Beetle's wing
She went back for the beetle’s wing ink. She had dreamed about its iridescence. Thought about it constantly in the time she had been away from the shop. Time that had been a mixture of waiting for it to get late enough to avoid other people, and hoping that maybe this would be the day he asked to spend time together outside the shop.
She wasn't sure why she wanted to. Well, the loneliness was an obvious excuse, of course. But it was something else, too. She thought about his pale eyebrows and eyelashes. The fact that no one else ever seemed to be in the shop at the same time. The way he moved around, as though he was scared of breaking something. He moved slowly and deliberately. Oftentimes he would say what he was going to do before he did it.
“I’m just going to grab this colour for you, Hermione.”
“I’m going to reach up to the top shelf to pull something I think you’d like to see.”
She had started doing it unconsciously around him, narrating her every move.
“I’m just going to look over at this display.”
“I think I’m going to test this colour next.”
She knew what it was, this reassurance. It was careful. It was kind.
She kept thinking about him and his little name badge. The same black trousers he wore. No robe. Just jumpers. Not even a shirt underneath. He looked casual, expensive. Even with the dyed hair he looked…
She wasn’t sure. Patrician? His nose was long, maybe that was why that word appeared in her head. His fingers were, too. He was often moving them, fiddling, twisting something. She wished she could know what he thought about this. Did he want her to come in? Was he indulging her out of guilt?
She never felt he was when she was there, but her mind was powerful and capable of spinning tales in the gaps where they weren’t together. And the gaps had plenty of evidence to support this anxiety. It didn’t matter that he treated her like a person in the warm and soupy interior of the shop. He had spent many years doing the opposite of that. Her dreams spat mudblood, she woke up with hands fisted in the ever-so-slightly-scratchy sheets of her bed. Her mother had always made them so soft. She had ironed them, too. Hermione didn’t want to do that, but she couldn’t work out how else to take out the scratch. She was down to the last set of clean ones in the linen closet. She needed to wash them before her parents were back. She could do it with magic, but she’d have to ask Molly. She didn’t want to disturb the woman who had just lost her son with questions about sheets.
She didn’t know when her parents would be back. Soon, The Ministry had said.
Hermione hadn’t looked in a mirror in a long time, and it was a shock when she found herself in front of the one in her bathroom.
The steam from the shower had fogged it all up, and she had absentmindedly swiped a streak in it as she did her teeth.
Toothpaste bubbled up around her mouth. She had got a dab of it on her nose. She needed to floss.
Her hair was still damp but already frizzing. Her eye bags were purple, the lines round her mouth more pronounced. Her skin looked dry, she wasn’t sure how to fix it. In some sort of perverse retaliation, she also had a spot on her chin. It was red and white and angry and when she squeezed it, it made it worse rather than better.
Hermione didn’t go to the shop that day.
The drawings of the potion vials were still scattered across her desk, and perhaps that was what gave her the impetus she needed.
“Hermione.” He was visibly relieved to see her. She had dabbed concealer on the spot - a little from her mother’s vanity that still remained. It was old, slightly crusty, smelled like her.
“Hello, Will.”
They stood for a moment. All her fears seemed silly.
“Did you - ahem. Have a nice time yesterday?”
She wondered if she should lie.
“Yesterday was a hard day.”
He nodded at this, twisting his fingers and hiding his face so she couldn’t see what he
thought.
“I have those days too.” His voice broke a little.
“Yeah. They suck.”
“They do.”
“What do you - any tips?” She could hear how desperate she sounded. He gave a little laugh.
“Well,” he sighed and looked at the wall. His ears were pink. His hair looked slightly like it was floating away from his skull - the roots were coming in. “Well. I’m glad I have the shop.”
“It’s a good shop.”
“You can have the shop, too,” he said, after a beat. “You can always have the shop.”
“Thank you.” She meant it more than she wanted to admit. She hadn’t been offered anything in a while.
“How many days till you go back,” he asked quietly, still behind the desk, as she let her fingers trail over the front table display.
“Back in a week.”
“How do you feel about it?”
It was such a normal question, but it wasn’t for them. She considered her answer.
“I’m ready to be normal again,” she eventually said. He smiled softly.
“Yeah. Me, too.”
She hovered in the space. He didn’t offer her anything to drink.
“Just browsing today?”
“The ink, actually. I’ve come back for beetle’s wing.”
He smiled properly, ear to ear.
“Oh - yes - good. It’s really - it’s a beautiful colour. Do you want to swatch it again?”
She was about to say no, but the sky was darker and the soft patter of rain against the windows made her reconsider. She didn’t have anywhere else to go, after all. And she wanted to stay with him. She wanted the shop.
“That would be really nice.”
They swatched it as the sky turned dark. Exchanged small talk about the weather. She was excited for autumn, he was happy to not be so north this year, to have more daylight than was available in Scotland. She wondered if she could ask him to come back with her. At the moment he felt like her only friend. She wondered if she was allowed to think of him like that.
He told her the shop was shutting apologetically, and she let him wrap up the ink for her.
“Do you want to see where we make the notebooks?”
“Really?”
“Sure.”