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Orpheus
Chapter 32
"Anything wrong?" Sirius asked Moody. An exhausted owl had delivered a short
note asking him to meet the old Auror at the Leaky Cauldron instead of Mrs.
Granger's house as had become the customary procedure.
"No. Yes… Well, no." Moody's magical eye swirled incessantly, monitoring
their surroundings. "Nothing bad, on the contrary. But we ought to agree on
our tactics."
They were sitting in a private parlour, and Tom—now already a bit decrepit
but still visibly in charge—had left after bringing them a bottle of whisky
and two glasses, and assuring them that nobody was going to disturb them.
"If it's about… well, you know who, then we ought to have chosen another
meeting place."
"Yeah," Moody said, "But it was a last-minute inspiration, and we don't need
to use any names."
"What happened to your bloody paranoia?" Sirius, who was nervous, angry with
himself because he was nervous but didn't want to admit it and therefore
tried to take his anger out on both Moody and the whiskey bottle, filled his
glass so jerkily that most of the liquid splattered onto the wooden
tabletop. "And what happened to constant fucking vigilance? Have they gone
on a holiday or what?"
"Calm down, laddie. Nobody can hear us, and we just have to exchange a few
words. So," he said, raising his glass to Sirius, who growled and
reluctantly returned the gesture, "it seems that our assumptions are,
indeed, correct."
What little whiskey had found its way into the tumbler was now slowly
seeping into Sirius's robes. "Really? Merlin, I…" He put down the glass and
hid his face in his hands. "I can't believe it," he muttered.
"Nor can I. But now isn't the moment for sentimentalities." Moody refilled
the glass and pressed it into Sirius's hand. "Drink up and listen. I'm as
happy about the news as you are. The question is: what are we to do with
her?"
"Huh?" Sirius frowned. "I'm afraid I don't quite follow."
Moody sighed and shook his head. "Usually you're a bit quicker on the
uptake, old boy. I'll chalk that up to emotions, though. Now try to think
logically: if she hears that things really are like she thought, what d'you
guess the lass is going to do?"
"I see. Of course. She'll Disapparate to Merlin-knows-where before we can
say 'wait!'"
"Uh-huh. That's exactly what I thought. So, do we tell her or don't we?"
The two wizards looked at each other, the cogwheels of their minds grinding
almost audibly in the quiet of the room.
Sirius was the first to speak. "She's so sure that he… well, of that. I
don't think she'd be able to take another blow." He sighed heavily and put
his empty glass down. "She's been so very much like her old self these
days," he muttered, his voice a little shaky. "I couldn't bear to see her go
back to drinking and being depressed."
"Very true." Moody rubbed his stubbly chin. "But that's only one side of the
problem. The other is… well, she's a Gryffindor, and you of all people ought
to know that they're quite the impulsive lot."
"And if we prepare her very carefully?"
"Yeah… yeah, that's what I thought, too. Then again, one can't blame her if
she goes completely bonkers at the news."
Evidently trying to get a grip on himself, Sirius leaned back and crossed
his arms. "But we don't have a third option, do we? Either we tell her or we
don't. There's nothing else we could do."
"We might tell her later."
"And what's the point of telling her later? Look, Alastor, try to be
reasonable. It's been almost three months. The Ministry have already
diminished the presence of Aurors and all that. But I bet whatever you want
that they're going to keep this up at least for a year. If not more. Do you
really want her to suffer that long? Sooner or later, we have to tell her—we
can stall for time only for so long. And if she ever finds out that we knew
and didn't tell her, she won't trust us anymore, and that would be even
worse."
"You," Moody said, patting Sirius's shoulder, "are a sappy, flea-eaten
little bastard. Just the thought of the lassie crying…" He smirked. "All
right then. We'll tell her."
*
Last night—they had been walking along the edge of the Forbidden Forest
under a tiny crescent moon, swathed in heavy cloaks against the crisp autumn
chill—Severus had told her that he might not succeed in visiting her for the
next two or three days.
Hermione was standing at the window of her room, elbows resting on the
narrow sill and her nose pressed against the glass. The weather was
horrible; what reluctant colours an early spring had coaxed from earth and
plants seemed to have been washed away by bouts of rain and blown off by
strong wind. She was already fully dressed and awaiting the arrival of
Sirius and Alastor Moody. The prospective of seeing her friends and probably
also receiving important news didn’t cheer her up, though; the thought
wasn’t powerful enough to wipe the image of Severus’s face off her mind. His
face in the pale moonlight, all shadows and sharp planes. But there had been
enough light for her to notice his hurt expression—yes, she thought with a
sigh and shifted slightly, so as to put her weight on her other foot, yes,
she had definitely made a mistake there.
Her assumptions, deductions and suspicions as to his being alive had
coalesced into something almost solid these last days. She was practically
sure he was hiding—from the Ministry, of course, not from her—and using
Legilimency to enter her dreams. Since she had told Sirius and Alastor and
managed to cause them severe doubts about her husband actually being dead,
she’d been tempted to ask him point blank whether she was right or not. But
even in her dreams, her rational mind had kept the upper hand and argued
that, if he didn’t tell her the truth, she mustn’t try and get him to admit
it. He certainly didn’t want to make her suffer, so he had to have some very
good reasons for leaving her in the dark. Nonetheless, her newfound
confidence that sooner or later they’d meet again in real life, not only in
her dreams, had had a certain effect on her behaviour. There still was
anxiety—after all, she might be wrong—and the sadness, too, persisted,
because she missed him terribly. But this wasn’t the same as believing,
truly believing that he was dead and gone forever. Therefore the
announcement that he’d have to stay away from her didn’t bring tears to her
eyes anymore. The problem was, though, that he believed that she believed…
She made a noise of total exasperation and hit the windowsill with her fist.
This was just too complicated, such a tangled web of ‘he knows that I know
that he knows’… Much too Slytherin for her taste. She really didn’t like it.
She wanted things to be simple and straightforward, she wanted to be able to
talk about things without playing a comedy. She wanted clarity, and—
Forceful knocking at the entrance door told her that she was about to get
just that. Suddenly, she wasn’t so sure anymore that she wanted certainty.
Her current well-being was resting on such fragile foundations; what if the
two men had irrefutable proof of Severus being dead? Then those dreams had
been a mere figment of her subconscious, which just couldn’t accept his
death; and once there truly wasn’t any more hope, maybe she’d stop dreaming
of him? The urge to down a large glass of whisky was becoming very strong.
Well, unless she went downstairs she wasn’t likely to get any.
Wearily, she pushed herself up and off the windowsill and went towards the
door.
*
“Still nothing!” Exhausted from hours of walking, aimlessly but rapidly,
Draco sank into his customary chair in the library. He looked up at his
father’s portrait and flinched at Lucius’s scowl.
“Pathetic!” Lucius spat. “You are being pathetic, Draco. Really, I would
have expected… Well, maybe not. Maybe I ought to expect nothing.”
“I did everything I could!” Draco let his head fall against the backrest of
his chair and closed his eyes. “What else could I have done? I’ve sent
detailed instructions to all my contacts, they know what is at stake, they
are well aware of the consequences, should they fail—so what else could I
have done?” he repeated.
“Much as I appreciate your fervour in bringing me back to a less boring
world, may I point out to you that what is laudable up to a certain point is
bound to turn into the contrary once you pass beyond that point?”
Reopening his eyes to shoot his father a puzzled look, Draco asked, “What’s
that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” Lucius replied, his voice tinged with impatience, “that your
efforts are based on a mere hypothesis. Not that the hypothesis is bad in
and of itself, but it is just that. A hypothesis. You know nothing about
Snape’s time frame, you don’t know whether he has already started, whether
he is going to act quickly, not even whether he is going to act at
all—nothing. You sent those letters out less than two weeks ago. And—” here
his tone took on a certain sharpness “—while waiting impatiently for news to
arrive, you are neglecting everything else. Your wife, your daughter—are you
sure, for example, that Lucertola is still in an appropriate state of mind
to keep the secret? Do you know what your wife is doing all day long? When
was the last time you set foot into your office?”
Draco’s shoulders slumped. Wrong. He had done it all wrong again. Why wasn’t
he able to do things right, like his father expected him to? Just once, if
he had managed to live up to those expectations just once… Of course his
father was right. He had neglected everything, only to run about like a man
possessed, he hadn’t written to Lucy in a while, he had no idea how his
business was going. All this was too much for him. He simply couldn’t do it
on his own, much as he tried. “I wish you were here,” he muttered, “I mean
really here, not…” He gestured at the painting.
Lucius gave him an indulgent smile. “As do I, my son, as do I. In the
meantime, though, try to focus on your tasks and fulfil your duties.”
“You’ll help me once you are back, won’t you?”
The smile stayed, maybe a little more enigmatic. “Of course, my son. I
shall… do what is necessary.”
*
Venice, that splendiferous triumph of human stubbornness over the elements,
did have a wizarding district, which was not—as wizarding areas usually
were—hidden within the main city, because magic and water are more or less
mutually exclusive. Glamours glimmer and eddy, spells tend to wear off at
the most inopportune times, and charms have a way of going plain wrong in
the vicinity of water. To hide the wizarding part of Venice amidst the water
arteries of the city would have been impossible (most of all because the
city got flooded quite often, with water rising up to first-floor level) and
therefore the magical population had wisely retired to the small island of
Torcello—not too many wizards lived there, though. Like Di Villabosco, the
rabid collector of alchemical texts and magical artefacts (which were wisely
kept at the top floor of his palazzo, where magic did work very well), most
of them had their houses or flats in the city. Torcello, on the other hand,
housed shops, bars, restaurants, the bank, a theatre and various other
necessities and facilities of public life.
After waking up from his nap rather later than he’d intended—but at least,
he thought while getting dressed, it had somewhat alleviated his worries
concerning Hermione—Severus decided to abandon his erstwhile plan of having
dinner at some Muggle restaurant and then Apparate to Torcello, and instead
went to the island right away. He’d already lost enough time dozing through
the late afternoon and early evening; maybe he’d get some interesting
information already while having his aperitif and eating dinner. If not, he
would have to hit the bars, of which there were many.
He’d chosen his Italo-American-in-exile cover in order to mollify the hotel
staff, but realized that it might also be very useful for the inquiries he
intended to make. Just like European Muggles, the magical population of Good
Olde Europe regarded their American peers with a mix of indulgence and
good-natured contempt when it came to history and culture. Americans went
into fits of ecstasy at seeing a building older than three hundred years;
that Mr. Ernest Pagliucci should almost faint with awe at the thought of an
Italian wizard living in a palazzo built in the sixteenth century, or of
books and manuscripts dating back to the early Middle Ages, was likely to
cause smiles rather than suspicion in whomever he pelted with curious
questions. Therefore Severus left the glamours as they were, transfigured
one of his charcoal-grey shirts into something absolutely hideous with dark
green stripes on a pale pink background, turned his austere black suit into
an artificially aged tweed blazer and beige corduroy trousers and, after a
last disgusted glance at the mirror, left the hotel in search of a quiet
corner where he could Apparate from.
The evening was relatively tepid; Daylight Saving Time had just begun, and
thus it wasn’t yet completely dark at seven p.m. People were sipping
multicoloured aperitifs in the street cafés and listening to itinerant
musicians. In the small side lanes, though, night had already taken over.
The street lamps were scarce, their feeble yellow shine barely enough to
spill pools of light onto the pavement, which was worn and bumpy. Between
the high walls, the sound of Severus’s footsteps echoed and reverberated as
if he were walking through a giant cathedral. He moved deeper into the maze
of meandering lanes and passageways, encountering fewer and fewer people,
until he arrived at a dead end that suited his purposes to perfection. One
more careful glance over his shoulder to make sure nobody was behind him,
and he vanished with a soft ‘plop’.
The entrance to the wizarding district was hidden in the portico connecting
the church of Santa Fosca and the ruins of what had once been the
baptistery. Severus paused a few moments to look at the church. Stolid and
squat, of clearly Byzantine style, it gained a certain ethereal elegance
through the last rays of the setting sun that tinged its walls mauve-pink,
so that it seemed to float amidst the trees, standing out clearly against
the darkening sky. Severus turned his back to the church’s façade and
entered the portico. He didn’t even have to look for the entrance, as a
young couple was just approaching it from the other side. He waited
patiently until the man had tapped a Roman tombstone with his wand, so that
a narrow archway appeared, and stepped through after the couple.
Clearly, the wizarding population of Venice was enjoying the possibility of
sitting outside on this early spring evening as much as the Muggle tourists.
There were street cafés here as well, and the air was humming with laughter
and voices. Wandering slowly down the main street, Severus overheard scraps
of conversation in many different languages. Much as he would have liked to,
he couldn’t stop here. This was where businesswizards took a quick drink
before heading home to their families, where couples idled away an hour or
so before they moved on to the restaurants; witches laden with bags and
boxes sat down to relax a little, have a chat with a friend and let the
children play together until it was time for them to return home and put the
little ones to bed. A thoroughly respectable environment. But respectable
was not what Severus needed. He had to direct his steps towards other places
where one didn’t sit out in the open air talking about trivialities. His
goal were the back streets with their ill-famed, half-dark bars where
newcomers were greeted by hostile looks, and the conversation came to a
screeching halt whenever somebody entered the premises.
Mr. Pagliucci with his gold tooth, stubbly jaw and brilliantine-flattened
hair was evidently sleazy enough to immediately put the patrons at ease when
he entered a particularly shifty-looking establishment. In the far corner of
the room a few elderly wizards were playing what looked like a slightly more
violent version of Exploding Snap; they didn’t look very promising, and so
Severus sat down at the bar, shuddering slightly when his tweed jacket
remained stuck to the counter that had obviously not been cleaned for many
decades. Two men were already sitting there, at one end of the counter to
Severus’s left; when he took his seat they examined him briefly out of
narrowed eyes and then went back to their conversation.
Severus let his eyes wander over the array of bottles and, given the lack of
decent whisky brands, decided to stick to the old “When in Rome”-saying and
opt for Grappa. The barman, an extremely hairy individual with bloodshot
eyes, whose bloated face and ruddy complexion gave the impression that he
was his own best customer, put a bottle in front of his unknown new client
and, when Severus raised his eyebrows, reluctantly produced a grubby glass
as well. When the man turned his back, Severus cast a discreet sanitizing
spell—he had seen the barman rub the glass with his apron, which had
probably transferred a gazillion more germs, viruses and bacteria from cloth
to glass. The grappa—Severus just barely managed to avoid choking on the
first sip—would probably have taken care of the hygienic problem anyway, he
mused. It was stronger than anything he had ever ingested in his life, and
that was saying something. But after his oesophagus had adapted to the
ruthless distillate, it was actually quite good. Especially if drunk
carefully, sip by minuscule sip. Although he had to admit that it wasn’t
really an aperitif. More of a digestive, to be consumed after copious
amounts of food.
The Snap players continued their game, and gradually the explosions and
outbursts of raucous laughter became a kind of background noise, the voices
of the two men more clearly audible now against this acoustic backdrop.
Severus poured himself a second glass and told himself that he’d better
leave as soon as he had finished it. This didn’t seem to be a place where he
might glean useful information—the two wizards were discussing business,
obviously, but it wasn’t the kind of business he was interested in.
Then, the next sip was just on its way down to his stomach, Severus did
choke on his drink, this time for real. Because he suddenly realized that
the two were talking in English. And they were obviously discussing potions.
Carefully and as unobtrusively as possible, he edged his chair a bit closer
towards them. They didn’t seem to notice, engrossed as they were in their
conversation. Strange, he thought. English was definitely not their first
language, but he couldn’t exclude the possibility of one of them being not
Italian but maybe Spanish or Portuguese. That would explain why they were
using a language that was most emphatically not their own.
He pretended to be morosely staring into his glass, while in reality he
unfocused his eyes and emptied his mind, shoving aside every conscious
thought, in order to better understand what they were saying. Their voices
were easy to tell apart; the younger one, maybe forty-five or fifty, had a
high-pitched, raspy voice, whereas his older companion, whose age Severus
estimated to be somewhere between sixty and seventy, spoke in a deep
baritone that seemed to come out of his belly. A head voice and a gut voice.
His body stiffened when Gut Voice mentioned the name of Malfoy. Nonsense, he
thought, he must have misunderstood. Why on earth would—but then he heard it
again, this time in Head Voice’s raucous, reedy tenor. So the two wizards
knew Malfoy? This was maybe not what he was after, but it might turn out to
be interesting all the same. Severus was well aware of Draco’s connections
and knew that the pursuits of people Draco did business with were seldom
what one might call legal. So maybe he’d hit upon something useful. His only
problem being that he really didn’t know how to strike up a conversation
with them without making himself suspicious. Then again, he mused, he had
taken on the appearance of a rather knavish individual; the looks of Mr.
Pagliucci didn’t exactly suggest well-bred discretion. It was worth a try.
He grabbed his bottle and glass, slid off the chair and waddled over to the
two wizards who, upon hearing the noise of his chair screeching across the
sticky marble floor, had stopped talking and looked up. “Hi,” he said, and
grinned, hoping that his gold tooth would enhance the aura of paltry luxury
he was giving off, “Mind if I join you? Bit boring, sitting there all on my
own.” He tried his best to produce a convincing American accent. The two
exchanged a nonplussed look. “Besides,” he continued, determined not to give
them time to refuse his request, “I heard you mention a friend of mine.”
“Really?” Gut Voice asked. There was more curiosity than hostility in his
tone.
“Yep. You were talking about Malfoy, Draco Malfoy, weren’t you? Pal of
mine.” He grabbed a chair, positioned it between the two men and sat down,
straddling it and with his elbows on the backrest. He grinned at his
newfound companions and nodded. “Nice guy, Draco Malfoy.”
Gut Voice snorted. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same man?”
Head Voice, who was picking his teeth with a piece of wood that seemed to
have been used by at least ten people already, nodded. “Fucking unlikely, if
you ask me.”
Severus knocked back the entire contents of his glass and frowned. “Blonde?
In his thirties? Grey eyes, handsome? That’s the Malfoy I know.”
“That’s him.” Head Voice nodded gravely, grinned at Severus and went back to
examine his second-hand tooth pick. After a few seconds of careful
consideration, he pulled a knife out of his pocket and started sharpening
it.
Gut Voice raked a hand through his sparse black hair. “So Malfoy’s your
friend?”
“More of an acquaintance, really. We did business some time ago. Five years,
maybe six.” He shot the other a conspiratorial smile and refilled his glass.
“Want some?” He held up the bottle.
Gut Voice took it, wiped the neck with a grimy hand and took a deep gulp.
“Good stuff,” he said appreciatively and, after an inquiring look at
Severus, passed the bottle on to his companion. “So—” he bent sideways to
take a crumpled package of cigarettes out of a back pocket “—you got a
letter as well?”
The question was as unexpected as it was awkward. Fortunately, he had
already toned down his alleged friendship with Malfoy to a mere
acquaintance, so he was free to choose the easier route. “No,” he said,
shaking his head. “No, I didn’t get any letter. Then again—” the bottle was
returned to him, and he poured himself another generous dose “—I’ve been
travelling for three weeks. So it might be waiting for me at home. New
Orleans,” he added, both to give himself more credibility and because New
Orleans was the only American city which he knew for sure had a rather large
magical community. He’d never been there, but felt sufficiently certain that
none of the two wizards had, either.
“Nice place?” Head Voice asked.
“So-so. Bit hot but okay. So—” he took another swig of his grappa “—what
about Malfoy’s letter? Or can’t you tell me?”
Gut Voice grunted something unintelligible. He hesitated briefly, giving
Severus a thorough look-over, which seemed to satisfy him, for he dug into
another pocket and produced a crumpled piece of parchment, which he held out
for Severus to take. Curious despite himself, Severus unfolded it. The top
half of the page was covered in Draco’s handwriting he still knew very
well—an haughty calligraphy, so to speak, clear and bent towards the right,
with very pronounced upward strokes—whereas the bottom part seemed blank.
Probably the second part was destined for the eyes of the addressee only.
But the portion he was able to read was sufficient to cause Severus the
sensation that somebody had just pulled the floor from under his feet.
Dear Mr. Porrettone,
This is to inform you that one of my researchers has recently developed a
potion you and your associates might be interested in. As of yet unnamed,
the concoction guarantees complete and reliable protection from the Killing
Curse as well as poisons, Muggle weapons and other devices used with the
intent to kill.
The production of aforementioned potion being extremely expensive, I am
interested in selling as large a quantity of it as possible. May I therefore
ask you to contact wizards and witches of your confidence (secrecy,
especially regarding the authorities, is of course paramount in this
matter), so as to advertise the product to a larger clientele than I might
hope to reach. Please make sure to provide potential buyers with a letter of
recommendation signed by you, so that 5% of the net proceeds may be
transferred to your bank account. Should you be interested in acquiring the
potion for your own use, each buyer recommended by you will decrease the
original price of 20 Galleons/ounce by 1%.
In the hope that this transaction will further contribute to fostering our
already prosperous business contacts, I remain
Yours sincerely
Draco Malfoy
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