Chapter Four: Harry Potter

"How are we doing on the interviews?"

I'd been summoned in Katherine's office early that morning, along with Keith and Ian who were busy being handed coffees, sketches, clipboards, anything by hard-working assistants whose only job at Witch Weekly was to do everything for them. It was an odd piece of the old Weekly that still somehow remained. Two young, ambitious women serving old, white men who had been at the magazine so long they had served under at least ten editors. Still, they were bloody good at what they did. Katherine wouldn't stand for anything else.

"We're looking good, just a few more to go, I hope."

"Any luck on Potter?" Keith asked far too excitedly for that early in the morning. The sun was barely starting to peek over the sprawling metropolis. His glass bounced off his chest from the small black ribbon he always wore around his neck, while next to him Ian was nodding approvingly, his thick moustache twitching to show he was smiling.

"Or Granger, she'd be good." Ian added, crossing his leg as he accepted another cup of coffee from Amelie Thorton, his long-suffering assistant. Apparently, he woke her up every single morning at 3am for a week the last time we went to print. Fetch this costume, get this model here, she's wearing Delacour not Fabian's and so on. The man was a nightmare.

"Not yet, hoping though." Neville had gone dark for the last few days and I had started to worry. "But I was thinking we should do something else, rather than just a bigger cover star. I mean, this isn't a normal issue, is it?"

"I think we've —"

"No," Katherine said, interrupting Keith as he went to arrogantly destroy my ideas before I'd even said them. "Let her speak. Tracey?"

All eyes turned to me. Even the assistants shot me a glance. There was nothing like office drama. My breath caught in my throat and suddenly my lips seemed incredibly dry.

I didn't know which was worse, the judgy, patronising stare over an enormous moustache or the patient, understanding and belief-filled eyes of Katherine. She wasn't a woman you ever, ever wanted to let down. In anything. I could file a report ten minutes late for her and I'd be mortified. Alice once had to submit an article late, meaning it moved to the next week's issue because her interviewee's father had died the day she was meant to speak to him. Katherine, being Katherine, completely understood but that didn't stop Alice nearly having a nervous breakdown in the supply cupboard.

"Well," I started, a little nervously. Good job, Davis. "It's their story, isn't it? All of them. Not Potter, if we get him that is, not Weasley or Longbottom or Bones. Every one of them has a voice and so we should show that. So I was thinking, maybe we could have each of them sitting on a chair, looking out of the cover. In a line or a grid or something like that.

"That's your whole thing, I guess," I said, nodding as respectfully as I could to Keith and Ian."It's just, it'd be good if they're all the same size, all as important as one another. And then," and this was the tricky bit, but I remember seeing Katherine nod slightly, so I pushed on. "Then we could have an empty chair. You know, for the people that didn't make it."

"What a load of —"

"I think it's perfect," Katherine interrupted, smiling her thin approving smile, the closest any of us ever got to a beaming grin of support.

"Potter would sell copies!" Keith objected. Even the assistants could feel the subtle shift. It all came from a raised eyebrow. Just the one but it might as well have been a killing curse to the chest. I kind of felt bad for him. Okay, I didn't at all, but it was nice to try and think I did.

"That's not how we operate," Katherine said in a tone that suggested, quite plainly, that disagreement was not an option. "I like Tracey's idea. It's smart, thoughtful and respectful. Ian, set it up, Tracey's got their details."

"You want me to work with civilians?" Ian asked, looking like she was asking him to go and ride a hippogriff. Hardly surprising given he spent most shoots around international models selling the latest brands of clothing, ready for Keith to then go on and design the pages with him. They were both technically lead designers, but Ian did the shoot and Keith did the pages. They were a frustrating, talented but very annoying package deal. One didn't work without the other.

"You were quite happy to work with Harry Potter," Katherine pointed out, looking behind him at the spread plan she had magically stuck to the wall of her office. "And don't make them look like our normal models. This has to feel real."

"Wonderful," Ian muttered sarcastically, pursing his lips and pulling his glasses onto his slim nose to check his notes. "Well, I can book them in on Wednesday, but they'll all need briefing." A remark for Amelie's benefit. I saw her visibly sag.

"Whatever you need, but make it special. The same goes for the pages, I want each one to feel like an event. No-one else is going to have what we have." It didn't take a genius to realise she meant my article. The pressure that had led me to the Leaky Cauldron and debates with Alice had never felt so real. "Okay, you two had better get started."

Needing no further indication the two got up and left, with Ian already barking orders before Katherine's door had closed shut and the growing hubbub of the office was silenced behind him. That left me and Katherine alone. With a wave of her wand she banished the chairs Ian and Keith had conjured.

"You're doing excellent work," Katherine told me, steepling her fingers and propping her chin on the point. She regarded me rather critically, like Snape always used to whenever I was unfortunate enough to have to speak to him alone. "I'm very impressed. Speaking to all these people, asking the right questions, it's more than I hoped for."

"Thank you."

"Do you really think you'll be able to get Potter?"

"Neville said he'd ask," I answered, shrugging. At that point I'd have taken a polite letter declining. Just something other than the seemingly endless delay. I'll be honest, I barely slept that week. Everything, from the questions I wanted to ask to the idea of him saying no, kept me awake until sunlight filtered in through my window every morning. It had started to become impossible to hide the bags. Even with magic.

"And if we don't?"

"We've still got a strong story. Susan especially, I reckon a lot of people will connect with her. Neville's got some interesting stuff too."

"And what about you?"

"What about me?"

"You were there, weren't you?"

"I mean, yeah, but I didn't do anything." Cogs, far too rusted by lack of sleep and a far too narrow focus on what I was already working on, tried desperately to turn in my brain.

"Ever thought about why?"

"A few times." Try all the time since I spoke to George Weasley. And then it clicked into place. Like a cannonball being slotted into a cannon I was strapped to the end of. "You want me to write about it?"

"You've done personal pieces before."

About sex and trying to date muggles as a witch. It's hard, the lying. The constant keeping track of your wand and the always having to fake being late when you can literally teleport. But that's not the point. The point is that they're worlds apart from delving into something I'd apparently been ashamed of for almost a decade.

"Our readers would like to see the other side of the story and they always want to know more about us. So, try it and let me know how you get on," Katherine said, the matter decided.

I was saved from awkwardly excusing myself by a knock at the door, Katherine nodded to me before waving it open with her wand and ushering Geri, the lifestyle writer who was clutching a long pair of robes, a biker jacket and pearl necklace that looked old enough to belong to my grandmother.

I worked on my piece for the rest of that morning but nothing felt right. Alice and I kept looking it over but something just felt… fake? Like I was trying to tell them something they wanted to hear, but every time I tried being honest I just ended up hiding behind clichés and shared experiences. Any of us could have written it. So I binned the third roll of parchment and went for a walk.

I like walking in muggle London. It clears my head. Being surrounded by magic makes everything so immediate and wonderful and glorious, but it's easy to lose what really matters when you can have anything you ever wanted on a plate. Muggles know the importance of time, mainly because they're rushing everyone to make sure they're on time.

I can't remember how long I stayed out for, but by the time I got back the office felt different. Like everyone was holding their breath. The reason quickly became apparent when I looked over at Katherine's office and saw, for the first time in almost a decade, Harry Potter. He was shorter than I remembered and far bulkier than he had ever been at school, filling the auror robes he wore. No-one could hear what was being said, but Katherine was doing all the talking while Harry simply nodded, his arms folded and his eyes narrowed.

"What did I miss?" I asked Alice as I fell into my seat, hoping against hope that Katherine wouldn't spot me through the window that looked into Katherine's office. The problem with windows is that you can look out of the damned things too.

"Oh nothing really," Alice said casually, swinging slightly on her chair, the end of her long blonde hair flowing out behind her like a superhero's cape. As elegant as ever, that day she had combined a navy dress with dark tights and exquisite heels that I would never have the confidence or patience to wear. "Just a tiny feud between the saviour of Britain and Katherine over someone, I won't name names, poking around in his private life."

"You mean me, don't you?"

"I think she's winning," Alice hummed as I sank even lower into my seat. "Oh, wait, no. I could be lying."

"What's happening?"

"Well, Katherine's just stopped speaking." Alice said, with the air of someone trying to break very bad news to someone who had already had their fill of bad news for that week in a single hour. "And now he's speaking, oh and now she's looking out here and —"

There was the sound of Katherine's door opening, followed by a hasty resumption of forced working and then the call I'd been dreading since seeing Harry in her office. "Tracey?"

"Go get 'em, girl."

"I hate you," I seethed at Alice, before dragging myself out of my chair. I had hoped to meet Harry outside of the office, or even after I'd managed to speak to Ron or Hermione. Going to school with him one thing was blatantly obvious, he hated attention. Having grown up without a private life and then lived through the majority of his twenties without one either, this was hardly surprising, but I had hoped to deal with it slightly differently.

"Mr Potter, this is Tracey Davis," Katherine said diplomatically when I had entered her office and shut the door behind me. The shushed quiet of fake working silenced by the magical protection on her door, making the complete and total lack of sound in there almost deafening. I remember being able to hear my heart racing and wondering if Harry, only a few feet away, could hear it too.

"Hi," I said, a little awkwardly. It's not every day you meet a literal legend from your childhood.

"Neville told me about you," Harry said, his arms still crossed and his expression entirely blank. You'd honestly have more luck trying to gauge the emotional state of a kettle than Harry, which was a drastic change from frequently erupting volcano of a boy I remembered.

"Mr Potter is here to ask exactly what it is we plan on writing," Katherine explained when Harry didn't say anything. "I have told him that we are planning to run a compassionate, hopefully inspiring reflection of the Battle of Hogwarts."

"Right?"

"Only," Harry said, turning his fierce emerald green eyes from Katherine to me. "I'd rather you didn't."

"Right." A limited vocabulary is an issue of mine when I get stressed. I think it's because my mind is busily trying to catch up with every little detail of what's happening that I stop being able to remember simple things like, synonyms and more than one word. "Okay." Maybe two words. "Why?"

His jaw tightened. "I don't mean to undermine you, it's just, everyone else was happy to talk to us. I'd just like to know what makes you different?"

"People died," was all he managed to say.

"I know. I was there."

There was a long silence, not the kind you get where you wait in a queue and you're bored, but the other kind. The kind that lingers just before an outburst, or a fight, or sometimes both. I'd never really been scared of Harry Potter, not until that point. But in that brief moment that seemed to stretch out for eternity, I saw not the boy I remembered but the man who put away hardened criminals and fought dark wizards for a living.

"Then maybe you'll understand why it's not inspiring and why some of us don't want to be reminded of the sacrifices we made and the people we left behind."

"Some might say it's good to honour their memory," I pointed out, as calmly as I could. "Others might say hearing what you all went through helps them, inspires them to do something important, something better. This matters, and I know it hurts, and I want to reduce that for you as much as I can. But if you don't think we're doing it right or being considerate enough or anything like that, the best thing you can do is tell us your side of the story.

"That's the thing," Harry said coolly, "it's not a story. And the people you're talking about deserve peace, not to be paraded around like animals at a circus."

"Mr Potter, maybe —" Katherine tried to interject, but my blood was boiling. I don't know what it was, whether my own guilt for doing nothing, just how stubborn Harry was being or the fact that I really did believe we could help people, but for whatever reason I snapped.

"That's not what I'm doing."

"Yeah? You've got a funny way of showing it."

"It's pretty hard to show you when you won't listen."

Looking back, that probably wasn't the best thing to say. In fact, almost half a second after the words had fallen out my mouth I knew it wasn't the best thing to say. The door slam confirmed it.

"Katheri —" I tried to say, but she shook her head and I fell silent. We were on the cusp of doing something really special, something that genuinely actually mattered and my big mouth had ruined it. It didn't matter that there was nothing legally stopping us from publishing, everyone we'd spoken to had given their consent and it was on a matter of genuine, relevant public interest. Because who wanted to be the magazine that upset Harry Potter with all his money, his influence and power?

"Go home."

"But —"

"Do not make me say it again."

Swallowing my pride and trying to hide the tears that welled in my eyes, I did as I was told. If I'm honest, I'd say that was the worst day of my entire career. Sure, I've covered deaths, spoken to bereaved families, attended break-ins, fires, murders, you name it. But after or about every single one of those events I knew I was doing my job. This, well, this was just the opposite. I messed up, big time.

Daphne wasn't home when I got back. In fact, I didn't see her until the following day after she'd got back from Darren's, I think that's what she said his name was. So, instead of cooking a good meal, I ordered far too much takeaway and felt sick. Which meant, in turn, that when the knock at the door came, I was lying facedown in a pillow desperately trying to get the day to end. At first, I ignored it, too depressed and wallowing in my cave of self-pity to force myself up. Then the knock came again. And again. And I answered it.

"Hello, Tracey, isn't it?" I stared, not least of all because I was wearing a Chelsea top that was two sizes too large for me. "Alice gave me your address. At least, I think she said her name was Alice. I do hope it's not too late. I'm so sorry, I'd have called earlier but I got caught up at work. Am I alright to come in?"

"Er, yeah. Sure." I said, opening the door wide and letting Hermione Granger into my home.