One might assume that Dolly St. James enjoyed having a private room to herself. There were no questions, no noise, but in the day and a half that she had been fully concious she found it all very dully. Dominik stuck by her side like glue but even he had things he had to do - a life that needed living. So she was alone - alone with a room full of flowers and cards that she had no desire to read. There was a stack of papers to go through, signs her book was on the verse of becoming number one in the U.K. it all seemed so frivolous now. Tabitha was dead; do in no small part to Dolly wanting a different drink. If they had both just stayed on the upper level of the bar. If they could have found a safe place to hide... but they didn't and Tabi was gone. No one blamed Dolly - in fact most people went out of their way to say it was just one of those very unlucky things that happened sometimes.

That was the attitude that made her angry most of all. This was not something that just "happened" the whole werewolf population did not monthly go on killing sprees. It did not happen in the day light. It didn't happen period. And while it could be argued that Dolly had often made an ass of herself while drunk and had some hilarious accidents...there was no joy in the retelling off this story. More and more lately she missed the person she had been a very long time ago. She missed the girl that laughed for the sake of laughing and had a big enough heart to want to save people. She felt it now, more than ever, what a sham her life was. She let Dominik go on pretending, giving him the attention he craved while someone else got his nights. It hurt in a different way than before. She couldn't explain why.

The woman who lived with no regrets would have killed to go back and tell her sixteen year old self to be more careful; to not throw herself around - that every time she did it broke another piece of her. Almost dying made you realize a lot of things about how you lived your life - mainly about how you didn't want to live it that way anymore. She would probably always be loud and slightly garish. She would also probably always like pretty dresses and shiny things - but suddenly there was an urge to do something that mattered. She was acutely uncomfortable with the idea women like Niobe Thursby thought they were better than her.... she was even more uncomfortable with the fact they may be right. Setting aside another get well card she looked up as a rap came on the door, and tried to keep her voice light, "If you're coming in with more flowers go trade it for whiskey I've got enough roses in here for a funeral".

There was a pause outside the door, and then Landis Morgan stepped in. He was impeccable as usual, blonde hair shining against the black of his suit coat, the crease of his collar sharp as a knife, and he wore an expression so flat it might as well have been stone.

"I considered flowers," he said. "But, no. Too strange. I hope vodka will do instead." The bottle he drew from the insides of his coat caught the light as he showed it for her inspection, then set it down amidst the jungle of flowers. "Don't get caught if you want to keep it."

His actions, his words, were all brisk and distant; he didn't look at her as he placed the bottle, as he drew off his coat and laid it over a chair, as he surveyed her kingdom of get-well cards. He really did dislike her. He didn't like looking at her in her silken gown on her hospital bed, mostly healed now, although he'd heard of the extent of her injuries. He didn't like the rather idiotic choices he'd made when he was younger, and that he was now tied to this garish, dazzling slip of a woman who personified many of the traits he hated. He didn't like the whole situation, but what he liked or didn't like wasn't really the point.

This was the first time they'd been alone in a room together in three years. Landis was intensely uncomfortable, but he'd come, and he supposed that meant something. She'd better enjoy the bloody vodka.

Ghosts seemed to be around every corner these days - people she hadn't thought about in a long time suddenly popping her up to bring her presents and to see how she was. She figured mostly they wanted to have something ot gossip about; thinking maybe that pretty mug of hers had been ruined once and for all. Though she had just seen him at Christmas this was the first time the two of them had been alone in a room with just one another to talk to. The awkwardness that filled the air reminded her of why she never let this happen at any other time. Of course she was sure he was just as unhappy about it. Glancing at the bottle of vodka she smile a little and looked down, "All these years and you still remember a girls poison of choice. Some might call you an old sentimental fool,"

Picking up the cup of tea on her beside table she motioned for him to sit down, "Of course, I know it's not sentimental at all. You just like me better drunk," she gave a small pause looking for a cigarette, "Then again most people like me better when I'm drunk," she had to avoid the obvious question of why he was here. Their love affair - if one could call it that had been...prolonged with large gaps between. He needed her to get over Daz she needed him to soothe the wounds left my Dominik. They had been friends at one point - the closest thing Landis Harp- Morgan had to friends. He had been different then; not so much so that it was impossible to see how he became the man standing before her now, but different.

She wonders sometimes if he would still hold such distaste for her if they had never been lovers... well lover wasn't the right word for what he had been in her life. He was a distraction. There was no deep seeded longing between them - in fact as far as she could ever tell he was as sorry it happened as she was (even though it happened several times). Finally her fingers managed to fish out her cigarette case, taking one of herself she offered it to Landis before searching for her lighter; "I know, I know, filthy habit. I really ought to quit. But if I'm going to give up being nearly thrown from the second story balcony at bars I want to keep at least a few other vices to fall back on," finally finding her lighter she took a deep inhale and eyed him from under dark lashes before finally exhaling, "Why's you come"?

"All these years and you still remember a girls poison of choice. Some might call you an old sentimental fool."

Landis gave the barest hint of a smile. "Not many." He sat at her bidding and finally looked at her, a slow, dispassionate sweep of a gaze that did not warm his expression any. She gave a wry, self-mocking comment to break the awkwardness, delivered with her famous conspiratory edge, but it fell flat when delivered to such a confessor. Still, he admired her persistence; part of the reason he hadn't brought her flowers, besides the sheer mind-twisting wrongness of the thing, was that he would have half-expected her to throw them back into his face. Or, more likely, laugh. It would have been amusing, amusing and bizarre, to have flowers from the man who used to give her bruises... not that she'd objected at the time. He almost envied her ease in greeting past lovers.

Landis wanted to correct her - I like you better when I'm drunk- but he held his tongue. She pulled out a fag, and flicked him a questioning look.

"Given the drink I just produced, I'm hardly about to scold you." It was a filthy habit, one he'd never really picked up because he was vain about its effects. But he took it from her anyways, for something to do with his hands. Cigarettes, alcohol, and other illicit brews - he'd received a full education before he was even out of school from the likes of Dolly and Daz. Even now, when he drank alone - undistracted - he thought of one or the other. Usually Dazmond, and intentionally so, but of the two women only one had seen him at his worst, and it had not been Dazmond.

While she was fumbling for her lighter - good to see St. Mungo's kept tabs on their patients - Landis drew his wand, and by the time she lit hers he was already inhaling, carefully, so as not to choke from lack of recent practice. Landis liked smoke, the smell of burning things, and the haze that swirled hazily out from his lips might've been a comfort if not for its acrid, lingering taint. Even magic couldn't remove the bitterness.

"It seemed like the sort of thing people would expect from a fine, respectable person like myself." His voice was low, emotionless in his soft-spoken way, but she'd know what he meant without the addition of sarcasm or mockery. Appearances were important to Landis, more important than the people he presented those appearances too. It implied that they were more important than Dolly, but that wasn't entirely true. Whether she knew or suspected his actions were sometimes driven by nostalgia he wasn't aware, but he certainly wasn't about to admit the weakness. Dolly had once been a friend, and despite the the distractions she'd offered, despite their horrible short-lived little vicious affair, despite the fact that she'd changed into something gaudy and undesirable, their tenuous link before all that deserved at least a hospital visit. Landis had few friends, and even ex-friends, in a way, never left him. Dolly knew his close-mouthed ways by now, his half-truths, his emotional distance - if she was offended by such a statement, then she'd forgotten.

Not that he would admit to anything so sentimental as that which she accused him - not that he wanted further association with Dolly St. James - but the wizarding world was small. They shared a best friend. Dolly's bloody books were in every bookstore and every pair of manicured little student hands. Neither was going anywhere. Their mutual distaste for the thing bound both to silence, so there was no hurt in the occasional visit.

Besides, if he didn't check in on her, how would he know if she'd ever changed her mind? He wouldn't, that's how, not until tongues began to wag about the dark and dangerous lover her silly little self-insert had garnered in her newest book, all clandestine midnight visits and self-punishing blurs of alcohol. Landis' teeth ached to think of it, mostly because upon the thinking he was usually clenching them.

"I heard what happened." Obviously. He took another drag as he watched her, warming quickly to the old familiar knack. His words were drawled and careless, dropped between tendrils of escaped smoke, but his tongue was coated in ash. "Not from you, though."

Dolly watched him, the way he stiffly moved. He didn't want to be here. She didn't blame him. She didn't want to be here - but she got to go home tomorrow; and if he showed up at her house well that would be even more awkward. It had been a mistake - the two of them never should have happened. At the time she was punishing herself and Dom. There was desperation to be wanted in any kind of way. No one but Landis Morgan would have any idea that Dolly had ever felt unworthy of anything in her life. She had felt so damaged, so tarnished. That was when the change started. Ironic wasn't it; the parts of herself he hated so much, found so distasteful it all spawned from their time together.

They smoked in silence for a bit - Dolly uncaring when a healer in training stuck her head in an almost told them to put it out. Dolly's death glare reduced her to a fumbling grumble as she opened the window and left. She weighed all of his words carefully. She knew it was important that he give off a proper impression to the rest of the "clan" the wizards with money, the people who lived the old way... and Dazmond. Dazmond was important to both of them. She wanted them to make nice. She had no idea the secrets they shared; the things they had done together, to one another. She still had scars "love bites" she'd never bothered to properly heal along her inner thigh; a gouge in her shoulder from being slammed against her dresser. In no reality had their relationship been healthy; at the time it was what she thought she deserved.

Brushing a curl from her eyes she took a deep breath and looked away; with a shrug "would you like the gruesome details? Or I could just tell you when I first woke up I thought I'd done it to myself," there was a pain laugh as he lifted her eyes; "I thought I'd try to go flying drunk again," she gave a small shrug and took another long drag from her cigarette. There was so much you could want to say to someone; so much you needed to say to them that you'd never be able to. She found that more and more with the men from her past. Hell she couldn't even be honest with Dominik. In place of all the things she wanted to tell him - about the past and the present she she just gave him a small smile, "Thanks for coming. I know you must be overrun with brats this time of year; aren't OWLS and NEWTS coming up? Merlin that makes me feel ancient".

"Would you like the gruesome details? Or I could just tell you when I first woke up I thought I'd done it to myself."

Scathingly he replied, "Do you expect me to be surprised?" But as much as he detested her self-deprecation, that useless and unattractive trait, he could have bitten his tongue off for his lack of restraint. That wasn't what she'd meant by telling him, not at all, but he was so blinded by regret and this all-consuming distaste he didn't filter his automatic, vicious thoughts. She was in a hospital bed, after all. He should have a care, he should... not... do this. Landis had no idea of her deliberately unhealed wounds, left by his own hungry teeth years ago, but her current ones niggled free a sense of guilt with which he was most unfamiliar. He flicked ash into the plate he'd transfigured from a get-well card, a quick, irritated little gesture. "I apologize. I didn't mean to say - I'd heard there was memory damage."

She smiled at him, unexpectedly. With his new self-admonishment in mind, he made himself smile back. "Yes. I've a makeshift barricade over the circulation desk, so it's not too difficult to ignore the chaos."

Dolly didn't react to his snap; she had a sense that's what she'd been expected to do. If they just fought then he could storm out and leave. The problem was that...Dolly didn't want to fight anymore. In a strange way she missed him - not the sex; (not that that hadn't been awesome between them) she was just tired of propagating this myth of who she was. She was tired of people like Landis and Niobe looking down their noses at her. Maybe she deserved it, the way she carried on - but more than her brain had been rattled loose. She'd almost told Dominik about the baby. Her dreams were strange to her; another world - the world of what might have been. She was slowly; through the lack of booze in her system every single day. She was realizing the life she led wasn't much of a life at all. It was a shame, a pantomime.

And that's what being drunk all the time hid from you; the fact that some of the people closest to your life ended up hating everything you had become. She just shook her head and gave a wave of her hand when he apologized, "I probably deserve that. We both know I tend to bring out the worst in you - but you're in good company of course. I seem to bring out the worst in a lot of people," she tried to keep her voice light as she snubbed out her cigarette. Her dark curls framed a face devoid of makeup. The bruise on her cheek clearly visible when she turned to reach for a glass of water. She had had enough of being poked and prodded; having potions poured down her throat. She wanted a stiff shot of bourbon. She'd be fine then. Without the war paint she actually looked younger (save the dark circles under her eye from nights of bad dreams).

Between them the silence was suffocating. She tried to keep her emotions in check but against her better judgment she cleared her voice and started to speak, "Whatever I did... or didn't do-" she paused, cutting herself off. He would see the apology as a weakness. He would judge her harshly for it. Of course could he judge her much more harshly than he already did? At Christmas he looked positively ill at the thought of being in the same room with her. A wrinkled formed in her forehead as she looked down to the lumps where her feet were under the covers. How could you put into words something so complex, something so hard to for her to understand herself, "I know you stopped respecting me a long time ago. I know most if not all of it had to do with the books," she paused looking up at him curl in her eye, "I don't expect you to forgive me; I just...thank you, for coming. I didn't realized I actually still cared enough for it to matter until you walked in".

"We both know I tend to bring out the worst in you - but you're in good company of course."

Landis was silent, nursing the last draws of his cigarette, unwilling to give it up yet. No, it wasn't her fault. If anyone's, it was his - or both of theirs, although he was reluctant to ascribe it, the path set in place by the actions of a young, stupid boy and an older, heartbroken girl. Their unsatisfying dalliance, the clumsy fumblings of youth, should never have followed them from Hogwarts. But Dolly did tend to take these things upon herself. Unnecessarily, of course, but then he'd hardly been around to correct her.

She began to apologize. Landis looked up, eyes narrowed. She was right - he hated her apologies, but not for the reasons she thought. Not for the weakness, but for its clear indication of wounds still unpurged. It perpetuated her guilt, which he'd never understand. Shame, perhaps. Regret, yes. Embarrassment, even - but guilt? What did she do to him that he didn't want? Did she think he was really fooled, that when he closed his eyes he could still see Dazmond? Ridiculous. None of it was her fault. That there was even fault ascribed drove him crazy, like she'd had plans to help him and she'd failed, which was not the case. She was a failure at letting go of things once they'd reached their untimely death.

His cigarette was out, burned down to the filter. It had been a short-lived distraction, and now all he had to show for it was a burning throat. He dropped it into the transfigured tray, and laid it on her bedside as she spoke.

"There's nothing to forgive you for. You didn't do anything to me, Dolly, and this guilt is so very tiring."  He rubbed his hands together slowly, fingers sliding over fingers as though he could feel the ash; of course, he couldn't. It was just something else to do with himself. His coworkers would never believe he could be so fidgety, even if the concession to discomfort was slow-moving and deliberate like a snake unwinding, or a desperate man counting down the clock. Landis laced his hands together, another deliberate decision, this one to stop. "I don't hold grudges against former friends, even if they had done something worth grudging, which you have not." Maybe even when delivered in his crisp, no-nonsense way, it would still be a comfort to hear.

She shouldn't care at all, and yet ... she did. That was the annoying part. "You don't think I'd really have left you to this hospital room once I'd heard, do you?" It was almost teasing, the amused tone in his voice, coaxing out the Dolly that had once lived in the bruised and silk-swathed body. He supposed she must be feeling sorry for herself too, in the aftermath of this, and thus the return to nostalgia and regret. He'd heard she'd lost a friend. Maybe if he'd been a better man, or one less at terms with his greedy ambitious self, he would have felt guilty - after all, he'd known about the werewolf attacks in advance. But no, to hear of the attacks spurred nothing but the wish he'd been more heavily involved. He could easily sit in this hospital room and soothe while his mind planned his path through the WBA.

Dolly gave half a laugh and nudged him with her foot, "Well you never did answer that engagement party invitation I sent; not that it mattered in the long run. I have no idea what I was thinking. Being married seems like such a chore". Maybe she was feeling nostalgic; maybe it took nearly dying to make her admit the missteps she'd always played off as good clean fun. It was complicated - as all things were. She had had the ring, the title, everything was set to send her parents over the moon that she'd finally settled herself down  and then what? Dominik happened, again - there might not have been sex but emotionally she'd been completely unfaithful to Elliot. Somehow that was the worst part; well actually the worst part was that he wasn't even angry with her, if he had hated her then somehow it would have validated the ways she'd never admit to hating herself.

"So I might have heard something about a dizzying delicious Potions Mistress wandering the halls of Hogwarts," she gave him a sly look. Juliette was a friend of sorts; her personal perfumer and the two shared a deeply rooted respect for one another and their ability to get things done. If Landis wasn't head over heels for that then he might as well give up his manhood at this point and let Daz mount it on her wall. Of course he probably didn't want to gossip about the happenings at the school. He'd come for a reason but...if it wasn't for an apology she didn't know why. He couldn't possibly want to rekindle anything they had ever had; it was unhealthy when they were teenagers it'd probably kill them both know. Besides, Dolly was married to her work - even if it wasn't particularly important. She was going to find a way to change that too.

"So, if you didn't come to make up or hear an apology do I get to know why? Not that I mind it's absolutely the most dreadful place to be on a Saturday. They scolded me for spiking my own orange juice. Fascists".

Landis gave something like a snort, crossing his legs in his chair. "What would I have done at such a party? Frightened all your little guests?" His smile showed, quick and clever. "And equivocal parting aside, inviting your ex lover to your engagement party is a little gauche, no? Don't tell me you'd come to mine, in the event of such a tedious occasion."

For all her sweet hesitation now, the fumbling attempt at an apology, this was not the usual Dolly. Usually, she seemed to dislike him as much as he disliked her - or maybe he just made her uncomfortable - he could only blame the momento mori of the hospital setting for the fact that she was pleased to see him at all. Once she was back to her normal self, Landis could not possibly imagine her willingly coming to something like his inevitable pureblood marriage, unless it was to get embarrassingly drunk and charm the napkins into bombarding his head at the dinner party.

"So I might have heard something about a dizzying delicious Potions Mistress wandering the halls of Hogwarts."

Landis looked up at her quickly, startled, frowning. "How did you - ah, do you know her?" Dolly was giving him a look, coy and knowing, but no one knew about he and Juliette. Would it be such a bad thing if she did? It wasn't as though she didn't know how to keep a secret. Landis' lips tugged into a smile again, as slow and sly as her own. "Yes, she's quite lovely."

Didn't come to make up, didn't come for an apology... no. Landis was not a sentimental man, yet the thought of not coming never crossed his mind. Partially it was at least so that he could say he had; Dazmond would be pleased, was always pleased when they played nice together. Then again, he hadn't seen Dazmond in weeks. She'd probably never know. Partially it was that which was drilled into them at school, that which he told the students under his care even if they didn't believe him: Slytherins look after their own. Such school-age beliefs were scorned in the age of adulthood, but Landis had in many ways never lost that air of exclusivity, that pureblood pride, the only sense of belonging he had ever even momentarily given into. Dolly was a part of that, and a part of the small group who'd been even closer. Landis let few people past his icy veneer, because in truth it was no veneer - his cold went all the way down. Those who nevertheless set a thaw in motion were never released from that perpetuated spring, held next to his greedy heart forever. There was no one close to him who'd ever betrayed his trust, but if they'd had, even his revenge while he dragged them under would be loving and so gentle sweet. Now, even while he disliked her, he knew her too well to truly hate.

And she'd been hurt, by some force even bigger than him, and she'd never included him in her books, never told a soul, never pushed him away, let their mistake stay a secret forever. She'd tried so hard to heal a wound that Landis had flash-frozen as soon as it appeared, tried so hard to lose herself in his arms when he knew it was another man she wanted and didn't care enough to stop her. She tried too hard with everything, and it changed her. He did not want her, didn't like even the poison-touch of her foot as it nudged him. He had never loved her, and seeing her now with a bruise stark against her cheek did not fill him with warm nostalgia. But he had come to see her, his reasons and intent wrapped up in a web so tight and difficult to unravel that no one would ever know where it had begun, or which if any of the gleaming strands to trust.

But Landis was Landis, and he didn't say any of those things. Well, of course not.

"I came to give you the vodka. Is that not reason enough?"

Idly, he wondered if Dominik had been to see Dolly, or if they were fighting again. He hadn't been following the gossip rags.

"You could have distracted Dazmond from her thumping bore of a husband," if Dolly had been irritated with people like Niobe looking down their noses at her then the way Nate treated her was twice as agrivating - simply because she'd never done anything to him. Landis could hate her for changing, he could find her garish and grating because he had known her when she was most broken. They were a shared dirty little secret; kept to hard places of the mind and never nearing the heart. "Besides, it isn't as if anyone knew we were ever...involved," she raked her fingers through her hair, looking at him with half a smirk. It wasn't that she was ashamed of having been with him - as far as lovers went he was right up her ally; rough and unafraid to leave marks.

"It's society etiquette. You know the score, it'd have been more suspicious if I hadn't invited you. Everyone would have gotten their feathers in a twist trying to figure out why you hadn't been included," she withdrew another cigarette but made no move to light it or place it between her lips, "Your privacy has always been something I take into deep consideration. It was important to you no one know so I've always acted as though it never happened". Landis was one of the few people she extended this courtesy to. There was not much censored from her books; names and places were changed to protect the guilty but it was almost all there for anyone to read in black and white. There were a handful of secrets she intended to take to her grave and Landis was one of them.

She never asked why; it could have been any number of reasons really - but she thought more than likely it had to do with Dazmond. Then again maybe he just didn't want the attention; it wasn't as if they had ever been a proper couple. It was more about a mutual self loathing. She had cared about him, in her own Dolores-ish way. She had wanted to help him; but at that age sex and booze seemed to be the only solutions she had readily available. Of course not a lot had hanged in the last few years, it was just the easy way out. Vodka covered a myriad of sins. Liquid courage was not as highly overrated as everyone had once told her. Besides all of that she was sure she'd nearly pickled herself now - she'd be a fabulous looking corpse someday. She didn't like thinking about how close that day had come already.

She perked when he asked if she knew Juliette, if he had been any other man the slight waver might have turned to a full body blush but Landis was more in control than that. He always demanded control. She had been joking really; about the idea of him with the Potions Mistress - but he did like them cunning and Juliette had beauty and brains in spades, "She designed my signature scent. We've had several business dealings over the years and become rather close. I'd have seduced her ages ago if I thought I stood a chance - but I've learned my lesson about two head strong people trying to survive even a sexual relationship together". She was amused now, testing his reaction.

Her odds were on disgust. Of course that was generally his reaction when she opened her mouth. Still she couldn't help but be amused when he passed off the visit as a simple courtesy. It was, in part, she knew. Dazmond liked to pretend they all got on like a house on fire - when in actuality Landis would have probably rather burned her up like a house on fire. Inspecting her nails she gave a dismissive nod of his reasoning. She would never understand him; but then there was no need to. Understanding had never been a part of the package and whatever had been was better left in the past, "It is a gesture much appreciated. Dominik had practice so I've been alone most of the day. It isn't healthy, gives me too much time to think and as we both well know; thinking is a dangerous pastime".

"There is no one who can distract her from that fool," he said, but his venom was old, familiar, weary. This was an old tune, one which would never actually reach Dazmond's ears - if not for her own happiness, then to avoid accusations of jealousy. "Least of all myself." His tone lacked bitterness. Dolly knew how he'd once felt about the pairing, back when school years hadn't been so far away - how her choice of some parent-defying mongrel rankled, when Landis had originally been left for someone of better blood. But the wound was very old now, and no longer pained him. For all that he'd come to see Dolly, for all that their conversation alluded to undertones of ancient issues that at one time had been deep and all-consuming enough to bring them together, Landis had moved on. Nate Briggs was a fool, especially for letting himself get caught in that Runespoor mess, but he made Dazmond happy, and Landis couldn't begrudge him that.

"It's society etiquette. You know the score, it'd have been more suspicious if I hadn't invited you. Everyone would have gotten their feathers in a twist trying to figure out why you hadn't been included."

He inclined his head - he did know.

"I wouldn't have minded people knowing, if it could have stayed out of the papers. Which seems unlikely."  Landis did not want to be known as another of Dolly St. James' flings, another in a long line of men and women harassed by the press every time they met. His privacy wouldn't survive the dishonor of having his pedigree, personality, and background examined by the wizarding world's top gossip monger, not to mention the lack of credibility it would have spawned in his budding criminal interactions. Sleeping with Dominik's lover and Dazmond's best friend would also have made things decidingly awkward in the Weidman residence. "I do appreciate it, that you honored our agreement above the siren song of fresh plot material." His voice lowered, turned dry. "I'm sure that must have been... difficult."

"She designed my signature scent. We've had several business dealings over the years and become rather close. I'd have seduced her ages ago if I thought I stood a chance - but I've learned my lesson about two head strong people trying to survive even a sexual relationship together."

"Hmmm." Landis was amused too, regarding her with a Mona Lisa smile. Her aim was obvious in the way she was watching him, her carefully selected words, and so he gave to her what it was that she wanted to hear. Without a struggle, too - Landis was maturing. "How intriguing. And how fortunate for the both of us that you didn't - I don't like to share."

So Dominik hadn't been by today. How completely unsurprising.

"I've nothing to do for a while. We could have an experiment in how long we can stand each other while in the same small room." It was a sarcastic reply, but a genuine offer, one that Dolly would be able to interpret.

She tilted her head to the side, playful smile gone though her lips did curve a little, "I might be a lot of things Landis... but I've never included anyone in my books for the sake of making a story juicer. Whatever the gossip rags and fans try to drum up a lot of it just a story," she toyed with her unlit cigarette, "I would never hurt you in that way. We may not have ever loved one another - but I did care about you; and I know that it's much easier to see me as the biggest most vapid and shallow French whore of them all but I do have some sense of honor. I don't set out intentionally to ruin people's lives and throw them into the spotlight. The people who are in the public eye because of me are the people who rode my coattails for personal gain".

That wasn't just a load of shit either; Odette was an only child - there were lots of stories Dolly could have told about her sisters; even falling out of favor with them when things fell apart with Elliott she respected that they did not want to be a part of the world she created on page. She respected that - now people like Oscar Whitman, well he wanted to be see with her. He wanted the attention because somehow it bolstered his reputation at work... it also pissed off his ex-wife. Dazmond and Dom were both in the books - but in the beginning it had been a gag gift for Dazmond; never meant to be published - and whatever Landis thought Daz enjoyed them. She didn't tell their deep dark secrets she twisted misadventures of youth into something meant to entertain. In those dark years, after losing the baby and Dominik there were more bad times than good.

Even Murad; known only as The Turk in the books was cloaked in layers of secrecy. No one knew who he actually was and she intended to keep it that way; as with Felix Dagoon. People were aware they were friends and had even been close at one time but no one suspected that he was part of the amalgamation that made up Odette's second love interest. It was her job as a writer to weave a good story - not out the people who at one time or another been important to her. "No story is worth betraying a trust. I thought you would have learned at least that much about me by now," using the tip of her wand she finally lit the cigarette and placed it between her teeth. "Besides; I love Dazmond too much and Dominik would have tried to kill you. Somehow in his infinite genius he has not yet figured out I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself," she rolled her eyes and laid back against the pillow closing her eyes.

She gave a small laugh and shook her head, "Juliette needs a man like a Hippogryph needs a broom - but of all the slime balls in all the world if you're the one she falls for there are worse choices out there," exhaling a stream of smoke she grinned at him with an arched eyebrow, "I would know; I've shagged half of them". She was surprised he offered to stay - she had no idea what they would talk about but she didn't want to be alone either. Mutual topics seem to be a good place to start, "How is the Crimson Darling settling in? I haven't had a chance to have a proper word with her sine before Valentine's Day. I'm utterly awful at remembering to write letters and babysitting Dominik while he has his cake and eats it too was consuming my life before, well," she gestured to the room with cigarette in hand. She had no idea where they stood now; but she needed to make chances and maybe he was one of them.

Landis looked highly skeptical - and decidingly unconvinced - but he said nothing for her scolding, sitting cross-legged and unconcerned and watching her as though she were only a mildly interesting species of book rot. He had never read Dolly's later books; in a way, to accuse her of such things she now argued against was uninformed, based solely on the persona she projected for the media and for the insipid mess of a first book. Yes, he had read it, shortly after it had been released, because Dolly had written it and because the press was going crazy over the depiction of Hogwarts life - because it included a thinly-veiled girl set as Dazmond and because the main character was an alternate version of Dolly herself. His group of friends. Potentially, himself. He'd read the thing half-paranoid there'd be a mention of their unsatisfying little tryst in Odette's 7th year. There was none, which was a relief, but there WAS much talk of their joint adventures. Odette and Lilith were occasionally joined by another Slytherin, an ex-boyfriend and good friend of Lilith's, a background character, who as the marginally more sober one talked them out of detentions or made sure the girls reached their respective beds at the end of the night. Under a false name, of course, but identifiable for anyone who'd known that Landis and Daz were attached at the hip and that by extension the three of them kept close company. He'd flooed to her place that night to ask that she never include him again in her shameless little bid for attention, another match to the fire of their short-lived affair.

It wasn't really enough to be angry about, or to suspect potential future involvement in other books. But Dolly had changed - for the worse - and Landis had no idea what she would or wouldn't include to support her scandalous, flashy ways. He had deliberately incited it into an argument that had never gone away, pushed her for his own amusement, dripped poison to further aggravate the wound. Landis had very little affection left for the woman Dolly had become, and fighting with her was a satisfying sort of pain. He hadn't thought he could give it up, their bitter little game, but Landis had not needed a scapegoat in a long, long time.

Still, he'd never read any farther than that.

"Again, you honored my request; I am not ungrateful," he interjected finally, mildly, with the faint inclination of his head to where the vodka nestled among the plants and, more pointedly, his own unexpected presence. He bit his tongue to keep from further comment - eternally surprised, but not ungrateful. Old habits died hard. Instead he said, with words calculated to calm her, "I have never seen you as a whore, Dolly." A beat later and, as an afterthought,  "Mostly incautious." She put too little value in her own body, cared not to whom it went to or what they did with it. She was not selective. Wasn't he proof of that?

But for all his meticulously chosen words, there was really no safe way to say this. Landis did not do feelings; he did not emote or show sincerity or the slightest indication that he cared about anything. He floundered in the presentation, in the phrasing, as he tried to return her genuine sentiments with one of his own. "I also appreciate ... that you didn't - because of Dazmond, and of course I don't want to be killed - " He cut himself off, a wry smile forming on his face. He looked to Dolly and shrugged instead, a fluid, helpless gesture.

There were indeed worse slime balls for Juliette to fall into bed with, but Dolly went too far with her assumptions. Landis frowned, very lightly, and corrected her. "We are not seeing each other in that manner," he informed her archly. "We have an agreement. She is hardly about to fall for me."

"How is the Crimson Darling settling in?"

"Explosively," Landis said dryly. "With many asked favors and appropriation of clothing. As far as classes go, she seems to be handling the children well. I have not had the chance for much classroom observation but she is an excellent Potioneer." He did not mention that she had recently extorted the list of his ex-lovers out of him by means of handcuffing him and stealing his wand; although Dolly had been on that confessional list, and would probably approve of his rough handling, it was slightly embarrassing that she'd managed it.

He didn't believe her - and some how that mattered. It was strange seeing him; remembering him as he had been then rather than who either of them had become. There was a pang in the heart so many people didn't believe she had. She felt...the need to explain. She wanted him to understand that she had never meant to hurt him. Hurting him had been the furthest thing from her mind at the time; those stories in the first book they were meant for Dazmond. There was nothing she regretted more than not understanding what sending it to print would do. She'd only been twenty; her mind scattered by drugs and heartbreak - the universe had revolved around trying to stop her chest from aching. When Dinora had come to her; told her what she'd done Dolly thought it'd be a lark. She never imagined what it would become; what it would do to her, to her relationships. She lived in a world now where the safest bet was if someone wanted her they really just wanted the fame.

She thought of the way Landis looked after her back then, he had never been "normal" in his affections. He wasn't the sort to hold you while you wept (not that Dolly had ever wept in front of anyone but Dazmond), but he did thoughtful things - like the vodka. Sometimes when she felt like she was drowning in the pain and self doubt there would be a hand on her shoulder or the lower part of her back and there he would be. He seemed to sense when she needed him. They were not in love, not romantically - but there was a feeling of safety because it was unspoken between them that the last thing either of them wanted to do was break one another further. She wanted to explain it all - to go back. The sad and sorry fact of the matter was you could never go back, people changed - she knew she had changed. What she called liberation she now felt was a cage.  She was trapped in public opinion. Nearly dying, losing Tabitha... it all seemed so pointless now.

She gave a dry laugh when he dismissed her claim he thought she was a whore, raking her fingers through her hair she shook her head, "You'd be surprised. It wasn't until after...you and I," she paused toying with her cigarette; "It hurt too much to care and lose it. I thought if I could separate the act from feeling it would be better. Seems ridiculous now, with Tabitha gone..." she took a deep breath and smoothed back her hair, closing her eyes and forcing down the tears that came whenever she thought of the other woman, "it's funny what almost dying makes you realize. I've spent the last five years trying to be free but I've been stuck in a four by four cell of my own design," she couldn't believe she was being that honest. She couldn't believe she would leave herself open for such ridicule to someone who seemed to take such delight in reminding her that she was less than nothing. There was something inside of her; the old Dolly maybe, that felt Landis was perhaps the only person she could say any of this to - which was insane in and of itself.

She tilted her head to one side as he corrected her she arched an eyebrow, "Oh, I don't know for an emotionally crippled zombie with the empathetic depth of a teaspoon you can be strangely charming. I wouldn't be surprised. Jules likes a challenge and a battle for control. See! You already have so much in common," her voice was light before she paused to take a long drag from her cigarette. She might have been baiting him, just a little bit. She was glad to hear that Juliette was setting off a bang. She missed being able to just pop by on a dreary afternoon but if the Potions Mistress was happy then Dolly was happy for her. Now all she had to do was figure out how to be happy herself and she'd be set.