http://cellarandmoon.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] cellarandmoon.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] bait_backup2011-02-11 02:33 pm

If you could see her through my eyes, you wouldn't wonder at all

 

*For a few days, Amrita could barely feel her feet touching the ground as she worked her shifts downstairs at the Leaky. She couldn't believe her luck, meeting (or re-meeting) Remus: he'd somehow taken a horrible day and spun it into something good, something hopeful. But it's been awhile since they met—in that very booth right over there, which her eyes keep flashing to worriedly--and she's long since started to doubt that he'll owl at all. The pub's near-empty most days, like much of Diagon Alley, so she's been spending a lot of time brooding and washing out glasses that don't need to be washed out, oscillating wildly between hope and despair and inventing less-and-less plausible reasons for the delay until she's driven herself half-mad with it for no particular reason.

It's foolish, but she can't help it, and tonight's no different. The early promise of the night—patrons, laughter, tips—has turned into achy feet and endless one-more-rounds for the only customer in the place, a regular who's neither charming nor a particularly good tipper. Still, she puts on her best smile for him as she refills his drink again and again. Behind it, her mind helplessly worries at itself like a well-picked bone: maybe he'll owl tomorrow morning. Or the next day. Or never. Best give up now. Oh, don't be ridiculous. Maybe he'll owl tomorrow morning.

This is what's galloping through her head like a centaur on uppers as she smiles prettily at the regular, waiting for last call, or for him to leave, or for her headache to simply kill her—whichever comes first.*

[identity profile] dapperdeath.livejournal.com 2011-02-11 08:04 pm (UTC)(link)
*The Leaky isn't Evan's usual haunt--or even anywhere near any of Evan's usual haunts--but he finds himself outside the door late tonight all the same, looking less for its custom and more a very specific employee.

The file was rather vague; still, greasing a palm in the werewolf registry came cheap, and the information he gleaned was useful. Amrita Patil is a pureblood, exceedingly quiet and entirely alone. A pity, really, and wholly unremarkable in the stack of city-living werewolf files he went through if it were not for the picture of her.

It is not so much that the picture makes her look beautiful. Indeed, in her most recent photograph she looks tired, disheveled, almost on the verge of tears. But the look in her eyes of fierce but broken pride--that is what brings him out late tonight. Evan recognizes that it is not just a desire to cultivate a city-dwelling wolf pack that brings him here tonight. He is intrigued by her on a deeper level than all that.

Evan steps inside and brushes his shoes free of snow. He removes a book from a pocket--a slim volume of the poems of Lucretius, in the original Latin--and then hangs the heather-grey travelling cloak on a rack. Without knowing it, he chooses precisely the same booth Remus Lupin sat in not so long ago.

He flips the book open and adjusts the ring on his middle finger. It is an artifact he only brings out on very special occasions, for very specific uses; antique white and riddled with cracks, it is carved from the cervical vertebrae of a veela. The enchantments it holds are subtle but powerful. When worn sparingly, the ring makes him seem luminous, impeccable, irresistible. Women exposed to it find themselves letting him have what he wants. Repeated exposures, of course, it can produce jealousy, rage, and obsession in its victims. He wears it tonight to ease their conversation, to keep the attention of a bar maid who must be used to all sorts of come-ons, to hold a light up and let the little moth think that it is she fluttering over of her own accord.*

[identity profile] dapperdeath.livejournal.com 2011-02-11 08:30 pm (UTC)(link)
*He looks up from the poetry with a smile, noticing her hesitation. Something flutters across her face and he makes her wait just a moment--just a split second holding her gaze with his--and he shuts the book.*

I would love some mead. The older the better, if you've got it.

[identity profile] dapperdeath.livejournal.com 2011-02-11 08:54 pm (UTC)(link)
*She's right, of course; he is watching her move across the floor with practiced efficiency. There's a tiny tiredness to her stride, the faintest suggestion of something that will become a limp in twenty years, and of course a faint pinkness in her cheeks. It's all really quite precious juxtaposed against her businesslike demeanor. He has anticipated all of this, but he had not anticipated the pleasure it gives him to watch it.

His hand on his chin, Evan outlines his lower lip with a thumb and catches her fingers with his other hand, gently, with no force at all in his grasp, as she deposits the drink. She could disentangle him at any time, but--knowing the thrall of the ring as well as he does--she probably won't.*

Forgive me for being so forward, but--I could swear that I know you. Hogwarts?

[identity profile] dapperdeath.livejournal.com 2011-02-11 09:12 pm (UTC)(link)
*He releases her instantly.*

I'm sorry, I was raised rather better than that. Here, let me introduce myself correctly.

*Evan stands from the booth, gives her a slight bow, and offers his hand for shaking, that she might meet him on her own terms.*

Evan Rosier. Class of 1977. Slytherin. Delighted to make your acquaintance, miss . . . ?

[identity profile] dapperdeath.livejournal.com 2011-02-11 09:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Am-ri-ta. It's like a little song.

*He smiles again, formality dissolving.*

He's my favorite atheist poet. Non si terra mari miscebitur et mare caelo. Really delightful writing, much more efficient than English, although this re-read is mostly due to curiosity regarding his death. They say he wrote this between fits of madness due to a love potion, you know.

[identity profile] dapperdeath.livejournal.com 2011-02-11 09:40 pm (UTC)(link)
*Evan, having seated himself again as she slipped away, drinks the mead. It's startlingly good. The girl has excellent taste. Out of everything, he hadn't counted on being impressed by her.*

Quite all right. I was being quite selfish with your time.

*He gestures across the booth.*

You should sit with me. You work too hard, particularly for the paltry appreciation of people like that.

[identity profile] dapperdeath.livejournal.com 2011-02-11 09:55 pm (UTC)(link)
*He holds up his hands in defense.*

I myself am a night owl, but I wouldn't be surprised if you were less energetic than I at this late hour. And your last customer seemed a bit of a boor. Although I suppose I must be grouped among the boors as well, for troubling you now.

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[identity profile] dapperdeath.livejournal.com 2011-02-12 08:37 pm (UTC)(link)
*At seven o'clock precisely, Evan apparates outside the side entrance to the Leaky Cauldron. The ring is in his pocket rather than on his finger, a last-ditch backup plan in case she thinks better of this meeting. He lights a cigarette with the tip of his wand and waits, watching the door, patient as a predator waiting for prey.*

[identity profile] dapperdeath.livejournal.com 2011-02-12 08:56 pm (UTC)(link)
*His eyes take her in for a moment of silence. She cleans up well. Very well, in fact. So well that he needn't worry about being seen out with her; even his mother, who honestly thinks no girl will ever be good enough for her Evan, could not possibly disapprove of her. The toe of the battered shoe emerging from her robes don't escape his notice, but it tilts his mouth upward to see them, like he has made her share a secret with him that she would have rather kept private. He exhales a small cloud of smoke and smiles behind it.*

You look lovely.

*He steps on the cigarette and gives her a little bow, then offers her his elbow so that they might walk with her arm threaded through his.*

Shall we?

[identity profile] dapperdeath.livejournal.com 2011-02-12 09:24 pm (UTC)(link)
I am. I had some business to attend to earlier today but that's been cleared up.

*After all, when a maker of Dark artifacts tries to stop making them for your business and run off to Asia, he must be stopped lest others think Ministry consequences are worse than those of their employers. The violence is so fresh on his hands he can still hear the delightful crunching sound of bone breaking. This, combined with Amrita's company has made him almost buoyant.*

I realized after I left that I know what you do but I haven't told you what I do. I work for my family's business, Rosier and sons. You've heard of us?

[identity profile] dapperdeath.livejournal.com 2011-02-12 09:47 pm (UTC)(link)
It sounds much more glamorous than it is. We seek out magical artifacts and the artisans who make them, and then import them to England and distribute them to private buyers and shops.

For example, this past Christmas, all the shops sold these little toy swans that would sing and lay candy eggs. You saw them? I found those in the south of France. A mad old hermit would make them and give them to all the local families for luck. I managed to convince him to mass-produce enough to sell for the holiday last summer.

[identity profile] dapperdeath.livejournal.com 2011-02-12 09:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah--I'm sorry about the eggs. They did fabulously, though. I think he won't be doing it again this year; he may just retire on the galleons he's made. So, no worries for next Christmas.

[identity profile] dapperdeath.livejournal.com 2011-02-12 10:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, yes. We just recently got back from the far east, Russia and the rest of the Soviet bloc.

*He gives her a sideways look with a smile so she knows he's not entirely serious.*

And be careful what you wish for. I could whisk you away to France unexpectedly, and it would be terribly rude of me, but I would do it if you asked.

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