AN: I know they use Metric in the UK, but I'm not very good at it and I figure that in the Wizarding World, which split long before the metric system came in, would still be using the English system. I also have no intention of making this a song fic. The lyrics in here are a plot point and I thought they fit well.
Disclaimer: I wish I may, I wish I might, but I still wont make any money. HP belongs to JK and It's All in Your Head is courtesy of Diamond Rio. Go ahead, listen to it, it's a fun song.
Harry had been sent outside to weed the front garden. It was an unfortunate task for such a hot day. Britain didn't usually get out of the 80s, but today was an exception. Harry didn't know how hot it actually was, but it was the sweatiest he could remember being, despite the fact that he wasn't really working. Really he was watching the man in the house left kitty corner to number 4.
In the yard of number 7 was a man Harry had never seen there before. He was very tall, probably almost 7 feet, probably taller than Dumbledore. The man's T-shirt and shorts showed a strong physique and a light tan. He had thick black hair pulled into a ponytail that resembled tail feathers and black eyes.
If Harry didn't know better he would think the man was a clean, healthy, Severus Snape.
But Snape would never know how to mow a lawn. And that was what the man had been doing. Harry knew that push mowing a law was tedious work, but the man had been plugging along happily, until just now, when he stopped and cut the engine, apparently done with front. Maybe it was the large headphones with the antenna sticking out. Harry had guessed the man was listening to the radio through them. With the engine off he could hear the man singing in a deep pleasant baritone.
"Momma die young givin' birth to a son in a home for wayward girls. Daddy was a sidewalk, soapbox preacher lookin' forward to the end of the world-"
It wasn't a song Harry had ever heard before. Not that he ever got to listen to anything other than what Dudley liked, which was just too stupid to understand, or the Beatles, which Aunt Petunia occasionally put on.
"Every Friday night he'd pick Jesus a fight down at the local pool hall, condemning all those caught behind the eight ball-"
The man was also singing in foreign accent. Maybe he was from another country? But then how could he be listening to their radio here in Surrey?
"He said: I peach the light! The light shows the way! Don't never trust what the government say!"
The man had adapted a sour face as he sang those lines. Harry didn't know if it had to do with the bad grammer, the message of the lyrics, or whatever he was fiddling with on the lawn mower. But as he began the next lines the look disappeared.
"We never walked on the moon! Elvis ain't dead! You ain't goin' crazy; it's all in your head!"
Harry thought back to elementary school. Britain never had gone to the moon, and Elvis was from the colonies. Maybe the man was American?
"Eileen was a messed up dressed up waitress with the Sunday tarnish on her gold. She wasn't half bad for a new step momma, as far as step mommas go-"
"Those aren't the lyrics and you know it," a woman's voice called out from the doorway. Harry recognized her; the woman owned the house and had been living there since shortly before he started Hogwarts. She was the only one of the neighbors that didn't like Aunt Petunia, so that meant Harry like her by default.
He turned to her and called back: "But these lyrics are real."
"That song isn't about you, and you know it."
"Close enough!"
"And you have an audience." At this the man spun around comically, just as Harry ducked his head. He tried to appear as if he hadn't been watching, but he must have been the only other person out on such a blistering summer day. "Harry! Why don't you come over for some lemonade?" Harry's mouth watered at the suggestion. He didn't know what lemonade was, but Mrs. Number 7 had been holding a couple of glasses before he looked away.
He was so thirsty! But the Dursleys would kill him if they saw him taking a break. So he called back, "I really have to finish my chores, but thank you," instead of the 'Oh, yes, please,' he so desperately wanted to give. They didn't seem surprised.
"Well, you aren't going to get it done like that," the man's cool voice washed over Harry, soothing away the sudden panic at realizing that he really might not finish. If he didn't he would be locked out of the house all night for sure. "Come on over and well lend you some tools." Harry thought about it for a second. The earth was hard and dry, and the weeding hadn't been going well even before he had been distracted by the strange man.
So, Harry walked across the street and stood outside the garden wall. The man was leaned down, but reached up and started placing things on the wall. A trowel, a small hand rake, a pair of gloves that had almost no back to them, and a watering can with a very thin single spout. The man stood up and suddenly a glass of a pale yellow liquid was plunked down in front of him. He gave it a surprised look and a small, "oh" escaped him.
"Go ahead," the Mrs. Number 7 nodded at the glass. Up close Harry could see that she had thick orderly brown curls down to her shoulders and cobalt blue eyes set in a plain but pretty face. Deciding that it couldn't hurt since he was already here and had a good excuse; Harry picked up the glass and drank greedily until it was empty. He looked forlornly at the bottom of the empty glass, before placing it back on the wall. "Harry?" she began again. Looking back up, he noticed a concerned frown settle over her eyebrows. "It's nearly two thirty. Have you had anything to eat or drink since you came out this morning?"
In truth Harry hadn't had breakfast either. Coming home from Hogwarts always made the Dursleys cross with him. His appetite had been poor since Sirius fell through the veil and he honestly couldn't remember the last time he had choked down a full meal. His failure to answer was plenty of answer to the adults. While the boy was lost in thought, the man and the woman shared a look. A bowl of what appeared to be two inch white circles in white water was placed in Harry's line of sight.
Harry looked up startled. The man wore a slightly jealous expression as he gazed at the bowl. "That's the last of it, isn't it?" he accused. It looked like quite a lot to be the last of anything to Harry.
"We can make more."
"We don't have any of the good cucumbers left."
"I'm sure Colleen will send some more across soon." The man mad a non committal noise. He looked once more at the bowl, then at the teenager on the other side of the wall. All at once he seemed to realize something.
"It's cucumber salad; American cucumbers, onion, mayo, vinegar, salt, pepper, celery seed. Simple, but delicious." He then proceeded to like his lips in such a lascivious manner that Harry laughed despite himself. He picked up the bowl, stabbed a cucumber slice, and proceeded to start eating. It was good. Smooth and acidic all at the same time. It was also blissfully cool, and Harry found himself eating faster, now consumed with a ravenous hunger he hadn't felt since the Dursleys locked him in his cupboard after Dudley's eleventh birthday.
He finished the bowl, which was in reality more than a quart of vegetable matter, in less than five minutes and proceeded to drain the dressing as well. A fresh wave horror swept over him as he realized that that wasn't exactly a polite thing to do. These people were being awfully kind to him and he couldn't even remember his manners! But they didn't seem to mind in the least, when he looked up sheepishly over the edge of the bowl. In fact the man smiled and Mrs. Number 7 held out another glass of lemonade. Harry licked the grainy seeds from his upper lip and accepted the glass.
Neither adult made any comment about Harry's manners, or lack thereof. In fact, the man finished wiping his hands on a rag and then proceeded to run his finger around the inside of the bowl. He licked the last of the white dressing from the digit and raised his eyebrows. It was almost as if he were challenging Harry to accept that his breach in manners had not been as catastrophic as he felt.
The woman shook her head and laughed, "Jax."
Something seemed to have ended. Mrs. Number 7 picked up the bowl and returned to the house. Jax, at least Harry assumed that was his name just shrugged and lifted the headphones of his neck. "Just drop the stuff back over the wall when you're done." He placed the muffs on Harry. Another song was playing- "-I know it was her pink Cadillac-"
AN: For those of you who think I never finish a story. I am currently working on Saving Grace and Chapter two of Do a Little Dance is already under construction.