"I wouldn't want to be faster
or greener than now
if you were with me;
O! you –
You were the best of all my days."
-Frank O'Hara
Katie Bell's shoes were staring at her.
The scuff marks she had thought barely detectable after an anxious session with a permanent marker earlier that morning now seemed to be screaming, desirous of recognition in the face of the perfectly coiffed, blonde receptionist who sat opposite Katie and kept staring at her like she was going to leave ink stains on the sofa.
"Any idea how much longer?" Katie questioned, if only to take her mind off of this particular personal deficiency. "I have to file by five."
The blonde looked up, smiled a flawlessly apologetic smile, and then said, "Sorry. He's in with a junior department head, it could be a while."
Katie frowned, but said nothing. As a rule, she loathed visiting the Ministry of Magic, with its overreliance on hair potions and pinstripes, and she held especial disdain for "senior officials" who seemed to think granting press interviews was a favor and could therefore be rearranged at the drop of a hat. But Aemon Leary, head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, had just written a by-law that would scale back shipping requirements on ready-made potions from Europe and, as it threatened to disrupt the British market, Katie felt duty bound to the handful of readers of the Daily Prophet's Charms and Potions page to question him on it.
She referred again to her interview notes and tried not to wonder whether Aemon Leary was the sort of person who took notice of women's shoes.
It was then that the door burst open and Katie, perversely interested in which quill-pushing junior department head was of greater importance than a prearranged appointment, looked up to see Percy Weasley stride down the corridor and stop at the desk of the immaculate receptionist.
"Thanks Daisy," he said briskly, using the desktop to straighten some pieces of parchment. "Leary asked me to beg you for five minutes before sending in his next meeting. Has to write a memo, I believe."
Katie sunk low into her seat and bent further over her small notebook, willing herself to become invisible. It wasn't that she disliked Percy Weasley – he had, in fact, become much more tolerable since entering the Department of Magical Transportation, marrying, becoming a father, and then divorcing his insane society wife – but he was still Percy, and Katie didn't have the time nor patience to get mired in an inane speech about broom tail thickness. And, privately, she wasn't sure she could handle the mental tailspin that was sure to accompany conversation with any Weasley.
But the receptionist had apparently decided Katie was deaf, for she called out to her just a moment later, "Looks like another five minutes, Miss Bell. Sorry for the delay."
Percy turned around and smiled in surprise. "Katie!" he said, crossing the small room to greet her.
Accepting her fate, Katie grinned, stood up – wobbled slightly in her heels – and allowed Percy to peck both of her cheeks. "Hi Perce," she said. "Alright?"
"What are you doing here?" he asked. "I thought you were still on Charms and Potions."
And always will be, she thought spitefully, but Percy had rushed to answer his own question.
"Oh, the new by-law, of course," he said. "I'm sure that's had to have irritated some of our local potions brewers."
"A fair few," Katie said.
"Well, stick to him. I worked with Leary years ago when I was still in the department, and he's a bit prickly under scrutiny, but he usually feels compelled to explain himself if you keep at it long enough."
"Thanks," she said, grinning. "But shouldn't you be trying to trip up us poor reporters instead of giving us key insights into your fellow Ministry employees?"
Percy smirked. "Perhaps," he said, glancing over his shoulder at the receptionist, who was now adjusting channels on her wireless radio, and lowering his voice. "But truth be told, I'm a bit put out with him at the moment. We're working on standardizing Floo networks across the continent, and he's making a stink, saying we should have given him first crack at it. It would be extremely helpful to us if there were something else to worry him right now. In fact –"
Percy scrambled for a loose sheet of parchment and quill and scribbled something down before handing it to her.
"Ask him that at the end of the interview," he said. "It will have him seeing red."
Katie frowned and glanced down at it, but was interrupted as Percy rushed on.
"Listen, I've got to run, but I'll see you Saturday I'm guessing?"
She looked up, distractedly pushing the scrap of paper into her own notebook. "What?" She hadn't willingly seen a Weasley or even had occasion to in more than 18 months.
"The party," he frowned. "For Roxanne? It is Saturday, isn't it?"
Shit.
Katie thought despairingly of the pile of unopened mail on her desk in the newsroom. She hadn't seen a birthday invitation from Angelina, but she was certain it was there, moldering under old bills and poorly spelled letters from angry readers. Her goddaughter had been born five years ago on Halloween night, and Katie felt certain Angelina would have had no qualms about inviting all of her friends and family to give up the holiday in order to honor her little girl.
"Yeah, it is," Katie said vaguely. Her ears had started to ring. "See you."
She barely took notice when Percy left the room.
Xxx
The interview was going badly. Calling Aemon Leary "a bit prickly" had turned out to be the understatement of the year – the white-haired, deeply wrinkled old man was leaning back in his chair and gazing down at Katie through his round spectacles with a mixture of impatience and disdain. Nearly all of his answers thus far had been limited to ten words or fewer.
"Um," Katie said, eyes flickering back to her notebook as she desperately fought to regain her composure. Her fingers were numb and she was shaking, feeling sure she was about to become reacquainted with her nonexistent breakfast.
The party? For Roxanne? It's Saturday, isn't it?
She shook her head angrily. As she readjusted her position, a piece of parchment slid out from between the pages of her notebook and she caught it up. Percy's hint. She read it quickly, eyes widening.
"Mr. Leary," she said, now refocused. "What influence would you say your son's majority ownership in Prussian Potions had in the creation of this new by-law?"
Leary turned an instantaneous shade of puce, opened his mouth, and Katie saw – with much relief – that she had her story.
Xxx
Erastus Cuff, business editor for the Daily Prophet, said nothing at first as he gazed over the copy of Katie's rough draft three hours later. His shark-like, light blue eyes flicked over the text and finally up at Katie, who stood in front of his desk, waiting.
"This is very interesting," he said finally. "Not enough to run outside the section, though. I need widespread evidence of this sort of unchecked nepotism, or else this is just…" he waved his hand around vaguely, "flavor."
Katie's heart sunk. She'd spent the better part of the afternoon confirming the allegations with Prussian Potions and other Ministry sources, seeking comment from the head of the British Potions Brewers Guild, and psyching herself up to submit an inquiry with the Minister's office, which predictably went unanswered, presumably after they checked the byline and discovered it to be that of unnoticed, unread reporter. All for a dash of "flavor."
"If you gave me more resources –" she began, steeling herself.
"I said it was fine," Cuff concluded, uninterested. "I'll run it tomorrow. Good night."
Dismissed, still rankled, Katie swallowed her perturbation and left the office of the editor, himself a recipient of unchecked nepotism as the nephew of the aged and semi-senile chief editor Barnabus Cuff. Already disgusted that the break in the story had not been her own discovery, she now faced the added disgrace of failing to run outside the business beat.
"Ignore him, he's a shit," said Rachel Greengrass, the paper's banking reporter, who sidled up beside Katie as she wound her way through the messy, cramped hallways of the fourth floor of the paper's offices. The threadbare carpeting and scratched tabletops had been a welcome relief to Katie after the hour and a half she'd spent amidst the Ministry's polished grandeur, but now they assaulted her eyes – further evidence of her own intellectual indigence.
"You know Erastus only opens his mouth to criticize," Rachel continued, when Katie did not respond. "I think the last time I got even an 'interesting' was in May after that investigative report on Gringotts security practices. That's high praise. Here, take this – last one of the day."
She shoved a cup of tea in Katie's hands. Katie took it and sighed.
"I just don't know how he expects us to produce quality on this schedule and budget," she said, perching on her messy corner desk to face Rachel, who sat across from her.
"He doesn't. He wants column inches. You know that," Rachel said, and then gestured at the disastrous pile of parchment behind Katie. "What's this? You're…more disheveled than usual."
Katie felt a new heaviness settle around her heart as she turned, fished out the brightly colored card now protruding from its envelope, and handed it to Rachel. The first thing she'd done after reentering the office was dig through the pile of rubbish on her desk for the invitation. Surely enough, it had spilled from the stack and Katie had opened it with trembling fingers.
Roxanne Weasley is five years old!
Join us Saturday, October 31, for a birthday extravaganza
At Roxy's grandmother's home
The Burrow
Ottery St. Catchpole
12:00 to 18:00
Hosted by Angelina and Molly Weasley
Rachel looked over it now, nose crinkling.
"That bitch still invites you to parties?" she said with distaste.
Katie grimaced at the epithet and swallowed her tea, which moved through her throat without taste. "Not really," she said quietly. "Only when Roxy's involved. Birthdays, dance recitals, preschool graduations…I usually miss them. Last year, I went by myself to the seaside just to avoid it. Imagine Cornwall in October."
"Well shit, do it again," Rachel said. "Kids' parties are awful enough when you actually get along with the parents."
Katie shook her head dismally. "Turn it around."
On the back, Angelina had written in ink so heavy it had blotted the paper, "It would be really GREAT if Roxy's actual GODMOTHER could be there FOR ONCE."
"Good Lord, she doesn't ask much, does she?" Rachel frowned. "And I'll bet you've got to get it a present, haven't you?"
"Shit, I hadn't even thought of a present." Katie groaned. "What do you get the daughter of the proprietor of the most popular kids' store in the wizarding world?"
Rachel shrugged. "My cousins have these fake giant tarantulas that run at you and lay eggs in your hair. You could get her one of those."
Katie laughed in spite of herself as Rachel started to pack her things. "Somehow I don't think Angelina would approve of that."
"You coming?" Rachel questioned, shouldering her back and buttoning the brass buttons on her trench coat. "Jillian and Anna and Seamus are already down at the pub."
"Really? You're all drinking on a Wednesday?"
"Of course. There's still two more days of this shite."
Katie laughed lightly and shook her head. "Count me out. I've got one or two more things to take care of first."
Rachel shrugged. "Well don't work too hard. See you tomorrow."
When the other girl had left, Katie fell down into her chair and stared at the invitation until the bright colors ran together. If she were a smarter person, she would have laid the groundwork with Percy today for some sort of illness that have really taken hold by Saturday. Or she would have invented an extended deadline, or an event she needed to cover – anything to exempt her from what was sure to be the emotional hurricane of this weekend.
But she wasn't a smarter person. If she were, she wouldn't have needed Percy's tip for her interview or garnered even more of Erastus' disdain. She would be out of this dingy office, working instead with all of those unbearably hip journalists at The Quibbler and reporting on things that actually mattered.
And anyway, didn't some perverse part of her want to go? Didn't she crave, in some small way, the exquisite misery of close proximity to the Weasleys? Didn't she delight in the uncomfortable pity with which she was treated?
If she was honest, she knew that she often fetishized her own sadness. It validated her, reminded her that she was real, human, and hurting. That everything had really happened and that it had all mattered. And it was often the most direct way to remind herself that she had once been young – had once been that feisty, vivacious teenager of which Katherine Bell, 32-year-old Daily Prophet reporter, was barely an echo.
She hated herself for it.
Taking a deep breath, Katie seized a blank sheet of parchment and a quill, before pulling out her old address book to remind herself of Alicia Spinnet's address. After writing the proper direction, she began her note.
Hi Ali,
Please, please, please tell me you're coming to this wretched party of Angelina's on Saturday. I missed last year's and I don't know if I can handle it without you. Please tell me you'll be there.
Love,
Katie
Katie climbed the stairs to the paper's owlery at the roof of the office and coaxed down a large, sleepy barn owl who had evidently thought his day was over.
"Sorry," she mumbled to the bird as she attached the roll of parchment to its leg and carried it over to the window. "Not too far, though. Just the other side of town."
It hooted dolefully in reply and then descended into the night. Katie watched it for a while before pulling her coat on tighter and heading down the stairs alone.
Xxx
She received Alicia's reply two hours later while eating canned soup in the small two-bedroom apartment she shared with a German witch named Heika, who had a boyfriend and was rarely at home. The barn owl rapped at her window, and Katie stretched, lost in the long sleeves of her old Gryffindor quidditch sweatshirt.
"I'm coming, I'm coming," she yawned before padding over and unlatching the window, which overlooked the Thames and the sprawling city beyond.
Alicia had simply turned over Katie's original note and scrawled on the back.
Oh God, Katie, I completely forgot – Bryce and I are doing tea with his parents that day, they're down for the weekend. I really need to get back in the habit of writing things down. Let's get together soon, though, yeah? It's been ages! XOXOXO
"It's been six months," Katie told the owl, who was staring up at her warily, obviously worried he'd have one more run tonight. She sighed. "It's okay, you take off."
On her way back to the couch, Katie switched on the WWN. She listened for a while to a live Weird Sisters anniversary concert before closing her eyes, unwittingly falling asleep for the night away from her bed and without doing her dishes.