LAST TANGO IN PARIS
Chapter Sixteen

The Parisian wizarding market at Les Halles turned out to have, in addition to the fresh herb-stall Neville had mentioned, an extremely well-stocked shop specialising in ready-made potions, and a bookstore with an impressive section on mediwizardry. Hermione took immediate advantage of both, and began to feel better about her job as the long hot days of August slid by.

Still, the vast quantity of things she didn't know that she should have known was daunting, to say the least. Her research work at the Consortium had been one thing – there, if she'd found her knowledge or skills lacking in some way, there had been ample time to remedy the lack at her leisure. Here, learning on the job was like jogging with a gun held to your head – exhilarating, perhaps, in a purely adrenal sense, but scary as hell and hardly to be recommended.

She bought a manual on magical diagnosis and committed it to memory. She Replicated a few boxes'-worth of latex wand-gloves, and got better and better at recognising the anxious telltale tingle in her fingertips that meant something was amiss. She requested from Khaled the kinds of cases with which she was comfortable, and took advantage of slow days to observe Itmana at work. On the occasions – fewer and fewer now, thank goodness – when she had no idea how to proceed with a patient, she called Itmana in from the next room for a second opinion, and grimly stored away what she learned for future reference.

At least once a day, usually more often than that, she was lonely and frustrated enough to curse Farouk, Dumbledore, and the Fidelius Charm itself for contributing to what seemed at those moments to be an impossibly overwhelming situation. Mostly, though, it felt good to be preoccupied, and even better to be busy with something this productive.

She spent her evenings, those first few weeks, feverishly absorbing medical texts – both magical and Muggle – and listening to Maxie and the band rehearse. Gradually, however, Paris began to exert its siren-call on her; her inner Daredevil had been much-subdued by the events of the past few months, but wasn't, after all, quite dead yet. Eschewing the city's major tourist attractions for now – plenty of time for that later – she limited the majority of her ventures to the immediate neighbourhood: Tuesday and Thursday afternoon coffee with Neville, near-daily shopping expeditions to the local bakery and produce stand (as much for the nod and smile from flirtatious Émile or crusty old Madame Mugler as for the bread and fruit), study sessions in the nearby ruins of the ancient Roman amphitheatre, her readings about gastrointestinal disorders and compound fractures punctuated by the conversation of picnickers and delighted shrieks of rollerblading youngsters.

Though her family had never been devoutly religious, and Hermione herself hadn't been to church in years, she hesitated one Sunday morning on her way to the local patisserie at the doors of the gargoyle-guarded, delightfully Gothic Cathedrale de St.-Severin, and then ducked inside. She'd been back for Mass twice since then, feeling at once out of place and oddly comforted by the cadenced flow of liturgical French, the standing and sitting and confidently-murmured responses, wine and bread and I believe, endless litanies of redemption and immortality and faith.

She took Cleo walking in the Jardin des Plantes. Caught a Saturday-morning puppet-show at the Luxembourg Gardens. Helped deliver her first baby.

On the nights when loneliness threatened to overwhelm her, she took refuge in Dreamless Sleep; most of the time, however, cautious of addiction, she slid between the sheets without benefit of its guaranteed chemical slumber. Sometimes she slept through the night. More often she was plagued by the customary nightmares of doors and halls and ticking clocks, and on those occasions her dream-lover came to her, muttering half-resentful lullabies in her ears even as he rocked her back to oblivion.

The more often she dreamed about him, the less he resembled Bill: he didn't smell like Bill, he didn't say the same things, he didn't lie in the same position, he didn't touch her the same way – or indeed touch her at all, unless she demanded it of him. His hands felt smooth and well-kept when she managed to entwine them with hers, without the archaeologist's calluses that had roughened Bill's fingers. And they never, never strayed, not even when her dream-self sighed and murmured and tried to tug them southward to those bits of her that hadn't been touched in far too long.

Sorry, my darling, he'd murmured, his whisper hot in her ear even as he hastily disentangled himself. But I've lost enough of my soul to you already. I'm not prepared to commit the unpardonable for a moment of sweetness.

Bill would never have said something like that – not even in a dream, not even dead. No, her night visitor had a touch of the ascetic about him, Hermione decided – soft hands and self-denial – and began to refer to him in her own head as Monsieur le curé, a name which stuck for good when twelve-year-old Patrice Brodin, recently returned from vacation with his family to the flat next door, happened to mention that the former occupant of Hermione's apartment had been a priest.

"Really," Hermione said, intrigued. "And where is he now?"

"Il est mort, madame."

"Dead?" Hermione demanded. "Are you sure? How?"

Her only answer was a supremely-French, characteristically-adolescent shrug; Patrice's friend Henri had just arrived by skateboard, bearing a dripping cardboard dish of glace au chocolat in each hand, and her informant, though undoubtedly schooled by his mother to unfailing politesse, was clearly eager to be elsewhere. Reluctant but resigned, she waved him off and retreated to her cool white bedroom to process this fresh bit of news.

This explained a lot. On the other hand, one had to wonder how ghostly hands could feel so warm – or how a ghostly head could leave such a plainly corporeal dent in the pillow next to hers.

Don't examine it too closely, the Daredevil whispered. Your husband's dead, your own mother doesn't remember that you exist, and you don't have a single three-dimensional friend who still calls you by your own name. You don't want him to leave, too, do you?

No, Hermione thought, half-anxious at the very idea. She didn't want that.

**

September slid away bit by bit, like water through carefully cupped hands. The tourists departed, footsore and laden with packages and film cartridges; the Parisians returned, sun-bronzed and rested. School began, and the cafés of the Latin Quartier overflowed far into the night with fast-talking, intense-faced students, punctuating their arguments with short terse gestures that made the smoke from their unfiltered Gauloises swirl in irritated arabesques around their heads.

Hermione, on a whim, purchased and inscribed a small tower of postcards and sent them off signed from 'Kate', not really expecting replies but flushed with the idea of at least making contact, and was delighted to hear back a few days later from the irrepressible Joséphine Dessources: I can't for the life of me think who you are, she wrote, but the way my brain works, that's hardly surprising. You've got gorgeous handwriting and you're in Paris, you lucky thing; I hate you already. Shtup a starving artist for me, will you? And have some peach crêpes while you're at it.

Hermione complied on the crêpe issue but declined the art student. She did, however, write back.

His name was Marcel. He left charcoal stains on my sheets, for which I'm holding you personally responsible, as, judging from his canvases, I don't think he'll ever be famous enough for me to market them profitably. And I prefer strawberry to peach. How are things at Hogwarts?

The reply arrived by owl the next evening, just as Hermione was unlocking the door of her flat: You just had to rub it in, didn't you? Old McGonagall took one look at me, the year I started working here, and tried to make me sign a morality clause. Nothing doing, naturally, but even so, nobody's getting any action in this place except for the eternally-libidinous students. The esteemed Herbology and Charms professors did invite me to join them for revelry of an unspecified nature in the south greenhouse last Midsummer's Eve, but I declined that particular opportunity for debauchery – I didn't like the look in Sprout's eye. For a short fluffy chick, she's sort of scary.

Hermione, startled into a giggle, kept reading.

My esteemed predecessor stopped by a week or so ago to see Albus. Now there's an interesting prospect in the Shag-A-Dessources Sexual Sweepstakes – if he were bound and gagged, that is. He may have pretty eyes, but those dark broody guys give me a wiggins. I can't get into men whose mood swings are worse than mine, and I'd say that His Eminence definitely qualifies on that count.

Hermione – torn between amusement, suspicion (what the hell was Snape doing at Hogwarts?), and a brief surprising jab of what felt like but couldn't possibly be jealousy – shook her head and scanned the last paragraph.

So tell me – are we good enough friends for you to invite me for the holidays? I'm damned if I'll look at McGonagall's sour old mug over my Christmas pudding this year. And I've no desire ever to meet Albus under the mistletoe again, thank you very much. He may be the greatest living wizard in the Western world, but he sure can't handle his eggnog, and if he lays hands on my tush one more time, he's going to be missing some fingers when he takes them away again. Suffice it to say that I need a change of pace, posthaste; if you're in the mood for company, I'd most definitely be up for some girlish hijinks and Joyeux Noël, Paris-style. Let me know.

"Hang on a minute," Hermione instructed the nervous-looking post owl (Cleo had just padded into the room, and was taking rather more of an interest in the proceedings than the bird found strictly comfortable), and rummaged for pen and paper. Why wait for Christmas? she scribbled, almost giddy with her own reckless impulse. Come for the weekend, why don't you? Any weekend. I'm so lonely here that I can't live with myself.

She peeled the owl a tangerine, sent it off with a stroke of its fluffy feathered head, and wandered back to the music room, still holding the letter and frowning to herself. The band, huddled around a rickety wooden table that had recently appeared next to the piano in the mural's background, didn't look up from their card game. Maxie recapped her bottle of nail polish and smiled in Hermione's direction.

"Afternoon, sugar. How was business today?"

The question was by now a time-honoured ritual. Hermione folded herself into the room's most comfortable chair and cracked her knuckles leisurely.

"Let's see. Pretty slow, actually. A sprained wrist, a couple of pre-natal exams, two cases of ringworm, an appendicitis, some work physicals, a broken nose ..." She thought hard. "Ah. A three-year-old who'd stepped on broken glass. Responded beautifully to that new Suturing Charm; I doubt that there'll even be a scar. And three cases of hepatitis A. Itmana had a couple, too. We suspect bad shellfish from the nearby market; Khaled went over after lunch to ask Mehmet where he's been buying his mussels." She switched on the torchière lamp next to the chair. "Did you lot get any practicing in?"

Maxie rolled her eyes. "Are you kidding? They've been playing Hearts since yesterday after breakfast. You couldn't shift them from that table if Count Basie himself showed up and tried to give them a downbeat."

Hermione laughed, then thought about the letter in her hands and grew sober again.

"I got a letter today from my friend Joséphine," she said. "She says that Snape was at Hogwarts recently."

"Oh?" Maxie studied her nails. "Is that news?"

"Sort of." Hermione shrugged, unsure of how to put her uneasiness into words. "He and Sal keep themselves pretty secluded these days; it's really unlike him to go visiting without a good reason. Before he agreed to be my Secret-Keeper, he hadn't been back to Hogwarts in three years. And now I guess I'm starting to wonder if he and Dumbledore don't know more about Bill's ... well, about the murder, than they're telling me."

"It's possible," Maxie said, toying thoughtfully with the cap of her nail-polish bottle. "Though on a certain level, it ought to be reassuring that your Secret-Keeper's keeping secrets – even if they're from you. Means he's well-suited to the job, n'est-ce-pas?"

Hermione nodded reluctantly. "I suppose," she said. "Just makes me edgy, that's all. I haven't been sleeping so well. Bad dreams." She frowned. "Maxie?"

"Mm-hmm."

"You haven't happened to see a ghost in the apartment, have you?"

Maxie's eyes went sharp. "A ghost?"

"It's probably nothing," Hermione said, embarrassed. "But in these dreams ... well, I've been having a visitor. I thought he was Bill at first, but he's not – lately, I've been wondering if he's even a dream. He feels more real than that, somehow. And just the other day Patrice told me this story about a dead priest who used to live here. I was just wondering if you'd seen anything, that's all."

"Dead priest?" Maxie shook her head. "I haven't seen any ghosts around the place at all, sugar. But now that I know you're looking, I'll have the boys keep an eye out." She lifted one thin-plucked eyebrow. "And as I recall, there's a portrait of St. Bernadette living in the flat above us. I'll find out if she knows anything about resident clergy in the building."

Hermione, relieved, scooped her study text off the coffee table and flipped it open. "Thanks, Maxie. That's nice of you."

"Any time, sugar."

But that tight, assessing look was back in Maxie’s expressive dark eyes.

"Yeah," she muttered to herself, long after Hermione was absorbed in her studies. "I'll ask around."

It sounded like a threat.

**