A/N:um..taa-daa!
Harry closed the door behind him. He didn't even jump when he heard the Pop! that signaled the arrival of the twins in the room he shared with Ron. With one glance to them both, and then to Ron, he went straight away to his trunk at the foot of his bed. He opened it up, and started to dig.
"Knew it...!" Ron said.
"You do know where he is." Fred said.
"Not exactly." Harry said. "Might have a bit of a clue though. Where IS it?"
"What are you looking for..?" George said.
"Notebook. The one he gave me before we were...Ah-HA! Right!" Harry said, and gripped said notebook with both hands. Then, he settled himself to his bed, and began turning the pages carefully one by one. He looked at both sides of each paper within. Even tapped his wand and said, "Aparecium". He shook his head angrily, and growled in frustration. Finally, he picked the notebook up and threw it across the room, where it hit the wall by Ron with a bang! and fluttered to the ground.
"What was that for?" Ron asked, looking at Harry with worried eyes.
Harry gripped his hair and laid back into his pillows.
"Thought for sure he'd leave something in there. Address. Contact info. Something. He gave it to me, when he saw Uncle Vernon slap me."
Fred went to the notebook and picked it up, holding it with a thumb and forefinger as though it would bite him, by a corner of one of the flaps.
"Hello. Hold on. What's that?" George said, squatting down to grab the notebook. He folded back all the pages from the flap in question.
"Looks handwritten..what scrawl...!" Fred said.
"..Can't make sense of it, either." George said.
Ron reached for the notebook, and shook his head and frowned when he saw the scrawl himself. By this time, Harry had picked himself back up from the bed, and was looking over his best friend's shoulder.
"That's his handwriting." Harry breathed. "Bloody brilliant! He thinks like a Muggle. I should've known..!"
On this inside front cover, right below where it said, "This notebook belongs to" was Ed's handwritten, hardly legible, yet neat, scrawl, which read:
679 Birch Street. Ask for Elysia.
Mention me.
Harry read it out loud for them.
"'Elysia?' That's a girl's name...So he DOES have a girlfriend!" Ron said, relief in his voice. Harry smirked and nearly rolled his eyes.
'Now..we just have to figure out how to get there.' Harry thought.
"We need to let Sirius know." Harry said, after a few moments.
"Tch. Sure...."
"Get them involved. Why not?" FredandGeorge said.
"You gits...!" Ron said, and Fred and George shot him dirty looks. "Don't want Harry to be attacked again, do you? We have no choice."
"Knew you'd take his side, Ronnie..."
"...And we had such high hopes for you." FredandGeorge said.
Notebook in hand, Harry opened the door.
Though Harry wanted to go straight away that night, Sirius convinced him to wait until morning. "He might not even be there, Harry. Best to have Moody check on it first."
He also thought he wouldn't sleep, but he did. He woke that morning with the twins leaning over him, wide smiles on their faces, having just finished pummeling him awake with many soft pillow strikes.
"Wakey wakey.."
"Eggs and bakey.." FredandGeorge greeted.
"Leave him, you gits!" Harry heard Ginny yell from the doorway.
Harry sat up and blearily blinked the sleep from his eyes, and looked over at Ron. The twins were now pummeling him awake.
"Breakfast!" Mrs. Weasley called down the hall. The various pictures on the wall began to yell as well. Harry heard the distinctive screaming of a certain portrait of Mrs. Black.
"Ugh." Harry wrinkled his nose. He heard Sirius yelling now. Likely at the portraits.
"Yeah..forgot Ed did that." Ron said, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
"Back to whispering in the halls, I guess."
Harry shrugged, rolled out of bed, and got dressed.
At the breakfast table, Sirius looked at him with a slight smile on his face, and handed him a small tightly bound scroll.
"Just arrived by owl. From Moody."
It read:
Watching now. Quiet. Too quiet. No sign.
-M
"I still want to go." Harry said firmly.
"Thought you would. Tonks and Lupin will be here.." Just then there was the clanging sound of the doorbell, followed closely by the cacophany of the portaits' screams. Sirius looked as though he was a man deflated, his shoulders slumped so much. "Not again..!"
"I'll get it." Mrs. Weasley said brightly.
"Leave mother to me, then." Sirius growled.
After much yelling from Sirius in the hall, Remus Lupin entered the kitchen, looking ghastly pale. Tonks, now with short bright pink hair, followed closely behind. Both joined them at the table. Hermione wandered in at that moment with Ginny, blearily rubbing her eyes. One look at Harry and Ron, and it seemed she knew.
"Found him, did you?" She said, and smiled brightly.
Ron and Harry exchanged a quick glance, eyebrows raised.
"How'd you..?" Ron said.
"Easy. I'm a genius. And it's obvious you lot are planning a trip out. So. Let's hear it. Where is he?"
"We'll fill you in along the way." Harry smirked, and munched on his toast.
Soon, Hermione, Harry and Ron were filing onto a ordinary Muggle bus with Lupin and Tonks as escorts. All dressed as Muggles. The trip took a few hours, and was quite dull. Harry found himself wondering what'd he find at the address from the folder. His imagination running wild with all sorts of possibilities.
"Suppose it's a hidden place, and only you can see it?" Ron mused, resting his head on his hand, clearly bored with every gesture he made. Harry felt a bit sorry for his friend. Ron couldn't do his favorite magical time passing activities with so many Muggles around them on the bus. He glanced at Hermione, who looked just as bored.
"I rather doubt it." Hermione said. "I mean. I don't know what it'll be, but.."
"I don't either. Really. I mean, he IS a wizard, um, isn't he?" Harry said.
"One that's after the philosopher's stone..." Hermione said softly, and looked out the window to the scenery passing them by.
"This's our stop." Lupin called, and looked across to them. The bus jerked to a stop and they all got up; filing off and down the steps, one by one. Harry looked around. It was a rather nice area. Well kept. Not at all like the places he'd expect something magical to be. Those were usually looking like abandoned, run down places. 'All the better to keep Muggle eyes away', he supposed. He took out the notebook and looked a the address.
"Wotcher. Come on." Tonks said, as she stepped beside Harry, looking at the scrawl on the notebook for herself.
"Looks like it's just up the street." Harry said. Ron groaned.
Ron looked about with confusion etched all over his face.
"You mean we have to walk?" Ron whined.
"It'll be good for you, Ron. After that dreadful bus ride..!" Hermione said bravely, with determined nod.
It was actually three blocks away. On a corner. When he figured it out, Harry blinked, and looked to Tonks and Lupin.
Tonks looked around, with one eyebrow raised. The stopped when she looked up above them, apparently spotting what she was looking for. She nodded a quick nod in that direction, then looked down to Harry.
"Wotcher. Lets give it a go. Before Moody changes his mind."
"Huh?" Harry said intelligently.
"Go on, Harry. You lead, we'll be right behind you." Tonks said with a gentle nudge towards the corner in question. Harry looked. As he watched, someone propped a door open there, then went back inside. Moments passed, and the person came back out with white buckets...filled to bursting with what looked like flowers. The person set these down on the sidewalk, one by one. Harry blinked.
"Something wrong, Harry?" Hermione asked.
"Uh. no. Just..not what I was expecting. At the trial..he said he was staying at something called a 'hostel'. But that.."
Hermione sighed.
"It's a flower shop. I can see that."
"D-do they bite?" Ron asked, voice shaking a bit in fear. "The flowers I mean?"
Hermione rolled her eyes and grabbed Ron by his collar.
"Come on. You."
Harry entered the flower shop cautiously, just looking around. The nearly all the walls held refrigerators with clear glass for doors, showcasing various flower arrangements, and there were clusters of white buckets, here and there, containing bunches of fresh cut flowers throughout the floor space.
The was a sudden noise behind him, and the sound of water splashing against the floor. "Oy! sorry!" Harry glanced back. It was Tonks. The others just behind her; Lupin was squatting, picking up the split flowers carefully from the floor and righting the bucket that Tonks had just tripped over. Ron was looking at the flower arrangements with wonder written all over his face.
"Hello. Can I help you?" A friendly voice called out from behind the counter by the door. Harry looked over. It was a young man, about twenty years old, with short brown hair, and brown eyes. He was neatly dressed in a tshirt and slacks, with a green apron on top. Harry turned and faced him.
"Um yes. Is Elysia here?"
The man blinked.
"She hasn't been with us for a few weeks now. Why?"
"Um.." Harry blinked, and looked down. "I think..I..Well. Um. Ed wanted me to come here."
"Ed?"
"Edward Elric." Harry clarified.
The man raised his eyebrows. "Wow..talk about a name I haven't heard in a while." The man frowned, rested his elbows on the counter, and tilted his head. He looked Harry over carefully, then glanced to the others and did the same to them. "Friends of yours?"
"Yeah." Harry said. The man nodded then frowned as if deep in thought.
"Well. If Ed told you to use that name, he must've really had a good reason. You needing a place to stay?" The man smiled.
"Um..no, thank you. I was hoping to find him, actually."
"Can't really help you there." The man said with chuckle. "What's your name?"
"Harry. Harry Potter."
"Well, Mr. Potter. I'm Grand Hughes. Nice to meet you. Since business's slow, would you all care for some tea?"
"Um.." Harry looked back uncomfortably at the others. Tonks shrugged.
"We'd LOVE to...after all, we came such a long way." Lupin grinned.
"That bus was right murder on my.." Ron said.
"Ron!!" Hermione interrupted.
Bells tinkled at the door. The man turned his head, then looked back to them.
"Oh..Just head right back there. There should be a table that you all will fit at. I'll be there in just a bit."
Harry, gripping his wand firmly in his pocket, cautiously did so, with a glance back to the man called Hughes. He seemed to be handing a boy, about Harry's age, a bouquet of flowers from one of the glass-fronted refrigerators. The boy had on a cap that obscured most of his face, and was wearing a tshirt and shorts. As he watched, the boy ran off, quickly, out the door.
'Definitely not him.' Thought Harry glumly. He felt Tonks put a hand on his shoulder, and give it a squeeze.
Ed was sitting under a tree on a bench near the graveyard when he spotted the boy. He stayed where he was and simply watched, golden eyes shaded with dark glasses and hidden beneath his black-dyed hair. The boy carried a yellow bouquet of flowers, as was his job. Carefully, the boy walked, looking for the right grave marker. Then, with a slight nod to no one and a cry of triumph, removed the dead boquet, and placed the new in the receptacle. Then the boy ran off. Back to where he had come. Ed still did not move from where he was.
But the message was delivered just the same.
'Harry's looking for me.' Ed thought. 'Yellow's for concern.'
Ed stretched his hands lazily over his head, and stood. Thinking. Then he looked around again, carefully. There wasn't many people around him at the moment. And there didn't feel like there were...others..there either.
"I believe I feel like gifting Hughes some pizza." He said aloud in Amestrian, then headed off to his new destination.
"So. How do you know Ed?" Hughes asked, pouring the tea from the teapot into six mismatched tea cups.
"I met him at school, actually." Harry replied. "And you?"
"Oh..he and the family go way back." Hughes said. "He knew my great-grandmother apparently. But then, she was so friendly with everyone and had such a long life. She made it to 100 before she went...this is her shop actually. Brought the whole thing over from Germany after the war."
"War?" Ron asked nervously. "W-what war?"
"World War Two. Way before your time. or my time for that matter." Hughes looked over at Ron, saw his confused face. "They haven't covered it yet in your school, now have they?" He chuckled. Then turned and opened the refrigerator. He grabbed two trays of cut up sandwiches, opened the lids, and placed them on the table. "Lets see...Should I get plates..? Oh ..Of course I should. Silly me." Hughes turned to the cupboards.
While his back was turned, Ron exchanged confused glances with Lupin and Tonks. Hermione caught their eyes and mouthed "Later." Harry watched them with amusement. He was glad of his Muggle education in situations like this, at least he could follow a Muggle's conversation adequately.
"Here we are..they match the cups at least." Hughes said with a smile.
Bell rung at the door.
"Oh. I'll be right back. Start without me, if you would?" Hughes said and got up from the table.
Lupin brought up one of the cups to his nose and gave it a cautious sniff.
"Well..it's not poisoned." Hermione said with annoyance. "Honestly..!"
Tonks chuckled, and brought a cup up to her own lips. Ron poked at one on the cut sandwiches, as if it would bite him. Harry sat back with his own cup in his hands. After a few minutes of silence...
"So this is the Muggle equivalent to a safe house." Tonks said.
"Looks like." Harry said. "Muggles don't have the same..."
"Shh" Lupin said.
"Annnnd...I'm back. Terribly sorry. There was a delivery, you see. It won't do for tea time, but..." Hughes said hurriedly, as he entered the little room, carrying a rather large flat box. Harry recogised it. He was sure Hermione would too. The smell itself was a dead give away to anyone else.
"I believe most do like having pizza, especially if it's a free gift." Hughes said, and set the box down on the table. He lifted the top flap. "I'm not sure who sent it, or even what kind it is..hope it has pepperoni...!"
Harry looked inside the box, curious, as it had been years since he last had pizza. And even then, it was days old, leftovers from Dudley Dursey's 6th birthday party. It had been forgotten in the back of the fridge. The smell of the fresh pizza was as heavenly to his nose now as it was then. He wondered what it tasted like.
But. Instead of seeing the expected pie, he saw a rather large note blocking his view of the molten cheese. It was written in the familiar, barely legible, and yet neat, scrawl. It said:
7658 market place. 6pm. If it's clear. We'll talk.
Hughes looked at the note, along with the rest of them.
"Should've known. Bloody brat. Must've knocked out another police officer or something." He said, and snorted with amusement. Then he looked at each of them. "Who wants pizza?"