Chapter 24: The Apology Bouquet
The door clicked shut behind her, and the world sealed into two distinct halves. There was the mountain apartment—all dark velvet, cold stone, and the lingering fever of his skin. And here, her flat: bathed in quiet, golden afternoon light, smelling of lavender and her own familiar, tidy life. She leaned against the wood, letting the solid normalcy of it seep into her bones.
And then she saw them.
An explosion of midnight blue and deep violet in the centre of her kitchen table, so vast it seemed to suck the light from the room only to emit its own. They were not flowers from any earthly greenhouse. Stems like twisted silver wire held blooms that pulsed gently, like subterranean hearts. Petals shifted from blue to amethyst to a black so deep it seemed a void. A soft, hypnotic light emanated from their centres, casting moving constellations across her ceiling.
She approached slowly, her fingertips hovering over a petal that felt like cooled silk. The light within the bloom brightened at her proximity. A simple card lay beside the crystal vase, thick parchment.
Her heart did a slow, heavy roll in her chest.
For every interruption, a thousand apologies. And for every moment I stole, a promise of more. —D.
She traced the elegant, slanted script. A smile, unbidden and private, touched her lips. The warmth that spread through her wasn’t just memory; it was a live wire, reconnected. The flowers seemed to breathe with her, their light ebbing and flowing. A promise of more. Not a question. A statement.
For three days, the flowers were the only contact. They became her secret. She’d work at her desk, drafting revisions to the International Magical Secrecy Act, and her gaze would drift to their otherworldly glow. A constant, silent reminder that her life now had a hidden chamber, one stocked with dark velvet and the taste of whiskey and sin.
She was elbow-deep in cross-referencing goblin metallurgy laws when her own fireplace roared to life.
Expecting the flash of green, she set her quill down, a different kind of warmth blooming. But it was only a rolled scroll, charmed a dignified grey, that shot out and landed neatly on her hearth rug. Official DMLE post.
Sighing, she Summoned it. The Ministry seal unfurled under her thumb. It was a memo from her supervisor, a kindly but perpetually stressed witch named Margot. Urgent request for consult from Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. See attached. May involve cross-departmental liaison. Please review and be prepared to discuss tomorrow, 10 a.m.
The attachment was a field report. A series of photographs slid out. Her breath caught.
It showed a warehouse, or what was left of one. The walls were not shattered, but melted, stone flowing like candle wax. In the centre of the devastation lay a score of shattered glass vials, their contents a fluorescent, corroding sludge. The caption read: Site 7, Oslo. Unstable Potion Storage. Catastrophic Stasis Failure.
Oslo.
Her mind flashed. Theo’s voice, tense and urgent in Draco’s sunlit kitchen. ‘The shipment from the Oslo lab is unstable.’
A cold drip slid down her spine. Coincidence. It had to be. Potions labs failed sometimes. Stasis charms degraded. It was the entire reason for her department’s regulatory review.
She read on. The preliminary findings suggested the failure was not natural. The stasis charms had been tampered with, reversed in a way that accelerated molecular decay. It was sophisticated, malicious sabotage. The list of compromised potions included several Class-B Non-Tradeables, primarily used in advanced magical construction and… discrete private security.
Private security. The kind a very wealthy, very discrete ex-Death Eater-turned-entrepreneur might invest heavily in.
“No,” she said aloud to her quiet flat. The flowers pulsed softly, oblivious.
She worked until her eyes burned, tracing magical signatures through the report, looking for a hallmark, a stylistic tic of spellwork she might recognize. She found nothing concrete, only a lingering sense of brutal, elegant efficiency that made her gut clench.
Night had fallen. She made tea, but it tasted like ash. She was standing at her window, staring across the courtyard at the dark, gleaming windows of his building, when it happened.
A soft pop in her kitchen.
She whirled, wand out. No one was there. But on her counter, beside the pulsing flowers, stood a single bottle. Dom Pérignon, magically chilled, frost crystallising on the green glass. A second card was tied to its neck with a black ribbon.
She unfurled it, her hands steady.
Thinking of you is a catastrophic distraction. —D.
The words slammed into her. Catastrophic distraction. Theo’s words in the report. Catastrophic failure.
It couldn’t be a coincidence. It was a message. A boast. A confession. Her mind raced, logic and dread warring with the part of her that thrilled at the audacity, at the sheer him-ness of it. Sending flowers was one thing. Sending a champagne punchline to a potential crime scene was something else entirely.
Before she could decide whether to scream or laugh, the bottle’s cork gave a gentle, persuasive twist of its own accord. It eased itself out with a quiet, luxurious pop. The fizzy overflow cascaded down the bottle’s side. Two of her clean glasses drifted from the cupboard and positioned themselves beneath the self-pouring stream.
He was here. Somewhere. Watching.
She looked across the alley. His windows were still dark. But high up, on the rooftop terrace she knew belonged to his penthouse, a single ember glowed. A cigar. And beneath it, the faintest outline of a man, leaning against the railing, looking directly at her.
Her skin prickled. He was too far to see clearly, but she felt the weight of his gaze like a physical touch. The invasion was complete. He was in her kitchen, in her case file, and now on her skyline.
Her fireplace erupted again. This time, it was a face in the flames, green and shimmering. Not Draco. Theo Nott.
He looked exhausted. “Granger.”
“Nott.” She kept her voice flat, clutching the champagne card in her fist.
“He’s there, isn’t he? Staring like a lovesick gargoyle.”
She glanced back at the rooftop. The ember flared. “What do you want?”
“I want you to tell him to get his arse down to the distribution centre. We’re on the brink of a multi-continental recall. The investors are howling. He’s been… unavailable.” Theo’s pale eyes narrowed. “And now the Ministry is sniffing around Oslo. Funny that.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Right.” He dragged a hand down his face. “Look. I don’t care what you two do. But his current obsession is making him sloppy. And when he’s sloppy, I have to clean it up. Tell him…” Theo hesitated, an unusual crack in his dry facade. “Tell him the wolves are at the door. The real ones. Not the ones he’s playing with.”
The connection severed, leaving her kitchen in sudden silence, broken only by the lazy fizz of the champagne in the two full glasses.
She looked at the champagne. She looked at the glowing flowers. She looked at the report, the melted stone, the sabotage. She looked across the dark alley at the solitary burning ember.
Promise of more.
Catastrophic distraction.
The wolves are at the door.
She picked up one of the champagne glasses. The bubbles chased themselves to the rim. She didn’t drink. Instead, she walked to her window, facing the shadow on the roof. She held the glass up, a clear, defiant gesture in the light of her flat.
Then she tipped it slowly, deliberately, letting the expensive liquid spill in a sparkling stream onto her floorboards.
She watched the distant figure. The ember dipped, then brightened, as if in acknowledgment.
Tomorrow, she had a 10 a.m. meeting about Oslo. Tomorrow, she would be the Ministry.
But tonight.
She set the empty glass down. She didn’t extinguish her lights. She left them blazing as she turned and walked to her front door, shoving her feet into shoes and grabbing a light cloak.
She would get answers. One way or another.