LAST TANGO IN PARIS
Chapter Twenty-Eight

It had been a long time since Neville had taken a day off.

After all, when you had your dream job, vacations seemed sort of superfluous. He couldn’t honestly think of anything more pleasant than the back greenhouse in the Jardin des Plantes – sunlight, potting soil silky between his fingers, the smell of plants, sharp and green as the distillate of life itself – even if it was nice to sleep late for once. And if he had felt moved to find a temporary change of pace, Severus Snape’s spookily quiet mountain cabin in Montana would hardly have been his first choice.

It wouldn’t even have made the top hundred.

Still, the situation had one intriguing, brassy bright spot. He finished the last of his orange juice, rinsed out his glass in the sink, and went to go find her.

She was stretched out in the back yard hammock, drinking a conjured margarita and flipping idly through one of Snape’s back issues of Ars Alchemica. She was wearing faded low-rise blue jeans worn white at the knees and a tight, fuzzy red turtleneck jumper, and her braids were in glorious disarray around her head; with that slight faraway curve to her mouth and one hand in suggestive repose on the upper curve of her thigh, she looked like the wizarding version of a soft-core centerfold. Neville could see the caption now – Potions Mistress on Holiday – and imagine the next page in his head, something shamefully kinky with a cauldron and a Binding Spell.

The thought made him blush, and it was at that instant that she chose to look up.

"Neville. Hey." She laid the magazine to one side and shifted her long expanse of invitingly-arranged body to leave room for him on the hammock. "Join me?"

The jumper had ridden up, revealing a small silver ring in her navel. Neville fought to keep his eyes off it. "Um. Thanks."

"You look like you’ve gotten a little too much sun."

He shook his head, blushing even more wildly, and dropped gingerly onto the empty side of the hammock. "Orange juice," he lied. "It always gives me a flush."

"Jeez." She shot him a knowing, naughty smile and trailed one fingertip down the bridge of his nose. "You must have really, really sensitive skin."

He flushed hotter and turned his face away. "Guess so. Where’s everybody else?"

"Kate’s off with Snape to try and find some research paper that may or may not be in Cairo – I saw the note they left for Sal on the kitchen table. They must not be having the best of luck … they left in the middle of the night, and they aren’t back yet." Lazily, she checked her watch. "Almost eight hours now, by my count. They must have stopped for lunch."

Neville, who readily admitted to naïveté but wasn’t after all blind, had seen enough industrial-strength steel-cable tension pass between his friend and his former professor last night at dinner to have his own ideas about what might have delayed them. He kept them to himself. "Oh. And Sal?"

"Caught the morning fireplace to Hogwarts," Joséphine said. "Said something about needing to do some research. From what he said, he’s got a personal library the size of Oahu stashed somewhere in the subdungeons. Couldn’t bring it all with him." She grinned at him. "Guess it’s just you and me, Nev. Whatever will we do with ourselves?"

"Um." He’d been a million times more comfortable with her when he’d still thought she might be villainous. Now that he knew the truth, his comfort level was eroding rapidly; mild flirtation with strangers was one thing, and his brief affair with Itmana had been another, but Joséphine Dessources had all the hallmarks of a major-league player, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to step into a batting cage with her, even if she did look like expensively-packaged sin and smell a million times better. "Not sure. Scrabble?"

She laughed. Neville swallowed hard.

"What?"

"You’re funny, that’s what."

He was used to having girls laugh at him. "Oh. Right."

"And sweet. Don’t get all huffy." She did something with her hips that brought her body into closer contact with his. "Don’t know what it is about you – normally, I’m afraid, nice guys just don’t do it for me. I’m a bit at a loss."

Now it was his turn to laugh. "You? At a loss? Now you’re just trying to make me feel better."

"No, I’m serious." She smoothed her braids back and met his eyes with a gaze more forthright, for once, than flirtatious. "You’re interesting. You look like the kind of guy who’d rather eat slugs than get into an argument, but you would have taken me apart back there in the park, when you thought I was after Kate. And you’ve got the biggest case of Snape-phobia I’ve ever seen – and believe me, I’ve seen a few; my older students started out with him, after all – but you’re sticking here, instead of running back to Paris."

Neville shrugged. "So?"

"So, it’s impressive." She tipped her head to one side, a move that made her look younger, less sure of herself. "Most people have one vibe, you know? You’ve got six or seven, and they’re all fighting with each other. I never know whether you’re going to be a marshmallow or a tiger. Keeps me on my toes, and it makes me wonder …"

They were so close that he could feel her breath on his cheek, sweet with lime and heavy with tequila. His heart was thumping out a Code Red with every breath he took, but he couldn’t seem to move. "Wonder? Wonder what?"

"Well, a couple of things." She edged a little closer, so that when she spoke he could feel her lips move against the hammering pulse in his throat. "Which it’s going to be at first. Which it’s going to be at the end. And what it’s going to take to make you … change."

As invitations went, this one came with a car and driver and a bottle of champagne. Neville brought up the hand that wasn’t wedged between their bodies to touch her face – and then it was as if his body suddenly realised where it was – hey, those are legs, those are tits, there’s a mouth to kiss and oil to drill, get moving, boys – and took over from his brain.

With a muffled groan, he pushed her over on her back, angled one knee across her hips to hold her where he wanted her, and buried his mouth in hers.

**

"Here we are," Linchpin said, and flung the door of the vault wide open. Severus waited for Hermione to enter the room, then followed her with a distinct feeling of relief – Gringotts Cairo protected its vaults with a rabbit warren of tunnels, sand traps, and carefully-placed Sphinxii, the effect of which was distinctly vertiginous. He rather wished now that he hadn’t had that last finger of Old Ogden’s.

"Mr. Potter and Miss Weasley had all the things from your house boxed and stored here," Linchpin said now. "They’re in the room to the left; all your personal effects and savings are to the right. I’ve other business to attend to; I’ll leave you to it, shall I?" She handed Hermione a tiny silver bell. "Ring this when you’re ready, and one of the guides will come down to see you back up."

"Thank you," Hermione said, pocketing the bell. Linchpin nodded curtly, snapped her fingers, and vanished.

They stood among the neatly-boxed remains of her old life and stared at each other, unsure of where to begin. Finally, Severus forced himself to break the silence.

"Right," he said. "You go one way, I’ll go the other. Let me know if you find anything."

She nodded numbly and – much to his surprise – took the left doorway toward the household effects, leaving him to deal with the treasure. He stared after her for a long second, then turned in the other direction.

All the same to him, wasn’t it? Still, very strange.

He opened a box, trying unsuccessfully to shake the feeling that he was snooping, and got to work.

**

The earth was moving, and it had nothing to do with the fact that they were in a hammock. Neville tore his mouth away from hers and gasped for air.

"Steady on, Slick." Her eyes were glittering, her mouth swollen as she fought her way to a sitting position and stripped the red jumper over her head. "Where’s my wand? I want to throw up an Obfuscus."

His eyes had reattached themselves to that tiny, glittering bit of silver in her navel. "Your what?"

She laughed shakily and made a grab for the little glass-topped table that held the dregs of her margarita. "Never mind, I’ve got it. Just hold still, okay?" Moments later, she dropped the wand again. "All right, that should hold the unintentionally curious at bay. Now, c’mere – I want to see what’s under that shirt. Oh, very nice."

Her brassiere unhooked at the front and fell to the side. Neville felt all the blood in his body battle its way to his groin. Joséphine looked momentarily smug.

"Pretty, aren’t they? Had them done at the same time as the belly button. Go on – you can touch them."

He reached out tentatively to give the little silver rings a gentle tug – and immediately shuddered, as the same sensation reverberated through his own nipples. "Oh, my God."

"Didn’t I mention that? They’re enchanted." Joséphine guided his hand down her abdomen. "Everything I feel, you feel too. Go on, then."

He stroked the belly ring with a worshipful forefinger and felt an answering tug in the depths of his guts, a little electric thrill that nearly doubled him over, small unseen hands touching parts of him he hadn’t known he had. His palms were buzzing with desire, his blood leaping with it. "Oh, God," he said again, biting his lips. "I don’t – I can’t. I didn’t know."

She should have looked triumphant – how many times must she have gotten this same reaction? – but instead she looked shaken. "Jesus, Slick," she said now. "You’ve no idea, have you? It comes back around again, see? You vibe me, I vibe you. Bloody incredible." She pulled his hands up from his sides, pressed her naked breasts into them. "You can’t believe the energy you’re throwing off – now, pinch them, will you? Hard."

How the rest of their clothes came off, he hadn’t a clue. Wonder what it feels like for the girl – well, they’d all thought about that at one point and time, hadn’t they?

He was going to die. Smiling.

She sank down on him, grinding her torso into his, and he yelled with the sharpness of it, paper-cut slash of the nipples and the hot spreading connection underneath, as though they’d been welded together with the force of their fusion. She groped for his hand, dragged it down her belly.

"One more," she gasped. "With your fingers – no, just these two – there. Feel it? Now."

All he felt was hot and wet; it wasn’t immediately clear to his trembling fingertips which slipperiness was the silver ring and which was just her. He rubbed anyway, and felt an answering rush of heat inside him, a giant clenching fist squeezing tighter and tighter the faster he rubbed. Above him, Joséphine was making sounds like a taxiing airplane gathering speed for takeoff; it should have been funny, but he just couldn’t think with that part of his brain right now.

He’d had sex before, but this was new, this was a bloody revelation and he wished it wouldn’t ever end. There, there was the ring, he’d managed to catch it between his fingers now, and what happened when he tugged on it made both of them scream – yes, yes, again, again! So nice not to have to wonder whether she was having a good time, though there wasn’t really room in his head for that … and then she did something with her pelvis that caught that bit of charmed metal hard between them like a tiny, sizzling donut-shaped brand, and as Neville gave it up and poured himself into her with a final whimpering burst of electricity, he forgot to think of anything at all.

They cried and shook and held on to each other – to think I’d given up on witches, Neville said wonderingly at some point, and got a trembling laugh out of her in response. It wasn’t until they’d pried themselves apart, a quarter-hour later, that they noticed the sky.

"Where’d the sun go?" he asked, frowning a little, and Joséphine shook her head.

"That’s not the sky," she said. "The Obfuscus is a type of Barrier Charm, right? We’ve fogged it over."

It was true.

**

It was amazing, Severus thought, how going through a couple’s savings account could tell you so much about their marriage.

It wasn’t so much the money, though there were telltale details in that, too – separate piles, separate accounts, but also a box of gold in the middle marked ‘College Fund’ in Hermione’s neat script. It was the other things they’d found it worthwhile to put in the vault – the deed to the house, a binder full of passwords and careful notes on various magical locations where Bill had worked, some tissue-wrapped handmade infant clothes that Severus supposed Molly had made once upon a time and saved from the sure destruction of the hand-me-down circuit. A thin folder containing the originals of Hermione’s patents; a scrapbook full of press clippings; their marriage license.

He plucked a dried sprig of lavender from one of the small bundles of tissue and unfolded it gently, marvelling at the worksmanship – this wasn’t the work of a woman overwhelmed with children, but a new bride’s labour of love, as delicate and carefully stitched as a wedding gown. He pictured the two of them – mother-in-law and daughter-in-law – cooing over baby clothes, and felt a hard bright stab in his gut; it was hard to imagine a more vivid or painful reminder of what Hermione had lost, the day of Bill’s death.

They’d brought Hermione’s jewelry box with them that morning, for safekeeping in the vault, and she’d set it down off to one side of the pile of gold. He hesitated, then opened the lid.

There was her infamous sapphire pendant, the twin of which was probably still sitting on Albus Dumbledore’s filing cabinet collecting dust. There was the silver charm bracelet, and there was the jade scarab he’d given her when she left Hogwarts. The wristwatch wasn’t there – apparently she was still wearing it – but a quick look inside a small black velvet bag revealed the loose diamonds with the goblin-made tracking spell on them. He glanced over his shoulder, then tipped them hastily onto his palm.

Get one of them out of the box, Linchpin had murmured to him a few minutes ago, and put it in a setting. Make her wear it. This thing won’t end easily, and we can’t help her if we don’t know where she is.

He chose one of the smaller diamonds – the biggest was nearly the size of his thumbnail, but he wasn’t doing this for the sake of aesthetics – then replaced the rest of them and stowed the little bag neatly back in its velvet-lined compartment. He was just about to close the lid of the box when a gleam of gold caught his eye.

It was a man’s wedding ring, plain yellow gold worn shiny on its outer edge by wear and blowing sand. It was slightly flattened, as if by forceps; Severus swallowed hard and tried not to think about how they’d gotten it off Bill Weasley’s dead finger.

Focus, will you? There’s no research here; it must be in her half of the vault.

He closed the box, tucked it into a corner, and went to go find her.

She was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the vault, a stack of papers around her like a sacred circle. She didn’t look up when Severus came in.

"Did you find anything?"

She flicked her eyes up at him, then back down quickly to the document she was holding. "The research? It’s over there – I set it aside."

He picked up the pair of black binders she’d indicated, then studied her closely. "You’re sure this is right?"

"Seems it." She shrugged. "There’s a whole set in that filing cabinet over there, all marked by date. These are the most recent, and the only ones with a photocopy of the patent not clipped to them. I glanced through, but it didn’t make much sense to me."

Severus nodded. "Ready to go, then?" He indicated the papers surrounding her. "What’s all this?"

"Letters," she said shortly. He frowned.

"Letters?"

She looked up and held his eyes, and he could read the shock and weariness on her face. "I don’t remember this at all," she said slowly, "but apparently Bill and I wrote letters back and forth, when he was out on assignment. Not sure who saved them – whether it was him, or whether it was me – but they’re all here, both sets. I’ve been going through them."

Oh, God. He felt his face align into automatic lines of sympathy, then wiped them off again with considerable effort; no one liked to be pitied. "I’m sure it’s interesting reading," he said neutrally. "You were both gifted writers, as I recall."

She shrugged this off. "I can’t believe it," she said, and he, recognising that high note of impending tears in her voice, sank warily down next to her.

"Can’t believe what?"

"That I’ve been through all these," she said, "and I still can’t remember."

She swiped at her eyes. "You should read them. This man, that’s dead, and this woman, that was – that was me … well, they had a relationship. They were goddamn fucking in love. I don’t know them – either of them – and I’m still all weepy from it; it’s like some Tragic Doomed Epic, reading this and knowing how it turned out in the end." She smoothed her thumb over a crease in the letter she was holding. "But it’s just a sad, beautiful story to me – I can’t really remember it."

Cautiously, he handed her his handkerchief. "Do you want to?"

She put down the letter and wiped her eyes with shaking hands. "I don’t know," she said finally. "I just don’t know."

**

When they left the vault, Severus noticed, she took the letters with her. But neither of them mentioned it.

**