(G.Hall) Witching Hour

[Narcissus Drachen]

Cutlery scrapped against white china in the Great Hall, even if everyone around Narcissus seemed to be eating with their hands. Late summer and late evening, the house elves had caused an uprising with the dinner, midnight and extremely late to the faculty’s dismay. Professors marched up and down the House tables, shepherding first years to gather their plates with Yorkshire puddings and roasted parsnips to eat by candlelight in their beds. They all thought it terribly exciting. Overhead tiny stars burned in the rafters, a small galaxy taken for granted by the thousand people guarded under it, and Narcissus sipped warm cranberry juice, closing his eyes and wishing it were thick wine. The energy in the air made everything feel like Christmas Eve and Narcissus smiled against the rim of his goblet, Professor Dia Owen curling her hair about her fingers and stirring his imagination. She always made him think of secrets.

‘I don’t know what you want, but you’re making me blush.’ Narcissus turned, at last, to reel in the person he knew had been staring at him for the last thirty seconds, a subtle smile on his face…

[nectar]

Aud considers him there, standing over Narcissus with a faint smile. "You would've looked better if you had. If you really had blushed, I mean," her voice is small in the hall's din of good silver and reaching laughter. She examines Narcissus' expression, nonplussed and still unceasingly handsome amongst the acne stricken boys of his year, who smile awkwardly up at her, forgetting briefly their meanness. Was Aud so out of place, herself? A gryffindor from the third year brushes past her and, because he is from the brave house, risks a small moment to smell her golden hair, to just nearly touch the girl. Though he's thought of it for so long, Aud barely notices. Behind them, there's a blast of cat calls as he returns to the friends who will shake his hand, pat him on the back, lie in bed tonight and wish it was them who had done it. "Are you going to offer me a seat?" she asks without hesitation. Aud's face is open, lucid and her eyes measure Narcissus without the slightest hint of want or projection. "Please. My legs are tired from standing here, leering at you."

[Narcissus Drachen]

The subtle smile sunk, lips parting in such faint surprise it looked as though Narcissus had fallen in love, pretty white candles shimmering in his eyes like moonlight on the sea. Her expression was completely austere, the skin of her high cheek bones blushing a warm, dark toffee, honey and brown sugar sprinkled through her hair like bite size confectionary, to be savoured for the two hedonic moments that it would last. Aud Lennon was something to be tasted.

Aud’s mouthed moved slowly and Narcissus shuddered, grappling to remain anchored in the disarray that she, this little girl, had once again instilled in him. An unfamiliar invidiousness made him feel sick and acidic, and he rested one elbow against the table to steady himself, disguising it as a lovely arched of his back, hoping she would look. Hopefuls perched around like magpies waiting to move in on the gold, but Narcissus felt wretchedly dull as the Gryffindor boy leaned his hips, so helplessly and without a chance at grace, toward Aud instead. Narcissus's thunder sounded from inside her pocket and he had no idea how she had managed to sneak it there. ‘Well, if you want one, then certainly. Right here… sit.’ Narcissus slid to one side, watching her unsmilingly.

‘I did the other night but you obviously didn’t notice. How many other people have you startled with obscure questions since then, hmm? I’ve seen girls laugh at you.’ He teased her.

[nectar]

"I don't think I'm obscure. Do you think you're veiled?" she asks, fingertips grazing the lacquered surface of the table as she takes her place at its side. Her nails are delicate ovals. Aud is watching for Narcissus' expression to change, waits for the little softenings of the jaw, for where he'll rests his eyes and for how long he lets himself look. "Or...was that question obscure?" She doesn't listen to herself talk, lets her voice fall in to soft blurred humming with everything else that rises and falls in the hall around them, a girl who calls Aud a bitch under her breath and the healthy, unselfconscious laughter of hufflepuff boys drunk on secret barley wine, a thousand savored mouthfuls. Dinner forks clattering on ensorceled china. These sounds become a kind of swoon, a gentle, breathless disorientation when she looks directly upon Narcissus' balanced form, his needy, pretty eyes. There's a kind of comfort in just being in the presence of beauty, something deeply affirming in it. For a moment the core of unrest and moral chaos is soothed, forgets its own displeasure, its own painful self knowledge. Narcissus still, expectant, leans in as if to consume her presence with his own pure intensity and pauses in the space between them, agitated, distracted. All of this is music from another room he can't hear in to. Though he, a boy behind that knowing and strongly sexual mask, cannot seem to fathom her condition it is understood, implicitly, in that face tense with subtle, inarticulate longing. "I don't always hear them, those girls. You must have a good ear for women if you can." The boys, the select girls, stare attentively from their seats, penitent and reverent as monks, nuns, confessors to their own dream catalog. What does a tender, bare thigh mean, in divination, in visions, really mean? What about the smell of flowers washed out by something like the rain, a brief note of something more metallic, the color white? I think god is talking to me, Professor. There is another world inside the one Aud has lived all the days of her life. "Do they talk about me as much as they talk about you? I've tried hard not to listen." She drinks from his glass.

[Narcissus Drachen]

Aud slowly lowered the goblet, her lips glossy with the thick fruit. Narcissus slid his tongue against his teeth, recalling the bitter sweet of it, and he was suddenly tormented by craving. Looking about himself in paranoia of unknown watchers catching him in some secret act, Narcissus hid his guilty thoughts behind bedroom eyes. The Slytherin was at a loss to know what to do with the cup now, whether to retrieve it defiantly or pour another, the commotion of her presence enough to surrender it to her as anyone would to him. Narcissus, the one without shame, was rife with it as he looked at Aud’s wet mouth, two smooth shells parting with the tide. It alarmed him that she seemed so disinterested in her own impact and he swept his hair away with the back of his hand, as if that silky, feminine gesture might send her hurtling away like blasted glass. He would not loose himself to this.

‘I’m not veiled, I’m mysterious,’ he explained with deliberate haughtiness. ‘And good ears for boys, too; though, do you honestly need to strain to hear them? I hear your name everywhere…’ Narcissus reached out, hand skilfully avoiding the goblet to find a purple grape, rubbing the soft flesh of it between the pads of his fingers. Clear nectar perspired from its fount and he drew it into his mouth, nails lingering against his lips to suck them clean of the natural sugar. He hadn’t the bravery to look at her as he did this, though he fantasised, with an unfamiliar neediness, that she had seen him. ‘It’s a shame if you do – or don’t want to… who wouldn’t want to?’ He blustered, smooth brow knitted in disagreement at this. He looked sideways at Aud before smiling. ‘People hide their desire behind insults, you know. I bet they’re all pining to be your best friend.’ Narcissus grinned against his hand, gesturing with his eyes for her to look at the crowds, relieved, for once, not to be the focus of anyone’s attention.