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

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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.*

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*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 . . . ?

*There's a strange flicker of loss, like a thread has been cut, and she blinks rapidly. She doesn't remember Evan Rosier at all, though they obviously were in school together. She shakes his hand warmly enough, though.*

Patil. Amrita. I was in your class, I think, but I transferred to Mumbai in '74.

*The old lie comes smoothly enough, but her eyes wander down to his book-- and then widen hugely. The other patron clears his throat loudly but she doesn't take the slightest bit of notice.*

Oh, Lucretius. What do you think of him?

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.

*Her surprise and pleasure are genuine, and she laughs a little, in an almost conspiratorial fashion.*

He didn't! I never knew that...I read him when I was a little girl, and didn't much like it. I thought...well, I thought he went on too much.

*The other patron clears his throat again, and she jumps a little, startled. With an apologetic murmur she excuses herself and dashes over to take care of him at once, settling the bill and counting out his change from the pouch at her waist. The man leaves, rather grumpily, and her farewell smile lasts until the door closes and not a second longer.*

Sorry.

*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.

*That one's reads loud and clear, and her right eyebrow shoots up and her arms fold themselves under her bosom—-instantly.*

Do I.

Paltry.

*It's only a second or two of archness, though. Her lips quirk into a smile as if of their own accord, and with a quick and guilty glance over her shoulder, she sits down anyway.*

*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.

*Normally, Amrita's not much of a night owl at all--work starts early in the morning--but she doesn't feel tired in the slightest, not anymore. She feels nervous, in kind of a delicious pit-of-the-stomach way, and suddenly very much awake. She gives him just the slightest eye-roll, to let him know he needn't worry, and that he's being silly.*

Oh yes, dear me. I'm frightfully troubled. What a boor you are, with your mead and your Lucretius.

*He leans in, putting his chin back onto his fist and cocking his head.*

Not many wizards would recognize old Lucretius, you know. Latin's fallen by the wayside. It's a pity.

*She gives a little shrug, at that.*

Time marches on.

*It sounds cool enough, but his proximity is becoming a bit overwhelming: her gaze darts nervously from his eyes to the shape of his lips to the plane of his cheekbones, as if there's noplace safe for them to rest. A small part of her wonders distantly how exactly she ended up in this situation from a simple day at work.*

Anyway, I had a thorough grounding in the, ah, classics.

Time does, although Lucretius would say it is chance that brings us to where we are. What would you say to that?

I'd say he's right, but not entirely. We're not just leaves on the wind, Evan: we're also permitted to steer.

I do quite a bit of steering. But without chance, all our little plans and thoughts and ideas would just work out, and life would be dull and predictable.

Not entirely sure I'd mind it. It'd be a nice change, at the very least.

Well, you can't confuse random and fair. Fortuna has never been fair.

*This feels a little odd coming from a sleek and moneyed near-stranger, and her eyebrow just twitches.*

I wouldn't think so.

Of course not.

*He takes another sip of mead, sliding his thumbnail along the ring again.*

But then there's Divination--can we really predict Fortuna's whims? Certainly some prophecies have been used to great effect, but do they only do so from their telling?

*He extends his hand, palm-up, towards her. An offering.*

Can you read everything about me in my hand?

*She hesitates for a moment, struggling to recall her long-ago Divination class in third year. Besides, she's not quite sure she should. But it seems she can't help it: after a long moment, she takes his hand with a light, reluctant touch.*

Well, you don't work with your hands.

*Her voice is low and halting, her eyes moving over the lines as if relieved to be off his face. Gently, she traces his palm--starting at the web between thumb and forefinger and ending at the wrist--but she can't remember exactly which one it is. Still, she presses on.*

And this one's crisscrossed early, see? The, ah, heart line?

Honestly, I'm not sure. It's been awhile.

It's true, I don't work my hands.

*Her touch is so soft and pleasant that he closes his eyes for a second. But he knows that her hand was damaged during a transformation some years back, and poorly treated; it was in the file. He wonders if the scar is still there, or if it simply blends in with the other lines in her palm.*

If you look here--my life line is short but deep. I'll die young, according to this.

May I read yours?

Oh.

*At that, her finger jumps off the fatal line on his palm, and she isn't sure exactly what to say. He's said it so calmly, though, that for a moment she thinks he must be joking.

But he isn't, and she's thrown off enough by that to give him her own palm without hesitation. It's a working hand, scarred in a few places here and there: burns from the kitchen and old knife cuts that read as the faintest of white lines on her brown skin. The bad one, though—that's from a transformation years ago, when she'd sunk her own, still-human teeth into that same web between thumb and forefinger and nearly taken a chunk out. It's long since healed, now, into a faint semicircle: almost like an extra line to read that crisscrosses the others.

Somewhat bashfully, she peeks up at him, watching him read it.*

Hm . . .

*He takes her proffered hand in both of his own, smoothing her fingers with both of his thumbs to open her to him further. The scar is there, and he follows it slowly, lovingly, with his eyes. It is living proof of the beautiful and savage thing that lives inside of her. He then follows the more conventional lines, ignoring the scars, pretending not to see the evidence that she clearly earns her living in a way he will never have to.*

Look here. Your life line is long and thin, and the plain of mars--the place between your life and heart lines--is broad. You live a passionate life, and you're generous.

*He looks at her face for a moment, and then returns to her palm.*

This line, along the outside edge, here, is marriage. And here is health, and the sun, and then the moon.

But this--

*He draws the long line straight down the center of her palm.*

This is your fate line. It's quite deep.

*She listens raptly, mesmerized as most people are by listening to talk of themselves. She feels him trace the line down her palm, feels it all the way down to the backs of her knees, and she trembles with it just a little.*

W-what's that mean?

Fortuna has touched you. That's all. Something has happened to you, or will happen to you, that was unpredictable and has affected you deeply. Maybe a death in the family and unexpected inheritance, or meeting someone significant, or some happenstance that could have happened to anyone but chose to happen to you.

*He does know precisely what it means, but he must be vague. No use in scaring the dear thing off with overly precise and correct interpretation.

He folds her hand shut inside of his own.*

It's just a game, Amrita. It's more double-speak than anything else. I knew a Muggle fortune-teller out in the Soviet bloc who hoodwinked a number of wizards with nothing more than a pretty smile and vague interpretation. There's no need to take it seriously.

*As Amrita listens to his reading, her lips part and her eyes sharpen with pain, somehow become deeper with it. She's thinking of how the world had been laid out before her when she was young, and how by a bit of bad luck it was all snatched away. She's thinking of her French and her way with the piano, and her Marathi jewelry, long since pawned. She's thinking of her own painful transformations, and the taste of her own blood in her mouth: of Evan's obvious wealth, and his fine way of speaking and book of poetry. She looks at his unblemished hands holding her own and feels her throat tighten. She whispers, with an attempt at levity she doesn't feel.*

Right. Of course.

I've upset you. I'm sorry. Palmistry is meant to cut to the quick, the better to loosen purse-strings with.

Let me make it up to you.

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

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