Dolly Birthday Gala
post-dinner revelry.

The weekend had not gone according to plan, but then things in Dolly's life rarely did. It had started when she'd shown up flying solo to her own cocktail party because her pseudo-type-boyfriend-thing had to work and simply could not get away. That was the trouble with dating a man who was not of leisure or technically under her employment. Pesky things like murder and larceny got in the way of her making grand entrances. Of course Eli and been a darling and dutifully paid attention and made sure her glass was never empty or too full. The bunch had been lovely, but now as she leaned against the bar watching Nora and Aliec swirl to the sounds of a classic 12 string orchestra. In the back of her mind she wondered if she would ever be so lucky in love, for all the years they had been married Master Wiedman looked at his bride with the same loving devotion that shown brightly in their wedding pictures.

She had to hand it to her hostesses, they had out done themselves this year. The food had been decadent, the alcohol plentiful, and the merriment...merry. While yes, truthfully, Dolly was wearing her public event smile and the usual mirth didn't quite reach her eyes she was trying. She just felt on edge, distrusting of Dazmond and Nora's seemingly gleeful dotting natures. It was not like them to so willfully accept a decree of being absolutely done with Dominik Wiedman. They hadn't spiked her drink yet, but who knew what those two could cook up behind cupped hands?! It didn't help that the devil himself had been slouching around the party. He looked miserable and for some reason she would never understand she felt guilty. She didn't want him to be sad... she just wanted him to grow the hell up, at least he hadn't tried to bring Niobe. There would have been nasty spells cast if he had, he probably knew that though. He wasn't completely daft.

Draining her Champagne glass she scanned the room, for a moment contented that everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves so thoroughly.  She let that feeling sink in for just a moment, the layers of conversation and laughter washing over her, settling into her skin. Even if she couldn't be ecstatic herself, watching the people she loved most in the world enjoy themselves despite whatever was going on in the real world was nice. Being the reason that they had come together, that they had this haven from dirty politics and and the weight of the real world even if it was just for a few days. It was not until the first strains of a long lost song filled the air that the writer's skin began to prickle. It was their song, the song. Suddenly she felt queasy as her blue eyes lifted from her now empty glass to see Dominik's large form lumbering toward her, jaw set in a firm line. Damnit. What was he up to?

It had been a long, long day and he hadn't even woken up till noon.  He'd had his hangover medicine delivered to him downstairs on a silver tray and was pulled into another round of programming.  From brunch to dessert, time was properly allocated.  They'd sung her happy birthday, they'd had their cake, and now the final hurrah.  Tomorrow of course there'd be more of it.  The people would be lounging round together till they saw good to sod off, playing croquette in his family's yard and who knows what else.  He'd suffer through it.  He'd managed to avoid a catastrophe long enough, he should have seen this coming.

His dear mother, Dianora, while they were expecting drugs in their drinks put all her trust in this one very deluded idea that putting them together with their song and making them dance would... what?  Make Dolores suddenly not hate his guts?  He had to wonder whether dear mum was somehow behind Cameron Rosier's odd absence.  If there wasn't some crazier ploy going on here.  He had to only hope Dolly wouldn't hex him into oblivion for being brash enough to expect her to touch him long enough to ride out a dance to this song.  That she'd grin and bear it rather than make a scene at her own party by smashing his foot with her heel or, Merlin forbid, start screaming obscenities in front of everyone.

He bit down his jaw as he walked straight over to her.  She turned and saw him like she had a sixth sense and immediately seemed to turn suspicious.  He wondered if that look meant 'Don't you dare come any closer' or 'What have they slipped into your drink and will I have to murder you now'?  It was hard to tell.  Still he approached and true to his steady eye contact went right up to her.  Poor thing, there was no getting away from this terrible staged horror show.

"Shut up and dance," he said, holding out his hand.  "Mum's watching."

As the strings swelled it felt as though time stood still for the dark haired woman. She could remember the very first time she'd heard it, no more than five or six begging Dominik to show her how the intricate steps were supposed to look. It had been a Christmas Gala, snow piled high outside the stately St. James manor. She was dressed in layers of emerald velvet and antique lace, her black curls shaking as she bounced with anticipation. They thought they were so clever, hiding in the grand foyer, spying on the grown ups long after they'd been sent off to bed. Dolly could still remember the look on Dianora's face when she caught them, the absolutely magical way that she swept over to them and adjusted her son's posture rather than giving them a proper trashing and sending them off to bed. She could remember the look of adoration and contentment on Nora's face, the way her lips turned up slightly at the corners, as though she knew some deep secret she couldn't wait for them to figure out.

The other dances blended together, thousands of memories a whir as Dominik made his way toward her, a shadow of the man he might have been. She could remember his devilish carefree smile, the private jokes they shared as he spun her around ballroom after ballroom. There had been a time she waited with baited breath for this song, this moment, for his hand to extend toward her and her temple to find the familiar rest against his jaw. Wordlessly she stepped closer to him, swallowing hard and unable to look him in the eye. He found the small of her back in exactly the same place, as though her spine had been molded for his fingers alone, and a jolt went through her heart bringing her back from the Land of Yesterday. Her smile never wavered, her posture natural and languid as he moved her around the floor.

It reminded her of the previous winter, his sulking until he got her on the dance floor. Hadn't they agreed to be best friends again? There was no possible way to make him fathom the pain he'd put her through. She was a super star, a diva, and yet when it came to him she was that same six year old girl... giggling madly when they were caught under the Mistletoe. It made her heart ache how even knowing they were toxic for one another couldn't stop the past from making her feel tethered to him. She hated that Nora's plan was working, that she missed some part of him. While it had started as an act and nothing less than a perfect performance would do, lest Nora break out the big spells and some how they end up in bed together... She could feel his eyes on her as the notes seemed to drag out forever, her voice low in a final response to his demand, "Your father would be abhorred to know you didn't even pretend to say please".

It was... surprising, somehow, that she put on a smile and took his hand as though the last twenty years simply hadn't happened.  The movements involved, on both their parts, were spontaneously fluid.  As though their very muscles held the memory of their youth.  Before he knew it they were full on into the dance.  Forward, forward, back, back, forward....  But for one part fluidity they had three parts play-acting.  They knew every move of this dance and could even force their expressions into compliance while they each wondered what the hell they were doing.  All because his mother said so.  What was wrong with them?

Still, Dominik couldn't deny the pleasant feelings that followed from those well-rehearsed movements, the secret joy he found in having the excuse to hold her in his arms again.  To have the shape of her and all her presence wrapped up in his movements as he led their dance again.  He didn't know they'd ever have reason to do this anymore.  This could have been the last time and neither of them had the heart to duck out of it, to simply stop.  He allowed himself to look at her, to absorb every feature of her face.  She was everything perfect.  She was shy beneath his gaze, then took a stab at him.  Nothing had changed.  The fights that were burned in his memory eased off of his mind, replaced by the rhythm of their steps and the sensation of their touching hands.

"My father is also watching," said Dominik plainly, seeming somewhat shy himself.  What were they all playing at?  He felt the heat rise on his cheeks.  They meant to torture him, they must have.  Nora and Aliec were over by the veranda, their arms entwined, watching Dolly and Dominik dance to the orchestra like they were looking fondly over to their adorable children.  "There's no point saying please, we might as well be held at wand point."  He pretended to roll his eyes merely to entertain the fact that their reality was different from the fairy tale moment they were caught up in... even as he blushed from the power of said moment.

"Merlin... how did neither of us see this coming?  What did they do - murder Cameron?"

Dolly glanced at the dotting couple from the corner of her eye, teeth clamped down on her inner cheek to keep her smile in place, the copper taste of blood tangy on her tongue. It was so easy for them to play match maker, to try and align the stars, to make this thing happen. If she let herself look up into those wounded pools of velvet brown she would feel it too. She would see the "rightness" of it and to hell with the consequences. She'd done it eighty-four-thousand times before, just forgone the right thing in favor of the thing that kept her in his arms for a little longer. It wasn't that she cared about Niobe, she could have given a fiddler's fart about that harpy - but it was the implication. Dom loved someone else, there had always been someone else. She had always waited, for twenty years she'd been waiting.

"Do you ever stop and think...even if we had a time turner, we couldn't ever really go back to being who we were to each other, the people they want us to be. It almost feels like maybe we just made them up as we went along," her voice was soft as she finally chanced a loot at him. Somewhere in there was the boy she had loved but he was trapped under layers of gunk, mired in depression and self loathing. She couldn't love him enough for the both of them, she'd tired that. She'd been doing that since she was sixteen, nothing ever changed. Her pain still lived right up close to the surface and he still sold a million excuses for why it wasn't his fault. Tomorrow he would go back to his world and she would go back to hers. They would be familiar strangers who made polite conversation when they were forced in the same room, quietly drifting further from one another with each passing day.

"Wand point or no, a lady likes to be asked," her tone wasn't chiding or vicious for once. She knew he was right, it was ridiculous that they'd play into this farce just to appease his mother. "I don't ask Cam about his work, he doesn't get angry when I don't feel like spending the night. All in all it's a nice arrangement for a woman you've accused of sleeping with nearly every Wizengamot elder and Quidditch lad in the league". It was an unfair dig, she regretted it almost instantly. Of course he was the one who couldn't stand up to his mother, she wasn't about to be the screeching banshee who caused a scene with so many influential people in the room. He was the one who didn't care about reputation. Biting her bottom lip she let out a small sigh, "I'm sorry, that was uncalled for".

A bad taste in his mouth was the closest approximation to how those words felt as they sunk into him.  He wanted to say No... he didn't think that they'd never make it back to being who they were to one another.  Of course he didn't want to think that - even in the worst of times he didn't let himself believe it.  Even acknowledging he desperately wanted things to work with Niobe, he still didn't want to face losing his dear Dolores.  It was painful that it was always like this, that if he couldn't give his heart to her entirely he faced losing his best friend.

But it wasn't completely true.  Like everything else in his life, it sort of felt like there was no other way things could have gone and, at the same time, it was all blasphemously wrong.  Still, he wanted to counter her statement.  He didn't really know how to sort it.  He swallowed the bad feeling down and went on dancing seamlessly, the hurt look in his eyes as he looked over her shoulder the only indication that he had actually heard her.

Yes, they'd danced this dance a long time.  It was a symbol of the perfect world they all wanted, the perfect world they made exist between them.  It was everything as it should be, and perhaps that was the problem.  They were the casualties of their society and its delusions.  In his more bitter moments, Dominik thought it was their own fault for not waging a better war.  He wasn't quite into that territory now.  But recent events had shed some light on his problems, made him see that his pain was a shadow he carried for the masses who were too weak or stupid to see the way things really stood.

She went on describing Cameron Rosier and his particular arrangement with her... it was odd in itself but the longer she went on the more he realized her statement was intended to hurt.  It wasn't nearly as surprising as the fact that she apologized for it, though.  He shook his head and frowned slightly, as though to say there's no reason for you to be saying you're sorry.  It was an unfair double standard and he knew it, to be refusing to let go of his love for Niobe while at the same time anxiously pointing out how many men she'd slept with, or simply flirted with, in a moment of blind jealousy. 

"I'm sorry for saying it, what I said," he licked his lips and went on looking over her shoulder, above the heads of the people who were conversing with each other or watching them, and of the other couples who were dancing.  "I was a baboon last month, let's just say it.  And I haven't even told you yet a proper happy birthday." 

He looked over into her eyes, markedly level.  "Happy birthday," he said.

He was somewhere else, though their bodies went through the timeless motions he wasn't really with her. He was in the dark place, one of the many recesses of his mind. She knew he was trying to find a way to reject her idea, he wanted to some how have everything and give nothing - even though he didn't see it as nothing. It wasn't that his friendship was worthless, if they had ever just been friends it would be enough. The problem was that they'd never just be friends and he didn't seem to understand that. He didn't seem to realize that everything she had ever given to him she gave out of a blind unquestioning love. The vast difference between how she and Niobe felt about him all came down to loving a thing because and loving a thing despite. In Dolly's approximation the journalist loved Dominik because of his image, because he made himself out to be a beast. It was easy to love a thing because.

It was much harder to love something despite, seeing the flaws and the pain and finding the whole sodding mess worth devotion. That was how Dolly had loved him; blindly, foolishly, with her whole heart. She had spent years fighting with him - not because she wanted him to be someone he wasn't but because watching the person you loved most in the world hate themselves, their unwillingness to fight for their own happiness sometimes turned you into a warrior. If he wasn't going to go to battle for himself, for some kind of life that didn't involve the creeping lumbering darkness that consumed him in these fits... she had been willing to do it for him. She had been willing to break in, to throw open the shutters and let a little light in to bite back at the storm clouds he carried with him. She fought because he was so unwilling to and she wanted so much for him, for them, for the lives that had been tied up together and then lost.

Loving someone with your whole self, fighting for their happiness... it was exhausting. It was also the most painful thing in the world to know that he didn't see it that way. He wanted to be the unhappy devilish rogue who tormented muggles on Halloween with his big nosed girlfriend and got arrested. He was happiest when he was getting in his own way. He never stopped to think about how his actions hurt those around him, how having come so close to losing him forever once every time he taunted the court that feeling of abandoned terror returned. She knew Liviana felt it, she could only imagine what his mother went through. He had accused her of not wanting his friendship more than once. It wasn't his friendship she didn't want, it was the twisted place that they lived where she gave him everything and was still left feeling like the other woman, like the option for when his someone better was busy.

She swallowed as he apologized, sad that there was no way to unsay the things that had been said that night; sadder still that despite all the memories the dance brought back she felt the need to tell him he had to let her go. Her eyes wandered to his parents, now joined by hers - a picture she thought she and Dazmond would have recreated by now. She was going to have to break everyone's hearts because she couldn't be their little Dolores anymore, not if she wanted to be any kind of happy. She would let them all pretend a little while longer. Her blue eyes shifted to Dominik as he wished her a happy birthday, ghost of a smile on her lips, "That's more than I expected from you this weekend, though not quite as good the year you got me that terrible enchanted snake from Weasleys' and I almost threw it across the room before I realized you'd stuck earrings to the side of its head".

Dominik laughed shortly.  Their steps had quickened with the tremor of the violin picking up the pace of the music[1] momentarily, their warm moments accented by the sudden, buoyant swelling of the music.  Or perhaps their fleeting happiness and dosing of nostalgia had been spurred by the chords they already knew were coming as they shifted into the second portion of their six-part recurring melody.  Either way, they matched the mood of the song again as the short boost leveled out to a slower third and their steps slowed considerably.  After the blooming, a substantial period of subtlety. 

It was impossible to not be affected by it.  There was a real sorrow in it that he hadn't heard as sharply as a boy.  A feeling of being pulled along, even though he was the one leading, as they turned in slow circles.  The violin so sharp and leaning here that he felt as if the strings were attached to his movements entirely, as if he were a marionette.  They seemed closer together than they had before, who knew if it was out of habit or softening under the direct influence of the music they knew so well and felt so deeply.

"You remember the poem this is after?" he asked, interrupting a short stretch of silence between them as the music went tranquil and they pulled closer out of habit.  "I mean, George Meredith?  That lark thing, or whatever," he mumbled the last bit.  He still knew the whole poem by heart.  It was what had escalated their silly romping ventures into dancing several years ago, when he was not yet ten years old and running around scaring small animals one day and rehearsing epic poetry the next. 

Yet men have we, whom we revere,   
Now names, and men still housing here,          
Whose lives, by many a battle-dint   
Defaced, and grinding wheels on flint,   
Yield substance, though they sing not, sweet --   [2]

He remembered his favourite lines, he remembered all of the lines, but standing out most prominently were these.  He was still trying to make sense of what he'd started to discover Halloween.  What he'd unraveled with Niobe on her birthday just three days ago.  It was with a solemn thought that he felt the buzz of the brandy he'd been drinking when the third portion ended and so began the fourth, fluidly.  It was like a gradual awakening into a beautiful day[3].

"So stupid," he said, laughing at himself without showing a lot of mirth.  "Aren't you going to ask for your key back?"  The question, in itself heavy, was posed light as the air as he lifted his arm to twirl her.

1.	Bela Bartok's Romanian Folk Songs 1-6.
2.	The Lark Ascending by George Meredith
3.	At minute 3:14

"You act as though you expect me to forget," her voice was low enough only he could hear as the dance floor seemed to clear for them. That was the last thing she needed, but she didn't pull away as their steps quickened in time with the music. In a way their song was like them, a never ending circle of ups and downs with no linear movement forward. It doubled back on itself. From the first time they danced to it to the moment they were in now they had perfected the steps, changed them into something that was a reminiscent of a blended quick step and classic waltz. They had always been so in tune with one another's movements that it evolved naturally with the rise and fall of each song segment.

"I might have spent ten years pickling my liver, but a girl never forgets her first love's favorite poem," it was meant to be said in jest but whatever comfort she had started to feel crashed against the floor as he spun her away from his body in a dizzying circle and dared to ask about the key. She didn't falter or miss a step but her heart sank into her stomach. She didn't want to think about that night. She didn't want to tell him he'd terrified her so much she'd had the locks changed. She knew, however, the only other option was for him to find out one night when he tried to let himself in because he was too drunk to get himself home. Her mind raced to the kind of rage she would have to face if he couldn't get in and tensed in his arms as he pulled her close again.

"No...I," she swallowed hard before looking up at him again, "I don't need it back. I had the locks changed the next morning when I realized you hadn't left it". Her expression twisted in pain for a moment before settling back into her placid showtime-face, "Before you stomp off and tell me what a harpy I am, remember everyone is watching". There was a pain in her chest as their gaze locked, her voice soft, "Please don't look at me like that. Try to understand the position you put me in Dominik. I was terrified of you. I didn't feel safe in my own home anymore. In all the years since the war, of knowing what you'd done, what you were capable of, it wasn't until that night I was scared of what you might do to me. I never thought I'd feel that".

The song slowed again and so to did their movements, she chanced a look at him again and sighed a little, "I'm sorry if that hurts you. I didn't do it to hurt you, to be vindictive or hateful. I did it because that night you didn't give me a choice. I couldn't... I can't keep fighting with you like that. I don't have it in me anymore. In all my life I never thought your darkness would come at me, be used against me. I thought I was safe from that part of you because I loved you so wholly. I thought I could love you enough to protect us both from..." she trailed off and shook her head a little, voice tightening, "I realized that night I couldn't, that the parts of you that had belonged to me died in the war and the parts of you left had spun far beyond either of our control".

What?! 

He looked her hard in the eyes, deeply wounded and confused, disbelieving.  Rage welled up under his skin, inciting him to deepen the intensity of his movements.  He didn't say anything; she didn't give him a chance to and he was speechless anyway.  He gripped her hand a little harder, the music quickened and so did their dance.  She talked and talked as though terrified if she let him have a word in he'd humiliate her in front of everybody.  Or?  Did she think he'd lose control and, what?  Attack her?  He was so hurt and angry in that moment that he genuinely wanted to spin her off the end of his arm while they were going at it full speed so she would be launched far away from him and into the stupid, adoring crowds from whence she came.  To hell if everyone was watching. 

In the end it was the dance that kept him captive, lulling him into submission.  He gritted his teeth through the rest of it, keeping himself from scowling, thankful that the old tune was nearing completion.  He danced.  But the second the music ended and they finished, he dropped his hold from her, stepped back from their embrace, and pulled a cigarette out of his jacket.  He didn't even need his wand to light it - his temper did the trick.  The cherry blared red in the night as he drew deeply on it, eyes penetrating as he challenged her with an aggressive look.  Was this what she thought he was then?

"I can't believe you," he said behind a cloud of smoke, hissing beneath his breath to avoid attracting unwanted attention.  "What the hell do you mean you didn't feel safe?"  Had she forgotten the fact that he hadn't laid a finger on her?  That she'd hexed him repeatedly and hit him in the head with solid objects?

She could feel his anger and she could feel the hairs at the base of her skull prickle. Her eyes frantically sought out Elliot, Tappy, someone. She winced as his hold tightened her voice a faint "Please, Dom". Then the song was over and she was out of his grasp but she still shook. "I mean that I crawled into bed that night and thought a rapist had broken into my house. I mean that you screamed about what a dreadful whore I was and how I hated you without ever ever ever stopping to think you don't get to have a say. You don't get to act like a wounded animal when you're the one who picked someone else. I couldn't risk going through that again, of being terrified you were waiting to tell me how dreadful I was for not loving you despite you giving all your love to someone else every time I opened my own front door".

She glanced at Nora as couples filled the floor again, wishing desperately she could just leave and give up trying to save face at this stupid event. What was there left to save at this point? She would be his villain again, the one who always failed him. There was no winning anymore, it hurt in a million ways but there was no hiding from it. The mask fell away, genuine sadness enveloping her features as she looked up to his angrily puffing face. It would never change, they would never change, and she just couldn't do it anymore. "I'm sorry I've hurt you, that I've let you down again. I'm sorry that I can't be your Dolores anymore. I'm just Dolly. You don't know how much I wish that could have been enough for us," the corners of her eyes were damp as she placed a hand on his arm and stretched ever so slightly to kiss his cheek, voice wavering slightly, "Thank you, for the dance. It was always my favorite birthday gift," before she turned  and made her way toward the entrance of the tent. She needed air and a good long cry.

He stared at her, brow depressed in confusion.  What was she even on about?  When had he ever screamed at her?  When had he ever actually used the word 'whore' in reference to her?  Did she even know who she was speaking to?  What the hell?

He just seethed, because honestly Dominik Wiedman had only hurt women in one way in his entire life, and that was on the Quidditch Pitch, where all were equal and it was the law of the game.  He couldn't believe that she actually thought he was a danger to her.  She spent ten years breaking in his window and he crawls into her flat one night and suddenly she's unsafe?

She came into his space and kissed his cheek.  He froze and let her, which was all he could do without rudely stepping out of the way or gently pushing her off him.  She was wrong.  He might have been an animal.  But she was wrong to think he'd hurt her. 

He stared with wounded eyes as she walked away, taking another long draw on his cigarette.  If she thought he'd run after her, she was wrong about that too.  He had his pride. 

Dominik looked over to where their parents had been standing, watching.  As though they sensed the falling apart, it was only his mother standing there, hand on her hip. 

"Ugh,"

Dominik got into motion, shrugging off his mum and Dolly and all the rest of this awful party.  He threw open the front flap of the tent and went out into the night, moving quickly past everything and cutting a path to his basement. 

Slamming the door to his downstairs lair, he ran down the steps and collapsed on his couch, uncorking a bottle of expensive port and drinking a good portion of it.