The chiming of the bell alerted Alicia that another person had entered her shop. She rather liked the relaxing sound of wind chimes, but this type of chime signaled more customers. Customers meant money, and that was fine by Alicia Spinnet. It was a small business, but she was doing quite well with it.
With her eyes, she followed the entrance of the tall, thin man who had just come into her establishment. He was dressed nonchalantly and didn't cause a fuss as he moved around the other customers. His wild black hair was hidden under a derby cap, and his eyes were vivid green. Alicia knew immediately that it was Harry Potter.
The fact that she knew it was Harry was a minor miracle. After he had defeated Voldemort, his life changed, but not in ways that he could have logically predicted. It was the minor details that had the odd surprises. He had lost his scar and that he no longer needed glasses. The biggest surprise was something quite different.
The wizard who had defeated the greatest evil in memory and recorded history had himself fallen into anonymity. He could be in a crowd of people and no one would know him. Five minutes after leaving someone's presence, he would not be remembered. People knew about the great hero Harry Potter, but they no longer realized who he was. He passed through life like a phantom.
Generally, the strange effect of Voldemort's last curse suited the reclusive Harry quite well. His nature had become more hermit-like anyway, and he felt sure he would have been that way even without the strange curse.
The only time that side-effect didn't work was when he was around people who had known him for a long time before the final battle and the casting of that final curse. With the high death toll from the War, there weren't many left who could make that claim. It had taken the Weasley family and most of the Hogwarts students and teachers. Alicia Spinnet was still alive, though, and she knew him.
Intent on making a connection with him, Alicia made her way over to where he was standing looking at some books on the sport of Quidditch.
"May I help you, sir?" she asked in formal politeness while waiting for a hint of recognition from Harry.
Harry didn't recognize her, though. In fact, he wasn't even looking at her to try and take notice. He was mannerly enough in asking about the books, but he did not act toward Alicia that he knew her at all.
"Harry, look at me!" she commanded after a few moments because she was tired of waiting for Harry to realize who she was.
He flinched at being addressed by name and turned cautiously to look at the chestnut-haired shopkeeper beside him. She had warm brown eyes and rosy mouth, and her thick hair framed her face in a way that was truly flattering. He had to admit she was attractive, but he'd been too busy with his questions to notice immediately.
He continued to look at her until the light of revelation fell on him. "Alicia..."
"That's right, wonder boy," she said with a dramatic sigh and a roll of her eyes. "It took you long enough to notice!"
He blushed. "I'm not used to seeing people I know any more. So many died in the War..."
"I know," she said soberly, "but not all of us."
He shuffled uncomfortably, and she filled the silence. "So do you still want that?"
"Yes, please," Harry said, looking at her quickly from the corner of his eyes.
Alicia had one of her employees get the books down off the high shelf, and Harry went to pay for them. He passed the money over and looked at her intently for a while before gathering up his package and leaving without a word of goodbye.
The bell tinkled behind him as the door to her shop closed, and anonymous Harry disappeared into the bustle of Wizarding London.
"Who was that?" one of the employees nudged about the handsome black haired man who had just left.
"Harry Potter," Alicia said softly.
"Really?" a different employee asked with stars in her eyes. "No one sees him around anymore."
"Of course not," she murmured as she shooed her people back to work. Meanwhile, Alicia hoped she'd see Harry again. This visit had been a pleasant and unexpected surprise.
Harry did come back to Alicia's shop quite often. Sometimes she was there, sometimes she wasn't. When she was, though, he always went to her like a compass seeking north. He hadn't realized until meeting her again that he had missed other people so desperately. When the War came, he shoved everyone away for their protection. He thought it was better that way, but instead it still ended in tragedy with him lamenting the times they could have had together.
"Harry," Alicia finally said after he purchased a book that she knew with reasonable certainty wasn't for him. "It's almost my lunch break. Would you like to share a cuppa?"
"Yes!" he said eagerly, his eyes glowing. Though a grown man now starting to enter his late twenties, he looked so boyish that Alicia couldn't help but remember him as the new kid on the Gryffindor House Quidditch team.
Alicia let out a laugh then that sounded like music in his ears. She offered her arm and walked out with him to have lunch.
"Who was that?" Estelle, one of the clerks asked as her boss left.
As they sat down to eat, Alicia made small talk. She had always been comfortable with him for team practices, and they were friendly while they were in school together. Plus, she was just that kind of woman who didn't feel herself a stranger anywhere. People just liked Alicia.
After some talking and laughing, Potter looked like he wanted to say something, but he wouldn't start. She took the initiative.
"What is it, Harry?" she coaxed.
"You're not who I expected you to be," Harry said shyly.
"That's because you never expected me to be anything," Alicia said with a twinkle in her eyes. "You were too busy looking at other girls like Cho Chang to even notice one of your mates on your own the Quidditch team—not even someone as gorgeous as me!"
He laughed at her cheek because it was part of her charm. Her answering smile reinforced the gorgeous issue.
"And then," she said, suddenly somber, "we had a war, and you were still too busy to think on frivolous things."
"Yes, we had a war," he said as he traced the pattern of the tablecloth with his fingers. His serious tone answered hers in silence for several moments.
"You remember me, Alicia. There are so few that do," he said with a longing in his voice. "That's the real reason I keep coming back."
"I thought so," she said with an indulgent smile. "After your last purchase of a book on health issues for the aging witch, I had a clue. Sure, you could have been donating them, but that's not it. Is it?"
"Yes. No. Uh… I am giving away the books. What do I need to know about menopause?" he said, allowing himself to laugh. "But I like coming into your shop and knowing that there's someone there who'll know who I am, and not just know about the famous Harry Potter."
"You always wanted that, Harry, even before the War started," she said with a laugh.
He nodded as he thought about it. "You're right."
Alicia reached her hand to cover his. "I'm your friend, Harry. If you want to spend time with me, you don't have to buy every book in my store to do it."
"No?" he asked smile.
"No, you don't, though the profits have been nice," she teased and winked.
He continued eating his lunch with the happiness wrapping itself around his heart. This was the best he had felt in much too long.
After lunch, they walked back to Alicia's shop and Harry bid her farewell. When she entered, one of the other employees nosily asked "Who was that man that had lunch with you?"
"Harry Potter," she replied not sounding impressed.
"Wow! We haven't seen him since before the War," he said with the sound of awe in his voice.
"Actually," she said softly, "you see him almost every day. You just don't remember it."
She went back into her office to work on the books and left the employees to wonder at that.
Because of the nature of Harry's curse, speculation didn't stop. Her mother visited the shop after the two had been having regular lunch dates for two weeks.
"So I've heard your dating an attractive young man," she said hoping to grease the wheel of conversation.
Alicia took a drink from the cup on her desk before answering her mother. "Has anyone mentioned to you who it is?"
"No! They can't tell me. Are you sneaking around in secret? What's going on in your life, Alicia?"
She could have laughed at her mother because she sounded to the letter exactly like a wounded martyr mother.
"It's Harry Potter, mum, and I remember him. You won't. We'll probably have this conversation again in a few days when you think I've been hiding things from you again."
Alicia sighed and wondered if her friendship if the wizard was worth dealing with the forgetfulness of others. As soon as she thought it, she banished the thought. It was completely worth it, but she didn't want to try to quantify exactly why just yet. She wasn't ready to go there.
"Why do you own a bookstore?" Harry asked her after one lunch. "I would have expected it from Hermione, but not from you."
She pursed her lips. "Are you saying a sporty girl isn't supposed to have brains? You should know me better than that by now."
"Alicia," he said with a warning tone, "you know what I mean!"
She nodded and took a bite of the candy floss they'd picked up from a street vendor.
"I could have been a professional Quidditch player. I was that good, you know. After the War, though, the teams were in upheaval just like the rest of the world. So I opened my own shop, putting my fate in my own hands, as it were. At first it was sports supplies, and then I got some books. Things evolved because I was filling a need."
"That's very pragmatic," Harry complimented.
She shrugged. "Some people defeat the Dark Lord. Some people start their own businesses."
"And it's all as scary as hell!" he replied with a commiserating grin.
Before they returned to the shop, Alicia stopped to inform him, "My employees and my mother think we're dating. Well, they think I'm dating someone and keeping it secret from them since they can't remember you."
He blushed, and Alicia thought it was endearing. It was also, perhaps, a sign of his limited romantic experience since he'd been too busy being the hero, and then he virtually became a non-entity.
"We're not dating," he said quickly. "I haven't even kissed you yet."
"That's right. You haven't," she agreed, walking into her shop with the bell tinkling above her head.
Harry stood outside on the step and watched where Alicia's back had been. Then he screwed up his courage and charged into the shop.
"Alicia Spinnet!" he called. When he found her, he pushed her against a stack of self help books. "I'm going to give you a kiss you will remember."
"Potter, I'd like to see you try," she answered with a smirk while the others in her shop looked on in wonder.
Showing that he wasn't quite as helpless as he was when he was a teenager, Harry put one hand into the thick dark hair at her neck and the other he put at her waist to bring her body closer to his. He traced the contours of her mouth with his tongue and then gently nipped at her lips until her mouth opened slightly. He then kissed her deeply, and she responded with obvious enjoyment.
When they broke off the kiss, she replied cheekily, "Not bad, Potter. Not bad."
He winked at her and entwined his fingers in hers for a moment before parting. "See you soon, Alicia," he said before walking out the door with a huge smile on his face.
Their dating came easily for them from that point. It was only when adding other people into the mix that it became difficult. Alicia knew it was difficult under normal circumstances, but it was worse with the fact that Harry would be effectually Obliviated from everyone's memory shortly after leaving them.
When she was with Harry and they were with others, everything seemed to be fine somehow. They knew who Harry was for that time as long as they were reminded, but it always changed when he left because of his curse. It niggled her brain during the moments when they weren't together like a puzzle she had to solve.
One night after a particularly lovely date shared with two other couples, Alicia was again in a pondering mood as they left them because she knew they wouldn't remember it. An idea was forming in her head that was just out of reach like a nasty mosquito buzzing in her ear. She sighed in frustration because of it.
"What is it?" Harry asked her in concern.
Alicia tried to deny anything was bothering her, and she reached for his hand while they walked through the park. After a moment, she turned his hand over and looked at the scar that still remained because of another person's cruelty and ignorance.
"Have you been telling me any lies, Harry?" she jested.
"No!" he said in surprise, stopping quickly.
Things had been going so well with Alicia, and she was one of the few people with whom he actually felt comfortable. He couldn't fathom why she'd be asking him that question, and he hadn't heard the note of teasing in her voice. "Why would you think I've been lying to you?"
"I don't. That was just a very bad joke," she said as she meaningfully stroked the top of his hand.
Harry looked down and was reminded of the lasting effect Dolores Umbridge had in his life.
"Not all your scars are faded," she said softly, putting her arms around him. "Not all the ones on the outside and definitely not the ones on the inside. In fact, there's infinite irony in you, Harry. Your own eyes are opened now that you don't need glasses, and yet no one sees you."
He coughed and said, "They never did."
"I'm going to change that. I don't know how, but I will," she said as she leaned into him for one of his sweetest kisses.
Before the parted each other's company for the evening, Harry suggested they go play Quidditch once she closed her shop on Saturday afternoon. She agreed on the date and promised to give him a good match.
When Saturday afternoon came, Alicia was ready for a game, and she was serious. Loving Harry had no impact on her competitive streak, and he liked her much better that way. He didn't know how to handle an insipid woman who couldn't play.
Enough people had gathered on the pitch that a rather lengthy game was played, but Harry and his impromptu team still ended up winning.
"Typical," Alicia commented later with a smile as she went back to Harry's house with him. "You've always been the wonder boy, Harry."
"I can fly," he said humbly as they walked through the door. "It's the one thing that has always come easily to me. When Malfoy took Neville's remembrall, I just had to go after it..."
Alicia had been looking at herself in his mirror and patting her hair, but as soon as he mentioned his first flying experience, something finally fell into place. Her hands went to her mouth in the quintessential expression of surprise.
"That's it," she said with such a deep conviction that Harry stopped his reminiscence and looked dumbly at her.
"I remember you, Harry," she said as she started to pace in front of his sofa. "Others do, too, even if they are few and far between. If we find them, we have the matrix for a spell. I'm certain of it!"
"Experimental magic?" he asked in disbelief.
"No," she said, stopping in her tracks. "It's not experimental at all. You just mentioned a remembrall yourself!"
"I don't need a remembrall, Alicia. I know who I am! It's other people that don't," he said in annoyance.
"Stop being a prat, Potter!" she said as she sat down on his coffee table. "Now sit and listen. If we gather enough people together, we can copy their memories just as they are isolated for a pensieve. Then the same way a remembrall is charmed to contain memories, we can combine them and attach them to you."
Harry, who had been standing, finally did sit down when he realized the impact of her words. He looked away, his vivid green eyes, shadowed while he thought. "That might actually work," he whispered.
Alicia nodded. "It just might, and if that's what you want, I'll be with you the whole way."
She stood up and put her hand lovingly on his shoulder. He looked at her before pulling her down to sit in his lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him with a fervor heightened by the thrill of discovery.
"When we're done with this, I'm going to meet your mother, and she's going to remember me," he announced, his voice deepening. "We can't have her forgetting her own son-in-law."
Alicia's face froze in an expression of utter surprise. Then she laughed to let off the tension. "No, there's no pressure to do this right, is there? Let me see… I restore everyone's memories and get a husband in the process?"
"If you want me," he said as an offering.
"I do," she answered softly before smiling at the sound of those words.