Maid of the Mountain

‘After nearly a month of following the tracks of the elusive Yeti, our party has decided to stop our search and weather the worst part of the winter indoors. They chose to return to the village, of course—but I am truly the adventurous spirit you no doubt know me to be. I, instead, chose to stay with our mountain guide, whose name I learned was Sahira, who lives in a little cabin about a quarter of the way up the slope of Mt. Everest.

‘At first, Sahira didn’t seem to welcome my presence, but after a lot of persuasion, an autographed picture, and a promise of a signed copy of this book as soon as it comes out, she let me stay. I didn’t want to feel like a complete ninny by staying in the safe little village, and roughing it with nobody but a woman who could not be any more than a metre and a half certainly didn’t smack of cowardice in my book.

‘We didn’t speak to each other for about a week, from which I gather she was probably either bitter about having to share her tiny house with me or was jealous of my hair. I, personally, leaned more toward the hair—it isn’t for nothing that I’ve won the Witch Weekly Best Hair award five years in a row now, you know!—but I guess I’ll never really know. But when Sahira finally did see fit to talk to me, I discovered that I found her voice to be very pleasant indeed.

‘I also started to notice other things about her that had not caught my eye before spending time with her whilst not swaddled to the hilt in bulky winter clothing. Her eyes were the colour of the waters of the Mediterranean, belying her Indian heritage, and her face was heart-shaped. I think I even found her to be fetching, on the whole, though I do have to clarify that she wasn’t quite as attractive as myself. Needless to say, she was nevertheless not hard on the eyes. Her petite stature only added to her charm, and, though many would call me a fool or a sot, but I think that, within two weeks of her company, I had fallen in love with her.

‘Now, getting Sahira to fall in love with me was, as I’m sure you all will find very hard to believe, extremely difficult. It seemed that, at every turn, she found some excuse not to be around me—but, instead of deterring my desire for her, that only poured fuel on the flames of my heart.

‘When Christmastime came around, though, Sahira started to warm toward me considerably. She prepared meals fit for a king just for me, and she even began to wear more provocative clothing. It seemed that she just could not resist my charms - not that I could blame her, mind you. I had been pouring it on quite thick to catch her favour.

‘I remember Christmas Eve like it was yesterday. She wore a slinky red dress which showed off her figure more than adequately, and I wore a set of gorgeous burgundy robes, which the rest of the party (searching for the yetis) had sworn was excess baggage—in the end, as always, good ol’ Gilderoy was right. Together, we made an attractive pair, and the day only got better as it rolled along.

‘For breakfast, Sahira served strawberries that were dipped in the most decadent chocolate I’ve ever tasted. Merlin only knows where she got fresh strawberries in the dead of winter, but you won’t hear any objections from me! She sat on my lap and fed them to me, occasionally taking a bite herself, but only on the ones I myself had sampled. I found the experience almost erotic as her lips wrapped around the berries. I remember vividly that I was hoping that she would not notice the, let’s say, physical manifestations of my desire.’

Elijah crinkled his nose. It was not that it was a subject that he did not contemplate, but in his thoughts, the company was usually a fair sight better. Still, it was fascinating to see how Lockhart was starting to talk about Sahira more than himself, which seemed to be an aberration from the man’s typical self-centered personality. Still rather wary of further content, though, Elijah kept reading.

‘She smelled like roses and earth, but not dirt. She was never dirty, no matter how much slogging in the muck we did, even on the trail. The earthy smell was much like the clean scent one smells after a good rain. Goodness knows I know all about rain, having lived in Britain for so long. Her unique fragrance filled my nostrils and made my head spin. Whether it was my growing attraction to her or the depleted oxygen from the altitude, I’ll never know, but I personally believe it was the former.

‘After breakfast, we decorated a rather sickly-looking tree, the breed of which I don’t know—it was the closest thing to a Christmas tree I could find in the middle of the Himalayas. She didn’t own any sort of traditional ornaments, so we made some from bits of parchment from my supplies, and I Transfigured some from spare pieces of firewood.

‘All in all, the day was gearing up to be a glorious one. We told jokes and stories, ranging from anecdotes about hapless relatives to bawdy limericks that one might hear in the meanest of pubs, but what I loved the most was how her eyes glinted like sapphires when she laughed. How I loved it when she laughed!

‘After our crude little tree was decked out in the finest Christmas glory we could muster, it was almost time for dinner. We had been so wrapped up in each other that we had entirely missed lunch, which was something I had never thought I would do.

‘Perhaps fate was intervening on our behalf, because it was snowing like the dickens outdoors. By sunset, we couldn’t even push open the door, because the entire cabin was covered in snow, the first of which had started falling early in December and had really never stopped. We were actually lucky—if the same had happened to Muggles, they would most likely have starved. However, since, of course, I am a wizard of quite formidable talent, I was able to extend our supply of food and cast a rather potent Warming Charm when our supply of firewood expired by the end of the day.

‘The warmth and unavoidable closeness changed many things between Sahira and myself in those waning hours of December twenty-fourth. By the light of the bluebell flames we had conjured, her silhouette was more enticing than my wildest imaginations, more lovely than then most shapely of mannequins in Madame Malkin’s, and more approachable than ever. Months before, I would have never dreamt it, but I stopped thinking and just started to feel.

‘I leaned in to kiss her, and she responded with an ardour that matched my own. It was as if Merlin himself had crafted this beautiful girl and sent her straight to me from beyond, because, surely, such feelings did not exist on Earth.

‘When I became braver, my hand roamed to her—“

Elijah slammed Lockhart’s writings onto the end table next to him; to his surprise, he was breathing heavily. It was as if he was there in Lockhart’s place, snogging the daylights out of this Sahira woman, and his imagination was working at light-speed. He could see why Mister Blotts would edit out this particular chapter, because young people were, as Elijah had researched as soon as he got home, the primary readers of Lockhart’s books. Adults would not read them, because most of them knew that he was a fraud, but adolescents did not discriminate when it came to a thrilling tale on whether it was true or not.

Casting a sideways glance at the manuscript, Elijah contemplated whether he was going to finish reading it. The handwriting, while a bit flowery for his own taste, actually lent a great deal to the mood of the story. His looping script portrayed a sort of beauty that went hand in hand with the general good feelings of the story.

He found that reading the rest of the story was something that he really wanted to do; so. Elijah resumed his reclined posture and reclaimed the pages, of which only a few remained. He decided to skip through the naughty bits, because he really did not need those types of erotic pictures flying about in his head before he went to bed.

After sorting through three pages of what Elijah tentatively identified as extremely passionate lovemaking, judging by the random words and phrases he picked up, the Christmas Eve segment was finally over. He continued after that point, allowing Gilderoy Lockhart to regale him with the tale of his winter with the Maid of the Mountain.

‘Christmas Day could only be described as the polar opposite of the night before. Even after the passion that we had shared in the wee hours of the night, Sahira had returned to her previous frosty demeanour, the same she had had when I first arrived. I did not know in the slightest what had prompted this abrupt change in our relationship, but I really wanted to find out.

‘Every day after that, I tried to get her to tell me what it was that made her hate me so, when she had clearly loved me for that one bittersweet day, at least. However, it seemed like her secret would remain so, because she would not even say more than two words to me at a time—and, that too, only when she deemed them necessary.

‘I must admit, I was fit to be tied, because my feelings for Sahira had not changed even though she clearly hated me after we made love, something I still do not understand to this day. The uncomfortable days slipped into even tetchier weeks; at last, it was time for us to depart. She told me that she would find me a new guide, because she wished to stay in the mountains, alone, and do some thinking. I agreed, mostly because I wanted to respect her desire for space after our forced confinement over the long winter months.

‘Once my new trail guide was in place, I left my Maid of the Mountain, never to see her face again. What in her head caused her to revile me the day after she had loved me, I couldn’t venture to guess, but I do know this: after Sahira, I really do not believe I could ever fully love another woman again.’

Elijah felt his heart catch in his throat. This poor bloke had given his heart to a lady—and, in the typical, fickle nature of women, she had trampled it in the rudest fashion. He never dreamed he would feel sorry for a man like Lockhart, yet here he was, near tears over something that had happened when his own father had been only ten years old.

In his fit of sympathy, Elijah almost missed the fact that there was one more page in the volume even after the chapter was obviously concluded. Crinkling his brow in confusion, he pulled out that last sheet of parchment. It was labeled as an Author’s Note, which was even odder.

Typically, author’s notes were always published, but perhaps it was pertaining to this missing chapter. Curious about this last bit from Lockhart, Elijah read the last page avidly.

‘In the chapter ‘Maid of the Mountain,’ I learned a valuable lesson, both about life and about myself, but it came at a cost. My adventurous spirit found itself to be severely hampered by my heartbreak, and I find that I no longer have the drive to go forth and seek magical beings for the benefit of my wonderful audience. This book, Year with the Yeti, will be my last grand tour, and I shall be retiring from the exploration business.

‘I thank you all for your support, letters, and adulation over the years; I hope to issue an autobiography to give you all one last piece of myself before I move on with my life.

‘Live every day with a lust for life, and remember where your heart is, whether it is at home, hiking through dark, murky woods, wading in treacherous waters with equally dangerous creatures, or even in a small cabin in the Himalayas. I bid you adieu for now.

‘Lots of love,

‘Gilderoy Lockhart, Five-Time Winner of Witch Weekly’s Best Smile Award.’

Setting down the page, this time with a certain deference, Elijah’s head spun with a mix of emotions. First, he felt absolutely terrible on Lockhart’s behalf, and second, he wondered what had ever become of the man after the autobiography, Magical Me, had been published. He decidedto ask Mister Blotts about it the next day ; he would conveniently strike the part where he had basically stolen the chapter from the conversation.

But, for the time being, Elijah required sleep to put an end to that long and trying day. He found, though, that his dreams were filled full of the love affair of the blond man from the picture and a pair of sea-colored eyes that seemed to penetrate his very soul.