Jewel Of The Nile

Chapter Fifty

They emerged unseen into Honeydukes’ cellar, slipped cautiously up the rickety stairs to the main shop level, and ducked out into the night, Gabrielle taking two quick steps to each of Draco’s longer strides and keeping a pinch of his Cloak between the fingers of her free hand, so as not to lose contact with him. The streets were deserted, the citizens of Hogsmeade sitting down to their Halloween dinners, the lights in their convivial windows shining like a warm golden checkerboard against the chilly black night … and still they walked on, away from the glittering castle up on the hill, until the houses grew sparser and finally disappeared altogether, and they were standing alone together in the half-frozen earth of a bare-plowed field.

He threw off the hood of his Cloak and regarded her with cool grey eyes as she followed suit. "You can still go back, you know," he said – voice noncommittal, eyes measuring. "This isn’t your battle tofight."

At that, she tossed her head. "If it’s yours, it’s mine." Bold, Gabrielle, bold – that’s as good as a declaration right there. Cheeks burning, she stared him down, and finally he inclined his head slightly and smiled.

"Chivalry, Gabrielle? So be it, then."

He sobered, then abruptly, unexpectedly, closed the short distance between them and laid his lips briefly on her forehead. Gabrielle’s breath caught and held in her throat.

"Stay close," he murmured. "And no heroics, okay?" Smile curving against her skin. "D’accord?"

"D’accord." She would have agreed to anything – that had been a kiss between comrades, between equals, and she could have, at that instant, gone to her grave a happy woman. "I promise."

Fifi was a warm fluffy comfort against her chest. She pulled her out of the Cloak, a purple plush love-sacrifice, and handed her over to Draco, trying not to feel bereft at the loss. "Get under your Cloak," he directed now, taking the poodle from her, "and then hang on to me. Don’t let go."

"Okay."

And then he took a deep breath, and waved his wand over Fifi’s fuzzy topknot, and began to chant – Welsh, it sounded like, or Gaelic maybe – and over his words came a poodle-shaped flash of blue-white light that sucked at Gabrielle like a vacuum, tried to pull her grip away from his arm.

Her knuckles creaked with exertion, the wind screamed in her ears. But she didn’t let go, not even when it began to tug at him too, when the cold ground beneath their feet started to shift and dissolve. A knife of cold air against her face, and then a rushing sound all around them, louder and louder, as the light widened and brightened and they fell …

… only to find themselves sprawled on the marble floor of what looked very much indeed like the Malfoys’ grand salon.

It had worked.

Fifi was lying an arm’s-length away, wind-tousled but unharmed. Gabrielle, feeling foolish but unaccountably relieved, scrabbled her fingers along the marble until they reached purple plush, and yanked the toy back under her Cloak. Draco didn’t appear to notice.

"Stay close," he hissed again into her ear, and then they were scrambling to their feet, his hand gripping hers through a double layer of slippery fabric. "Before we go looking for him, I want to make sure the house-elves are out of the way. Get out your wand."

They moved forward cautiously into the darkness.

**

"Pennyroyal," Hermione announced, looking up from her notes, and Severus nodded approvingly. He’d suspected as much, though it could just as easily have been wormwood instead – the more expensive, more poetic option. Apparently, however, Duathor bint-Hussein had been a practical woman, and not the sort of person given to foolish fancies, however elitist or literary their origins.

He could relate. Though it was hard not to indulge those latent fantasies when Hermione was across the table from him, only inches away – sad but stalwart, a wounded queen determined to battle till she dropped.

He hadn’t expected the news about Sybil to hurt her so much … and the fact that it had done just that made the struggling, too-often-shouted-down bit of him that was still a gentleman want to take it all back, to tell her that he hadn’t meant it. If he could have rewritten history, sent her back to that flippant, lighthearted version of herself who had so annoyed him an hour ago, he’d have done it in a heartbeat.

But of course he couldn’t do that.

All the magic in the world couldn’t wipe those words off the cosmic chalkboard – not even Obliviate, that old chestnut of Lockhart’s … unless he was prepared to perform a Memory Charm on all of Hogwarts, most of London, a good deal of Eastern Europe, and the delighted, formidable Molly Weasley – who he’d seen in Flourish and Blotts just half an hour before he’d left Diagon Alley for Alexandria, luminous with cautious happiness and furtively examining a heavily-gilded book of handfasting rituals with the half-wistful, half-dreamy expression of a woman whose first grandchild is a dream already overdue. The whole wizarding world, it seemed, was poised to congratulate the happy couple … and he, a Born Party-Crasher if he’d ever met one, wasn’t about to be the one standing in the way.

And damn it all …what was Hermione doing blinking back tears over him, anyway, when she had Weasley – Weasley the good, the bright, the honourable, the hero-archetype turned flesh? And why was his mouth coppery with regret over her, when he was going back to the ever-luscious, ever-understanding Sybil?

Surely in all of this domestic bliss, there ought to be at least one happy ending.

He studied her drawn lips, her set face, and had to fight down an unwelcome tide of guilt. It’s just hurt pride, that’s all, he told himself … and unwillingly heard Sybil’s matter-of-fact words of a month ago echoing in his head: She told Mikhail that she loved you. I heard her say it.

She loved him, or at least thought she did. Enough to die for it, or at any rate to think she was going to. And what had been his response to this ultimate evidence of loyalty? Severus thought bitterly.

What’s love, but a word you can’t say out loud?

Once again, she’d proven herself a far braver soul than he’d ever be. Stricken, ashamed, he set his jaw and turned away.

**

Sybil Trelawney’s seat at the Head Table was empty.

"Um." Harry tapped Ginny on the shoulder. "I’m going to get a bit of fresh air. Want to come along?"

She considered the offer – then, just as Harry had hoped, shook her head.

"Susan’s teaching us the Electric Slide," she explained, wiping slightly-damp copper curls out of her eyes. "You go ahead – I’ll catch up with you later, okay?"

She reached up on her toes to brush a kiss over his mouth, and Harry felt a pang of guilt, starting with that light touch of girl-lips and reverberating all the way to his traitorous toes. It wasn’t exactly sporting, taking advantage of such implicit trust. On the other hand, this was the one thing he figured he couldn’t explain to Ginny and expect her to understand.

Well, it’s not as if you’re after a second helping, after all, he rationalised to himself, breaking the kiss and giving her a quick spin before he set her on her feet again, laughing and tousled. Just answers. Is that such a betrayal?

His conscience was alarmingly silent on that count.

One more quick look at the crystal between Ginny’s breasts, appealingly dewed with a sheen of perspiration and shining crystal-clear. He glanced around the dance floor for a glimpse of Ron, and grinned as Madeline-the-Hufflepuff spun into view, clinging like ivy to Ron’s broad shoulders. Ron didn’t seem to mind much.

Nice to know that someone, at least, wasn’t finding the world of romance unnecessarily complicated. He slid off the dance floor toward the punch table; at the other end of the room, Ginny had already kicked off her dancing sandals and was throwing her whole diminutive body, princess-gown and all, into a complicated line-dance. She was surrounded by her similarly gyrating girlfriends, and an appreciative crowd was gathering around them.

Trelawney had been gone for a full fifteen minutes now … more than enough time, Harry thought, for her to reach the North Tower. His pulse began to speed.

Without a backward glance, he edged his way through the doors to the Entrance Hall, and began to jog toward the Divination Classroom.

**