caruso | harlan

27 march 2004

Nice excused herself from the conversation she was currently observing (for she certainly wasn’t being allowed to participate) with a polite smile and a quiet “Excusez-moi,” despite the feeling that her lack of presence wouldn’t be noticed any more than her presence was being.

The auction had concluded and now everyone was mingling. Bérénice was attempting to follow up on bidders — see if she couldn’t encourage people to open their wallets a little more now that they had some food and drink in their bellies. The lights had dimmed somewhat, with the focus put back on the artworks hanging on the walls; there was a chamber orchestra in the main hall—where the auction itself had been—currently playing Delibes, if she wasn’t mistaken (she wasn’t).

It was a far cry from the circumstances of the people they were supposedly here to help.

Bérénice made a beeline for the bar, though she wasn’t drinking while she was working — despite her superior’s insistence that she absolutely could and should enjoy herself. En route, she thought she saw the back of a familiar blond head of hair and skirted around a group of elderly men with their much younger wives; Nice knew Harlan was supposed to be here—she had been privy to the guest list, given that her task was to essentially squeeze as much money out of them as possible (and that required some preparedness)—and had very briefly considered faking an illness, but she had never faked being ill in her life — nevermind that this was her first event in this role. And a part of her had wanted to see him.

Up until actually seeing him, from across the room, looking like he did.

He hadn’t responded to her pointed birthday gift—in hindsight, she wondered if that had been unintentionally cruel of her—and she had (reluctantly) elected to give him space. Resigning from Beauxbatons and starting a new position had helped to distract her ‘til now. The witch’s earlier decision not to drink was promptly cast aside when one of the bartenders asked for her order; “Champagne, s'il vous plaît.” One hand resting limply on the bar, Nice tried to covertly scan the room for him again — he shouldn’t be so hard to spot— Then the man to her left moved and revealed Harlan standing on his other side, mid-way through placing his own order. Bérénice stared at him, rooted to the spot even as her flute of Dom Perignon was set on the bar.


@Harlan Bellamy

Harlan skirted expertly around a group of patrons that he knew would pull him into a conversation he wouldn't soon escape. Instead, he made his way to the bar, his head dipped for fear of being seen. The auction was over and if he hadn't been practically contractually obliged via Madeline (and the greater Griffins management at large) to stay he would have been on his way out the door. God, he wouldn't have even come if it wasn't for her.

"A whisky, cheers," He nodded to the top shelf when he saw the question in the young bartender's eye before he had a chance to open his mouth. Harlan had already given a donation in the preferred form— silent— so the rest of the pomp and fucking circumstance felt disingenuous to the actual cause, he thought. But who was he to say?

He was only a Quidditch player, after all, he reminded himself darkly and to the tune of a particular Prophet article.

Taking a quick mouthful, Harlan turned on his heels to see a familiar face. It wasn't unexpected, but he was caught uncharacteristically off balance. How had he not felt that in his bones? Bérénice looked the same (it hadn't been that long, the voice in his head pointed out) but she looked entirely different all the same. The whisky, and Nice, burned deep in his chest and lingered there for longer than he cared to indulge.

They had seen each other and there was no feasible way of avoiding it. Harlan's mouth pulled into a smile, hard as a line against his mouth, and he lifted his glass in greeting from across the bar.

There was enough distance between them that she could have escaped, possibly, unseen — avoided any sort of confrontation— but then their eyes met and it was too late to pretend she hadn’t seen him.

Harlan smiled first, raising his glass civilly. Nice returned the expression, automatically—a weak, small tightening of her lips—then second-guessed why she had done that. She broke eye contact to pick her flute up, gripped the edge of the bar with her other hand for a moment to steady herself, then glanced back in his direction and—upon seeing that he was still there, that she hadn’t hallucinated—began striding over towards him.

He hadn’t ignored her, and he hadn’t run—couldn’t, here, unless he wanted to attract attention — and Harlan never wanted attention, unless it was on his terms—so this was her chance. She had no illusions of talking to him, here, but there had been a void in her life in the weeks since they had ended everything, made worse by what had happened the last time they had seen one another. The wedding had been the most uncomfortable experience of her life — bar the night before it.

As she drew up beside him Bérénice stood independently of the high bar counter on which he was leaning, holding her champagne in one hand and crossing the other over her front. “Salut,” she greeted him, then had a sip of her drink. She could be professional, civil.  Her free hand came up to check her hair—in a low chignon—then fidget with her diamond earring before returning to it’s defensive position across her waist. She had been rendered speechless many times before by Harlan, but this was different; she was determined, too, to prove something to him — what, she wasn’t yet sure of.

“I saw you on the guest list,” she told him conversationally. “Surprised Madeline didn’t offer you up as an item.”

There was a moment of pause as Harlan studied Bérénice delicately raise her champagne flute with an ease that he figured no mortal person ought to possess so effortlessly. Despite the distraction he was trying to determine if they were going to leave their interaction as that— brief.

Harlan knew almost instinctively that she was going to make her way over.

Suppose they needed to get it over with it sooner or later.

"Bonjour," Harlan replied with a slight bow of his head, unsure of what the appropriate physical greeting was. There was a subtle sense of relief that came with having broken the barrier in some small way. "Oh, she tried," He smiled woefully, affectionate.

"Luckily for me, she didn't assert her usual bullishness," He shook his head as if he could say anything different of himself. On a good day. "This is great, though," Harlan admitted. It was his own quiet way of confirming that he knew she was going to be there, orchestrating it all. As had Madeline.

In fact, it was her name that first caught his attention.

It felt unnatural not to greet him properly—a kiss on either cheek, a hug, something—and she felt rather young and silly again, unsure of how to behave around him— of what was appropriate (she didn’t think she would forget the way he had shrugged out of her touch any time soon). Still, she would take this over the radio silence she had endured for the last few weeks; his lack of response had left her bereft, missing — it had been harder to move on than had he given her something more finite.

Nice offered a small smile back before lowering her gaze — the only obvious outward sign of the anxiousness rippling away beneath the calm surface of her otherwise perfect posture was the way she kept rolling the heel of her right foot, her weight on her left.

The French witch flicked her warm brown eyes back up to meet the cool blue of the English wizard’s. She smiled again, more confidently. “That is lucky,” she agreed with the smallest of smirks. “For you, at least.” She could only imagine how much he would fetch for the charity if he had been willing to offer himself up for auction—a meet and greet, a one-on-one training session, a dinner—but that wasn’t his style.

Harlan’s comment on its own could have been that of any guest discussing the evening with a fellow attendee, but the inflection he’d used suggested more: he knew. Nice inclined her head slightly. “Well, I was brought on late in the piece,” she offered modestly, taking the opportunity to look around the large room before settling back on the man in front of her. She had a sip of her champagne. “Have you been before?” she asked, gesturing with her flute to the rest of the museum.

Harlan smiled, hesitant for a breath, before composing himself. There was an undercurrent of discomfort in it all. In the way that they moved. In the way that the air felt charged between them. Almost as if it was made of different molecules. On the surface they were two people having a conversation, catching up, but in reality— well, he didn't know what it was, and maybe that was the problem.

"For me, indeed," He agreed. It wouldn't have been the first time that Madeline had offered him up as the prize bull (and likely not the last) but he had dodged a bullet that once.

It was all in good nature.

The allure of charity was always there, of course, but as he got older Harlan found himself grappling more and more with the dichotomy between making a difference and selling himself. Where the two found a balance he still hadn't quite figured out.

"Many years ago," He followed Nice's gaze where she had gestured to the gallery, his own slowly canvassing the space, languid as it took in the details, before flicking back on her (just as interested, despite himself). "Hasn't changed a bit," He quietly teased, as if places like that ever actually changed.

"So you're the muscle then?" He ventured, taking a sip, breaking into half a grin as his eyes lingered on her arms. He knew the kind of event well so the protocol felt obvious, even when hidden in plain sight.

Nice returned her eyes to Harlan quickly, taking advantage of the seconds in which he was still canvassing the room to study the lines of his face and recommit them to memory — there was no guarantee of seeing him again so soon, after all. She smiled automatically when he met her gaze, and had another sip of her champagne. Hasn’t changed a bit, he said, and the witch wondered if he meant the museum or her — but not everything was about her, obviously; he meant the museum. She shrugged softly. “I don’t know, I think places like this are always changing — sometimes it’s just more subtle, harder to notice.” Was that an allegory too? Like the art on the walls, she supposed it was open to interpretation.

She shot him a reproachful look, half a smirk on her lips. “Brains over brawn,” she answered him curtly, looking pointedly at his biceps. “We both know which is the more powerful muscle.” And he did have both, didn’t he? And wasn’t that part of what drew her to him? Bérénice lifted her glass to her mouth and finished the remainder of the wine in one swallow, setting the empty flute on the bar beside them. She raised her index finger to catch the attention of the bartender and he nodded, understanding her silent order — so much for not drinking on the job.

Nice turned back to Harlan. “Actually there’s a new exhibit you might like.” She picked up her fresh glass as it was placed next to her elbow. She had another (long) sip, then took his free hand in hers. “Come with me.”

She led him through the crowd, more outwardly confident than she felt inside. Again, she was relying on the fact that he wouldn’t want to draw attention to himself in front of a crowd by causing a scene. At the edge of the room they passed under a wide, ornate arch that led to one of the gallery wings; the noise of the party immediately lessened out of the cavernous main hall, and their footsteps were now audible on the hard stone floor. Bérénice glanced over her shoulder to check they weren’t being monitored— and in doing so caught Harlan’s eye. She smiled, a mixture of nerves and excitement and the emptiness of loss swirling in her chest. “Trust me.”

“Here.” She brought them to a halt in front of a large canvas with an incredibly plain frame, compared to its neighbours. “It’s an original Karuzos. He was the illustrator for the Tales of Beedle the Bard.” She looked from the painting up to Harlan’s face, and in that moment realised she was still holding his hand. She let go, using her hand to tuck a wisp of hair that hadn’t been out of place behind her ear. “If I remember rightly, your home library has a rather valuable edition.”

Harlan was lost in a flurry of motion. Bérénice looked at him, she brushed his forearm (just) as she grabbed her drink, then touched his hand. His heart seemed to pump a little more quickly. By the time it had gotten to that, he wasn't sure what was real and in his mind anymore. "Hm?" Harlan hummed a thought but followed her either way, easily.

They slowed at a familiar work of art. His chest tightened. "You're correct. He was a favorite of Miss Penelope's," Harlan began despite the quiet crack in his throat. Nice would remember, surely. Penny had been more present in their childhood— from his family perspective— than his parents had ever attempted. And, Merlin, had they not.

Harlan took a step forward, the lights of his eyes illuminated with interest.

"My grandmother made sure it stayed at the family home," After Penny had died. Harlan paused again, glancing back to Nice. "It's beautiful," He fought the urge to buy it then and there and instead decided to admire it on a gallery wall a bit longer.

She had glanced back at the painting but only briefly, before her warm gaze found its way back to Harlan. With his attention on the artwork, she allowed herself to focus hers on his side profile: the soft furrow of his brow, the almost imperceptible clench in his jaw — the muscles of his throat picking up the light and shadow as he swallowed. She hadn’t forgotten the significance of that book—obviously, because it was what had made this painting stand out as she’d been shown around the gallery earlier in the day—but she had perhaps forgotten just how much his nanny had meant to him. She shouldn’t have — she’d attended the funeral, and had never wanted to see Harlan in that state again.

There had been an echo of that look in his eyes the last time she had seen him, hadn’t there?

Harlan stepped closer—to the painting—and the movement snapped Bérénice out of reverie; she stayed behind him, diagonally to the side, her hands coming together to hold her flute of champagne low in front of her. She was watching him as he spoke, and almost felt caught out when he turned to look at her. It’s beautiful, he said. The corner of Nice’s lips tugged up into a sad smile and she took a step forward to fall in alongside him, her eyes on the canvas.

She could remember being read the stories as a child (though she had known Babbity Rabbity as Lapina la Babille and had found the English name rather silly by comparison), and subsequently acting out the tales — Simon always seemed to miss the point that the knight in the Fountain of Fair Fortune was meant to be more hapless than heroic.

“I thought you would like it,” Bérénice said softly, turning her head to look at Harlan and smiling weakly. She let go of her wine with the hand nearest him and reached for his fingers again, loosely wrapping hers around them; a silent I’m sorry.

Harlan steeled his gaze forward despite the unmissable presence at his side.

It wasn't hard to do when the details of the work of art came back to him with every brushstroke and familiar use of texture and color. That was what made a great artist, wasn't it? Something distinguishable. Memorable. Harlan wondered if his own sentimentality was more tied to the art or to the memory, despite already knowing the answer full well.

All great art made you think of someone, he thought.

"I do," He answered easily before his gaze flickered down at their hands newly intertwined, a fraction belated as far as reflexes were concerned. There was a moment of simply watching the scene unfold before Harlan realized it was his thumb wrapping around the outside of her pinky and gripping the outside of her palm.

"Look—" Someone entered the room and Harlan glanced briefly over his shoulder. "I'm sorry for how I reacted," He assumed she knew what he was referring to. "I was just—" He paused. "Honestly, devastated," The confession had stunned him. Often his sadness manifested itself in anger, despite his every effort for it to not.

"A girl," The clench of his jaw released and his voice nearly cracked, just as it had the night Nice told him. He shrugged his shoulders and took his hand gently back to himself. A daughter. What would she be by then, if given the chance, he wondered.

Nice was holding a breath in, she realised, as Harlan looked down at their joined hands. It escaped as his calloused thumb wrapped around her hand, his skin rough against the smooth of hers, and Bérénice’s eyes closed for a brief second, a soft furrow in her brow. Relief.

She looked up at him, her brown eyes shining gently under the light — not unaware but uncaring of the intruder; right now all she could focus on was Harlan. The brunette nodded softly, her lips parting — though she didn’t yet know what to say to him. She almost didn’t want to say anything, lest she ruin it somehow.

Devastated. She could understand that feeling. She had mourned the loss at the time, but it hadn’t hit as hard as this time — now that she knew the situation wasn’t as straightforward as it had seemed, now that she had lost more. Absently, she wondered how many times she would have to grieve.

Harlan dropped her hand and Nice curled her fingers softly — just like that: cut adrift. “Yes,” she breathed, the tears that had been threatening to come forth a moment ago had withdrawn, though she had no idea if they would remain at bay. “A girl,” she repeated, her eyes unfocused on the painting in front of them. “Eighteen, almost.”

Harlan laughed, even though it wasn't close to humorous. There was an unmistakable air of pain in the sound as it met the marble of the display around them. It bounced off the high ceiling lightly and delicately as if to mock him. Eighteen, almost, Nice said. His breath felt trapped in his lungs like they were filled with smoke. He could feel the lost years gone.

How could he mourn something that never actually came to be?

He set his jaw and straightened up, swiftly remembering where they were.

"Again, I'm sorry for my—" For his feelings? Fuck. Harlan wanted to take it back, but he truly was, sorry. He didn't have any right to impose his hurt on her for a decision she had made for herself. "Why didn't you tell me?" His voice verged on cracking as he eventually tore away from the painting, glancing over his shoulder and catching her eye.

Nice almost flinched when Harlan laughed, expecting any reaction but that. Still, she could hear how hollow it was, how there was no actual joy in it—the opposite, if anything—made worse as it echoed off the marble floor and vaulted ceiling of the gallery. The witch had turned her head to look at him, easily drawn away from where she had been gazing unfocused at the painting she’d brought him here to see, and as she watched it—whatever it was, exactly—sink in, the familiar lines of his face becoming stony, her chest felt as though it had been cut into and carved out.

Harlan shifted, and Nice shook her head softly at his unfinished apology. “No, I shouldn’t have—” she started softly, stopping abruptly when his question registered. Her brows knitted together and she looked up at him, confused. “I did,” she told him, less sure of herself than she deserved to be — she had, hadn’t she? Had agonised over it, over his lack of reply and what that meant — and then been torn apart again, hurt by the way he didn’t even acknowledge it when they’d seen each other next, or ever.

They had been over this, back in that hotel room, but she could forgive him for not remembering the finer points of the conversation — if it could even be called that. She turned to face him properly, glancing at the almost empty glass of whisky in his hand before bringing her gaze back up to meet his. “I wrote to you when I was… before I did anything,” she explained, gently. “You said— you said you never got the letter.” And that was one of the last things he had said before he had told her to go.

Her right index finger traced the lip of her glass, held low in her left. “I thought you knew and— and that you didn’t want to...” She flicked her soft brown eyes back up to his cool blue again. “I’m sorry.”

Harlan's gaze narrowed, visibly in thought. His brow settled as the details of the night he'd last seen Bérénice came into his memory like a fog. He let out half of a breath. She had tried to tell him, she wrote to him, and he just hadn't gotten it. The more insidious part of him wondered if he could believe her but he knew that he could. That left an even bigger question; what had happened to the letter? Owls didn't usually just give up on their deliveries.

"Don't be sorry," He said more firmly than intended, a result of his lingering skepticism. She had nothing to be sorry for.

To be honest, Harlan wasn't sure how he would have reacted. At that age, he feared that he might have been capable of the worst, that her concern was valid. "I can see why you might have thought that," He confessed, but the tension in his shoulders didn't alleviate immediately. He finally glanced over to her again after a moment of studying the painting. "I don't suppose this one is up for auction?" He wondered, fully aware that he was changing the subject.

Anything to put distance between himself and the feeling he discovered in that hotel room.

It wasn't one that he was ready to face yet.

Harlan told her not to be sorry—an edge of annoyance in his tone—but she was, whether he wanted her to be or not. And not just for the obvious reasons—inadvertently keeping a secret from him, subsequently throwing it in his face to blindside him—but for the almost imperceptible insult she had aimed at him too: that he would have been so callous as not to even reply to a letter of such importance. The fact she had believed it at the time (and for the eighteen years since) because a part of her had obviously thought him capable — that was what she was most sorry for, right now. But she appreciated what he was trying to do.

He surprised her by going one step further, all but reading her mind (or was he? It wouldn’t be the first time she had wondered). Nice swallowed softly, unimaginably grateful for the month of days and nights that had passed — that was the only explanation for why he was being so calm, wasn’t it? He had had time and space to wrap his head around things — even if the distance had had the opposite effect for her. Her eyes fell to his hand at his side and she wanted to take it in hers again, anchor herself to him instead of suffering through the weird frisson in the air between them. “I was young and foolish,” she said quietly, flicking her gaze back up to his face.

Harlan turned his head to look down at her—though in her heels the difference wasn’t so dramatic—and she kept her eyes on his, breathing slowly. Deftly, he changed the subject — but she could forgive him that. If she had learnt anything about Harlan over the years, it was that he would never be forced into anything he didn’t willingly want to do, and she wasn’t particularly eager to spill all of this out here, now, mere metres away from a crowd of nosy snobs.

“Anything’s for sale if you’re willing to pay enough,” she said with a soft smirk, recovering and echoing words she’d overheard countless times in ‘their circle’ — that was why they were here with the nosy snobs, after all. Nice turned her attention back to the painting and subtly inched a step closer to him. “I can ask if you’re serious,” she offered. “Where would you hang it?” she asked curiously, happy to continue in a hypothetical world if it meant they were still friends in it.