Chapter 3 - Exploration

            "SELENA!" the kids all shouted simultaneously.  Why did it seem like everyone loved shouting at her?  Selena left her post at the bar and came over to greet her newest guests.  She had not seen them since her visit to the school, last year.

            "Hi everyone," she greeted them.  "You're here early.  How was your trip?"

            "Well, it was a fine trip until Harry decided to park himself in front of The Quidditch Post window," Ron teased.

            "It's not my fault!" Harry said.  "They had all the newest equipment on display, and I was just trying to see if our Gryffindor team was totally equipped in the best stuff on the market."

            "You know, Ron, he's right about the equipment," Selena said.  "Believe me, I know from experience.  So, now that you're finally here, what do you think of the place?"

            "It looked so much bigger from far away, before I realized it was only one story high," Hermione said.  "But I have to admit, aside from the bar in the middle of the room, Dumbledore was right.  It looks exactly like our dining hall, right down to the enchanted ceiling!"

            "Oh, wow!  Look at that!  It is enchanted!" Ron shouted in excitement.  "This is so cool!"

            Nobody had noticed Harry drop into one of his quiet, thoughtful stares again in all the excitement.  He just kept spinning slowly around, taking in all the sights of his new surroundings.

            Selena broke his concentration, "Harry?  Are you okay?"

            "Yes, Selena, I'm fine," he replied.  He didn't tell anyone that the strange feeling that he was being followed had returned since his entrance into the restaurant.

            "Since you're here, you might want something to eat or drink, right?" Selena asked.  All three quickly nodded in agreement.  "You probably can plainly see, just from looking at the décor, that there are four different seating sections, one for each house.  Usually, the hostess tells you which "houses" have available seating, and you can choose where you want to sit.  My bar in the middle is called "The Pit".  Once you're seated, it's just like a regular restaurant with waitresses, but sometimes, if you're lucky, your food appears right through the tabletop.  We have all the best house-elf chefs in the wizard world."  She stopped abruptly after this statement, having seen Hermione go into some kind of shock.  That is when Selena remembered Hermione's crusade to save Dobby, Winky, and the other house elves at Hogwart's.  "Don't worry Hermione, there really are no house elves.  It's just part of the sales pitch the boss likes us all to use when we have first-time customers."

            "Oh, okay," Hermione said, sounding relieved.  "Since we're here, could we sit in Gryffindor, just like at school?"

            "You mean you don't want to sit anywhere else?  We sit in Gryffindor every day.  Why don't you want to try something different?" Ron asked, seemingly annoyed.

            "It's okay, Ron," Harry tried to calm him down.  "We'll sit in Gryffindor today, and if we come back some other time this weekend, we can sit somewhere else."

            "Fine, fine," Ron sullenly agreed.  "I never get my way anyway."

            Selena acted as hostess for once, and showed her favorite kids to a table.  Ron was happy to see that each table had a chessboard built into it, and storage space on the side of the table for the chessmen.  After they spent a half hour going over the menu, Ron and Hermione played a game of Wizard's Chess and Harry explored the rest of the restaurant while they waited for their food to be served.

            There really wasn't much to explore, because of all the similarities.  Harry wandered around the main room, looking at all the random memorabilia that was hanging on the walls.  He found some quidditch equipment, and stared at it for a while, wondering if his father had ever owned any of the displayed pieces.  Most of the other displayed pieces were not so interesting to look at because Harry saw them every day at school.  While he was on the other side of the restaurant, between the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff sections, he saw the door that led into the kitchen.  He decided to sneak into the room, just to double check for Hermione that Selena was telling the truth about the house elves.  The hallway that led to the door was quite long, and Harry was glad there were no other branches of the path, lest he get lost in the depths of the restaurant.  At long last, Harry arrived at the swinging door into the kitchen.  He didn't want to fall into the kitchen too, so he pushed the door open just enough to be able to see what was going on in the kitchen.

            Surprisingly, he found that Selena was telling the truth.  There were no signs of house elves working anywhere in the restaurant.  Now that the rumor had been quelled, Harry quickly slipped away, back into the main dining area.  He felt like he was being followed again.  It was a feeling he did not like at all.

            Harry returned to his table and his friends to find that their food had been served while he was gone.

            "So, who won the chess game," Harry asked as he bit into his cheeseburger.

            "Who do you think?" Hermione asked.

            "Ron?" Harry guessed.  From the look on Ron's face, Harry could tell he was wrong.  "You won, Hermione?" He guessed again, very surprised at the outcome.  She nodded in approval of his second guess, and Harry turned to Ron to console him.  "Hey man, you're really falling down on your game," he joked.  "We'll have to play more often in case you ever have to save my life again."

            "Ha!  Ha!  Very funny," Ron mused sarcastically.

            "Wait, Ron.  Stop," Harry said, cutting his friend off.  There was a panic stricken look on Harry's face.

            "What's wrong," the other two asked simultaneously.

            "Look.  Just look," Harry said, as he pointed to his plate of food.  All three crowded around Harry's plate to get a glimpse of what he was so shocked at finding.  There, on the napkin, were the words written, "I am watching you."