She whispered

by Lucas Chesterton

  ‘Ah, I’m beginning to see what you’re getting at. You think that your Stephen Periwinkle, just because of his condition, might be the one who’d crack Leshnikov’s code?’

  ‘Well, I was thinking that for breaking a code, you need a focussed mind, an analytical way of thinking. And Stephen seems to have a knack for, well, looking into things. Or people. ��� Look, it was just an idea, and maybe a daft one; sure I’d have to know him better before I asked him to give it a shot. ��� But!’ she added quickly as Daysen was opening his mouth, obviously ready to argue, ‘but it is something to be kept in mind. Apart from that, I thought you might be glad to know that there’s someone in the academy who’s on my side.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘He more or less promised to keep my secret.’

  ‘He might have lied.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s capable of lying.’

  ‘Yet you’re telling me he lied to his brother.’

  ‘He didn’t tell him. There’s a difference between not telling and lying.’

  Daysen inhaled deeply and Elena saw that he had a hard time not rolling his eyes. ‘You know, Elena, when I still did spy work, I almost always found that the best way of dealing with matters is to keep it simple. The more allies you have, the more variables are in the mix, and a lot of variables make for a lot of confusion, risks, incalculable factors ���’

  ‘I know what you mean. You may be right, too. But this boy ��� there’s something about him ��� he is getting to me.’

  ‘Ah’, said Daysen, but nothing more than that. He stared ahead at some elusive spot in the room.

  Elena went on emphatically. ‘I can’t help thinking all the time about how his life must be. To be that lonely, that misunderstood ���’

  ‘I may cry’, Jack murmured.

  However, Elena was so much in her element she completely missed the strange twitch around his mouth. ‘Most people just dismiss him because they don’t understand his behaviour and so they don’t take the time to look beyond it. They don’t see that he’s actually brilliant! Muggles call that ‘high-functioning’ ���’

  ‘Do they now.’

  ‘Yes, it means that within his personal limits, Stephen has perfectly adapted to his surroundings, and if you consider how difficult it must be for him, it becomes evident how highly intelligent he is ���’

  ‘I still think you’re being overly trustful and na��ve.’

  ‘Jack, can you just accept it when I say that I have a very good feeling about this?’

  ‘Yeah, you are obviously full to the brim with feeling!’

  Elena stared at him. He’d spat out the words and now stared angrily into a dark corner. Again, she increased the pressure of her hand on his chest, but he jerked his head as if she was an irksome fly and withdrew his own hand.

  ‘Another stray, huh?’ he growled.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You like the intelligent lost boys, don’t you, who are so to be pitied because they are so misunderstood. What, are you gonna start a collection?’

  Elena realized her mistake. At the same time, she wasn’t exactly sorry, although clearly she had hit a weak spot with him. Her eyes didn’t leave his face, willing him to return her gaze, but he was stubborn, scrutinized the corner he’d chosen as if it held some fascinating magical secret.

  ‘How often do I have to tell you?’ Elena asked quietly.

  She had no way of really knowing whether he understood what she meant ��� How often do I have to tell you I’m in love with you? He appeared set on sulking, and there was an angry tension in his body. Her hand on his chest started moving again, and with the tips of her fingers she traced the button line on his shirt, then ventured up, towards his lightly bandaged neck, his sour-looking face.

  Jack’ hand flew up and caught hers in a tight grip. He turned to her with flashing eyes. ‘What is this?’ he hissed. ‘Trying to soften me up again? Why, when you’re going to do exactly what you want, regardless of what I say?’

  She pulled her hand out of his grip. ‘If your opinion didn’t matter to me, I wouldn’t be telling you any of this at all’, she explained coolly, although his reaction pained her. At the same time, she knew that she mustn’t give in to these moody tantrums of his, not when she felt that what she was doing was justified. It would get her exactly nowhere with him, plus she’d lose his respect in the long run.

  Jack was staring into his corner again. Demonstratively, he folded his arms over his chest, signalling that he was in no mood to communicate. Elena sensed that regardless of what he’d said, he wanted her to soften him up and in fact she was tempted, part of her was prepared to give in. The other part, however, saw that it just wasn’t right and this was why she couldn’t just lay there, staring at him, willing him to return the gaze once more. With a sigh, she shifted on the bed and turned her back to him, pulling up the blanket. ‘Sleep well then’, she said, trying to sound calm, ‘at least once you’re done sulking.’

  No reply.

  Elena groped for her wand which she’d deposited on the nightstand and with a flick of it, she extinguished all the candles in the room. Her heart was once more beating hard, half anxiously, half angrily. She pressed her eyes shut with determination, but at the same time realized that she wouldn’t be able to sleep.

  Behind her back, everything was quiet. Only after a few minutes she could feel him shifting and then heard a loud clatter as he was pulling of his shoes and let them fall to the ground. Then there was the rustle of fabric as he took off some item of clothing; a laborious cough and another shift.

  ‘Gosh, I hate it when he’s like that’, Elena thought to herself. ‘Why is it so much easier for him to be stubborn than it is for me?’ She felt tears coming to her eyes and would have liked to moan. How overly sensitive she was wherever he was concerned! She swallowed, determined not to let emotion overwhelm her. However, this was difficult as there was no way she would sleep under these circumstances, and he was so much better than she was when it came to enduring uneasy silences.

  The minutes ticked away while Elena kept listening to the complete silence in the darkened room.

  Then there was another shift behind her back. She thought that she heard him sigh. And in the next moment, she felt his fingertips on her shoulder. ‘Elena ���’

  The sudden touch and the whisper ��� surprisingly close to her ear ��� almost made her jump, but she willed herself to lay still. His fingers travelled over her shoulder, lightly, gently. His warm breath caressed her skin.

  She couldn’t take it any longer. ‘S����er ���’, she moaned, feeling a desperate and confused. That word she’d said to him before, in the night at the lighthouse, and she’d also explained to him what it meant, sweet man. Maybe he remembered it, because the next thing that happened was his arm sneaking below the covers and around her upper body. He gripped her ribcage just below her heart and pulled her close to him, against his chest, pressed his face into her hair and murmured something she didn’t catch. Elena inhaled sharply, was completely overwhelmed by this passionate embrace, her entire body tingled and she felt his heart beating madly against her shoulder blade. For a few seconds, she remained still, then she couldn’t take it any longer, squirmed in his arm and tried to turn around to face him. He didn’t let her. His grip was so tight she was unable to move.

  She heard his silky voice at her ear. ‘Like this. Please.’

  Had she ever heard Jack Daysen say a pretty ‘please’? It was hard to resist.

  ‘You and your mood swings’, she sighed.

  A few seconds passed. Then he whispered, ‘I’m sorry.’

  By way of a reply, she put her hand on his, close to her breast. His fingers slid apart, making space for hers. Again, she felt him bury his face in her hair and then, after a while, his lips on her shoulder, her neck, gently brushing, and his hot breath. Her skin felt as if burning up.

  ‘Jac
k’, she moaned, ‘let me turn around ���’ She so wanted to kiss him or at least to nuzzle against his neck, touch his face, show him with tenderness what she felt.

  ‘No’, he replied, ‘please.’

  ‘I can feel that you want to ���’, she started protesting, but he shushed her.

  ‘This is what I want’, he whispered, ‘what I need.’

  Again, she wanted to protest, but then it occurred to her that this was the first time he’d spoken about what he needed. Maybe, she thought, she was taking too much for granted by stereotyping him as an ordinary male chiefly out for sex. And although lying like this, flush against his body, she couldn’t help noticing his desire, she thought that maybe this was more important to him. Closeness. Tenderness. Maybe this was why he always created these situations in which he first pushed her away and then came close again, as if to test her affections. And although this little male game ��� ‘Be there for me, but don’t nail me down’ ��� unnerved her, she wasn’t at all sure that he did it consciously.

  So Elena decided that this must be enough for now. With a contented purr, she pressed against him, her fingers intertwining with his. She willed herself to bask in the moment, in his arm around her, his breath on her neck and the occasional light brush of his lips.

  It took a long time until she calmed down and her heart returned to its normal pace. Soon after that, however, she felt herself slipping into delicious sleep ���

  The next time she woke up, it was dawning outside and the luxurious Tudor-style bedroom was bathed in a greyish light. Before she even realized this, she became aware of Jack softly snoring into her hair. His arm was still around her body, but its grip had loosened. This was her chance. She had to turn around.

  Slowly she shifted, careful not to upset the mattress too much. He lay on his side, still wearing his pants and the crisp white shirt, buttons undone to expose a pale, black-dusted chest. His mouth was slightly open, his hair tangled in his face. Gently, she brushed aside a few black strands, then bent over him, touching her lips to his temple, his cheek bone.

  When she drew back, she saw that his eyes were open. He looked at her, guardedly at first, but when he saw her smile, he returned it tentatively, reaffirmed his grip around her and pulled her once more against him. Sighed deeply.

  Elena chuckled, then settled down and closed her eyes again.

  When she woke up again a few hours later, she found him sitting on the edge of the bed in his coat and shoes and obviously waiting for her to come out of her slumbers. His eyes when she looked at him were soft, the usual guarded glare replaced by something different that hadn’t been there before. He didn’t smile, but Elena sensed that something important had changed.

  The next hours confirmed this. Once they joined Narcissa and Draco at the breakfast table, Jack’ impassive face was rigidly set again, and yet there was something about the way he moved, behaved, spoke that seemed unusually at ease and calm. Their hosts gave nothing away, but from the occasional speculative smile Elena saw on Narcissa, she probably sensed it, too.

  The broom ride back was quiet, peaceful. Elena was relaxed now, trusting him, and before long she let her head sink against his shoulder while he had his arm around her waist, and when she put her hand on his, he didn’t object but obligingly parted his fingers for hers to slip in between, as he had done the night before. Every now and then, she turned her head a little to look at his profile and the expression of calm concentration on it.

  ‘See?’ he said into her ear at some point. ‘You only have to relax. And then you’ll notice that it’s not the broom carrying you, that’s just a means to an end, to support your imagination. But you’re truly carrying yourself because you are a witch and you can fly.’

  He was right, Elena noted with a strange sense of wonder. ‘I could never fly like you, though’, she said into his ear so that he would hear her over the breeze, ‘without a broom.’

  ‘Of course you could’, he held against, ‘if I were to throw you from the top of a tower, you’d fly. How do you think I learnt?’

  ‘Someone threw you from the top of a tower?’

  ‘Not someone. Voldemort. And not from a tower, either, but from the edge of a very high and ragged cliff.’

  ‘Don’t do that to me, please’, she said with a smile, ‘I’d hate that.’

  He made a show of frowning doubtfully. The corners of his mouth twitched. Eventually, however, he said ‘Alright, then.’

  They arrived safely on their clearing in the woods. It was obvious that Daysen would proceed to Hogwarts where he had duties even on a Sunday. Elena, too, had things to do to catch up on her thesis. Also, she’d been given scores of stuff to prepare for the Crowley Academy. For some reason, however, their fingers would not part. They acted as if they didn’t notice it, coming up with one organizational thing after another.

  ‘Let me know about the academy’, Jack said, holding on to her eyes with his, ‘what’s happening. Also, keep me owled on any progress with your ��� very special boy.’

  Elena beamed at him. Although he’d spoken with a degree of sarcasm, she saw very well that he had grudgingly approved of her proposal to enlist Stephen Periwinkle’s help. He might not like it, but appeared to acknowledge the fact that he had to let her use her own judgment occasionally. ‘I will, I promise.’

  ‘Careful’, he admonished her.

  She nodded.

  Then, very slowly and hesitantly, her fingers slipped out of his and they each went on their way.

  Two major events set the following week apart for Jack Daysen.

  The first occurred on Monday night after he’d finished grading papers with growls and generous streaks of blood-red ink. Finally through with the stack, he pushed it as far away on his desk as he possibly could and sat back in his armchair with a dejected sigh at the two hours of frustration that lay behind. Really, sometimes it was as if the tykes spoke a different language, they didn’t appear to understand at all what he was continuously telling them, he might as well not have bothered! But such was his fate, the unwilling teacher carrying the torch of wisdom into muddy waters where it would be extinguished with no more than a sorry hiss. ��� Enough with that now, he had earned himself two fingers’ width of Ogden’s once he’d arrived in his private quarters. Also, he had earned himself a bit of musing, allowing in thoughts he’d pushed under since that unplanned sleep-over at the Malfoys’, but that were now beckoning to him to be thoroughly indulged in. He was about to get up from his chair when a loud knock made him stop in his tracks. A second later, Pomona Sprout stuck in her head through the door.

  ‘You’re wanted down by the Forbidden Forest, Daysen’, she bellowed, ‘now.’

  ‘No’, he replied with a determined head shake, ‘no patrolling duty for me tonight.’

  ‘Are you deaf?’ Sprout peered at him with narrowed eyes. ‘You’re wanted. There was an incident.’

  ‘What kind of incident?’

  ‘Only thing I know is that one of your House is involved’, the Herbology professor replied with a shrug, ‘so you better get your scrawny ass down there.’

  Sprout was a no-nonsense both-feet-on-the-ground kind of person and had no sense for ceremony. Daysen didn’t usually mind this ��� in fact, in his mind Pomona was the lesser evil among his colleagues and she certainly knew hell of a lot about magical plants ��� except for when she referred to his backside, so he cast her a very cold look, growled under his breath and checked for his wand. ‘What have they done now?’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll find out’, Sprout chirped.

  Find out he did. Down by the edge of the Forbidden Forest, a small party of people had gathered that reminded him of a flock of overexcited birds. There was a looming and twitching Hagrid whose large frame looked, as always, slightly out of place. There was Filius Flitwick whose turn it was to patrol tonight together with a select flock of Ravenclaw seventh years, and Hermione Granger who appeared to have a sixth sense for u
nusual occurrences. In the midst of all these people, Jack spotted two smaller figures, huddled together, one dressed in blue and bronze school robes while the other’s had a green and silver hue ��� He recognized Laurie Paik, first-year, first Muggle-born in Slytherin for years and seeker for the Slytherin quidditch team, and Cindy Hollis, Paik’s inevitable sidekick from Ravenclaw. As he came closer, he spotted an immovable figure on the ground; horns, rubbery skin ���

  ‘What happened?’

  Anxious eyes turned on him.

  ‘Another satyr attack’, Flitwick growled darkly. ‘When I thought we’d finally gotten rid of that pest ���’

  ‘Is anyone hurt?’

  ‘Fortunately not. As it appears, you taught your students well ���’

  Daysen had gone to his knees to examine the satyr lying on the ground and apparently out cold. Then he glared up at Paik and Hollis who looked green around the nose. ‘You took him out?’

  ‘Yeah’, this from Paik, rendered breathlessly, ‘Cindy got him from behind and I finished him off.’

  Daysen gingerly touched the unconscious satyr and lifted a rubbery eye-lid. The creature issued a hardly audible moan. ‘Thorough job’, Jack murmured, more to himself than to the girls.

  ‘Well done, ladies!’ Hermione Granger applauded. ‘And all on your own, too! You know, that reminds me of my own first year when Harry, Ron and I took out a ���’

  ‘What were you two midgets doing in the Forbidden Forest at this hour?’ Jack broke in savagely. ‘You know full well it’s off-limits!’

  Laurie Paik started. ‘We just ��� I mean ��� we didn’t ���’ she shut her mouth and her eyes looked wild.

  Daysen bent over the satyr once more to hide the satisfied grin that was curling his lips; so his efforts of the last weeks to teach even the youngest Hogwarts students some satyr-self defence hadn’t entirely gone into the muddy waters. He felt distinctly pleased, but would rather have bitten his own tongue off than show it.

  ‘Yer ain’t goin’ ter cut this one up again, are yer?’ Hagrid glared at Daysen with wary eyes.