The ice-cream was purchased from Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, a kindly seeming man who wore his brown facial hair in a balbo style beard and wore a brown striped waistcoat and brown bow-tie over a brown shirt and brown pants. Hew ordered chocolate and raspberry; as did Nance while Daphne chose clotted cream and Harriet, after much humming and hawing, chose Earl Gray and Lavender.
They sat down in chairs out the front of the ice-cream parlour to consume their treat and Harriet began to relax in the warmth of the sun despite the crowds of people wandering past along the alley. Occasionally somebody would recognise Hew and greet him politely, which he would return just as politely. These people glanced at Nance and Harriet with poorly hidden curiosity, but were too polite to say anything. One or two of them seemed to recognise Nance and reacted to her presence with a raised eyebrow that dropped and furrowed when they also saw Harriet.
Harriet didn't pay too much attention to all of this though, she was quite happy enjoying the first treat she had ever had in her recollection. The looks were noted by Hew, Nance and Daphne however although only Hew and Nance had an idea of the maelstrom of possible thoughts that may be behind them.
Daphne finished her ice-cream and took up a napkin to pat her mouth clean, "Father?" She asked as she folded the napkin and placed it down on the table under her hand, "might we perhaps buy Harriet a new dress while we are Diagon Alley?"
Hew hummed and looked between Daphne, Harriet (who looked up in shock and was moments away from objecting), Nance and a shop across the cobblestones before clearing his throat and said, "Harriet should have some new dresses, your thoughtfulness does you proud Daphne, however I think your Mother may wish to take you both herself and your old dresses will suit for the immediate future."
Nance leaned close to Hew and whispered something into his ear that caused him to blush a little and stutter. His eyes darted around in panic for a moment until they landed back onto Nance and his expression settled into one of hope.
"Would you like me to take them?" Nance asked sweetly.
Hew coughed once, "please," he almost begged.
"Ice-creams finished girls?" Nance asked, looking at both Daphne and Harriet (who had just finished hers and was patting her mouth with a napkin in imitation of Daphne's earlier actions).
"Just tell them to bill Greengrass Manor," Hew informed Nance, who nodded and threw back her hands in exuberance, "let's go shopping, girls!"
The reason for Hew's change of mind was that while Harriet would not need dresses immediately, she would of course require underclothes of her own. Twilfitt and Tattings was the shop Nance took them to, which Daphne seemed quite at home in.
"May I help you?" A woman asked, with a rather snotty attitude, that changed to one of surprise when Daphne stepped out from behind Nance, "why, Miss Greengrass! What a pleasure it is to see you."
Nance spared the woman a dirty glance before putting on the same overly sweet voice she used on Hew only a few moments earlier, "we're so glad that you don't appear to be very busy as we don't have the time to go to Place Cachée," the other woman's reaction was immediate, "Young Harriet here requires a five full sets of underclothes and three sets of nightclothes."
"Well, we are very glad you chose us," the woman responded, much less haughty and slightly apologetically, "please young lady come stand up on this bench and we shall measure you."
"You will be able to complete this order by close of business today?" Nance asked as the woman used her wand to direct three tape measures to wrap around various parts of Harriet's body."
"Of course, of course," the woman responded, busy taking note of the tape measures and dictating them to a quill and notepad that hovered beside her, "how would you like the underclothes? Linen or cotton and how many of which style?"
"Fine linen please; two set of pantaloons, chemise and petticoat," Nance requested, glancing at a display, "the rest as knickers, chemise, and petticoat. We'll need two pairs of high laced boots and a pair of shoes as well."
"Of course, of course," the woman fussed, directing the tape measure to measure Harriet's feet as well,
"You will deliver them to Greengrass Manor?" Nance asked as the woman wrapped up her measurements.
"Of course," she said and asked, "will that be on the Manor's account?"
"Yes," Nance confirmed and helped Harriet down from the bench, while the woman wrote up the order on a piece of parchment.
Once complete, the woman flicked her wand at the parchment and said, "Germinio," and Harriet watched in awe as the another identical piece of parchment appeared next to it.
This one she handed to Nance, who accepted it with thanks before she ushered them all out of the store.
Hew was still waiting for them at Fortescue's and accepted the parchment from Nance with a grateful "thank you."
Hew's grateful expression changed to one of shock when he glanced at the invoice and was about to say something to Nance before she interrupted him by pointing at Harriet's holey and dirty trainer clad feet, "she needs shoes and boots as well."
Hew nodded with a grumpy resigned acceptance, "let's head home then," he said to them all before he turned to lead them towards the Leaky Cauldron.
Harriet felt a moment of panic when Hew said 'home', before she realised and settled into a warm feeling of happiness when she remembered that his home would henceforth be her home as well.
When they arrived at Greengrass Manor, they were greeted by Cossima who at first looked expectantly at Hew.
"It's done," he said perfunctorily and she let out a held breath.
"Well, that's a relief then," she replied as she turned towards Harriet, "first things first. Let's get you settled into your room."
Harriet nodded simply and fell into step behind Cossima and Hew, with Daphne holding her hand and Nance at the tail. Together they walked out of the hall and towards the stairs that led up to Daphne's room. Daphne looked a bit puzzled at Harriet when she started to head past the stairs, but Daphne gently directed her upwards. When they walked up to the next door past Daphne's room and opened it, Harriet stood there in shock.
"Here we are then Harriet," Hew said grandly, "this will be your room."
The room was a twin to Daphne's! An entire bedroom, of her own! Harriet was speechless and very quickly burst into tears.
Hew looked at Cossima in shock, eyes wide in confusion. The lady of the house merely huffed and took Harriet up into a hug and Harriet was quickly engulfed on all sides when Daphne and Nance joined it.
Harriet was a sniffling mess when she finished crying and Cossima offered her a white-laced handkerchief to clean her face.
"Is… Is it not to your taste?" Hew ventured.
"Oh Hew," Cossima sighed, "she loves it. It's just a bit much for her at the moment."
"Of course," Hew agreed, understanding that Harriet's reaction was not one of disappointment, but overwhelming happiness.
"Well dear," Cossima said to Harriet, "would you like to have a bit of a lie down, or continue with the tour?"
"I'm okay," Harriet said after a moment, "wh… whatever you would like?"
"Very well," Cossima said and led Harriet around the house.
She pointed out the bathrooms, the guest bedrooms, the family bedrooms, library, study, kitchens, dining rooms, parlors, living rooms, sunrooms and finally the head of houses study.
"This is the one room in this entire house you must never ever attempt to open," Hew said, "do you understand?"
"Y...yes," Harriet stuttered, "is that because of the face melting curse?"
Hew and Cossima both looked perplexed and shocked for a moment.
"How did you know about that?" Hew asked.
"Daphne's doll house," Harriet said, turning towards her new.. Sister, "remember Daphne? I melted the face off one of your dolls by accident."
"And that," Hew crowed to Cossima, "is why we let the girls play with that 'ghastly old thing'."
The woman merely sniffed in reply while Nance bent down to whisper to Daphne, "how many spells have you found work on that old house?"
Daphne counted aloud to, "six!"
"I'll have to show you the other six that I know of then," Nance said to her with a wink.
A bell rang out through the house just then and Harriet watched everybody else's ears prick to the sound.
"Dinner time," Cossima said before leading them all downstairs, "wash up your hands girls and meet us in the dining room."
Nance, Daphne and Harriet made their way to one of the bathrooms to wash their hands and then all walked together down to the main dining room. Cossima and Hew were already waiting for them and the table was already set.
As soon as the last of them settled into their seat, food magically appeared on their plates. Harriet stared at the amount of food on hers! The plate was almost full, it was a meal big enough to leave even her Uncle Vernon satisfied! Slices of roast beef were matched with roasted potatoes, parsnips, pumpkin; large fluffy yorkshire puddings were covered with a rich brown gravy and boiled beans and carrots rested to one side. She looked at the great expanse of dinner there on her plate and didn't quite know where to begin.
"Is something wrong Harriet?" Cossima asked, "is it not to your liking?"
"I...I…" Harriet stuttered, before looking down at her lap in shame.
"Please tell us dear," Cossima pushed.
"I… I just don't think that I could eat all of this, it's too much," Harriet explained.
Cossima smiled at her kindly, "just eat what you can dear, but make sure to leave room for dessert."
Harriet nodded shyly and cut up a small piece of beef and put it into her mouth. She barely remembered to chew and swallow, she was so taken aback by the flavours of the food! She had cooked things like this, of course, but she was never ever allowed to eat them. She hurriedly sliced a portion of bean and carrot and ate them, marvelling at the taste. Harriet was so caught up in trying small pieces of everything that she hardly noticed everybody staring at her. That was, until she finished her first piece of pumpkin (the last thing on her plate to try) and looked up. She blushed brightly when she lifted her head from her meal and met the eyes of everybody else.
"What do you think?" Cossima asked.
"I liked it very much indeed," Harriet said, "so many new tastes."
"Which hadn't you tried before?" Hew asked.
Harriet smiled, "oh, uh… any of them," before she looked back down at her plate and set about trying each one all over again.
She didn't notice Hew and Cossima's shared dark frown or Nance's scowl.
"I have a feeling," Cossima said a few moments later, "that she's going to absolutely love bread and butter pudding."
AUTHORS NOTES:
Thank you so SO much for the story follow / favourites: Iewa282, PuffballandFluffball, adrianwelschinger, akepit, Flaming Kyuubi, Argvarg, Thunderclaw03, Cheshera, cave43, Joentjuh, csi-miami, kizmitkojo, ShadowMoon Paxs, Hypernova1912
Thank you SO SO much for the author favourite / follows: adrianwelschinger, kizmitkojo, ShadowMoon Paxs
ThunderClaw03: Thank you so much! Harriet will likely be more into girls, but we'll just have to wait and see ;-)
Archer1Eye: Yes yes, I am alive. Finally back to writing a bit more steadily. Christmas really takes it out of me. I really really did intend it to be a harriet/daphne ship…. Pooh.