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Love On The Rock	By : sheherazade Category: Harry Potter AU/AR > Het - Male/Female Views: 7113 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of his heirs or successors or anything to do with him. I earn nothing from this story.

Chapter List
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Now that the evenings are light until nine o’clock or later, it is my custom to take a nightly constitutional up to the top of the rock and around one or other of the many stone quarries that form craters in its surface. Some of them have been turned into Nature Trails, or Sculpture Parks, but I opt for an unreconstructed version and I pace its dry scrubby pathways, stopping to examine interesting rock formations and taking care not to fall into hidden bunkers in the twilight. As I approach one of the more well-concealed scooped-out pits, the tinny sound of cheap Muggle music assaults my ears and I duck behind a slab of stone to observe proceedings down there.
A group of young people are slumped around, brandishing cans of cider and smoking roll-ups around a small fire. In the half-light, it is difficult to make out individual features at first, but as my eyes adjust, it becomes clear that the elfin girl drinking cut-price wine directly from the bottle is Ruby. Fascinated by this chance to find out more about my assistant, I creep round the lip of the small crater until I am close enough to hear their slurred conversation.
There are five of them; three boys and two girls. One of the boys, a spotty youth with startling vertical pink hair, is leaning into Ruby and laughing oafishly. I do not like the cut of his jib. He does not seem to be the kind of young man with whom she should be associating.
“No use asking Ruby,” he says drunkenly. “Everyone knows she’s nutty as a fruitcake anyway.”
Ruby giggles. “Yeah, I’m off my trolley. A sandwich short of a picnic.”
“Anarchy!” shouts one of the other boys, apropos of nothing, and he stands and makes an aggressive salute into the air.
Ruby’s forehead is now touching the objectionable youth’s. “You understand me, though, don’t you, Pinkie? You know about the dark.”
“I know about the dark, baby,” he croons. He slings his putrid arm around her. I hope she bathes before work tomorrow. “Poor little Ruby Tuesday.”
“Ruby the Booby,” contributes one of the others and they all cackle like uncontrollable hyenas. Has somebody said something funny?
“Scooby Ruby.” Hysteria ensues. I curl my lip with distaste at the way their pale, wasted forms throw themselves backwards with mirth, and decide to leave.
But just before I go, this Pinkie pins Ruby down and plants his festering lips on hers. She is too stoned to resist. I consider going down and hauling her out of there, taking her home. But I suppose it is not my place.
I am too disquieted to sleep for a long time.
*
When she arrives the next morning, I direct her silently into the main room and have her stand before my desk, intending to lecture her on her shortcomings.
“Now, Ruby,” I begin when I am satisfied with her pose of subjection, head bowed and hands twisting nervously. “I am generally satisfied with your attitude and work but I think it is high time we corrected some of your failings.”
“Failings, Sir?” she says, looking stricken. She needn’t think those big blue eyes are going to work on me, not when I am plagued by the memory of her sluttish behaviour in the quarry last night.
“Yes. Failings. Do you seriously think that what you are wearing is professionally appropriate?” She opens her mouth but I cut her off. “It is only professionally appropriate for a whore, Ruby. Are you a whore? Ruby?”
“No, Sir!” She is highly indignant. It needed to be said, though. “It’s just…I can’t afford anything new. This is all I have. When do I get paid?”
Cheeky brat. “You will be paid when you deserve to be paid. Surely you can beg or borrow something. Do you have sisters?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then.”
“They’re chavs.”
“They’re….” I break off. This Muggle world is unfathomable and I’m not sure I want to know what a chav is.
I return to my theme. “I don’t want flakes from that sticky mess you put in your hair on my belongings, so you can either stop using it or stop the constant fussing with your hair. Preferably both. Your fingers are yellow and you reek of nicotine, so I’d strongly advise you to give up smoking. You will stop chewing the lids of my pens, and fidget less in general. Sit up straight when you are at the computer instead of slouching like an old woman. Have some respect for yourself, Ruby, if you want to be respected in turn.”
I am thinking of Pinkie, with a barely suppressed shudder.
Her deflated stance suggests that my words have hit home. She makes an instinctive move to tug at a strand of hair, and then withdraws her hand sharply, as if struck by a Stunning Spell, and looks coyly at me from underneath her fronds of fringe.
“Do you understand me, Ruby?”
“Yes, Sir. I will try harder. Please don’t….I want to be better.”
“Good. That is all. You may type up the notes I have left on your desk and make me a cup of coffee. Not the disgusting swill I had to endure the other day, please.”
I nod curtly at her and disappear to my Potions lab for the rest of the day.
*
On the last day of the working week, Ruby appears at my door with her blonde hair gloop-free, hanging to her shoulders in a perfectly acceptable bob, an alice band keeping the longer strands of fringe in check. She is wearing a white shirt and a grey pleated skirt, knee socks and flat shoes.
“Ah, so you did have an alternative to your lady of the night apparel,” I comment.
“It’s my school uniform,” she says, with a hint of resentment in her tone. “You’ve no idea how much barracking I got on the way down here. It has to be the most embarrassing experience of my life.”
I smile at her. “I appreciate your efforts on my behalf. Come along in, Ruby, we have much to work on today.”
I need her to make some telephone calls; I still lack confidence on this apparatus, but I have to organise a gas provider, not to mention acquiring some hocus-pocus called broadband.
I work at my desk while Ruby dials and waits and waits and waits. Occasionally small phrases like “Yes, I’ll hold,” or “Connections, please,” drifts over to me. Do they have so much to say that Ruby cannot get a word in? Whatever is happening, it appears to be wearing her down. Her eyes roll and she tuts almost non-stop.
“What are they saying to you?” I eventually cannot resist asking after about twenty minutes of this.
“It’s bloody impossible to get anyone to talk to,” she growls. “I’ve been listening to this horrible tune for ages.”
I am nonplussed. I did not ask Ruby to telephone a music service. How can she be listening to a tune, horrible or otherwise?
“They’ve put me on hold,” she explains, or at least, she thinks she does.
“On hold?”
“Yes.” She looks at me as if she thinks I am mad. Again. Then she slouches down in her chair once more, her shoulders hunched like a hag’s. Did I not make a point of telling her not to do that? Irritated at her disobedience, I reach for my ruler and slam it down on my desk so that she jumps almost off her chair and emits a small squeak of alarm. I can see by the way she looks at me that she is afraid of me. Which is good.
“Miss O’Riordan, I thought I specifically ordered you to sit up straight on your chair. Am I mistaken?”
“N-no, Sir,” she stammers, unconsciously unbending her spinal column and pushing back her shoulders. Much better.
“I will not have you slumped over your work like a sulky child in detention. Poor posture will lead to back pain later in life, Miss O’Riordan.”
“Right,” she says, staring at me. I make an impatient hand gesture indicating that she should get on with her…holding, or whatever it is she is doing with that telephone and she returns to her task, sneaking surreptitious glances at me all the while.
Every twenty minutes or so she begins to hunch again, but another crack of my ruler on the desk is sufficient to correct her, until, over an hour later, she has organised the gas and the broadband to my satisfaction and has been sitting poker straight for the duration.
*
I am brewing in my lab for much of the afternoon and I fall to wondering what the weekend holds in store for my young employee. I find myself picturing her in the embrace of the odious Pinkie far too often. I also have flashbacks of her standing in my kitchen with that carving knife, pink and white slashes all the way up her forearm.
A little after three I bottle up my product and take myself downstairs, where Ruby is cleaning the kitchen floor on her knees. That grey skirt is scarcely less revealing than its disreputable black predecessor when she is in this position… Perhaps I should have her wear floor-length dresses instead? I clear my throat and she leaps to her feet, only just stopping short of saluting me.
“You may leave that, Ruby, and join me in the office. Bring two glasses of wine.”
She looks astonished, even more so when she brings the wine in and I indicate for her to sit beside me on the threadbare sofa.
“Come, Ruby. The working week is almost over. I want to talk to you.”
She is palpably nervous as she perches beside me, shying away from my eye contact and sipping delicately at her wine.
“Already I am noticing improvements in your performance, Ruby,” I note. “You think I am hard on you, but you will see that it is for your own good. You respond well to my…suggestions, though I notice the aroma of nicotine still clings to your hair and clothes. Never mind; we will address that properly next week.”
She gulps a great mouthful of her wine and looks sidelong at me, with a hint of rebellion in her eyes. I will enforce this; she need not think she will divert me.
“So what are your plans for the weekend?”
This simple question throws her into confusion.
“I…er…I don’t know,” she answers, almost huskily. “I thought I might go to the Alternative Night at the Lodge…you know….the one I mentioned. If you…”
Gods, no. I am not being seen out in public with her. She can disabuse herself of that notion straight away.
“I myself have plans,” I inform her curtly. “Will you be taking any friends to this Alternative Night?”
“Erm, well, usually a group of us go.”
“Any special friend?”
“You mean, like, a boyfriend?”
“If you like.”
Ruby’s cheeks burst into flame; she is well-named. “No, Sir, I don’t have a boyfriend…as such.”
“As such? So the young man you were all over in the quarry the other night is not your lover?”
If much more blood rushes to her face she will faint, I surmise.
“No, Sir! I…you mean Pinkie? You were spying on me?”
“I most certainly was not. I was out taking the evening air when the sight of your…activities…with this youth was forced upon me most unwillingly.”
“Oh. Well, he isn’t my boyfriend, though I think he’d like to be. I was just drunk, that’s all. Too much Lambrini.” She is almost cross-eyed with the effort of staring down at her fidgeting hands. I reach out and separate them forcibly, so that they rest individually on her thighs.
“Roll up your sleeve,” I demand.
“What? No!”
“Look at me.” She shifts her eyes reluctantly to meet mine. “Now do it.”
She knows better than to fight me and slowly, with infinite care, she unbuttons her cuff and pushes it back until it wraps tightly around her elbow. Her trembling forearm is criss-crossed with angry red scratches and ugly silver scars, some of them deep, others more superficial. I take the jar of salve I have brought downstairs for the purpose and unscrew its lid, holding her arm still at the wrist with the other hand. I commence dabbing at the newer wounds with my forefinger, heedless of her gasp of astonishment.
“How did you get these?” I ask, making it clear from my tone that she will answer me. She looks as if she has been on the receiving end of a Sectumsempra, though this is obviously not the case. Her reply, when it comes, is even more unexpected.
“I did them myself. With razor blades, mainly, or a craft knife.” She mutters as if ashamed of this admission and looks away.
“Look at me, Ruby.” My voice is low but firm and she obeys. “Why?”
“I…it makes me feel better. It’s like…bringing all the pain inside to the surface and letting it go. It’s a release.” She looks scared and earnest, as if she needs me to understand. And I think I do. She uses this the way I used Dark magic in my youth. For the same ends.
I continue to rub the salve into her arm. It stings lightly, as I remember, but the injuries begin to heal almost immediately.
“I see,” I say as my finger climbs to the crook of her arm. She shivers slightly, delightfully, as I exert a tiny bit more pressure. “Tension builds within you until it becomes intolerable, almost physically painful? And then you have to find a way to diffuse it that does not result in murder, or at least breakdown? That is private, your own secret coping mechanism?”
“Yes. That’s how it feels.” She looks at me in wonder, the way most people look after I have performed a complex feat of Legilimency. She is so easily impressed it is almost endearing.
“Now listen to me, Ruby,” I say, having dropped the volume of my speech to a near-murmur. “Listen very carefully. Do I have your attention?”
She nods, entranced.
“You will never do this again. Do you understand me? I intend to see to it that you have hurt yourself for the last time. Is that clear?”
The tension between us as she stares up at me is tangible. “Yes, Sir,” she finally says, barely audibly.
I do not need to employ the Dark Art of Legilimency to see that I could seduce her here and now were I so minded. The cerulean blue of her eyes is no more than a narrow ring around enormously dilated pupils and her breathing is shallow, almost a gasp. I cannot help but speculate on how those wine-stained lips would look after being soundly kissed. Several beats pass in this slight delirium until the self-control that is now second nature to me manifests itself and I rise and cross to my desk.
I remove a wad of Muggle currency from a drawer and offer it to her.
“Here, Ruby, your wages. I am letting you leave early today. Catch a bus to the mainland and buy some decent clothes. I’ll see you on Monday.”
I turn from her and stride purposefully away. At the sound of her light footfall on the stairs, I offer her a parting shot.
“No lighting up at the bus stop either.”
She giggles and the door clicks shut.
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Love On The Rock