Chapter five
Lavender was ecstatic to see me walk through the doors of the Queens Head (or the Queens Broom, as the wizard entrance read). She had been begging me to join her and the other interns there for weeks now, ever since I came to the intern dinner my first week. She said it was where all the young (“and cool,” her words, not mine) Ministry employees went to after work. The “lame” (her words, not mine) Ministry employees gathered at The Siren’s Tail across the street.
“You made it!” Lavender squealed when I approached her table.
I glanced at who was already sitting at the table. Cho Chang was speaking with another Ravenclaw, Daisy Corran, who helped me with my Transfiguration homework once in the library. Beside them was Neil Randall, a Gryffindor boy with a shaved head and glasses. Lastly, Matthew Kettletoft, another Hufflepuff, who smiled at me across the table.
“So, you guys are all interns, too?” I asked as I sat down at the empty chair beside Lavender.
“Oh, Daisy and Neil aren’t, but Matthew is! Where are you again, Matt?” Lavender called across the table. I rolled my eyes, which Matthew saw, and smirked.
“I’m in the Department of Transportation,” he said, leaning forward so we could hear him better. “I mostly field complaints from people whose Floos have stopped working or spat them out in the completely wrong location. It’s proper boring work.”
“That sounds… boring, you’re right,” I said.
“It’s not too bad. Sometimes the complaints are quite entertaining,” he said with a shrug. “Can I get you something to drink?” He asked as he got up from his stool.
“A butterbeer would be nice, thanks.”
Matthew headed to the bar and Lavender began telling me a long-winded story about her own grandmother’s Floo malfunction experience. I used the moment to take the pub’s interesting décor.
The pub was low lit with a few floating chandeliers dripping in old candle wax above our heads. The walls were covered in photographs of wizards, until I looked closer and realized they weren’t wizards at all, but photographs of the Queen. Each one had been doctored to look like the Queen of England in various wizarding activities. Many of them involved her riding a broom, although there was one giant photo of her battling a dragon, one of her playing wizarding chess against herself, and a collection of photos with the Queen and her Court doing a little jig. Aside from the interesting photographs, there were bookshelves crammed with bizarre items and dusty books on uneven shelves. A second story loomed above with more seating, although there were plush chairs and couches up there while we were sitting on rickety wooden tables and stools.
“Imagine our surprise when we arrived at the Hog’s Head instead of my Mum-Mum’s!” Lavender said with a laugh.
I smiled and pretended like I had been listening. The door opened and a bell chimed. I twisted in my seat to look, searching for a familiar white head, but instead saw a couple with dark hair walking in instead.
“One butterbeer,” Matthew said as he approached with my drink.
I muttered a thanks and took a sip of the frothy drink.
Once Cho and her Ravenclaw friends rejoined the conversation, we all began to grip about our various work annoyances. They were all interested in the top-secret project that had the Ministry in a tizzy. I kept my mouth occupied with butterbeer. Matthew took the seat next to me and kept pulling me into side conversations. I nodded along, doing my best to keep track of the various Hufflepuffs he references, who was vacationing where, what classes he was taking next term, whether he was going to try out for Quidditch this year or not. He promptly brought me another butterbeer once I finished my first.
Each time the door chimed, I found a reason to turn and look at the entrance. Matthew asked if I had a crick in my neck and offered to remedy it with a spell he learned. I declined.
The door chimed, I turned, saw a red-headed short man enter, and turned back to the table. The door chimed, I turned around, saw a blonde girl wearing a hat, and turned around again.
“You sure your neck is okay?” Matthew asked as he sat back down. He placed another butterbeer on the table in front of me.
The door chimed and I didn’t turn around.
“Peachy!” I said, downing the drink.
“What is he doing here?” Lavender said with a gasp.
The butterbeer caught in my throat and I coughed once and hard. Matthew slapped me on the back asking if I’m okay, but I shrugged him off. I set my mug down and turned around, trying to act like I didn’t almost die.
A flash of blonde hair moved through the crowd in front of the door. His dark eyes scanned the pub, lingering on the walls for a moment as he noticed the subject of the photos, then continued scanning. Our eyes met and I made a conscious effort to remain expressionless.
“Oh, I invited him,” I said as I turned back around, my voice sounding strange even to my own ears.
Everyone at the table gawked at me, some letting their mouths hang open. Matthew made a noise that was caught between shock and despair.
“What? He’s an intern, too.” I explained.
“But—he’s Malfoy,” Lavender countered. A few people nodded in agreement.
Before I could respond, Malfoy approached the table, looking like he wanted to be here even less than everyone else wanted him here.
“What is this bloody place?” he asked as a greeting.
“It’s funny, isn’t it?” I asked, hoping to lighten the mood.
“If crass is your idea of fun,” he responded. He was not helping his case.
“Well,” I cleared my throat and looked at everyone. They were still staring, some with their mouths open. “Everyone, this is Malfoy. Malfoy this is—”
“I’m going to the bar,” he said, then strutted away.
Lavender gave me a weathered look and the Ravenclaws made their escape to another table.
“Well, he’s just as pleasant as I thought he would be,” Lavender said as she looked down at her drink.
“He takes some getting used to, I guess,” I muttered.
“How do you know that guy?” Matthew asked. He looked like he was holding back some other less choice words to describe Malfoy.
“We’re in the same department,” I said.
Matthew looked over at the bar where Malfoy stood.
“My father used to be on the Board of Governors with Malfoy’s,” Matthew said, leaving the rest of what he was thinking to our imagination.
“I’m pretty sure he cursed me in our first-year to have boils right before we went home for the summer,” Lavender said in a quiet voice.
I drank the last of my butterbeer in one fell swoop, muttered something about getting another, and got up from the table. Matthew tried to get up with me, but I assured him I didn’t need an escort.
“I’m surprised you came,” I said as I sidled up beside Malfoy at the bar. He was being served a short glass of firewhiskey, the bartender giving him a sidelong glance.
“It was either this, or dinner with my parents,” he said.
“Cheers to that,” I grumbled.
Malfoy motioned for the bartender to get me another butterbeer. He leaned against the bar and took a slow sip from his drink. Everything about this image felt completely out of place with his surroundings. While the rest of the pub’s patrons were either still in the clothes they wore to work, or in more casual attire for a Friday night, Malfoy wore a light blue-grey three-piece suit complete with cufflinks and dragon hide shoes. It was sickening, really, to see him looking like he had just stepped out of a men’s clothing catalogue while the rest of us looked like background characters in the movie Malfoy.
“I take it your parents force you to partake in excruciating family dinners as well?” He looked at me over the top of his glass and I averted my gaze. The bartender handed me my drink at the opportune time.
I rolled my eyes instead of looking back at him.
“More like they force me to partake in bullshit internships I never wanted in the first place.”
“Oh?”
I looked at him then to see he had raised one perfectly arched eyebrow.
“You were right, to an extent,” I added as he started to smirk in self-satisfaction.
“I always am. But remind me what I was right about this time?”
“My mother did get me this internship. I never asked for it, I never would have in a million years. But she thought it would teach me something, I guess.”
“And what have you learned so far?” he asked.
I turned to him, a snarky answer at the ready, when all of a sudden, his attention shifted from me to something over my shoulder. He straightened his shoulders, hardened his expression, and the brief moment I had where Malfoy and I were getting along was gone.
I glanced behind me in the direction he was now staring and saw Lillian, the French intern, approaching us.
“Draco,” she said in the lilting accent that sounded just as out of place in this pub as Malfoy looked.
“Lillian,” Malfoy responded. She held out a delicate, limp hand that he then lifted to his lips.
“What are you doing here?” He asked, his eyes searching hers, taking in her appearance as I did the same. She wore a loosely fit grey silk dress, although it was fitted just enough for you to know that she had a body worth noting underneath. A sheer, lace shawl dropped off her shoulders, revealing the thin straps of her dress and her perfect collarbones.
“I’m in the country for an internship with your Ministry. I heard you have an internship there too, no?”
“No. I mean, yes, I am. I haven’t seen you around,” Malfoy responded and I could have sworn I saw him sweating. No, that must have been a trick of the light, I told myself.
“They keep me quite busy,” Lillian said. She pressed a hand to Malfoy’s arm and leaned forward, “As I’m sure you are, too, with the Tournament preparations.” Malfoy’s eye twitched to her hand on his arm, then back to her face. At that moment, she removed her hand and was standing back again.
It was then that she noticed me standing beside her, sipping on my butterbeer and otherwise trying to look anywhere other than at them two.
“Oh, Heather! I didn’t see you there!” Lillian embraced me with a kiss on each cheek, her radiant smile and genuine warmth melting the coldness off my face.
“Bonjour, Lillian, lovely to see you again,” I said. Four butterbeers might be my limit.
“You two know one another?” Malfoy asked, his brows furrowed as he tried to work out in what world I would be associated with someone like Lilian.
Before she could answer, I excused myself and walked back to the table. There were more people gathered there now, more stools and chairs had been pulled up to accommodate the extra guests. I recognized a few members of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, a Gryffindor girl had taken my seat beside Matthew, and some more Ravenclaws were now hanging around Cho as they giggled at something Diggory said.
I sat down and tried to tune into the various conversations taking place, but none of them held my attention. My eyes drifted to the bar on their own accord, each time finding the stark white hair and grey silk dress standing there.
“Hey, Heather,” Matthew waved a hand in front of my face, drawing my attention back to the table.
“Huh?” I looked around and saw he had taken the seat beside me, the Gryffindor girl gone.
“I was just saying a bunch of us are going to head out to another pub if you want to come.”
Matthew was nice. He had dirty blonde hair and a dimple on his left cheek. I haven’t said more than five words to him before tonight, but I’ve seen him in class and in the dining hall always laughing with his friends.
“That’s all right, you guys go on without me.”
“You sure?” He asked. His eyes flickered to the bar then back to me.
“Yeah, you guys go on ahead. I’m going to head home soon anyways.”
Matthew lingered for a moment longer then accepted my answer. More than half of the table got up to leave. Lavender waved goodbye as she exited the pub.
A few minutes later, my butterbeer now empty, I decided it was time I left as well. As I got up from the table, my foot got caught on the leg of the stool. I stumbled backwards, unable to catch myself with the four butterbeers in my system leaving me the right amount of tipsy for this to happen. Thankfully, I fell back onto something hard and solid and thinking it was a well-placed wall, I reached backwards to steel myself. Instead, I felt a well-muscled arm and something like a sleeve.
“Leaving so soon?” Malfoy asked from behind me. He pushed me off him, gently, and stepped aside.
I collected myself the best I could given the circumstances and turned to look at him. He had a devilish smirk on his face that made me wish I hadn’t looked.
“Well, there’s not much going on here anymore, is there?” I said, motioning to the now empty table. The few interns that remained had moved to another table where someone had started a game of wizard chess.
“That’s what I’ve been saying since I got here,” Malfoy responded.
He finished the last of his drink then set his glass down on the table with a sense of finality.
“Where to next, then?” he asked.
“I was just heading home,” I said. Malfoy shook his head as though this was unacceptable.
“Unacceptable,” he said. “I thought you were made of tougher stuff, Winters.”
My mouth opened and closed, unsure of how to respond.
“Well, it’s either that or nowhere you would want to go, I’m sure,” I decided to say.
Malfoy shrugged then straightened his jacket. “Surprise me. I just might surprise you.”
I looked at him skeptically. He sure did look like Malfoy, but he wasn’t acting like him.
“What about Lillian?” I asked, glancing back at the bar.
“What about her?” Malfoy repeated. He began to fix his already perfect hair.
“Fine. I know someplace. But just remember what you said when we get there. You asked for it.”
Malfoy smiled again, the devilish grin that made it hard for me to look at him, and we left the pub. When we began to walk, he strode beside me with an air of importance, as if he knew exactly where he was going. His long legs were hard to keep up with as we weaved through the crowded downtown London sidewalk.
“Are we Apparating there?” he asked impatiently once we had walked two blocks.
“What? Spoiled rotten Malfoy can’t walk a couple of blocks down the street?”
“Me? Spoiled? I don’t know where you got such an idea,” he said with his chest puffed out.
I couldn’t control the laughter that burst out of me. It lasted the entire block. By the time I stopped, Malfoy was giving me his signature cold stare.
“Oh, come off it. We’re here.”
He stepped back to get a look at the building, which was nondescript and otherwise unnoteworthy. A black door was being held open by a mean-looking muggle and a long line snaked down the sidewalk. From where we stood, you could hear the bass of the music blaring within.
“What is this?” Malfoy asked, his face contorted with confusion or disgust, I’m not sure.
“A club,” I said. Then added, “a muggle club. It’s called The End.”
Malfoy looked down at me. Disgust, his face was definitely contorted with disgust.
“You told me to surprise you, remember?’
Malfoy shook his head slowly and took a few steps back, as though he had to put distance between him and the filth in front of him.
“Oh, come on. I know you have a thing against Muggles, or whatever, but I promise you there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Malfoy scoffed. “It’s not me who should be afraid,” he said.
“You’re being ridiculous. Aren’t you the least bit curious?”
Malfoy didn’t respond but was instead eyeing the gaggle of girls who were now trying to enter the club. They were all wearing various neon colored patterned shorts and tank tops. Far from the more conservative wizarding robes Malfoy was used to seeing. He didn’t verbally agree, but I could see his defenses come down ever so slightly.
It took me ten more minutes to convince him to enter the club. It took me another five minutes to convince him he needed to get rid of the three-piece suit. I had a little fun telling him that the dress code required neon green but knew to back off once he reached for his wand to Disapparate. Instead, we settled for transfiguring his jacket and vest into pocket-sized versions so that he could stow them away in his pocket for later. Now he wore his dress pants and a plain white undershirt, which still wasn’t the best clubbing outfit, but wasn’t the worst. Well, maybe it is the worst.
When I told Malfoy the next step was to wait in line, he became visibly upset.
“No, I refuse,” he said, shaking his head back and forth and retreating to the alleyway where we made his outfit adjustments.
“It’s part of the experience, come on,” I said, tugging his arm towards the back of the line.
“Winters,” he said with a piercing stare that made me drop his arm immediately. “I am going against over a dozen of my Malfoy family beliefs tonight. If my grandmother could see me now, she would die all over again. I draw the line at standing in a queue.” He said this so seriously, I almost wanted to laugh. Almost.
Since he didn’t have muggle money (of course) to bribe the bouncer, I let him Confundus him instead to let us in. Skipping the line was worth it after all since it gave Malfoy less time to back out. Once we were inside, it was too late.
The music pressed in on my ears, drowning out any other noise or thought that could have been in my head moments before. The room was pitch black with green, purple, and red lasers shooting out from the stage across the ceiling and over the crowded dance floor. Tonight, they had cages dangling from the ceiling with dancers inside, moving to the sound of the music in their own interpreted ways. There seemed to be a theme of neon tonight, which made my threat to transfigure Malfoy’s suit into a neon pink one even funnier.
When I turned to Malfoy, he had a stunned look on his face that not even an actual Stunner spell could replicate. He was gobsmacked.
The flashing lights illuminated his face at random intervals, showing me glimpses of his awed, and terrified expression. He looked at the dancefloor with the same disgusted confusion as before, then to the dancers in the cages with a curious stare, and then whipped his head around to look at every angle he could gather. When people pushed by him to get to the dance floor, he shied away from them with a face of pure distaste.
“Isn’t this amazing?” I shouted over the music, hoping he could hear me.
He responded with something that sounded like, “no.”
I grabbed his hand and pulled him forward, closer to the mass of gyrating bodies. Malfoy attempted to not let anyone touch him, but failed miserably, as the further into the dancefloor we went, the less space there was for boundaries.
I smiled at him, hoping to see a change in his expression, but he remained cold and distant, his eyes roaming the room constantly as though he was searching for an unknown threat.
“What are you doing?” He asked, barely audible over the music.
I had begun to dance with my hands in the air as an attempt to loosen him up.
“Dance!” I shouted back.
He shook his head and remained stock still.
I groaned and grabbed his hands again. He tried to wriggle free from my grasp but I held firm. I moved his arms side to side while moving my hips to the rhythm of the music. Someone from my side looked at us and tried to join in, but Malfoy’s blood-curdling stare scared him off.
Malfoy leaned over and with his lips pressed closely to my ear he said, “This is awful.” When he stood back straight, I could see a look of pure discomfort, which was rare to see. This was completely out of his pure-blood wizarding world that he felt safe and secure in. In the muggle world, especially here, he was nobody worth noting. Sure, he was an attractive, mysterious stranger, but he had no power, no control.
I dropped his hands, letting his arms return to their rigid place at his side.
“Follow me,” I said and motioned for him to stay close as we maneuvered back out of the dance floor.
We approached the crowded bar and for the first time since entering the building, Malfoy showed an expression other than disgust. It was almost hopeful.
“I have some muggle money, so I’ll get this one,” I said. Malfoy just nodded in response.
It took a while to get the bartender’s attention, but once I did, I was able to order us two drinks each. I figured that would be the minimum amount for Malfoy to loosen up a little. The bartender, an intense looking woman with a short cut black bob and glow-in-the-dark eyeshadow, handed me the drinks with a curious look at Malfoy.
When I handed him his drinks, he looked at them as though they were foreign objects. The first drink was bright green with crushed sugar dyed green around the rim. The second drink was electric blue with a quarter of a lemon sticking off the side of the glass.
“What is this?" He asked, holding the two glasses I handed him a fair distance away from himself.
“Just try it! They’re good!” I said before taking a long sip from my own unnaturally colored alcoholic drink.
When Malfoy saw I didn’t immediately fall to the ground with seizures, he took a tentative sip of the green drink. He must not have hated it, because he took another. And then another. Before I could even get halfway through mine, he had finished his first drink and was starting on the second.
“Good, right?” I asked with wide eyes.
“They taste like shit, but they do the job,” was his response.
And they did, in fact, do the job. After we finished our drinks, I dragged him back towards the dancing with considerably less resistance.
With the drinks in my system, the music drowning out my thoughts, and a long week behind me, it wasn’t hard for me to get lost in the music once more. I began to dance and it soon took me exactly where I needed to be. I raised my arms above my head and looked to the ceiling, the intoxicating pattern of the lasers and disco balls making me the right amount of dizzy to where I didn’t care if I stumbled, it was all part of the dance.
When I looked at Malfoy, he, too, was staring up at the ceiling and seemed to be just as entranced by its display. He looked back down at me a moment later and our eyes met. I smiled loosely, the butterbeers and cocktails pushing down any barriers I have, and to my surprise, Malfoy smiled back.
It must have been the lights, or the lack thereof, or maybe it was the drinks, but he looked radiant. The blacklights illuminated his hair and the erratic directions of the lasers cast shadows on his face that highlighted his cheekbones and strong jaw. And with the smile on his face, all the pieces came together to form someone who wasn’t an untouchable Malfoy, but another person in the club, trying to lose themselves for one night in a crowd of strangers.
While Malfoy wasn’t able to get the hang of proper club moves just yet, we were still able to have fun with what he was able to do. I moved his arms up and down, we jumped to the beat of the music, and I went back to the bar to get us more drinks when I saw the crowd thinned. When I came back, I caught Malfoy almost dancing with another person, although he kept his distance between him and the muggle.
It was well past 2 a.m. when we finally stumbled out of the club, sweaty and high on endorphins. The outside world seemed too quiet compared to the way the house music presses down on your ears inside the club, and it took us a moment to adjust our volume.
“That was fun right!” I shouted, before realizing that I didn't need to do that anymore.
Malfoy was laughing, a rare sight that I hoped to see more of. His hair was tousled, another rare sight that I would probably never see again, and his white undershirt stuck to his chest with sweat. I hadn’t noticed in the dark club the way his pectoral muscles rippled underneath the thin cotton fabric, or the fact that his arms were now glistening with sweat.
“You surprised me, that’s certain,” he responded.
He looked at me then, a smile still playing on his lips, but his eyes were serious.
There weren’t as many people out on the sidewalk this late and the moon was full in the sky. I stared back at Malfoy, my heart still racing in my chest from the dancing and the drinks, my palms sweaty from…
A breeze blew through the air and I shivered automatically. The stark contract of temperatures from the sweaty club and the chilling night finally hit me.
“Here,” Malfoy dug in his pocket and grabbed his miniaturized suit jacket. With one motion, it was full sized again and he was offering to put it over my shoulders.
I let him. The jacket was much too big and dropped below my hips, which perfectly shielded me from the wind. I was overwhelmed with the scent of Malfoy’s cologne, but I seemed to find its scent no longer revolting.
“It’s late,’ I said, unsure of where I was going with the sentence.
“Hm, it appears so,” Malfoy had his hands in his pockets and was looking up and down the street.
“I should probably—”
“Night cap?” He said.
I bit my lip. My mom will kill me when I get home now, or later, so a few more hours can’t hurt.
“Sure.”
This time, Malfoy led me to a place I had never been before. A quaint late-night café and bar called The Black Cat. The tall, narrow building was situated in between two muggle shops, while muggles would only see this one as an abandoned old building with cardboard in the windows and a Do Not Enter sign on the door. Malfoy held the door open for me to enter first. I walked in and was immediately calmed by the scent of fresh roasted coffee and baked goods.
The café was a much more intimate and relaxed place than the pub. There were small round tables in the center and on the back wall, a huge black fireplace roared. Various plush couches, chairs, and poofs on the rug surrounded the fireplace. We weren’t the only ones here at this late hour. There were three other wizards, all minding their business either writing on long stretches of parchment or reading from a book.
“Go get us a seat. The blue couch is the comfiest,” Malfoy said with a wink. He went to the counter, where an old witch with frizzy gray hair waited. I made my way to the big blue couch that was right in front of the fireplace.
He was correct, the couch was ridiculously comfortable, and the fire felt nice despite the heat outside.
A few minutes later, Malfoy joined me with two mugs in hand. He handed me mine and I took a cautious sniff.
“Lavender chamomile,” he said, answering my unspoken question.
“Mm,” I closed my eyes and breathed in the calming scent of the lavender. I took a sip and felt it relax my muscles and ease any tension I had from all the dancing.
We sat in silence for a few minutes, each of us enjoying our drinks and the fire. At some point, Malfoy had fixed his hair and was looking much more like himself again. He sat straight, his back not touching the back of the couch, and each time he lifted the mug to his lips, it was if he was performing an act that he practiced in the mirror. The gentle tip of the mug to his lips, the delicate way he swallowed, and the slow and steady descent as he placed the mug down into his hand on his lap.
“So, how do you know Lillian?” I asked. I didn’t plan on asking him this, but it had been eating me away all night. He seemed surprised by my line of questioning as well. Maybe he had already forgotten about their encounter.
“The way we all know one another,” he said, then realized he was speaking to the wrong audience. “Through our families. Her father owns one of the largest wizarding hotels in Paris. Her mother rivals mine in philanthropic endeavors. Our families have been forcing us together since we were in diapers.” He took a long sip from his mug and stared into the fire. I waited to see if he would continue.
“Despite us being complete opposites in almost every way, it doesn’t matter because we have one thing in common.” Malfoy looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “Pure blood.”
“Ah, I see,” I said and sipped my tea. Of course that would be a requirement for the Malfoys.
“It’s rubbish,” he said, shocking me into looking back up from my tea. “Lillian is a nice girl, but she’s less interested in pursuing anything with me than I am with her. We would never tell our parents this, of course, but they’ll find out in time…”
“That must be hard,” I said to fill the silence. Malfoy shrugged.
“Families expect so much from us. It’s a tale as old as time.”
I nodded silently, staring into the fire, and thinking on my own familial obligations. In comparison to Malfoy’s troubles, my mother’s insistence I complete an internship over the summer is nothing. I couldn’t imagine the pressure one must feel when told who you are going to marry since you’re in diapers. No choice, no freedom. I glanced at Malfoy. His features looked soft in the firelight. Just as they did in the erratic lighting of the club. He turned to look at me and I blushed.
“I should get home,” I said, setting my mug down. “For real this time.”
“I think I’ll stay a little longer,” Malfoy responded.
I got up from the couch, shrugged off his jacket, and handed it to him.
“Good night, Malfoy.”
“Good night, Winters.”
I took the bus back home and walked the rest of the way. I would have brought the car if I knew I would be out so late, but driving was probably not the best idea at this time anyways.
As soon as I unlocked the front door and slipped inside, I knew something felt off.
My mother sat in the living room, wrapped in a robe and holding a mug in her lap. She looked at me. I looked at her. I opened my mouth to speak but she held up a hand to stop me.
“I don’t want to hear it. Go to bed.”
“Mom, I was—”
“Bed. Now.” She said, her lips set in a straight line.
I sighed and walked up to my room. It was nearing 4 a.m. and it felt like it. I took off my clothes, dropped onto my bed, and fell asleep instantly. The next morning, I had a vague memory of a dream involving a marble statue coming to life, only to slowly begin to crumble with each step it took. Soon, it was merely ash at the foot of its pedestal, the one place it had been safe, but the one place where it had never been allowed to live.