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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Entrecôte, s'il vous plait. Bleu—-vraiment bleu, oui? Merci.

*It's been three years or more since she's used her French but it comes from her smoothly and flawlessly, thank heaven for small favors. She's ordered a thick cut with a bone in it, almost raw, and doesn't care a Sickle for what he'll think: even considering what's about to arrive on her plate she might just cry with anticipation. But she manages to be fairly opaque about it, considering. The wine arrives and is poured and she raises her glass to him.*

Cheers.

*Despite the fact that he knows she is no longer accustomed to this--indeed, even if he hadn't read her file, he would know that a barmaid would never be used to this--he is, once again, impressed by her recall of the language. She is fitting in as smoothly as he could have hoped.

He lifts his glass, his eyebrows raised, and they clink.*

Cheers.

*After a sip--the wine is an excellent expression of the grape, and has aged well as most wines of this sort do--he sets the glass down and strokes the stem pensively.*

You speak French beautifully. Where did you learn?

*She sips, and closes her eyes for a brief moment, just barely longer than a blink. It's sublime.*

Oh, long ago. I had a tutor...six-foot-tall Frenchwoman with a fantastic lacquered helmet of hair. You wouldn't believe it.

You're joking. Madam DuLac? And her horrible ruler, and her awful long red fingernails?

No! You didn't!

*She laughs freely, covering her mouth with the back of her hand, and for a moment, her scarred palm is just visible.*

Awful. Just awful. Quelle horreur. Did you really?

I did! I did, my parents brought her on when I was seven or so. Wretched woman. I haven't the slightest clue how I actually learned a thing from her. But whatever she did, it stuck. And I use French everywhere for business, it's exactly as important as my father said it would be. It didn't hurt that Father loved how mad she was, too.

My word. How she'd go, souris, cerises, sourires!

*She screws her face up into a cruel but accurate imitation of the poor woman's permanent scowl, and does passably well at her squeaky voice, too. The mussels naturally choose this time to arrive, and she looks up at the waiter coolly--despite having just been a psychotic middle-aged Frenchwoman.*

Merci.

*Cool enough, certainly, but the instant she meets Evan's eyes she bursts into helpless laughter again and the whole thing's ruined.*

*Evan is laughing along with her, remembering the horrible woman and her horrible face; how he had longed to smash it in, and now, how he had forgotten her so completely.*

Did she make you memorize Lamartine? O temps, suspends ton vol! et vous, heures propices, suspendez votre cours! Laissez-nous savourer les rapides délices des plus beaux de nos jours!

No one has ever sucked the joy out of poetry quite as well as she.

*She helps herself to a mussel and can't even properly process how impossibly good it is, because she's reciting the second half of the poem along with him, her eyes rolled skyward.*

Agreed. Forget about les sanglots longs. My coeur was sufficiently blessé, believe me.

*He delicately pulls a mussel out of its shell and swallows it.*

I was almost happy to drink down the awful watered-down merlot in the cafés when we went to Paris when I turned eleven, because it meant I'd never have to see her again. For the longest time, I thought she was a demon risen from the deepest hell specifically sent to torment me. It's good to know I wasn't alone back then.

See, I'd always thought she had gotten kicked out of France on account of her being so dreadful, so she was forced to teach French to little pureblood children all over England and wasn't very happy about it.

*Amrita takes a deep draught of wine, and her belly's getting pleasingly warm.*

See, I'd thought she hated me particularly because I had a Marathi accent back then. The fits of rage my r's would send her into...

No, I'm certain she hated all children with impunity.

Although it's strange, I've never been to India. I'm terribly curious about it, though, I just never seem to have the time to travel for pleasure, and we have no contacts there to travel with so we'd have to fly or take Muggle transport. Is it as beautiful as the pictures make it out to be?

Yes.

Yes, absolutely.

The parts I've seen anyway, which isn't exactly the whole subcontinent. My great-aunt has an estate outside Mumbai, in Sion. It's beyond gorgeous, built over an old Portuguese fortification.

It's huge, of course. China's much the same, in my experience. You can go a hundred times and never feel you're seeing the same country.

I can't imagine.

*But she can, and it's beyond enjoyable. Really, she's having a wonderful time, stretching conversational muscles that haven't been used in years. And there's been no talk of Quidditch whatsoever, so someone in the sky is looking out for her. She flashes him a quick smile--but then the steak has arrived, and she becomes very still, looking down at it, her face utterly opaque.*

*He watches her go still, and suddenly his perception is heightened, his duck and wine and her pretty laugh forgotten as the predator in him rears its head. It hadn't escaped his notice that she had ordered the steak so rare, nor is he ignorant to the current phase of the moon. He gently clears his throat and puts his knife to the duck breast. His eyes are sharp, probing, even when his voice is casual and kind.*

Is something wrong? We can always send it back if it's not to your liking.

Oh, no! It's perfect, thank you.

*Her answering smile is hard and brilliant as crystal, her eyes just slightly overbright. She looks down calmly at what's on her plate, then, and concentrates on not cramming it directly into her mouth with her hands, bone first.*

Looks good.

*Somehow--somehow--she manages the knife and fork properly. More than properly: perfectly. At the first bite, she almost weeps. The slick striations of muscle sliding down her throat are beyond bliss.*

*He almost forgets to close his mouth as he watches her eat, the meat so raw it must be cold in the middle, and how it drips with blood, how its texture must be more flesh than food inside of her mouth. His own hunger has moved rather lower in his body. He has to force himself to look away, to his own plate, the medium rare duck breast now laughable and pathetic covered in a dark splattering of cherry reduction.

He almost envies the bovine chosen to die that it may enter her mouth.

They eat in silence for a long minute, Evan watching her out of the corner of his eye as hungrily as she watches her own plate.*

*Try as she might, she can't even remotely manage conversation along with with this thing of beauty she's trying not to...well, wolf down. So it's a long silence broken only by the dull clinks of flatware on plates before she tears herself reluctantly from her plate, now empty but for a little puddle of blood.

She looks up a little dazedly, feeling anchored by the meat, strong and hale and full of vigor in a way she wasn't, exactly, before. The way he's looking at her is equal parts frightening and hilarious, pitiable and exciting: half Destroyer of Worlds, half toddler.

She's charmed by it, and feels rather excellent besides, so she does one better: tracing a finger absently through the blood on her plate, she puts it to her lips. Her manners have been flawless up until now--and besides, she's not quite ready to bid farewell to Monsieur Entrecôte.*

How was your duck?

*The duck lies, sad and cooling and only half-finished, on his plate. He looks down at it again, utterly bewildered that there is anything at all on this earth that isn't that steak and her mouth and blood red wine disappearing from the glass between her lips and her finger tracing its way through the blood on the plate--and, alarmingly, his trousers don't fit quite as well as they did when he sat down. It is disconcerting to find himself completely captivated, and to literally find himself again, to wake up from this reverie. Still, he can recover smoothly enough.*

It was excellent. No complaints on your end, I see.

Certainly not.

*She grins then, almost crookedly, her heart hammering in her chest. It feels better than good: it's wonderful, exhilarating. She takes the cloth napkin from her lap and pats at her lips with it, leaving it ever-so-slightly bloodstained on the table. Brightly, she takes up her wineglass and takes a hearty draught--a gulp, really. Her mood has improved at the slight detriment of her manners.*

Really great place, Evan.

*She may have been pretty enough before, but now she is beautiful. He wonders if this is what it must feel like to be completely ruled by the ring in his pocket.

He refills her glass, and then her own, finishing off the bottle, and then lifts his glass toward her.*

To great places, then, and excellent company to share it with.

Quite.

*She grins again, watching him over her glass, and makes a slightly rueful confession. The heady mix of wine and his eyes on her and fresh blood in her stomach is pleasant, but she's getting just a touch silly with all of it.*

I'm really having a lovely time. Thank you.

Me too.

*He takes a long sip, relishing the vintage, and recognizes the warmth of everything in his stomach--and his mind--and how flushed both of them have become with it.*

Dessert? Or port? Or both?

Port, I think, don't you?

*Honestly, the idea of chocolate or some kind of well-drizzled Napoleon nonsense couldn't be less interesting to her.. The ideal dessert, of course, would be another steak--or an eyeball or something--

The thought is so bizarre, so out of nowhere, that she giggles, slightly horrified at herself.*

Yes. Port.

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