The Taking of Tea

CHAPTER THREE: SOMEWHERE I HAVE NEVER TRAVELLED



somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond

any experience, your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gestures are things which enclose me

or which I cannot touch because they are too near



your slightest look will easily unclose me

though I have closed myself as fingers,

you open always myself petal by petal as Spring opens

(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose



or if your wish be to close me, I and

my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility: who texture

compels me with the color of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing



(I do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens; only that something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands



“Hermione?” Remus Lupin’s voice could be heard from the other side of her door, “are you in?”



“Just a minute.” Hermione called, pulling her head from the sink and grabbing a towel from the rack. “I’m trying to get this horrid stain out of my hair,” she explained, opening the door to her rooms, “and I’m not having much luck.”



“It makes you look rebellious.” Remus waggled his eyebrows.



“It makes me look like a toad.” She answered, gesturing for him to come in and sit down. He took one of two large armchairs. They were both covered in wonderfully soft chenille, and were warm from the fire before them. The hearth was made of tile the warm color of sand, and above it was a magical reproduction of Botticelli’s La Primavera. In it Demeter’s handmaids were dancing, and Persephone was forever pulling the flowers from her mouth, struggling away from Hades’ grasp. It was, for all its beauty, rather dark, and Remus wondered what it might reveal about Hermione.



Interrupting his contemplation, Crookshanks, who was settled in the chair opposite, stretched his legs over the edge and gave Remus a warming meow. The wolf in him was beginning to stir, and Hermione’s familiar clearly disapproved.



“Tea?” Hermione stood before him, toweling the ends of her hair. She was wearing a cotton robe, bright blue as a robin’s egg. It had pulled open at one side, revealing the fine line of a collar bone and the hollow above it. Her feet, which were bare, sported toenails painted a vivid red. He examined them curiously.



“It’s a muggle thing.” She answered, following his line of sight, “makes me feel…adventurous, I guess. Although with this new hairstyle I hardly need it.” She settled into the chair beside him after nudging Crookshanks away, and he was suddenly aware of her scent. The faded smells of books and potions simples fell deep into the background, and the smell of her soap and hair was overpowering. Lily of the valley. Hermione never wore perfume, and although he’d noticed the scent before, it was never so strong. It was sweet and tart and clean—like the taste of apple—and Remus had the sudden urge to tongue the hollow that her robe revealed.



“No tea, thanks.”



“Well then,” she said, her face clean and smiling, “what brings me the pleasure of your company?”



She had a spray of freckles across her forehead that he’d never noticed before, and suddenly, she seemed impossibly young.



“The wolfsbane potion.”



“Oh.” She said, standing up and feeling heat on her cheeks. She had, till then, been entertaining the notion that Remus had simply come for a visit. “Come pop into the storeroom with me, will you? I’ve got it there. Just give me a moment to get decent.”



“Of course.” He said, rising from his chair to watch her go behind her bedroom door. In a moment she emerged wearing jeans and a heavy wool jumper, silk slippers on her feet.



Leaving her rooms and heading out into the endless hallways of the castle, they made their way to a large oak door, heavily warded, and Hermione produced her wand to pull it open. Inside was a room that still made her stomach flip with delight, and would forever remind her of the well-intended purloins of school days. The walls were shelved floor to ceiling, and those shelves were three deep with potions and their ingredients. As Hermione climbed the ladder to an upper shelf, Remus looked about.



He hadn’t seen this room since Snape had been faculty, and he’d expected it to be much changed, with matching jars neatly lined and labeled. Instead, there were glass containers of every color and shape, a number of dark green ones that were squat and round, some very tall vials made of shimmering glass, others of dark red shaped in whimsical curves, and the few labels that he could see were written in an illegible scrawl. The room was dim, and smelled of dust and mildew, but stronger still of medicine and magic. Looking at Hermione and then higher still, he discovered plants dangling from the ceiling, hung to dry. Among them were paper lanterns in red and gold, enchanted to create light.



“Here we are.” She said at last, climbing down the ladder with a purple vial. She put it in his hand, and he grimaced in anticipation; the stuff tasted awful. “I’ve added mint,” she told him, “to help mask the taste. It should also help to combat the side-effect of indigestion.”



“Clever Hermione,” he praised her, pulling loose the cork and tipping back the vial. Swallowing the last of it, he pronounced, “much better!”



“Good.” She looked up at him with an expression of extreme pleasure, as if she’d accomplished something quite impressive, rather than simply eased his discomfort. Her smile showed her dimples and the white, straight line of her teeth. At his puzzled look she remembered herself, taking the empty vial from his hand and feeling incredibly foolish. At best, Remus would never see her as more than a former student turned bookish colleague. She turned from him to set the empty vessel on shelf, giving herself a moment to school the disappointment from her face.



“Well.” She said, her voice unnaturally bright, “I suppose I’ll be off to bed.” He nodded, and she followed him out of the storeroom, replacing its wards when they came into the hall.



“Thanks, Hermione.” He smiled warmly, and she thought there was some pity in his face.



“Of course.” She shrugged, waving goodnight as he turned and made for his quarters. After a long moment watching his retreating form, she shook her head, whispered an expletive that would have shocked her students to no end, and made for her own rooms.





Putting the last of his clothes on the bed, Remus checked the wards on his door and settled on a thick rug beside the window. The lights within Hogwarts had dimmed to soft as its occupants readied for sleep, and the sky above was impossibly black, thick with stars. Sirius was bright and rising from the horizon, and the thoughts of Padfoot it provoked brought Remus a moment of unbearable pain.



Was his old friend dead, or did he wander somewhere behind the veil, trying to find his way back to the living? For a moment, Remus wished for the former, rather than damn his friend to being lost and longing for those who loved him. It had been more than a decade since Sirius had departed, and Remus still thought of him daily. If his passing—or whatever it was—had been peaceful, the memory might have put itself to rest, but as it was Remus found himself constantly haunted by the shock and fury on his friend’s face, and by the soulless laughter of Bellatrix Lestrange. Soon, Remus felt the painful snap of bone and sinew as his body twisted and bent to become its sinister other. New eyes returning to that bright star, he loosed a powerful howl.





A/N: poem by the fabulous e.e. cummings