| LAST TANGO IN PARIS Early on in her visit to the mountain cabin, Hermione had discovered the treehouse. The original owner of the property, Snape’s Uncle Nestor (or so she’d been told by Sal), had constructed the treehouse in a huge live oak a few hundred yards into the forest that surrounded the cabin. He’d used it for birdwatching, for conducting certain of his slightly-illegal-by-Ministry-of-Magic-standards weather experiments, and for keeping an eye out for any trespassing Muggle foolhardy enough to wander onto his land despite the layers of highly unpleasant wards he’d thrown up around his own little private slice of Paradise. As one might expect from a magically-constructed edifice, it boasted creature comforts its Muggle counterpart probably wouldn’t have been able to muster: skylights, climate control, primitive-but-usable plumbing. The small main room’s focal point centered around a battered, cozy reclining armchair and a bookcase made from unfinished planks, stuffed with paperback espionage thrillers and do-it-yourself home-repair primers. All in all, a not-uncomfortable retreat – if you remembered to bring a sandwich and a thermos of tea, you’d be good for an entire afternoon. But it wasn’t comfort Hermione was after right now, as much as privacy – and that, the treehouse offered in spades. Glancing behind her to make sure no one had noticed her slipping out of the house, she wound her way through the thick foliage that all but obscured the narrow path to the old oak, clambered up the ivy-hung ladder nailed to the treetrunk, and locked the trapdoor entrance behind her before seating herself on the hooked rug in front of the armchair and tipping out of their protective wrapping the letters she’d taken from the Cairo vault. They were neatly folded – many in their original envelopes – and meticulously filed in chronological order. Of those without envelopes, some were single sheets of parchment that had evidently been owled back and forth, round-robin style, in a single afternoon, filled with alternating bands of her own neat script and Bill’s more careless handwriting; reading them, Hermione could picture a dispirited post-owl, flapping wearily from office to office and back again with yet another witty one-liner of a reply. And then, of course, there were gaps in time – two weeks, three weeks, a month – between the more substantial correspondence that marked Bill’s frequent business trips. Reading through these paper ghosts of the life she no longer remembered was, for Hermione, like peering through a two-way mirror into the past. What was it Snape had said? You were both good writers. Well, that she wasn’t disputing – nor could she deny that she, the Hermione she no longer was, had been madly in love with Bill Weasley, and he with her. Even the most banal of their written exchanges – do you want chicken or beef for dinner tonight?—why don’t you surprise me?—were woven through with mutual affection and respect, as apparent as sunlight behind coloured glass. Passion, teasing, tenderness – it was all there. They’d been a regular Baucis and Philemen in the making, from the looks of things: that most elusive of Hollywood mirages, the eternally-fortunate Lucky In Love. Hermione studied the picture of Bill that she’d filched from the photo album, imagined those bright eyes closed forever, and shivered. Creepy. It had been cloudy since they returned from Cairo, drizzling halfheartedly for the past half hour or so, and was now threatening to rain in earnest. Hermione glanced at her watch – a quarter hour until Sal had dinner ready; if she wasn’t there by then, he’d be cross – and began to gather the letters back into the ribbons that had confined them. If she hadn’t dropped the last one in her hurry, she wouldn’t have noticed it at all – on her initial rustle-through, she’d presumed it to be just a stray empty envelope with her name on it in Bill’s writing. Now, however, she gave it a closer look as she picked it up, then froze. Not only wasn’t it empty, it hadn’t ever been opened. Strange. Disbelieving, she turned it over and pried at the seal of the envelope with one fingernail. The glue didn’t budge. She flipped it back over and stared at her name again. A cold, prescient finger of mingled anticipation and dread had tangled in her intestines and was slowly stirring, stirring, stirring. She bit her lip, then shifted her attention back to the other letters. The rataplan, rataplan of cold rain had begun to hit the glass of the skylight. She didn’t pay any attention. This one had been on the bottom. This one had been last. This one had been saved – never opened, then? Or never sent in the first place? Her heart was racing, her mouth as papery as if she’d just sprinted up a hill – or turned a corner and found a mountain lion waiting for her. Come to think of it, maybe she’d prefer the mountain lion. Even through the sealed envelope, this letter was whispering to her – I know things, I know things you don’t know – and there was no telling what untold dangers might fly out, once she actually read the thing. It must have been Bill, then, who’d saved all the letters. Why would he go to all the trouble to write it and seal it, but never give it to her? Good question. Numbly, she crossed the room and turned up the wick on the kerosene lamp, then sank cross-legged into the comfy old recliner with the letter on her lap – the weather, the impending dinner hour, and Sal’s inevitable displeasure forgotten. The cold, bitter tang of adrenaline still sat heavy on her tongue – why? she asked herself fiercely, why are you so guilty, why are you afraid? It’s addressed to you, isn’t it? It’s yours. She traced the letters of her name with one finger, drawing out the process as if it mattered, as if it would change the decision she’d already made, the decision that was – since Time immemorial – inevitable; even before Pandora, after all, sealed boxes had been made solely to be opened. Feeling like a backhoe operator at an archaeology dig, she took a deep breath and ripped open the flap. ** Hermione, the letter read: Two years today – can you believe it? You’re asleep, and I ought to be. Think there was too much rum in the cake; I’ve got indigestion and I can’t be bothered to go downstairs for an antacid. Or maybe it’s just deep thoughts. Hard to tell the difference, sometimes. You’re snoring. It’s really, REALLY loud. Funny how I never notice it when I’m asleep, too. Between you, me, and Cleo, we must sound like a monster truck rally. I was just remembering today something I heard Mum say, just before we got married – remember, I took that weekend and went to the Burrow, to clear the rest of my things out of the attic? It was a night like this one … I was supposed to be sleeping, but couldn’t, and Mum and I stayed up talking. Can’t remember most of it, of course, but this one thing’s stayed with me – she said: “Having a marriage license doesn’t automatically turn you into a mind-reader, you know. You want to know what she’s thinking, you’re best off asking her.” It’s true. Almost three years with you – two with my ring – we eat the same cereal, we share the same bed, and parts of you are still a puzzle to me. I like it, mostly, don’t misunderstand me. I wouldn’t change you for anything. But there’s this one thing that’s been bothering me. It’s silly. It’s so small, and I’m sure you’ve no idea you’re doing it. But even right now it’s happening – you get this look sometimes, when you’re sleeping, this utterly beatific look, this smile. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. And then when you wake up – just for a second, before you’re properly awake – you see me, and you look a little bit puzzled, like I’m not the one you expected. Told you it was stupid, didn’t I? But it bothers me, and I’m not sure which is worse: that I don’t know who it is that’s putting that smile on your face, or that I’m afraid I might. You never told me about him, but I figured it out anyway. Not till it was over, of course – I’m not that quick. But I saw the looks on both your faces, that night in Alexandria, and you’ve never looked at me that way – like I was devil, angel, hope, despair, all four – love and grief and loathing all rolled up in one messy Gordian knot you’d have to cut through to kill. Sometimes I’m jealous of that. Mostly I’m glad – glad that what we have isn’t that conflicted, that shadowed – glad that you can love me, and not regret it. But it makes me think about him, which is something I never did much before I knew that you’d been together. And the conclusions I reach aren’t comfortable or nice ones, which also bothers me – you know that you’re my stars and moon, Hermione, that I wouldn’t give you up for anything, but I also can’t help but think myself greedy. Family, friends, love – all my life, I’ve been so fortunate. And I stole his only jewel, to give my already-rich crown a centerpiece. How lucky I am to have you. And how lonely he must be. Without realising she did it, Hermione muttered something under her breath, then plucked a tissue from midair and wiped her streaming eyes. There was only one more paragraph. She swallowed hard, trying unsuccessfully to dislodge the tennis ball that had mysteriously sprouted in her throat, and turned back to the yellowed page. I wonder if it would comfort him, to know he’s still in your dreams? So selfish of me, to begrudge him that unconscious corner of you between sleep and waking. But I am not so divided, you see. And despite my mother’s advice – I’ll never know what you’re thinking until I ask – I find myself reluctant to do that. If you are dreaming about him, I think I’d rather not know. --Bill ** No wonder he didn’t give it to me, Hermione thought, and refolded the letter with cold but steady hands. It was dinnertime. And after that, she and Snape had unfinished business. ** |