"Let me pay."
"Are you sure?"
Margarita watched Bogdan take out a fistful of Sickles and count them, idly humming before putting the rest of it back in his vividly embroidered purse.
"I thought you said you'd spent most of your book advance on your latest travel."
"And I did, most of it on this, here…" he lovingly touched the wooden case of the oud next to him, caressing the embroidered silk it was wrapped in. "Spent so much money on it the fellow gave me his grandfather's hat too, when he saw how I'd eyed it. He's buying a house with the money he got from the sale, he told me, while I only got this old instrument - but he has to house his children, I only have to house these… What's in a child, what's in a song?"
"To each their own sanctity."
"Exactly." Bogdan grinned, twirling at his moustache. "See this hat here, Margot?" He took it off his head and handed it to her, before wiping the sweat off his forehead. "Said his grandfather took it from a Spaniard, who invited him to seemingly play at his birthday. Only it was not his birthday, and he was in fact celebrating having come into a lot of money in unsavoury ways. And right then, as the grandfather was playing this very oud, those he'd wronged burst in, and when they finished with him, well… such dark magic was used, for over a hundred years they haven't yet invented the spell to fully remove these here bloodstains." He pulled the lining adoring the rim aside, revealing brown splatters of blood. "I've tried removing some myself, not believing it, and he's right, I'll be damned!"
Margarita handed him the hat back, and they sat in silence as an accordion player sang an agonisingly touching rendition of 'Grandpa, I beg of you'. As the singer reached the second verse, asking the old man if he'd seen his long-lost wife, Bogdan's eyes glistened as he turned back to Margarita, pressing the hat back on his head and pulling the hair out his eyes.
"Speaking of love then… how was it?"
"Uptight, if you need one word."
She already knew some things about the Malfoys, even before Bogdan first mentioned Abraxas Malfoy - that the family has been well-connected for centuries, that Abraxas pays well, and that never, especially in matters of law, would one want to find themselves against him. He had connections as high in Britain as one could reach, several of which Margarita either recognised at his son's wedding, or was later told of.
When it came to the wedding however, she had been all too eager to leave when their time had ended, after having been riled up by Lucius Malfoy. She did not care for his politics, and told him plainly so, and that he would do nothing but make an enemy if he were to continue with his nonsense.
"Beautiful bride, wonderful dancer, but Lucius-... that is a character I would not mind never seeing again."
"He's abrasive and cocksure, Lucius Malfoy. Wouldn't do him too good if he continues this way, but I suppose he thinks he has something to prove to the world. His views are… certainly interesting for someone with Muggles not even that far back in his family tree."
"Is that so?" Margarita frowned, taking a sip from her drink. "Married a Black, those are Purebloods all the way back, aren't they?"
"They are, Malfoys aren't. Oh, you wouldn't think that, talking to him." Bogdan added with a laugh. "Abraxas told me, showed me even. No, back in the olden days, think two hundred years back, Malfoys got their money and status through all kinds of connections. Of course, you wouldn't find that in any kind of public registry." he stopped for a moment, collecting his thoughts, before realising something. "Did you talk to him much then, during the wedding?"
"To Abraxas? Heavens no, after the conversation I had with Lucius, I played and left. I told him this much too, if it weren't for you recommending me, I would have turned back the moment he first spoke unkindly of what I had sung. Ah, what ignorance, what crassness to the craft, my God! They were dressed in a sea of blacks and whites, but throughout, I swear to you I only saw red before my eyes." Margarita spoke quickly, chewing on an olive. She took a deep breath, listening to the accordion player whistling the tender sounds of a tango. "I only briefly talked to Abraxas when I first met him… he's a much more composed figure compared to his son, but I haven't made much of an impression. I know you're fond of the man, and he pays well… my gosh, what he paid the six of us, it certainly made the others forget the injustice thrown in my cheek."
She avoided thinking much about the elder Malfoy, with his green eyes and how he looked at and through her, as she arrived that morning with the orchestra. She knew the look very well after they would deliver a performance such as the one in Edinburgh, and she hadn't thought much of it, but that morning, before the wedding ceremony started, when she saluted him by pressing her cheek against his… There was something inscrutable in his eyes, which, when she tried to muddle through and bring to light, made her skin tremble and goosebumps raise. Yet why did she want to continue muddling through his gaze for the source of its intensity?
Bogdan whisted alongside the accordion player, moving his finger to ask her to continue speaking. How well he knew her, as if they grew up on the same street and ate from the same plate!
"He sent me a letter not long after, if you can believe it, apologising for the insolence brought to my craft by his own flesh and blood… Not to me, pardon be to the woman and her damned existence, but to the craft!" she laughed. But her laughter hid just how compelled she felt by his letter, how well-crafted it was, to the point that she had accepted to meet him later on. "Nevertheless, now that I have exchanged more than a word with him, it does not surprise me you consider him something of a friend."
"A friend of ours and a friend of our art, my friend, by whom you could soon be quite lucky to be thought of as a friend as well." he mused, before pausing briefly. "Perhaps more, certainly not less." he quipped in an amused tone. "Do not me, but yourself, a favour, and if you have the opportunity, visit the library in his home, talk to him. You would be amazed by the manuscripts Abraxas has amassed, and even more by him. Ignore Lucius if you so wish to. You'll find the old man an interesting figure, and if you don't, hell, I will give you my newly and dearly acquired hat."
"Would you give me your oud, if I find him a bore?" she laughed. What she had omitted to tell Bogdan was that she had responded to his letter, and would soon enough meet with him for the first time without the presence of Lucius.
"For this, my sister, I will duel you to death for, and even if you were to win, I'd haunt you so that you'd bury it with me."
Margarita never ended up asking for the hat.
Later that night, as she met him in an upscale dining room of his choosing, as they shared a bottle of wine, she even told him how oddly charming she found him, albeit not in those words.
"You strike me as a more reasonable man than your son."
"You strike me as being of a stricter sort than our mutual friend." Abraxas replied promptly and amused, which made her laugh.
"I inherited that from my father."
She told him about her father, and the strictness and rigour he held towards his own craft. She could never become the wandmaker he was, Mykew would say, so of course, she had to pick another career to dedicate herself to. But what he instilled in her was the passion and dedication.
'If you or your mother die, I would be devastated, of course I would, my love, but I would go back to work the day after your funeral. And what we need to find you, my darling, is something that would make you tick, something that would capture all of your soul, more than me, or your mother, or anyone. Find a calling for yourself, one that without it you'd feel even emptier inside than without those you love. Let's find you something to fill your soul, my girl, shall we?'
"That is the kind of man my father is. He inspired me greatly back then, when I told him that I wanted to pursue the violin, he took me throughout the entirety of Central Europe to find me the best wizard in this craft."
"I must admit, Margot, I felt it, that passion and dedication and love, however, not when you played at the wedding, but when you played in Edinburgh. It's without prompts and instructions you are best at then, would you say?"
Margarita whipped her head from her glass to Abraxas, surprised that he had noticed a difference. She watched him as he propped the back of his hand against his chin, and felt as if instead of her trying to demystify his gaze, it was him that was doing so to her, and she felt like a book, open to its most avid reader and critic.
"I would ask first if your guests, if Narcissa, if anyone else apart from you noticed, my good sir, because you have a fine ear for our art, but the rest of them..."
"Rest assured that they took no notice and I've heard nothing but words of praise."
"For a favour of a couple of hours and the mead you've given my friends and companions…" she started, before finishing her wine and continuing. "You've given them all enough drink to make them last a further three days only running on the mead alone, and enough money to buy to last them for a further five days, and we sang to your son's - and I dare say, not yours, mister Malfoy, not yours! - instructions without fault. You know what we've done, after we were let off? We went off to the Assembly House, and sang all the songs that were burning in our blood to sing for all those hours, and it was delicious, so it was.
And if you so wish to see just how well I can follow prompts and instructions, not from someone who cares not for the art, but from someone who understands it, one like yourself, well, you could follow me there…that is, if you truly wish to, and I shall show you. And, on my honour-"
"On your honour?" Abraxas repeated, a chuckle curling at his lips.
"On more, mister Malfoy?"
"Please, call me Abraxas. And no. I believe your honour as a musician is already worth the world to you, is it not?"
Margarita could not help but be amused at his quips, as they travelled to the Assembly House. It was half an experimental restaurant specialising in offering residencies to chefs from famous Wizarding Cooking schools around the world, and the other half was comprised of two, three, and at times even five enormous halls that offered spaces for poets, for artists, and theatre goers alike. Abraxas was familiar with it from certain book releases he had been attending, most of which he attended out of obligation and politeness.
She took her cape off and asked a musician for his violin, tuning it slightly. Before she knew it, Abraxas put a piece of parchment in her hands, inscribed with a handwriting she recognised as Bogdan's, and verses of a song that looked foreign, yet warmly familiar. A song about growing old before one's time, she knew plenty of them alright.
"It's a Greek song, I was told. Bogdan sang it once, upon his return back to England, but I've only heard it the one time, and have been dying to hear it again."
"Can you hum it, by chance?" she asked, leaning in with eyes stuck on the paper as she listened to his hums, raising the bow of the violin. "Alright… I think I can figure it out now, three here, then this part should repeat four times…"
Margarita sang for all in the hall, yet looked at him as she played, barely noticing as a clarinet player and a guitarist joined in, others jumping in and out whenever they felt like it. She sang the songs meant to be sung at weddings, both wizarding and Muggle songs alike, songs of love and pining and wishes to be with one's beloved, of growing old and not having loved enough - she played with devotion and sung with utmost desolation, as it was most fitting to play such melodies, until Abraxas motioned for her to stop.
She could not remember what Abraxas had said, as her head still rang with music and ancestral voices beckoning to have their odes heard once again, but she remembered the glint in his eyes as he approached her, and she gave the violin back to its owner. She remembered the guitarist started to play something like a tango, but in the vapours of alcohol by then, it may as well have been anything - a hora, a volta, she could not remember for the life of her by the next day. She never could remember dances well, when in the heat of them, and that was no exception. She knew that Abraxas invited her to dance, and she could have sworn he must have whispered he intended to do so before, but she might as well have dreamt that.
But what Margarita could remember was how tightly Abraxas held her. He led their dance, with his arm pressed tightly against her lower back, and lifted her with assuredness, and with a look in his eyes that made her let go of any attempt to lead or control the dance. She let herself be moulded in his arms, and lost herself in their dance, leaning in to smell more of his perfume, dizzying her with each turn. She had rarely let herself be led in dance like this, and tremendously enjoyed it - most of her dance partners were almost afraid of her, of making mistakes with her, but Abraxas, no, he immediately took charge.
"What could there be on your mind, Abraxas Malfoy?" she whispered at the end of the night, as they parted. He bore a melancholic smile on his lips, which she found odd, and oddly endearing.
"That honour of yours, Margot Gregorovitch."
"As a musician?"
"Is there more?" he asked, and once again, she felt goosebumps as his inscrutable gaze met hers. Yet the more she looked, the more she felt that she could delve into it, like plunging into cold water. But what if she could not emerge back?
"Ah, what if there was?"
"If there was, I would perhaps find it on my mind as well."
And the next morning, as she woke up, she wondered, for the first time, not what she had to do for the day, or where she had to be, but when she would get to see him again.