ALL THAT GLITTERSPart One of Two
** He looked all right to the casual observer. But if anyone who really knew him had taken a close look, they'd have seen the truth: Harry Potter wasn't having the best of days. Not that anything was necessarily wrong. He was out of school, wasn't he? And working, wasn't he? Even had his own business, which admittedly was easier to accomplish with a big pile of inherited gold, but on the other hand that'd all been replaced and then some, once the marketing rep from Quality Quidditch Worldwide had gotten a look at his prototype. Now they couldn't keep them in stock – Greased Lightning, he'd called the first broom, in a wry aside to a campy old Muggle movie he'd seen and loved as a child, and the marketing guy had liked it too – as fast as the current Firebolt but cheaper, a luxury broom for the masses, and marked with the long-famous Potter insignia to boot, that slightly-ragged, oft-despised scar, now done up in silver-on-black and stamped on every single broom, just above the handgrips. The day after the British national team came in to order a team set, he'd made the Christmas list of every child in the wizarding world. No, money wasn't his problem at the moment. Glancing around the café to make sure no one was watching him, he dug in his pocket and brought out a small box covered in a distinctive shade of light blue velvet. It was as beautiful as it had been in the display case – maybe more so, now that there wasn't any other glitter around to detract from its charms. “What does she look like?” the grey-haired saleswoman had asked from across the Tiffany's counter, and Harry had obligingly flipped open his wallet to show her Ginny's photo: lovely and laughing and arch, all naughty brown eyes and spill of bright hair. “Oh, she's beautiful,” the woman had said. “You're a lucky man.” He was, he agreed fervently. The luckiest. And though Harry would never have thought this himself, there were some who'd say the reverse was true as well: wouldn't any witch, especially a bright-but-penniless scholarship student like Virginia Weasley, jump at the chance to wear Harry Potter's ring? Especially when it was a two-carat rock flanked by star sapphires and certified as flawless by the most famous jeweller's in the world? Trouble was, he wasn't sure he was ready to give it to her yet. He had some old business to settle first. ** Where Sybill Trelawney had gone after she left Hogwarts was anyone's guess; speculation, of course, had run rampant, but Harry – who was maybe better-informed of the truth than anyone else who'd known her, with the possible exception of Snape – had kept his opinions to himself. It had been a month and a half before Dumbledore had come up with a replacement professor of Divination; in the meantime, Harry had taken to haunting the empty classroom after hours, slipping through that invisible doorway on which no one had yet changed the password and doing his homework while curled up on the couch she hadn't bothered to take with her. She hadn't taken anything with her, that was the thing. He'd prowled that suite of rooms a hundred times if he'd done it once, looking for clues, and found that nothing in it provided the slightest inkling of the person she had been – not the furniture, not the clothes she'd left in the wardrobe, not the shimmering bank of blank-eyed mirrors that lined all the walls. Eventually, he reached what he thought was the only logical conclusion – that he'd never known her at all, that everything he'd thought to be true about her was as illusory as the Fruit Bat's crystal-laden spectacles. The thought excited him almost as much as it disturbed him. And at the same time, it pissed him off a little bit – one of the main perks of being Harry Potter was being privy to classified information, and the fact that she hadn't given him any was definitely irksome, he couldn't deny it. His only consolation in that regard: he'd seen her real face. He kept thinking about that night – even after the new Divination professor with the unpronounceable name (“You may call me … Madame G”) arrived in early February and took possession of Sybill's mirrored tower room. And though his relationship with Ginny continued apace, though he kept telling himself that he'd done nothing with which to reproach himself where Sybill was concerned, though weeks turned into months turned into years and the gold kept piling up in his bank-vault and his time at Hogwarts was gradually relegated to drunken weekend reminiscences with Ron and a dusty stack of photographs on the back shelf of his hall closet – he found that the memory of those pale rainwater eyes, spilling over with sadness even as she smiled at him and kissed him good-bye, lost no clarity with age. She still haunted him. Not, he thought now, a good way to start married life. And he wanted to be married to Ginny, that was the thing … wanted to put the attendant band to that extravagant diamond on her finger in front of a crowd of family and friends, to bask with her on some sunlit island and then come back to the sort of shared, full life he'd always longed for and never had – kisses goodbye and kisses hello, lazy autumn mornings in bed with coffee and croissants and the Sunday papers, big happy Christmases at the Burrow, coming in apple-cheeked from the cold and laden with gifts, not as an honorary stepchild any longer, but as a son. Arguments. Hot conciliatory sex. Children. Rainy days and Mondays, Harry thought, and laughed at himself for thinking it. But wasn't it true? Hadn't he been forever watching other people's happiness, staring in at the everyday rituals of life from the wrong side of rain-blurred window-glass? Time to get some of his own back. And if that meant tracking down Sybill Trelawney and getting her out of his system, once and for all, that was a small price to pay. ** She'd been at loose ends for some time, after the business in Cairo finally wound itself up. But that was all right, too. She'd had a family to meet. It had been a bit awkward, of course – not least of all because of those monthly infusions of cash with no explanation attached. Sybill had been secretly amused to discover herself a slightly-suspicious, titillating legend among her nieces and nephews; for years, they'd been speculating about Where She Got the Money Anyway, and – truth be told – had seemed just a little disappointed when they finally met her. Brenda's oldest, thirteen-year-old Ian – bolder than the rest, with an accent that owed more to Brooklyn than to Belfast – had finally filled her in. “We thought you were probably a pirate,” he told her the second night of her visit, over a game of checkers. “Or a superhero. We've all grown up on Aunt Sybill stories, all us cousins. You're, like, the Family Mystery.” A shrewd look. “So – tell me.” She'd feigned ignorance. “Tell you what?” “How'd you get rich?” “You look,” she told him, “like the sort of lad who doesn't need his mysteries solved for him –“ and wouldn't say any more than that, not even when he beat her three games in a row and then let her win the fourth. But it gave her an idea, that conversation – an idea that crystallised into shiny definite shape when she got a look at Ian's bookshelves later that night, putting the game away. “What are these?” she wanted to know, plucking one of the glossy little magazines from its stack and leafing through it. Ian looked incredulous. “Comics,” he said, in the same tone he might have used for Are you kidding me? “Don't tell me you've never seen one before. They've got comics in Ireland, too – I know. My cousin Mike collects them too.” At Sybill's shrug, he relented – after all, she was his favourite aunt. “Some people just buy them to read,” he said. “But I'm a serious collector. Some of these are special editions and stuff – they'll be worth a lot of money some day. Dad's got some of mine in his safety-deposit box at the bank. The really old ones. You put them in a special plastic bag so the air won't get to them.” He had a curiously intent look on his face that reminded Sybill forcibly of her sister – Brenda had always gotten that look, when she talked about New York. “Which one's your favourite?” she asked, sinking from knees to haunches on the rug, and Ian bit his lip for a moment before replacing the comic book and starting to rummage in another stack. “I'm not sure,” he said. “But this one always reminded Mike and me of you. Before we met you, I mean.” He held out the comic to her, and Sybill took it, her eyebrows shooting up at sight of the improbably endowed heroine on the cover. “No wonder you were disappointed in the real thing,” she commented, turning the page. Ian had the grace to blush. “We're not,” he protested. “I mean, I know that real girls don't look like that – I'm not stupid. But, you know … we figured you were a crime-fighter or something, that the government gave you all that money because you took down supremo bad guys all the time.” A pause. “Or possibly that you were a criminal. We weren't sure.” He looked sulky. “Why won't you tell me, anyway?” “Because your explanations are a lot more interesting than the truth would be,” Sybill said lightly, and tousled his hair as she got to her feet. “May I borrow this?” “What?” Ian frowned, then gave the comic book a grudging nod. “Oh. Oh, sure. I've got a ton of her.” ** So after the obligatory round of family visits, after a few weeks spent with her parents, she'd relocated herself and her carpet-bag to a flat of her own and become a professional superhero. Location had been a bit of an issue. New York City seemed the logical choice, from the standpoint of literary tradition, but Sybill found Gotham a bit too close to her inquisitive nephew to feel entirely comfortable with that idea. And the thought of setting up shop on the British Isles was equally disconcerting – too much proximity to Hogwarts, and Albus, and all her former students. And way too close to Harry Potter – who, granted, was occupied with other matters and, if the rumour mill was right, another woman right now, but who was, for all that, the one person least likely to underestimate her, and who – upon hearing reports of a mysterious crime-fighter – would know exactly who to look for. Sybill didn't want that. Besides, she figured the Western world could hire its own police force. There were other places in far more need of help. It was nice to be travelling again; she'd missed that, during her long exile in the North Tower. She spent a month or two in hotels, then found a beachfront villa on Mykonos and emptied one of her smaller European bank accounts to buy it outright. It came with a housekeeper and a gardener – handy, but Sybill figured that explaining herself to a couple of Muggles all the time would prove inconvenient. She bought them a cottage and pensioned them off, then dithered about for a couple of weeks picking up her own socks and brewing her own tea before finally giving in and placing an ad for a house-elf in International Mage. They were hard to come by, of course – generally, they passed from parents to children the same way property did, and only came into the public domain if the wizard or witch who owned them died without heirs. As most families with enough property to warrant a house-elf had a vested interest in continuing their family bloodlines, this almost never happened … which meant that most house-elves who found themselves on the open market were ‘tainted goods', Unemployables – i.e., they'd been given clothes. This didn't bother Sybill unduly; she rather liked the idea of a rogue house-elf. Still, discretion was an issue – and if she was going to be a proper superhero, her trusted employee couldn't be simply loyal; she wanted someone with a bit of personality as well – an Alfred to her Batman. When Anadyr showed up on her doorstep, she knew she'd scored both of those things in spades. He was the first elf she'd interviewed, and he was perfect – polite and yet slightly cynical, wearing the red bandanna he'd been given by his disgruntled former owner like a badge of honour around both ears. “Housework doesn't bother me,” he told her in precise but faintly-accented English. “Though I'm personally not good with plants. If you want anything more than the standard Lawn Charms, you'd be better off with someone else.” Sybill, who couldn't care less about the lawn, stifled a grin at this. “I'll bear that in mind,” she said, and gestured for the elf to follow her in. “Lemonade?” A slightly-disdainful flick of his eyes; apparently, it wasn't the Done Thing to offer a house-elf refreshment, even if he wasn't entirely yours yet. “Thank you, no.” “Vodka, then?” Sybill suggested – fairly sure she'd placed his accent by now – and saw his ears prick with longing. His face, however, stayed resolute. “You're very kind. But no.” “I can't help but notice,” she said, “that you've been given clothes. Might I inquire—?” “Political differences,” Anadyr said. Sybill nearly choked on her lemonade. “Really.” “My ancestors,” the house-elf continued stiffly, “have served the same family for generations. Faithfully.” “Of course.” “Aristocrats. And then, nationalists – and after that, Party members. And all that time we served them, and never remarked on their political leanings, nor they on ours.” Anadyr's eyes narrowed. “The latest Master of the house, however –“ The expressive ears flattened beneath their jaunty red tie. “As repulsive a capitalist bottom-feeder as ever walked the earth. Even so, I was prepared to overlook this, in the name of service.” Sybill took another sip of her lemonade. “Am I to understand,” she inquired mildly, “that you hold Communist sympathies?” “Communism is dead,” Anadyr said, not without bitterness. “And house-elves don't embroil themselves in human politics.” He tossed his head. “I do, however, pay dues to the Magical Creatures' Equality Union, which borrows certain of its principles from Party politics – namely, that birthright alone should not guarantee the right of one species to oppress another. And this is something my former Master could not accept.” Clearly, from the flat, resigned way in which he intoned this, he expected the interview to be over at this point. Sybill, however, found herself more intrigued than ever. “So you're an equal-rights activist,” she said. “What makes you think you'd be happier in my employ than you were in his?” Anadyr regarded her somberly across the little veranda table. “According to my research, you're Irish. But I detect no nationality in you at all,” he said finally. “Which I don't understand, frankly. But I can live with it. And your generous treatment of this house's human caretakers has been much remarked-upon in the village; you needn't have given them half so much as you did, and I respect that.” He looked around. “Besides. This is a quiet place. And I like the quiet.” “That's good,” Sybill said. “Because I won't be around much.” She met his startled eyes and smiled. “You're hired. A dozen monogrammed tea-towels, Tuesdays and Thursdays off for reactionary plotting, and as much Chopin vodka as you can drink. On two conditions.” “Name them.” “Secrecy is the first,” Sybill said, and – palming her wand under the table – deliberately let her hair darken to mink-brown, then fade back to blonde. Anadyr didn't blink. “Agreed. And the second?” “Call me Sybill. No ‘Lady', no ‘Mistress', no ‘Madam'. Sybill. Got it?” ‘Da, Comrade,” Anadyr said, and smirked as he reached for the contract and a quill. “Sybill it is.” ** Life went smoothly after that – if your idea of ‘smoothly' involved intercepting drug runs in Colombia and foiling assassination attempts in Belgrade on a nightly basis. Sybill cultivated her contacts, perfected her Chameleon Compound, and spent her occasional night off sipping Bellinis on the moonlit terrace and writing postcards to Ian from wherever it was she'd just been: Kosovo, Mexico City, Johannesburg, Istanbul. No doubt Brenda and her husband Stan would have balked at the idea of owl-delivered post, which was why Sybill was always careful to charm on a London postmark and stamp; sure, when it came right down to it, her family knew what she was, what Hogwarts had made her – but the less they had to think about it, the better. People were funny like that. It was a life that didn't give her much time to think about the past. Which was why it was such a surprise to arrive home one night, exhausted and bleary-eyed from crawling through acres of Venezuelan jungle, to find Harry Potter sitting in her parlor. Luckily, he hadn't seen her yet. She ducked back into the hall and went looking for her traitorous house-elf. “Secrecy, Anadyr – remember?” she hissed, once she'd found him, but he only shrugged. “This one seemed to know everything already. I told him I'd curse him if he touched anything, but he's just been sitting there. For more than an hour.” A guilty shift of the eyes. “I brought him some tea. And biscuits.” “This villa's supposed to be Unplottable!” “Which is why I supposed that if he'd found the place, you must have wanted him to.” Sybill considered this. “Well,” she said finally, “stall him for another half-hour while I take a shower, will you? I can't go in there like this.” She'd had stray thoughts about them many times over the years, her two Hogwarts lovers – if Severus had been a reluctant Lancelot, Harry had been his perfect foil, an all-too-eager Galahad. And – as former lovers tend to do – she'd kept up with them from a distance. Severus, unsurprisingly, had retired from public life altogether, not long after she herself had, with only the old Slytherin ghost for company on his mountaintop; if he couldn't have … oh, what was her name again? The little Gryffindor … then apparently he didn't want anyone at all. And Harry had made his choice, too: Ginny Weasley. A good match, Sybill had to admit it, though she imagined in the most disparaging corner of her heart that it wasn't Ginny Harry wanted, so much as it was Molly and Arthur. Even so. What was he doing here tonight? And how had he managed to find her? She Charmed her hair dry, buttoned a shirt over the top of skinny black pants, and headed downstairs to find out. Last Updated 29 December 2003 by Hecate
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