Someone To Watch Over Me

Chapter 18 – Someone to watch over me

You don't need no crystal balls

Don't fall for a magic wand

We humans got it all,

We perform the miracles

~ Kate Bush, Them Heavy People

The next Saturday, the 22nd of August, was the anniversary of Richard III's death. Hermione asked him if he wished to go to Bosworth for the occasion, but Severus replied that it was only a field, with grass and trees and a memorial stone set in an arbitrary place, not in the (unknown) spot where Richard was killed. Instead, if she desired so, they could go for a walk in town.

They skirted Jewbury and climbed on the Monk Bar to greet from the outside the supposedly garish Richard III Museum, where Mrs. Boddington had hoped he would never bring her. Then they toured the city walls southbound, up to Bootham Bar. There they went down the stony steps and on toward the Museum Gardens. They passed by the Multangular Tower, built during the reign of Septimius Severus, and sat down beneath the branches of a tree, where they had a little picnic.

The sky was overcast, but there seemed to be no rain in sight, and that was all one could ask for. After their meal, Severus pulled a tiny paperback out of his pocket. The cover was completely worn-out, with several deep lines crossing the spine. The corners had been repaired with a now yellowed Spellotape. The inside pages were alternatively stained with tea, scribbled on the margins, or dog-eared.

"Is this any way to treat a book? To treat Shakespeare?" she scolded him, taking the book from his hand and turning it around like a wounded bird.

"I showed it to Madam Pince once." He smirked. "Her reaction was far more satisfying. And in tune, actually. She sounded like Margaret of Anjou." He quickly flipped through the volume until he found a page. "Ah. Here:

"Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog!

Thou rag of honour! thou detested–

"My books prompted some of her most inspired epithets, I believe."

"I can understand her," replied Hermione, sternly. "Book-destroyer! I wonder how they let you near manuscripts in the Brontë library. What were they thinking?"

Snape flipped again through Richard III and read in a mocking tone, "Sweet saint, for charity be not so curst."

Hermione took over the book and continued reading from the following verse.

"Foul devil, for God's sake, hence, and trouble us not;

Fill'd it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.

"A bit harsh, but appropriate," she commented, pretending to glower at him.

"Are you suggesting a duel?" Severus' eyes gleamed. "I used to read scenes from the play by myself, on this day, but maybe we can arrange a duet, if you apply to acting on cue."

"I can manage acting." She smirked back. "But I don't understand why you would celebrate Richard's day by reading a play that libels him."

"Do you think so? I'd say it's his greatest publicity anyway. Besides, in case you failed to notice, it's a fairly good reading."

"I won't deny it. So, the duel? Or duet, as you prefer."

"Elementary, Granger. You read Lady Anne's role, and I read Richard's."

Hermione settled closer to him in order to read from the same page. Severus was still wearing one of his long-sleeved shirts, but he had rolled up the cuffs – just one round – so that his pale, slender wrists were visible as he pinned the book open with one hand, his thumb on the left page and his little finger on the right page.

As requested, she resumed reading Anne's accusations against Richard. She hesitated, cringing, while reading aloud of Richard's 'massacres,' 'butcheries' and 'heinous deeds,' but Severus seemed to be throughly exhilarated by the parallelism, as if it was some kind of private joke, and by the time they reached the double entendres, she was hardly stifling her own giggles.

ANNE. He is in Heaven, where thou shalt never come.

And fall somewhat into a slower method...

Hermione laughed out loud, interrupting him. "A keen encounter of wits? This is what we have?"

"I hope so," replied Severus, echoing Lady Anne's line. He enclosed her shoulders with an arm and whispered to her ear, "But we do fall into slower methods sometimes."

She let herself slide slowly on his side, until her head rested on his lap, and she looked up to smile at him, at his glimmering black gaze. Then she closed her eyes to savour the sensation of his closeness. As she adjusted herself against his thigh, she felt his hand descending over her head and his fingers making their way through her thick hair to massage her scalp.

"If you continue like this, I'll fall asleep," she murmured, to quell the flush that was spreading over her face and caused her cheeks to burn.

"Nobody is running after us, Hermione," he replied, without stopping to stroke her hair.

She turned to face him, again, and he took off her glasses. They looked at each other for a long time.

Above him, the branches of the tree swayed gently in the breeze, the leaves hazy in the distance. Over the afternoon, the cloudy sky had gradually become clearer and clearer, and by then it was cream-coloured, almost bright. Beneath her back, the sparse withered leaves cracked whenever she moved, while the new grass bended docilely under her weight.

Summer is black.

Then, when he lay down on his back as well, she shifted at his side, hands crossed behind the back of her head.

The branches rustled. A ripple of voices, somewhere, chatting. Ants were surely climbing on her legs.

Peace.

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun/son of York...

They continued to glance lazily at the sky as noises arrived from a distance, followed by bumps, voices, a distorted howl, and then by beats.

"There is music playing," he said.

"There is," she replied. "It's jazz. My father's favourite music."

She stood up, shook off the leaves and dirt from her jeans. Severus brushed her back and she did the same for him.

They gathered their bags and threw the leftovers of their picnic in a litterbin. Walking out of the gardens, they came upon the source of the music. On a stage set up in Exhibition Square, a band was rehearsing whilst some crew members were ranging plastic chairs in front of it. The band featured drums, piano, bass, trumpet, and vocals; the quintet was rehearsing jazz standards.

They sat on the edge of the long, rectangular fountain placed in the middle of the square, watching the rehearsal for a while. Bits of songs, mostly, to tune the instruments, the mikes and the speakers.

Music is an art that develops through time, like reading, and not through space, like visual arts. Its beauty unravels through a succession of different notes, a progression from one state to the other, from one tempo to the next. During its flow, the music changes, turns, and returns over its phrases. Music makes you aware of time revolving.

Live jazz is peculiar in its aim to offer a distinct, personal version from the original one; given a tune, the challenge is to explore different possibilities from the same departing point, possibilities even ignored by the musicians before they start playing. Once the tune starts, the journey toward the conclusion is unknown. Improvisation and unexpected twists are always hiding around the corner. The musicians pursue variation, whether in tempos, in melody, or in performance times. Even the singing lines may vary dramatically from version to version. The challenge is to offer a new interpretation that retains enough of the original, in the turn of phrases, to be recognisable as pertaining to it. A bit like historical fiction.

Then suddenly, all the songs were about him, or the two of them, and what had happened over the summer.

Holding hands at midnight

Who could ask for anything more?

Was he thinking the same things as her?

He'll look at me and smile

I know we both won't say a word

And it occurred to her that it wasn't that plainly obvious that he would stay there, listening to music he probably didn't even like (had his father brought him to jazz concerts since he was too young to put on a record on the player by himself, because he would damage the needle, as her father did with her? She doubted) without making even a single objection about it. It flashed through her mind that, when he piled up motives of why he had chosen to escort her home – whether to annoy her, to heal her, to take inspiration after her – the only true reason was that he had wanted, simply, uncomplicatedly, to stay with her, to spend time in her company, even if he wouldn't ever say it. His explanations were his own way of justifying himself, of rationalising, of providing motives where motives weren't – to understand the drive that had set, the both of them, on a journey to the land of the unknown, where the unforeseen had tasted possible, like a variation in a song, like an obsession when the fear expired.

Although he may not be the man

To my heart he carries the key

Had that been written about him?

Impulsively, she grabbed his hand, laced her fingers with his, and squeezed it tightly. When he turned, she asked softly, "Do you mind if we stop at Haworth Road before going home? I forgot to collect something."

She was sitting on a bench in the rear garden of the Yew House, looking up at the starry sky. Severus peeped out of the kitchen door, holding two glasses of wine. He took his place at her side and handed her a glass. He clicked the brim of his glass against hers.

"To slandered kings," he toasted and took a sip. Then he tilted the glass and poured the remaining wine on the ground, where it quickly sunk.

"And slandered princes," she toasted quietly. She raised her glass in his direction and drained it.

Severus watched her perplexedly as she stood up and went inside.

"I brought something to read as well," she said in returning, switching on the bare light bulb that dangled from the wall. She handed him a book.

It was The Winter's Tale.

He revolved the volume between his hands.

It was an in-quarto, hand-sewn, no glue; bound in leather, decorated in such a way that its honey hue looked darker or lighter according to the depth of the inlay. The text was printed on a thick, lightly textured, ivory white paper, the edges of which had been cut with a knife, judging on the indentation. The typesetting was made with an old printing press, not digitally, considering how the characters were embedded into the paper, perceivable to touch. Black and white etchings headed any new scene.

"This is a story of slander as well," Hermione said. "But unlike Richard III, the slander is undeserved. As Othello, it's a story of unwarranted jealousy and suspects, but here peace is restored, what was lost is found and everything ends well. You may like this too," she said hopefully.

"I certainly appreciate the edition," he remarked, contemplating the volume.

Hermione smiled. "I bound it myself. During the years I've been unemployed, I sometimes did little works on commission, or for my pleasure. This was one of them." She put her hand over his on the cover. "It's yours now."

Severus looked surprised for a moment and replied unsteadily, "I cannot take it." Then he resumed his composure and added petulantly, "I don't take other people's books."

"It is not you who are taking it," she said gently. "It's mine to give freely if I want, to whoever I want."

As he continued to look at her, dumbfounded, Hermione flipped through the pages up to the beginning of Act I.

"Listen, if you don't know it, I'll begin with the start. Enter Camillo and Archidamus. Archidamus: 'If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia –'"

"No," he interrupted in a whisper. "Start when enters Hermione."

"That's just the second scene," she observed.

"Then we'll have almost all the rest of the play to read."

It was the 24th of August (Saint Bartholomew, patron of bookbinders), and two months had passed since she had chased him away from the reading room.

It was Monday, and she stood again in the library's archive.

They were separated and it felt like an aching tooth.

Brother Lucretius' fifth tome was almost done. It was coming along nicely. The seam was almost perfect, if she could say that of her own work.

He had called her nice (but that was in jest, wasn't it?) and had told her Magdalene looked like her (but there was no description, yet, and maybe there would never be). When she considered the way he held her gaze, Hermione was under the impression that he indeed found her agreeable to look at, even if she had a hard time in believing that of herself. Yes, she had come to accept that there was no solution for her hair, that her eyebrows looked better when plucked, and that makeup could make her look prettier, but in the end plain was just plain, and he had loved a true beauty, once, and she was none. As for her, she still believed he was ugly beyond repair. Exceptions might be made for his eyes, the secret double wrinkle, his moles, his hands, his voice (hardly surprisingly), the softness of his skin, the unmistakable allure of his smell, and that indefinable quality that provoked the heat that hit her whenever he was around – oh the heat – but of course she hadn't been exactly conquered by his charms. And she surely hadn't changed her opinion just because she had slept with him. After all, they were both quite rusty when she had told him, on that first night in his cottage, that surely his bed would be more comfortable than an old armchair in front of the mantelpiece for snogging.

She didn't love him – or, at least, she knew she could never love him in the fluttering way she had loved Chris Darrell, or in the – I don't want to know – way he had pined for 'the silly girl'. She hadn't desired him from the start; she hadn't dreamed of staying with him, or kissing him, or the rest before it had happened. And maybe it had happened only because it wasn't on a schedule.

He wasn't Chris, and she wasn't Lily – and that was okay. Better, maybe. She didn't look for a replacement for her great big love; neither could she play the fill-in for someone who was clearly irreplaceable. They were not, respectively, rivals to the acknowledged existence of their beloved ones. How could they, if they didn't even love each other?

When she was with him, she didn't even think of the dreaded four letters word, she was only aware of the heat, that she was happy, and that she was happier arguing with him than on her own.

Because love hurt so, it was fortunate that theirs was only a little, inconsequential summer flirt.

Yes. What was between them was only a chemical reaction on one hand, and a kind of bond built over mutual knowledge on the other. For all his pleasantries, he seemed to have an insight on everything that happened to her. She was not obliged to secrecy or to simplified explanations. Spending time with him was stimulating and relaxing at the same time. She didn't have to worry about what might or might not please him. She didn't have to hide. For if words would slip again between them, they would not be considered a definitive sign of non-attachment. And all thanks to fact that they didn't love one another.

On the other hand, despite the fact of him being so unattractive, she wouldn't say she wasn't attracted. Certainly, her body, that for the majority of the time served but a dummy to carry her mind around, declared itself attracted enough, like a magnet actually, thank you very much. It was sufficient for him to skim her shoulders to make her flare, and the situation was only getting worse with the days, as their bodies adapted to one another, as she learnt and he learnt and it wasn't so cautious and tentative as the first time. In the library, he would graze her fingers as he passed by the collection desk, and she would still feel the touch by the time he was back at his seat again.

When Ron was particularly disappointed with her attempts at cheering him up, he would call her frigid. He was probably right at that time, but then she liked and loved him, and his words hurt her. Therefore, she was glad that she didn't like or love Severus, and that she was simply accepting what the season brought.

When they joined, there was only the heat, whoever thought the man was cold was oh so wrong, and this luminescent sensation of expansion, like a candle halo. He solidified and burnt for her and she burned and melted for him in an alternate game of matter.

She was overtly aware of him staying in the reading room and could hardly care for other people when he was sitting in front of her. When she stayed in the archives, she would think of nothing but him, behind the book-shelved wall, in the reading room. And yes, there was something sensual about him that was only too evident since she had properly watched, but after all, there was a reason if she wore glasses now. Her vision had been troubled after the war.

Beyond the wall, there was this little dot of ink that she was now tied to, and she apologised if it sounded like a cheap metaphor, but with a needle and paper in her hand she couldn't think but of threads and bindings and bonds. In the other room, he was bent, like her, over a page; he wrote for memory, for not forgetting the past, while she mended the shells which preserved that past. Content and mould, pearl and oyster, shelter and wanderer, ink and paper; the ink percolating through the fibrous pulp of paper – the words forming on its surface were just arabesques among moles and---

---she tore a page of The Twelve Patriarkes.

She fixed it, horrified, dumbstruck.

She tore a page of the book she was restoring.

That she was supposed to be restoring.

That she should be restoring.

The damage was minimal, in fact; a rip no longer than a couple of centimetres. No one would notice. No one would tell it wasn't there from the start. The tome had much more severe cuts.

Still, this was unbearable.

She fixed it, and it looked like an earthquake.

It crept in faster than she could say Protego!

Did you want to rip it?

If you didn't want to rip it, then why did you do it?

Then why? Do you want to destroy all the other books there are here?

Then why? Don't you know anything about bookbinding, Granger? That was Mr. Hullarder's voice. Vanquishes You-Know-Who and doesn't know how to put a jacket on a hardback. Is this the way a good bookbinder behaves? Tearing books apart instead of mending them?

Then why did you enjoy ripping a page? A page moulded and printed in 1499? You enjoy watching blood dripping.

Then why have you done it? Did you want to rip it?

This is an obsession, she realised. It's an intrusive thought. It's not me speaking. It's a question that repeats itself, craving for an immediate answer.

To think about something doesn't necessarily mean to wish it to happen. This was Severus.

He was speaking a lot inside her mind lately.

They will block you. They would prevent you from doing normal things, as the 'allowed' things become fewer and fewer. Don't cut your wings yourself, Hermione. Don't let them win.

This was Severus again, though he had never said that.

How very touching, this cooing, but did you want to rip it?

I must not answer, she told herself. I have to let it go.

No, I don't want to destroy, she replied in her mind. I am here to restore. She had resisted three questions in a row and it was the best she could do for the moment. Maybe, the next time, she would resist longer.

Then why?

It simply happened. There was no will, no hidden meaning.

She took a deep breath and reached out for her wand. Deliberately, she pointed it to the torn page and whispered, "Reparo." The paper sealed back in an instant, as if the rip had never existed. The page was pristine once again. Just because it was a Muggle book, and magic worked on it despite of its age.

The scar on his throat, it should be there and yet there isn't, though I saw the piercing with my very, deceivable eyes.

He survived because he's half-Muggle, she suddenly thought, even if it didn't made sense. Arthur Weasley had been attacked by the loathsome snake as well and had equally survived.

She closed The Twelve Patriarkes and waited, patiently, for an owl from the Ministry to arrive. Miss Hermione Granger, according to the International Statute of Secrecy, paragraph P, clause 87... But the owl never came, as it hadn't come when she had opened the door in Haworth Road with an Alohomora (twice!). Did nobody care for a bookbinder, after all? Didn't the Ministry even care for a book, albeit Muggle? Or was it just the town, for which rules didn't apply?

Three days later, she finished restoring The Twelve Patriarkes. With her heart pounding in her chest, she forced herself to open up the volume. It wasn't easy, after her anxiety attack, but she told herself she must not play avoidance tricks, and somehow she managed to touch the paper again. At the end, she went upstairs, to Mrs. Peewit's office, to sign her contract for September (a temporary arrangement, until the NWL selection).

On Saturday, at the end of her three-monthly contract at 51, Haworth Road, she moved in the Yew House. A temporary arrangement, just until the National Wizarding Library selection. Actually, she didn't even contemplate the possibility of renewing her contract with Mrs. Neill, or of looking for another accommodation.

While packing, in the lowest drawer of her wardrobe she found the vial of the Draught of Peace Severus had given her back in June, and, in the drawer of her bedside table, the flask of Dreamless Sleep she had stolen from Harry's bedroom. She thought of Vanishing them, but eventually emptied them in the sink, hoping they would clog Mrs. Neill's pipes.

~x~ ALMOST AN END ~x~

I know you love me not... I do not love you

Only at dead of night

I smile a little, softly dreaming of you

Until the dawn is bright.

I love you not; you love me not; I know it!

But when the day is long

I haunt you like the magic of a poet,

And charm you like a song.

~ Agnes Mary Robinson, Love Without Wings, 1886 (Song VII)

A/N: Dear readers, thank you for sticking with this appalling, swotty fic for so long. Only two more chapters to go. Thanks to Pink Raccoon 80 for alpha-ing and Valady and RobisonRocket for beta-ing.

Richard III's quotes are from Act I, iii, 228-33; I, ii, 49 and following; I, ii, 108-120. And the very first two lines, of course.

The songs are Nice Work If You Can Get It, The Man I Love, and Someone To Watch Over Me, all by George and Ira Gershwin.