"Do we have to beg for muffins?" Look at that pout. It may well be the same boy she knew, sulking about not getting a treat immediately, except that the manner with which he drops into the seat is totally changed. For the better maybe—more confident, more self-possessed.
But less in earnest eagerness, at least here and now.
"Thanks for this," he says, looking down at his teacup. "I'm certain this isn't easy on you."
"I don't think a Marchioness really has to beg for anything, but we can at least ask politely." Something warm settles in her chest and her eyes flick here and there, taking him in and watching him. Sometimes she thinks he really is just like the young boy that she still loved, even now, but then he shifts; he is still that boy, of course, that man, just grown up and far more damaged from the world itself.
He speaks, though, and Hermione hesitates, careful before she shakes her head.
"You say that like it's a trial for me," she replies, pushing his tea over and nudging at the small pot of honey. "I get to be with my best friend. It's not exactly torture."
"Not exactly, no," he answers. The way he takes his tea has changed: that is an awful lot of honey he is adding. What can he say? It's the 1980s.
"If it is a comfort, the, ah . . . uncertainty is something you're alone in, even if it's different. Sometimes I'm not certain if I knew you last week or a hundred years ago."
Stirring the honey in to make it melt. He is trying with her.
Hermione just watches, for a moment, relearning the little details, letting them slip into her memory before she shakes her head, absently.
"I suppose it is both, really, if we're talking technicalities. A few weeks ago you were here and we were doing just this, but since then a hundred years has gone by. It's not something that I'm expecting either of us to be able to snap our fingers and be done with. It's going to take a little time."
A pause as she takes a piece of toast, starting to put jam on it, but then she goes on.
"All I know is that I'm willing to do this with you until you are comfortable. To do what I can to make you happy."
The invocation of title is deliberate but not distancing. He glances up, and there is a new sharpness in his expression too, a find attention to features and peoples and the things that they might hide or tuck away.
"You ought to think about that as well. In your position, it is easy not to."
She hesitates for a moment before she shakes her head, putting her knife down.
"My happiness is easy. I get to be here with you. I get to see you and learn about you all over again. That makes me happy, Dorian, and it would make me happy even if I wasn't a Marchioness capable of giving you jam and toast whenever you wanted it."
Which is the truth. Her friends have always been the most important thing and the fact that Dorian is willing to give her another chance, willing to show her his soul and let her do what she can to love him - in spite of it, in his mind, she supposes - means more to her than she can say. When she looks up again she's careful.
She says it, but he doesn't believe it. Watching her now, seeing the expression.
At least, he thinks, she seems to be trying to be happy. A little bit.
"It's a hard thing to catch, happiness." A quicksilver smile— "Trust me, I've spent a long time not chasing it. Have you ever read The Picture of Dorian Gray? There's this lovely exchange that Oscar wrote for me and one of Lord Henry's relatives—'I have never searched for happiness. Who wants happiness? I have searched for pleasure,' I tell the pretty Duchess I would seduce, and she asks me, 'And found it, Mr. Gray?'"
He turns his head down, smiles softly. "'Often. Too often.'" Up lifts the cup of tea, and Dorian's fond tone of conspiracy lightens the gravity of it. "Sometimes, I suspect Oscar was trying to tell me something."
Hermione watches, pauses, lets the story sink in before she shakes her head.
"I never read it, no. But sometimes happiness and pleasure can be the same thing, can't it? Sometimes you can get such joy and pleasure from being happy that it feels like you're flying - and I'd know, I've flown before a few times. It's completely terrifying but sometimes it can be a bit of a thrill as well."
She pauses. He had found pleasure, but he didn't search for happiness. That's fine, she thinks, because she doesn't want him to have to dig and search to be happy; she wants to give it to him, freely, without chains or purchase, because why not? Why wouldn't she want to share her joy with him, offer her heart to him and let her hand go to his to give him comfort? He's still her best friend, after all, even if there is still so much for them to relearn.
"But... Someone once said to me - well, a group of us... 'Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light'. I like to turn on the light when I can."
"That's a pretty saying," Dorian murmurs, and not to dismiss it. "Even so, I worry about you."
It's like a new personality has stepped in entirely, and yet the transition is mercury smooth as he leans forward and looks at her. "I worry about how others might use you for their happiness or pleasure. So I'd like you to give me a list of your friends and associates, as well as your enemies."
"It came from a clever man. Not kind, not in the end, but clever."
The less she says about Albus Dumbledore, with all the things they know now, the better. It's another familiar ache, a strange betrayal, and she doesn't want to spent too long thinking about it. If she thinks about him she will think of Gilgamesh, of the lance that still sits high on her wall, and she will be frustrated and annoyed.
His request, though, makes her laugh, a soft noise that bursts out of her.
"Dorian, please! I don't think a list of all the people I know is going to do you any good - there's quite a few and they're all over the place. I don't even have any enemies, not really."
"My portrait has a stab wound that says otherwise," he answers, and then a second later realizes that might be a sore spot. "Um—what I mean is just—" Fuck. "I want to protect you."
Fuck.
Dorian aggressively dunks toast into jam, regardless of propriety, and then shoves the toast into his mouth.
"That - she's gone, Dorian, I..." She huffs, frustrated and a little hurt at the reminder. She may well have enemies, some she hadn't considered, and now she looks a little adrift, a little lost, letting the weight of that settle around her... Until Dorian speaks.
The smile that slips over her face is sweet and gentle, and she grins, shifting a little to nudge his leg from under the table.
"You can protect me without knowing a detailed list of everyone I know in this world, you know. I don't think there's enough paper for all of that." She breathes out a soft noise. "The only person I can really think of that might be trouble is Ganondorf and I still think he only kidnapped me for his own amusement."
Hermione hands over a napkip, careful as she watches him with a little amused smile.
"It was a few months after I first arrived. He saved me from having a mountain dropped on my head, but I was trapped in a room with blood granite for a while - which is why I can tell you from experience that it's foul stuff."
"Because I was Seelie, I think, and the Unseelie were trying to stop us from saving the dragon from under Redgate. I wasn't hurt at all, it was mostly just... Unpleasant. I've suffered far worse."
She doesn't think this is the time to tell Dorian that she is a veteran of both war and torture, used to the feeling of pain coursing through her, trying to suffocate her from the inside out, branding her in a scar that had only healed this year.
Given that he might try to punch a hole in the walls between realities, perhaps it is indeed ill-advised.
For he frowns now. This time, he respectably reaches for a knife to put jam on his toast. "I'll fashion you a secondary communicator, something discrete. If you're in such trouble again . . ." Although if blood granite stops her magic, it won't let his messages go through. He frowns, trying to think of a way around this.
It takes her a moment but, eventually, Hermione moves, settling back and shifting to cross her legs under herself on the chair. Not particularly formal, but this is Dorian.
"The compass I had made then worked as I was travelling, but as soon as I was in the dungeon it stopped." She pauses, considering. "Maybe something like the - no, um, ignore that." The ring Gilgamesh gave me. That was magic, too, and she really doesn't think it's an apt thing to mention.
"I'm not sure what can counteract the blood granite."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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But less in earnest eagerness, at least here and now.
"Thanks for this," he says, looking down at his teacup. "I'm certain this isn't easy on you."
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He speaks, though, and Hermione hesitates, careful before she shakes her head.
"You say that like it's a trial for me," she replies, pushing his tea over and nudging at the small pot of honey. "I get to be with my best friend. It's not exactly torture."
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"If it is a comfort, the, ah . . . uncertainty is something you're alone in, even if it's different. Sometimes I'm not certain if I knew you last week or a hundred years ago."
Stirring the honey in to make it melt. He is trying with her.
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"I suppose it is both, really, if we're talking technicalities. A few weeks ago you were here and we were doing just this, but since then a hundred years has gone by. It's not something that I'm expecting either of us to be able to snap our fingers and be done with. It's going to take a little time."
A pause as she takes a piece of toast, starting to put jam on it, but then she goes on.
"All I know is that I'm willing to do this with you until you are comfortable. To do what I can to make you happy."
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The invocation of title is deliberate but not distancing. He glances up, and there is a new sharpness in his expression too, a find attention to features and peoples and the things that they might hide or tuck away.
"You ought to think about that as well. In your position, it is easy not to."
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"My happiness is easy. I get to be here with you. I get to see you and learn about you all over again. That makes me happy, Dorian, and it would make me happy even if I wasn't a Marchioness capable of giving you jam and toast whenever you wanted it."
Which is the truth. Her friends have always been the most important thing and the fact that Dorian is willing to give her another chance, willing to show her his soul and let her do what she can to love him - in spite of it, in his mind, she supposes - means more to her than she can say. When she looks up again she's careful.
"I am happy."
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At least, he thinks, she seems to be trying to be happy. A little bit.
"It's a hard thing to catch, happiness." A quicksilver smile— "Trust me, I've spent a long time not chasing it. Have you ever read The Picture of Dorian Gray? There's this lovely exchange that Oscar wrote for me and one of Lord Henry's relatives—'I have never searched for happiness. Who wants happiness? I have searched for pleasure,' I tell the pretty Duchess I would seduce, and she asks me, 'And found it, Mr. Gray?'"
He turns his head down, smiles softly. "'Often. Too often.'" Up lifts the cup of tea, and Dorian's fond tone of conspiracy lightens the gravity of it. "Sometimes, I suspect Oscar was trying to tell me something."
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"I never read it, no. But sometimes happiness and pleasure can be the same thing, can't it? Sometimes you can get such joy and pleasure from being happy that it feels like you're flying - and I'd know, I've flown before a few times. It's completely terrifying but sometimes it can be a bit of a thrill as well."
She pauses. He had found pleasure, but he didn't search for happiness. That's fine, she thinks, because she doesn't want him to have to dig and search to be happy; she wants to give it to him, freely, without chains or purchase, because why not? Why wouldn't she want to share her joy with him, offer her heart to him and let her hand go to his to give him comfort? He's still her best friend, after all, even if there is still so much for them to relearn.
"But... Someone once said to me - well, a group of us... 'Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light'. I like to turn on the light when I can."
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It's like a new personality has stepped in entirely, and yet the transition is mercury smooth as he leans forward and looks at her. "I worry about how others might use you for their happiness or pleasure. So I'd like you to give me a list of your friends and associates, as well as your enemies."
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The less she says about Albus Dumbledore, with all the things they know now, the better. It's another familiar ache, a strange betrayal, and she doesn't want to spent too long thinking about it. If she thinks about him she will think of Gilgamesh, of the lance that still sits high on her wall, and she will be frustrated and annoyed.
His request, though, makes her laugh, a soft noise that bursts out of her.
"Dorian, please! I don't think a list of all the people I know is going to do you any good - there's quite a few and they're all over the place. I don't even have any enemies, not really."
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Fuck.
Dorian aggressively dunks toast into jam, regardless of propriety, and then shoves the toast into his mouth.
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The smile that slips over her face is sweet and gentle, and she grins, shifting a little to nudge his leg from under the table.
"You can protect me without knowing a detailed list of everyone I know in this world, you know. I don't think there's enough paper for all of that." She breathes out a soft noise. "The only person I can really think of that might be trouble is Ganondorf and I still think he only kidnapped me for his own amusement."
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Don't try to talk with your mouth full, Dorian Gray. He waves his hands, indicating no, he needs to say something, let him swallow.
Finally: "He kidnapped you?"
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Hermione hands over a napkip, careful as she watches him with a little amused smile.
"It was a few months after I first arrived. He saved me from having a mountain dropped on my head, but I was trapped in a room with blood granite for a while - which is why I can tell you from experience that it's foul stuff."
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And how can Dorian marshal his forces to conduct a siege on Mair right now?
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She doesn't think this is the time to tell Dorian that she is a veteran of both war and torture, used to the feeling of pain coursing through her, trying to suffocate her from the inside out, branding her in a scar that had only healed this year.
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For he frowns now. This time, he respectably reaches for a knife to put jam on his toast. "I'll fashion you a secondary communicator, something discrete. If you're in such trouble again . . ." Although if blood granite stops her magic, it won't let his messages go through. He frowns, trying to think of a way around this.
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"The compass I had made then worked as I was travelling, but as soon as I was in the dungeon it stopped." She pauses, considering. "Maybe something like the - no, um, ignore that." The ring Gilgamesh gave me. That was magic, too, and she really doesn't think it's an apt thing to mention.
"I'm not sure what can counteract the blood granite."
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He knows a sidestep when he hears it.
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She hesitates, shifting a little, awkward as she reaches to fiddle with the handle of her teacup.
"My ring. From Gilgamesh."
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More tea into the cup.
"When he proposed?"
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"That is what people do when they propose, Dorian."
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... Though she supposes it's a little daft, keeping hold of it for so long afterwards. She sighs.
"I don't keep it with me. It's right at the bottom of my chest."
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