red-rimmed, and blackish, smeared tear tracks ran down her cheeks.

At the bottom of the stack, beneath several brand new towels, she found an old one that she felt she could use without feeling bad for ruining Reg's belongings. She filled the wash basin with foamy water and wetted the tip of the towel, carefully rubbing her skin with it, until most of the smears had come off. Her face felt raw, now, but somehow she felt better, sobered.

Viola looked indecisively into the mirror, not sure what to do with her hair. Could she just use Reg's comb? She suddenly felt like an intruder. He surely had had other plans for New Year's Eve, and here she was, forcing herself onto him, invading his private space. Before that feeling could intensify, a soft knock wrenched her out of her thoughts. Reg stood in the door. Apparently she had been up here too long. 'I'm sorry; I did not mean to let you wait. I mean, I'm sorry I'm taking up your time at all, I…'

The warm smile and soft shake of the head with which Reg replied let Viola stop mid sentence. He stepped into the room and retrieved a comb. 'May I?' he pointed to her hair and looked her in the eyes in the mirror.

She nodded mutely.

Slowly, one after the other, Reg carefully pulled the pins out of her hair. Each time, his hands would brush against her neck. 'So, what has happened tonight?' his smooth voice asked.

Viola did not really want to think about it just then. She had successfully banned it from her mind. Yet, she guessed, Reg had the right to an explanation for her sudden appearance. 'I was invited to the New Year's Ball of my sister and her husband,' she started to explain with a sigh. 'Everything was fine. We clinked glasses at midnight, and I danced a few times. Well, some of my dance partners were… -I'm not sure. I felt a little uncomfortable, but perhaps that was just me being silly.' Reg carefully moved the tips of his fingers through her hair to seek any lingering pins. The girl revelled in the sensation. 'Then,' she continued, 'at half past midnight, an older man asked me to dance. Well, he wasn't that old, but at least in the middle pf his forties. There was something unsettling about the way he eyed me, the way he…' She shuddered. 'The way he grabbed my hips and pulled me close while we danced. I wanted to stop, but he would not let go, and I did not want to make a scene.' Reg's hands, that had started combing Viola's hair, stilled. The warm hand that was placed consolingly on her shoulder, now, did not cause any uncomfortable shivers in her body, and the stern attention with which Reg looked at her through the mirror steadied Viola. She nibbled on her lower lip and resumed her tale. 'He asked me many questions, then. Questions of a personal nature. About my family, about my interests. He seemed very well informed. Alarmingly well. As if he'd observed me for a long time.

'Eventually, he asked me how I'd liked his gift. The golden hair comb, you remember?'

'The one neither of us liked,' he commented.

Viola smiled. 'Yes, that one. It was his present. I don't know. From there it all went awry. I felt so hemmed in by his presence, so… repelled by his bearing, and he suddenly started talking of a mutual future, that he had discussed it all with my mother and Agnetha's parents in law already, who apparently are old friends of his and then I saw Agnetha how she smiled encouragingly at me as if I'd made the grand catch, and I just…'

Reg held her tighter, his free hand brushing a loose strand of her hair back behind her ear affectionately. 'You just wanted to get away,' he finished her sentence.

'Yes.'

He nodded. His reflection in the mirror looked severe, thoughtful.

'Do you think I've acted rashly, immature?' she asked him, made unsure by his reaction.

'Well, it certainly would have been better to keep a cool mind, but it is understandable that under these circumstances, and confronted with another person's physical desires for the first time, you were overwhelmed and needed neutral ground to sort out your thoughts.'

'Yes,' Viola agreed, eased by his understanding.

'Who gave you this dress?' Reg enquired unexpectedly.

The girl frowned. 'My sister dressed me up tonight. Why?'

Reg seized her gently by the upper arms and pulled her farther away from the mirror so that she had a better view of herself. 'Look at yourself,' he prompted her, twisting her hair up into a bum to imitate her previous hair dress and holding it in place. 'Try not to see yourself, try to find an objective perspective, as if you were looking at another girl. See your dark, thick eyelashes framing your light, wide eyes. See the healthy, round face with those rosy cheeks. See the freckles on your nose that give you such a touch of youthful innocence. Notice your full lips, painted in signal red so no one can overlook them. Then there's your exposed neck, always a sign of fragility, speaking to the sense of protectiveness in a man. Your uncovered shoulders and arms, rarely seen amongst wizards and a sign that you're "open", readily "available", easy prey. And do I indeed have to tell you about the effect of half-exposed breasts on a male? Especially when they're as… -pardon my frankness, as full and beautiful as yours?'

Viola blushed under his heavy scrutiny, feeling the impulse to step away from him. They suddenly seemed too close.

'Young lady, be assured,' Reg rounded off his argumentation, feigning ignorance to the undercurrents in the room, 'whoever dressed you up like this wanted the evening to proceed as it did. As enticing as you are tonight, it was inevitable.' He put the comb down and stepped a few paces away from her to give her space to think.

Many thoughts invaded Viola's mind. Primarily indignation that people wanted to decide about the course of her life over her head, that they paraded her like an object. 'How do you think I should have reacted?' she asked Reg, turning around to face him.

He sighed and crossed his arms while he moved to sit on the rim of the bathtub. 'Since your family's ideas of your future seem to clash fundamentally with your own, it seems only the logical next step to address the matter openly with them. It could well be that they're unaware of your distress, and a rational discussion is better suited to wipe out misunderstandings than simply running away from them.'

Viola breathed in heavily. 'Does it have to be tonight?'

Reg smiled benignly, partly in amusement of her pleading tone, or so she felt. 'You would be well advised to wait until you're rested and have figured out very clearly what you want to say. Rushing into it won't help, no. However, you should write a note to your mother, stating that you're well, that you would like to speak with her, and when you will return. Otherwise you will needlessly worry her and subsequently seem selfish and immature because you were safe when everyone feared the worst.'

Viola nodded ruefully.

Reg rose and went past her towards the bathroom door. 'Come down, drink some tea, and then I'll have a house elf deliver your message. If you wish, you can stay here tonight.'

As he led her back down the winding staircase and into the library, a different thought distracted Viola from the previous events of the evening: she had come closer to Reg than ever before. For a moment, she was once more embarrassed by intruding upon him with the way she had clung to him for dear life. Yet he had let it happen. He had touched her, comforted her… No, he had not just let it happen. He had broken his usually so strict distance and actively sought her closeness, hadn't he? His strong hands so tenderly brushing her hair and then tightly holding her shoulder… Her heart beat faster while she poured them tea with shaky hands and watched him look for quill and parchment.

Absent-mindedly, she wrote the message he had suggested, wondering what intention had truly prompted his invitation to stay over night… Was her imagination, her secret attraction to him, playing tricks on her perception? Was she reading too much into his behaviour? She blew over the parchment and folded it.

'Zig!' Reg called, and immediately the tiny elf popped into being between them. 'Could you please deliver this to Miss Søgaard's mother?'

The elf bowed.

Before it could disapparate, Reg added, 'Only give it to her when she has been informed of her daughter's disappearance. There's no need to worry her needlessly.'

The elf bowed once more. 'Very well, Master.' With that, it disappeared.

Reg took the second armchair and sipped some of his tea.

Suddenly, Viola felt the silence hang heavily between them. She looked uncomfortably about, once more spotting the piles of books. 'This is a new house, isn't it?' she tried to start a new strand of conversation.

'Yes. We're founding a new wizard settlement to improve the dragon keeper's living standards.'

'Oh,' Viola indicated interest, 'I see. Where are we, then?'

'Still in Romania, in a wetland area. For muggles, this is a nature reserve. I can show you around tomorrow, before you go back to your family, if you wish.'

The girl nodded.

Reg nipped at his tea once more; then he put the cup down and rose from his seat again. 'I'll go upstairs and prepare a guest room for you. I'll leave some shirts for you to transfigure into more appropriate attire.'

'Uhm,' she held him back. With an apologetic facial expression, the girl admitted, 'I fear Transfiguration is not exactly my forte…'

Reg smirked. 'Fine, I'll transfigure something. But no complaints afterwards,' he warned jestingly.

Viola smiled. 'Not a word.'

.~*~.

She awoke the next morning to the sight of a white, empty, and pretty large room. When Viola extracted her arm from under the comfy eiderdown, cold air hit her warm skin. Shivering, she retracted it immediately and glared at the empty fireplace. Unfortunately, there was no wood anywhere in sight. Instead, Viola glanced at the stool next to her bed (the two were the only pieces of furniture in the room). There lay the robe that Reg had transfigured for her (along with the pale green nightgown she wore). It was made of ruby-coloured, woollen material that was soft and warm to her skin.

Viola changed her garments under the bedcover (laughing about the pair of thick woollen socks that Reg had also provided), made the bed, and tiptoed out of the room. The faint scent of coffee hitting her nose answered her question if Reg was up already. After quickly checking her reflection in the bathroom mirror, she descended the stairs and turned left to the kitchen. Before she pushed the door open, she already smelled that there were other scents beneath the coffee in the air. When she entered, she saw Reg standing with his back to her at a long workbench, mirroring the bookshelves in the library in its half-circle shape, and preparing potion ingredients. On a stool next to the door sat a second man that she soon recognised to be Åge.

'God morgen,' her host greeted Viola without turning to look at her.

Åge turned around to look who his son was talking to, having apparently not heard her, and looked at the girl to his right somewhat perplexedly. Had he been open and friendly at their last encounter, he seemed absent-minded and grumpy this morning. No greeting came over his lips; instead, he just continued staring at her as if he was not sure if she was real or merely a hallucination.

Reg turned around with a big chopping board full of ingredients and spared the strange scene that unwound between his two guests a fleeting glance. 'Ignore him,' he advised Viola, 'when a Potions Master asks someone else to prepare him a hangover potion, his tømmermænd are very busy.

Oh. New Year's Eve. Viola smiled.

'There's coffee in the pot. Cups are down there,' Reg motioned to one of the kitchen cupboards below the long workspace on which he had prepared the ingredients before sprinkling a few carefully measured drops of the slime of an Hawaiian volcano snail (Viola recognised it because of its tell-tale lava colour) into the bubbling cauldron.

Since Reg seemed occupied by his task, Viola browsed through some of the other cupboards as well after retrieving a cup and finally found the one that contained the food and thus wore a constant stasis spell. There was half a loaf of bread, some eggs, a bit of butter, and some ham. That was not very much, but she reminded herself that Reg probably had had other plans for last night that – presumably – included feeling just as miserable this morning as his father did and being pampered by the house elves at the castle.

Viola prepared a passable breakfast for the three of them during which – due to the by then finished potion – Åge slowly came back to his senses.

Afterwards, Reg gave her the promised tour of the new settlement. Not that there was much to see. There was a lot of marshland and a few half finished houses. Reg's seemed about the only one that was more or less finished.

Eventually, the inevitable came: she had to return home.

Her mother first gave her a stern lecture about running off to some random wizard. It took Viola quite a while to convince her that Reg had behaved very gentlemanly and had in fact been the one to tell her that she had to openly discuss her discomfort instead of fleeing her problems.

'What problems are you talking about?' asked her mother then. 'Has something happened?'

Viola told her. About the greasy men, about how Agnetha had dressed her up and how Reg had disclosed to her that her appearance was quite inappropriate. She described in detail the encounter with her suitor, how he had ogled at her and said that she was as good as his bride already due to an agreement with her mother and Søren's parents.

'I have not agreed to anything!' her mother exclaimed immediately. 'I received an official proposal for you a week before Christmas, that is true, but I replied that it was too soon, that you were too young yet, that you should at least finish school before getting married.'

Viola shook his head in misery and disbelief. 'I felt betrayed, sold…'

Her mother frowned.

'Mor, I don't want such a life,' Viola said earnestly. 'I…,' she looked down on her hands, trying to find words that would not hurt her mother, since after all she had led exactly that life, 'I hope I don't seem presumptuous to you, but I would like to make my own way in life. Please don't ask me to marry a man of your choosing.'

Mrs. Søgaard's frown deepened. 'What other path do you see for yourself, then? You must have an idea if you are so decidedly against marriage.'

Viola shook his head. 'Not against marriage, only against arranged marriage.' She took a deep breath, bracing herself for expressing an opinion that she had not fully formed yet. 'I guess I would like to pursue a career. I do want a family one day, but I would like to see what life holds for me beyond that beforehand.'

'You don't want to become a dragon keeper, do you?' enquired her mother wearily.

Her daughter laughed uneasily. 'No. I don't think I'd be qualified for that, nor have I seen a single woman amongst Reg's people. But his father is a potions master, perhaps he would take me on as an apprentice…'

'His father has also a very doubtful reputation,' her mother reminded her.

Viola had nothing to counter that. 'All I'm saying is that I would like to learn more about magic; that I would like to be productive and gain experience.'

Eventually, her mother acquiesced. She was willing to give her youngest daughter some free reign, in certain boundaries of social acceptance, of course. In the aftermath, she had a severe dispute with the parents-in-law of her older daughter. It turned out they had indeed fuelled the hope of Viola's suitor, hinting that the girl would be glad of a proposal. To the girl's delight, her mother fiercely refused to tolerate such interference and backed up her daughter's decision.

Notes concerning chapter 10:

Pictures of Reg's house (odd format, because this site erases urls): www . photobucket[dot com slash]theblackdragon

On the matter of robes: I've been wondering for a while how 'robe' is defined. Today, they are commonly known as rather widely cut garments (worn e.g. by judges), but if wizards and witches solely wore robes, how could the women ever display their female charms? Rowling's description of Hermione's attire at the Yule Ball was very vague. All she wrote was 'She was wearing robes made of a floaty, periwinkle-blue material', and all other descriptions of girls' robes amount to nothing more than a naming of their colour as well. Is the wizarding society so prude that they don't wear clothes that reveal their physical shape? I doubt so. That would have been commented on by the Muggleborns and Muggleraised, so we'd have heard about it from Harry. Since the International Statue of Secrecy was established in the late seventeenth century, and thus wizarding world withdrew from Muggle influence at that time, it seems only logical to me to use that century's fashion as reference. Ladies did wear very wide, long skirts, but the dresses were much tighter around their upper bodies (especially accenting their waists) and sometimes also showed décolleté. Viola's dress, leaving her shoulders and arms uncovered would certainly have been deemed too revealing, but perhaps her suitor specifically asked her sister to arrange for her to be dressed so enticingly so he could show off with her and delight his eye on her?

A link to some contemporary paintings: www. marquise. de/ en/ 1600/ pics/ index. shtml

Tømmermænd: Danish expression for hangover; tømmer = wood; mænd = men. I like to immagine them like woodcutters using their axes on people's heads.