The Winged Lion - Part 3, for Hannah

[avsno26rocks]

Chapter 3-The Lion

I didn’t sleep well that night. When I dreamt, it was of Hogwarts. Of running down corridors, of being caught by the Carrows, of torture and hate, and the adrenaline that flooded through my body all that year.

I didn’t mind dreaming about that. It was not a common occurrence, but neither was it a rare one, and when I remembered my dreams, they usually consisted of me running. I held my actions in that year as a talisman, as proof that I was a Good Person, no matter what I had done since.

However, the fault in that theory was Padma. She didn’t fight back as much as I did, being less foolhardy, though she planned a few missions. She was only caught once, and that once and its aftermath had haunted my nightmares for the months after the battle, and now, suddenly, they were back.

The dream had always followed the same pattern. I am sitting in the common room with Lavender, when Neville comes in. My heart leaps, I fancied him so much then, but I notice the grim expression on his face and I knew.

Then I’m running. At this point, I realise this is a dream because the corridors seem to stretch to infinity and I’ve passed them at speed so many times, in dreams and reality, that I remember every painting, every suit of armour, every crack in the walls. I always try to wake up, but can’t. Instead I run until finally, after an age as long as the castle, I reach the office, and bash at the door, demanding to be let in, shouting that I was the culprit and Padma was an innocent bystander.

I hear Amycus Carrow shout at me to go away, I hear Padma whimper, and then the door is no longer there. In reality I blasted it open, but my memory chooses to skip that and instead focus on Carrow, my sister bent over the desk under him, her robes bunched around her hips.

There’s a lot of light. And then Carrow is on the floor, his desk scorched, and I grab Padma’s hand and we run to the Room of Requirement. We sit there, breathing heavily, and then the door opens and Neville and Michael Corner, a good friend of Padma’s, are there. In reality, there were hours between these two incidents, but that doesn’t matter. Because it is true that I had beaten Carrow, and if I hadn’t done that, then Michael Corner, who had been trying to free some first-years from the dungeons, would not have so badly beaten that we feared for his life.

Time passes strangely in dreams. One minute Michael is pale as a ghost, scratched and bruised, the next I am arguing with Padma.

She says I’m too Gryffindor, and I should have let her take the punishment, and that it was my fault that Michael was hurt.

I shout the question: Should I have let Carrow rape her?

I think everyone suspected that that’s what happened. Lavender said she had never seen me so furious as when she saw me in the room with Padma, who was still shaking from what had happened. But Padma hated it being out there. She hated everyone knowing what had happened to her. She hated the fact that she’d been singled out by the Carrows, and felt in some way tainted by his touch, by the fact he’d wanted her, when no-one else had been.

The last image I have, before the dream finally allows me to wake, is Padma, looking hurt and angry.

We didn’t speak much between then and the Battle.

When I wake up, my cheeks are usually covered in tears, I am scrunched up in a ball, and when I extend my body the bed is cold. This time, however, I feel Charlie’s arms tight around me, his breath on my shoulder as he whispers that everything is all right, and that he will look after me whatever happens, and I felt that I could fall time and time again, and he would always catch me.

However, indescribably lovely as that feeling was, I knew I had to leave him. I had to go, before this became any more perfect, because I knew it would only make that fall from perfection all the harder.

But the truth, the truth I refused to admit, was that I suspected I was falling in love. And apart from the many, many reasons why Charlie Weasley would be the Wrong person to fall in love with, I didn’t want to fall in love. I had thought several times that aged seventeen I would have happily said I would kill for a romance like this. But I was no longer that girl, and I had learned what it meant to be willing to kill for something, as well as the impossibility of romance. I had to leave, but I didn’t want his last memory of me to be that of a sobbing wreck.

I felt the bed lighten, and realised Charlie was getting up. I stayed in bed, thinking through what I should do, for a few more minutes, before getting out of bed, and dressing. I suddenly realised that there were voices in the kitchen, one being Charlie’s and the other female.

“I don’t like this,” Charlie was saying, in a strangely frustrated voice. “I don’t like it one bit.”

I couldn’t hear what the woman was saying, and by the time I opened the kitchen door the fireplace was empty. Charlie looked at me in surprise, saying, “You were asleep.”

“And now I’m awake. Who were you talking to?”

Charlie looked, for a moment, as if he wasn’t going to tell me, but then he said, awkwardly, “My boss. They want me back in Romania. They--they say they’re putting someone else onto this. I have one more lead to follow, but in two days I’ll have to go back.”

I shrugged. “Okay.”

His face fell slightly, and my heart matched it. Stupid girl, I thought to myself. You’re a Gryffindor. Have the bravery to end this before it becomes too difficult.

Charlie was opening and closing his mouth like a gaping fish, but finally managed to say, “Just--okay? I don’t mean any more to you than ‘okay’?”

“Charlie, we’ve known each other three days,” I said, as carelessly as I could, but I think he and I both noticed the tremble in my voice. He grinned and I suddenly felt weak at the knees. I’d never realised that was actually a physical reaction one could have. My knees had always been reliably solid.

He stepped towards me, and I stepped back. He frowned. “Have I done something wrong?”

I shook my head fiercely. “No. In fact you’ve done less wrong then anyone I’ve ever--” I stopped myself, hearing the emotion threaten to overwhelm my voice. I looked up at him and smiled. “You are perfect. That’s the only thing you’ve done wrong. Goodbye.” Yet I stayed where I was, instead of leaving.

“Goodbye?” he said, still not catching on. “Parvati, aren’t you going to--last night--”

I turned around, facing the door. Just step towards it. Open the door. Leave. Never see him again. Be brave.

But I had to answer him, and truthfully. I couldn’t face him as I said, “Last night was beautiful. And you were lovely as I cried, and I wish I was someone you could be with, but I’m not.”

“Wait,” he said, and something in his tone made me turn round, perhaps because I’d regained some measure of control over myself.

He looked confused and hurt, as he managed to say, “Please, Parvati, I--” but then stopped.

I raised an eyebrow, and then he swore suddenly, thumping the wall beside him and pressing his head against it. Behind him the sunlight shone through the window, catching his hair and making it glow, like the embers of a dying fire.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he said, slowly banging his head against the wall with each thump.

“What is it, Charlie?”

He turned back to look at me and said, “Parvati, you are the most sad, enigmatic and amazing woman I’ve ever met, and I think I’m in love with you.”

I didn’t know what to say. I opened my mouth, but no words came out. So I did the only thing I could do; I ran. I heard his footsteps follow me, but I slammed the door and was at the bottom of the stairs by the time he got it open, and running down the other end of the street by the time he emerged from his flat. I turned a bend, over a bridge, and down the street.

It was early morning still, so there weren’t many people about, but enough to make Apparating impossible. I’d never seen the streets of Venice so deserted. I glanced over my shoulder to see Charlie on the bridge, his eyes met mine, and then I tore around another bend, into a doorway, out of sight of the cafe on the corner, and cast a Disillusionment Charm on myself.

A blur of red hair flew past me, I heard the footsteps continue to pound the street and then come to a stop. Tentatively, I poked my head out of the doorway, hoping no one resident there wished to enter or leave while I was using it to hide.

Charlie was kicking the wall with his foot, and thumping it with his fist. Then he stepped back, took a deep breath, and began to walk.

Something was going on here. This was not just a man who had been rejected, he was walking across the city with purpose, and I followed him.

I removed the charm, because as we walked, we were heading in the direction of San Marco Square and the crowds were thickening. It didn’t matter though. I’m good at following people. It’s part of what makes me so good at my job, I thought, feeling a fragment of the contraband dragon horn I’d stolen from Charlie in my jacket pocket.

I followed him onto a piazza, but stood in the shadow of the church, to watch him go to a house opposite it, and then ring the first doorbell, before going inside. I risked Apparating across the piazza, and no one had been nearby enough to see or hear, so I managed to catch the door in time. It was a very old building, and the floorboards creaked as I walked up the stairs. I’d heard a door bang, so assumed wherever Charlie was going was there.

Once I was on the first floor I heard Charlie shouting, so it was easy to find which flat he was in. I pressed my ear to the door, and heard a voice saying, “Are you sure you weren’t followed?”

My heart stopped. I’d recognise that voice anywhere.

Padma.

I hadn’t seen her in over four years and now here she was, in Venice, with the man I’d been falling in love with for the past few days.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Charlie said, in an angrier voice than I had heard. “I was careful, all right?”

“Oh, please, Charlie, don’t look at me like that.” Padma had always had a more abrupt, sharp way of speaking than I did. She did not suffer fools gladly.

“When I promised to do you a favour I didn’t think--”

“I just said distract her.” I could imagine Padma rolling her eyes as she said it. She could always imply more meanings with her features, a raised eyebrow, a twinkle in her eye, whereas I was more transparent. The years had changed me, I guessed.

“I--I can’t. Not anymore. If you don’t want to see her then leave this city, because next time I see her, I’m telling her.”

“What? You love her?”

I almost laughed. Padma had always been somewhat more serious than me, and I recognised her tone of utter scorn and disbelief that such a thing could possibly occur. As well as her laugh of shock afterwards. “Oh. Charlie, I thought you were going to be your usual relaxed self about this--”

“She’s your sister!” he shouted.

“Charlie,” she said, no longer amused, “you agreed to this.”

“Yes, but I thought it would be fun and just a joke--” I could hear Charlie’s footsteps as he paced around the room, but they were interrupted by Padma’s short sharp laugh.

“A joke, Charlie? I thought your brother was insensitive, but you are something else. I beg my best friend to get me out of the castle, and not tell my family where I’ve gone. I get taken to a Muggle hospital and they make me better, as best they can, and I travel the world, anywhere that isn’t Britain, anywhere I’m not known. And you think I did all that for fun?”

I couldn’t see, but could imagine Charlie standing there speechless, a stunned expression on his face that probably matched mine. I could barely breathe.

“But why? I never asked and--”

“You asked, Charlie, I didn’t answer. And you were wise enough not to ask again.”

“But--she’s your sister!” I could imagine him shaking his hands in frustration. “She’s worried about you, she misses you. Why not see her?”

“I don’t want to see her. I ran away from her, from everyone who knew me. I’ve been running away from her every time she’s followed me. Rowena knows how, but somehow she’s got word of me. Luckily, someone tipped me off that she had word of me, and managed to flee. But I like Venice. I don’t want to leave this city. You were here anyway, and so I asked you to distract her. That’s all I said. Not sleep with her, certainly not fall in love with her. And if you’ve told her that, then from what I’ve heard, you won’t get a chance to tell her that I’m here.”

“What have you heard about her?”

“Things,” Padma said, and there was a short silence before Charlie said, scornfully, “What things?”

“Things. From Joseph, our uncle, for a start. I thought he’d put her off, but it was more complicated than that. Parvati’s cleverer than anyone ever really gave her credit for, that’s why she didn’t often get caught during the last year at Hogwarts. Is there anything else you want to say?”

“I don’t know. You--I don’t know what I’ve got myself in for. Damn it, Padma, I--I don’t know what’s happened to me these past few days. She looks like you but she--can I tell you one thing about her? One thing?”

“Tell me. I’m fascinated.”

“Don’t be sarcastic. You are happy. I know you like to be all distant and cool but you are happy here, you were happy when I met you in Romania. You’re settled and content with the choices you made. She’s not. And--”

“Oh, cry me a fucking river, Charlie, what’s the point of this?”

I could feel the tension in the room, even through the doorway. All my instincts were telling me to go, but I couldn’t move. This was my sister. And Charlie had known.

“Fine,” he snarled. “And I will see her one more time, I won’t let her--I have to. Just--the only reason I agreed to this was because you would give me a lead into the dragon trade. So tell me who it is.”

“I know what I promised, and I do keep my promises. You’ve already met her. My sister is currently running dragon parts, antique and new, from Mumbai to Shanghai to Moscow. She’s done it for two years now. And unless I’m very mistaken, she’s outside the door.”

There was enough time between Padma talking, and Charlie’s footsteps starting and the creak of the floorboards, for me to run. But I’d had enough of running.

The second the door opened, however, I wished I had. Whatever I had imagined Charlie’s anger to look like, it was nothing to being suddenly confronted with his expression. His face had turned sickly pale, and his hair seemed even redder. His brow was furrowed and lips pursed and he was staring at me as if I was a stranger.

I looked past him. The room was large, and the long curtains were billowing in the wind. There was a large bed, and then one table, behind which sat Padma.

She didn’t look any different. Why should she? It had only been four years.

“Hello,” I said, breathless.

“Hello Parvati,” she said calmly.

I didn’t know what to do, having put off imagining this moment for so long. And now it had happened I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to think or feel. I could feel my eyes watering but was not sure what emotion that was supposed to denote.

Padma smiled. “I’ve never seen you so quiet.”

And that was it. I ran across the room and hugged her. She was somewhat taken aback, but then hugged me just as tightly.

“I missed you,” I managed to say, through the tears, though whether of relief or joy or what I still did not know.

I could feel she was about to say something, but was hesitating. But suddenly she said, “I missed you too.”

I think, despite having had only vague ideas of what would happen when we finally met, I had expected some animosity. But there was none. I was too relieved that she was alive, healthy and safe, too happy that I had finally done something right, in finding my sister.

She released me, and we looked each other up and down. “You haven’t changed,” I said.

She laughed, and then said, “I think I have. I just--I’m not going to apologise. But I wanted a new beginning. A fresh start. Can you understand that?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “You don’t have to explain yourself.”

And she didn’t. She’d explained herself to Charlie, probably knowing that I was outside the door, and telling me to my face would be more difficult for both of us. I understood exactly how she felt. She had hated the war and so why shouldn’t she have fled from it? I had fled, going first into drink, and then running around the world on the pretence of chasing her.

“Not to me, anyway,” I said. “But to our parents--”

“No,” Padma said sharply, for the first time sounding scared. “No, I--please don’t tell them I’m here.”

“Padma, I can’t--they think you’re dead.”

“Please,” Padma said, voice faltering. “I can’t go back, I can’t--”

I paused, before making my decision. “I’ll tell them you’re alive. You should see them at some point. I’m not saying you should see them today, or this year, but at some point. All right?”

“You have changed. I’ve kept track of you, I’ve heard about you from Lavender--don’t be angry with her.”

“She’s my best friend, I could never be angry with her for long.” Suddenly, as we smiled at each other, it was as if we were still seventeen and able to trust each other with anything. To reassure her of this I said, “And I’m not angry with you. Though you have led me a merry dance.”

“So I did,” she said, grinning.

“What’s wrong with you two?” Charlie shouted. We’d forgotten about him, but as we turned to look at him, he was staring at us both as if we were from another planet.

“What’s wrong with us?” Padma smiled, holding my hand. “We’re sisters who went through a war together. And then I ran away and she ran after me. And now she’s found me. And she’s also found you.” Padma turned to me and said, “He is adorable.”

I frowned. “Have you--” I couldn’t finish. There was something odd about that which I didn’t want to think about but Charlie just began to shout denials, and Padma laughed.

“No, I have not slept with Charlie. I don’t--I don’t like men.”

“Oh?” I said in surprise. “You know that’s fine, I mean Mum and Dad might not be, but they’ll--”

Padma once again just laughed. “No, I don’t like women either. I think I’m just--” She shrugged. “Sex bores me. It doesn’t scare me, no matter what that monster did, but I find it so achingly dull. I much prefer my books.” She gestured to the desk laden with weighty tomes.

“Padma--” I began to say, but she cut across me angrily.

“I believe what I choose to believe and I believe that it bores me. I’ve been trying to run away from you for so long, please allow that I have become the person I am without your help.”

I considered arguing with her, but knew better than to do so when she had that expression.

“And now I think you have some explaining for Charlie.”

“I think you do,” Charlie said, nodding in agreement. “That’s the first thing you, either of you, have said which makes sense.”

Padma released my hand, and walked to the door, past me and a still stunned looking Charlie. As she walked, I noticed she limped slightly, and wondered how the Muggle doctors had fixed her. She opened the door, and then looked back at us, saying, “I’ll leave you two alone, for a bit. But before I go, Parvati, have you told him about the war?”

I shuffled uncomfortably, staring not at Charlie, whose gaze was now fixed on me, but at Padma. “A little.”

“Have you told him you enjoyed it?”

“That’s not true,” I snapped.

“I think you should tell him. You think I’m being cruel, but I’m not. It helps explain why you do what you do. Because you remind me of the lions that this city chooses as its symbol. You can fight, Parvati, I know you can fight. And those wings you have, those wings which make you so powerful, they also mean that when you choose, you can fly away from the things you’ve done, from the people you’ve seen, from what you’ve lost. And--” Padma had always found apologies difficult, and though I had not expected or needed one from her, when she said, “I’m sorry. I truly am sorry for hurting you,” my heart ached with love for my long lost sister.

“That’s all right.” She smiled, and stepped through the door, but I didn’t want to be left alone with Charlie’s anger, and so said with trembling voice, “Please stay.”

She laughed. “Oh, Parvati, you’ve survived without me this long. You don’t need me. We used to need each other so badly, but now look at you. You helped fight a war, and have dealt with the crime lords of Asia and Europe. This conversation should be easy by comparison. I’ll be in the cafe opposite this house. I’ll see you there.” And with that she was gone, shutting the door gently behind her.

I stared at the floor.

“You lied to me,” Charlie said, his voice cold as ice.

“You lied to me as well,” I said, but my voice was shaking. “Did you ever fancy Padma?” I added, hoping to put him on the spot.

He just stared at me in surprise, before shaking his head vigorously, saying, “Of course not, I never--she scares me,” he finished, honesty in his voice.” When you look into her eyes she’s--cold. And she’s happy like that. You--you’re--” His voice faltered, his tone weakening, before he straightened and said, “Don’t avoid the question. Don’t lie to me, not again.”

“I didn’t lie to you, I just--didn’t tell you the truth.”

“The devil’s in the detail like that,” he said tersely. “No more lies. Only the truth.”

I sat down behind Padma’s desk, sighing. I stared at the books, all with long, complicated titles, comprised of several languages, some of which I didn’t even recognise. She’d been busy, these four years. But then so had I.

I took a deep breath and spoke. “You want the truth? The truth is that when I was seventeen I was a silly, romantic little girl who would say I couldn’t lie to save my life. Well, I learned that I could. I learned that I could run, and hide, and graffiti walls and set off fireworks. I also learned that I couldn’t kill, but I could come pretty bloody close. And when the war ended--I missed Padma, I felt like someone had cut off my hand, and I that I had had some hold on the knife that did it, but I also missed the adrenaline. The thrill of doing the Right thing, and of that being wrong. I suppose I’m a rebel without a fucking cause, aren’t I?”

His face was stone, as was his voice as he said, “Did you steal the dragon horn from me?”

“Of course I did, my fingerprints are all over it. Joseph said you were about to use Muggle fingerprinting techniques, and so I had to.”

“That piece of dragon horn was taken off a living creature, in a reservation in Xinjiang province in China. We found a man called Vladimir Levin trying to sell it in France, two weeks ago. Why were your fingerprints on it?”

I took a deep breath, before answering him calmly and truthfully. “Because I carried it from China to Germany, where I gave it to Vladimir.”

“Did you take it from the dragon?” He was getting increasingly angry, and stepped towards the desk, placing his palms upon it and staring me in the eye. “Did you drug its food, and then hack it off, with spells so crude that the dragon is now blind?”

“No,” I answered quickly. However I hesitated for a long time before telling him the full truth. I hoped he would stop glaring at me, because I didn’t have the courage to have him see me for what I was. Then suddenly I thought of the lions, remembered that I was a Gryffindor, and so was Charlie, and he deserved the truth.

“I was bored, it was something dangerous and I enjoyed it. That’s the truth,” I said, looking up at him. I wanted to say ‘Please don’t hate me’ but I had my pride.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said, standing upright pacing the room up and down in front of me.

“Neither do I.”

“Did it mean--Did it mean anything? I mean us?” He gestured between myself and him.

“Yes,” I said, rather desperately, standing up. “You have no idea how much it meant to me.” I was shaking all over. I had never wanted to be believed so badly in all my life.

“And yet you still stole from me, and probably read the list of suspects--”

“Yes, I did, but I didn’t mean to sleep--I’m sorry. I don’t know! I’m sorry.”

My cheeks were still wet from the tears I’d spilt when I hugged Padma, and now they began to threaten again. But I had more control where Charlie was concerned. He didn’t seem to like me crying, however, because he said, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Padma.”

“It’s fine,” I replied quickly. “My crime is far worse. And I understood exactly what I was doing, and I didn’t care.”

“No, you didn’t care at all.” Suddenly he sat down in front of me, and said, “Join us.”

“Excuse me?” I said, not believing what I’d heard.

“I said join us.”

I stared at him very carefully. Given how angry he had just been, I was sure that he did understand what I had been doing these past few years, but I wanted to be perfectly clear. I was tired of lies.

And so I said, “I lied to you. I stole from you, I have been participating in an industry which you loathe--”

“Do you want me to hate you?” he interrupted. “Padma said you feel the need to push people away, I’d worked that out at the first sight of you, but this is another level. That’s what you’re doing now. I’m not saying I forgive you--” There was a hitch in his voice that matched the hitch in my heart as he spoke. “What I am saying is that I can offer you a job working for the International Dragon Conservation Agency, helping to destabilise the illegal trade in dragons and their effects.”

“And it doesn’t bother you? What I’ve been doing for the past two years?”

“Yes, of course it does, but--I really don’t want to lose you,” he finished, somewhat pathetically. He reached his hand across the desk, looking into my eyes. “So join my side.”

Was he in love with me? Was that what this was? Or was he just making a canny decision, based on his knowledge of me and what he needed to accomplish his job. But I think, as much as he wanted this to be love, and I didn’t, it was neither but something in between. And we could have sex until we were sore, and no matter how much I worked for him, he’d find it difficult to forget my past. Just as Padma had worried that people in Britain would never be able to forget hers. And he hadn’t realised yet. He was thinking that by offering me redemption, everything would be all right, but it wouldn’t be. The way he had looked at me in this room was different to the way he’d looked at me last night.

But, I suddenly realised, I would do anything to get him to look at me like that again. For now, we could at the very least sleep together. He looked like he wanted to kiss me, and as I nodded, reaching out to just hold his hand, he leant forward and kissed me. And it felt good, albeit bitterweet.

But I wanted to do anything. I liked danger, and this would be dangerous. Once Rambir realised I’d switched sides, he would come after me, but I didn’t mind that. I’d have a few months before he twigged. I could even spend a few months pretending I was being a double agent. The devil’s in the detail, after all, and I am very good at details. But I could only be so good for so long. Eventually I’d get something wrong, something would betray me and I think, even someone as sweet as Charlie, would find the Indian-Chinese network of crime lords coming after their girlfriend one step too far.

I was brave, yes. I was a Gryffindor, after all. But when the time came, I’d have to find the strength to pound my feet and stretch my wings and flee.

I could learn how to fly.

“I don’t want to lose you either. Not yet,” I murmured, before kissing him again. The curtains blew over us, and we got entangled, and somehow we both contrived to giggle. Once we’d freed ourselves, we found we were on the balcony, and looking onto the piazza.

Across the way, sitting at a cafe, Padma sat at a table, and smiled, toasting us with her espresso.

The End

Back to Chapter 1
Back to Chapter 2