Chapter 9

Fish, Chips, and Witches



Harry and Cassie had not walked very far down the street before he smelled something really good. He stopped and looked around for the source of the wonderful scent. Then he spotted it, a fish and chips shop. It looked like a total dive, but he really didn't care. He loved fish and chips but he had not had them in a very long time, years maybe. He started steering Cassie in that direction, but she noticed where they were headed and stopped short. "No, Harry, we can't go in there."

"Why not?"

"You aren't actually planning on eating any of that . . . food?"

"You are really obsessed with what I eat, Cassie," Harry teased but her face flushed slightly.

"Well, fine. Never mind. Eat what you want."

"I plan on it. And right now I want some of this" and he opened the door to the steamy little shop and motioned for her to enter. She hesitated, but slipped past him into the narrow confines of the store. He pulled in the little cart after them and went right up to the counter, where a very sweaty-looking man was working the cash register. "I'll have a small . . ." Harry stopped and turned to Cassie, who was standing nearby, looking intently at the menu, looking like if she stared at it hard enough, she would be invisible. "What do you want to eat, Cassie?"

"Nothing, thank you. My mom would kill me if I didn't eat dinner when I got home."

"Oh, come on. A few fish and chips would not ruin your appetite." Harry was trying his best to coax her into a smile. She did not look very happy at the moment. "Just a few chips? I bet they're really good."

"Well, I might eat a few of yours" she said, apparently hoping that would cause him to lose interest in this conversation.

"Um . . . . Well, I better take a large order of chips, then, and 4 pieces of fish." Cassie looked up at him and her eyes narrowed briefly.

"Are you implying what I think you are?"

"Not implying at all. Stating. You will eat most of the chips, I bet."

"I will not . . . They're full of . . ."

"Yeah, I know. Grease, yum!" Harry laughed, taking his order and paying the man. "Come on. Let's go sit outside while I eat." They exited the store quickly and the outside air felt cool after the oppressive heat of the shop. He sat down at one of the plastic picnic tables arranged on a rather weedy-looking patch of grass and patted the bench next to him. "Come and sit down, Cassie. I promise I won't force feed you any of this horrible stuff." She sniffed, looking rather disapproving but she sat down next to him as he bit into the first piece of fish. She watched him eat for a moment or two and then absent-mindedly reached over and picked up a chip. Harry didn't say anything but smiled to himself as her eyes widened as she tasted it. It had probably been a while since she had indulged in anything so obviously unhealthy.

Harry realized after a few minutes that Cassie really had eaten a good portion of the mountain of chips that were piled in front of him on a piece of newspaper. Not that he minded. Watching her eat chips was almost as nice as eating them himself. She caught his eye, and a slight blush crept over her cheeks as she realized that she had done exactly what he said she would. She grabbed a napkin from the dispenser on the table and wiped her hand with hard fast strokes, then dropped her hand down into her lap. She looked around at the different people sitting at the other plastic tables and said absent-mindedly, "I've walked past this place probably 100 or more times and I've never stopped. I may just have to again, sometime."

Harry smiled to himself again. "Sometimes it doesn't hurt to abandon healthy eating and just enjoy, Cassie. Now come on, I better get you home." He bent forward to gather a napkin that was caught by the wind and was trying to blow off the end of the table. He turned to face her again and felt, more than saw, the too familiar glance up to his forehead. He instinctively reached up to pat his hair into place but it was too late. The wind had done its damage and his scar was plainly obvious.

Cassie reached up and brushed his hand aside, pushing his black hair with it. Her finger touched gently and carefully the very bottom edge of his lightning-bolt scar and traced up it carefully until it ended. He did not say anything, unsure of how to explain, unsure of what she would think. She took her finger off his forehead, brushing his hair back down. "Oh, Harry. What . . . happened?" Her voice was strained, like she was trying hard not to cry.

Harry turned away from her, staring at but not seeing the water-stained siding on the little fish and chips shop. He didn't want to lie to her. He wanted to make her understand, at least a little, about it. "It was . . . the night my parents died. I was hurt, you see, and almost died myself . . . . But, somehow. . . . Well, somehow, I lived. And I had this scar."

"Oh, Harry." Again, her voice sounded tight, like it was being forced through tears at the back of her throat. "Does it hurt horribly?"

Harry turned quickly and stared at her, amazed again at how blue her eyes were as they met his. "It does, a lot, actually," he said. He had never admitted that much to anyone, ever. It was true that in his fifth year at Hogwarts most people knew that the scar hurt when Lord Voldemort was "communicating" with Harry, but no one, not even his best friends, knew that it basically hurt all the time. It had actually been rather strange because ever since he had arrived here it had never even twinged. At the look of sympathy in her eyes, he quickly added, "But not now. It doesn't hurt at all right now. Don't feel too bad for me, Cassie. I'm used to it."

Cassie took his hand as he helped her stand up from the bench and looked with narrowed eyes at him. "Why do you hide it? Are you ashamed that you lived through the accident or whatever?"

"No, I'm not ashamed . . . I just, . . . Most people tend to stare at it and notice it before they notice anything else about me. I just try to minimize that, I guess." A small smile crept slowly onto her face.

"I guess I can understand that." They walked on toward her house; this time taking her hand had seemed only right. And her gentle squeeze of his fingers as she said this confirmed to him that she really did understand. It was strange, he thought, that this Muggle girl who knew absolutely nothing about him and his whole life story, understood him as well or better than people who knew everything about his parents and Voldemort and the scar and his destiny and the War . . .

Harry suddenly stopped short. A cold chill ran through him even though the evening was warm. There, across the street, stood a witch. An elderly one, but he could tell even from this distance easily that she was indeed a witch. Her bright emerald cloak and old-fashioned hat was something that only a witch or wizard would wear on the streets of London. "What?" Cassie asked. Harry knew that most Muggles could not see witches or wizards. They weren't exactly invisible, just not . . . noticed.

He shrugged, "Um, nothing. I just need to tie my shoe." He bent down, trying not to look at the witch although he could certainly feel her eyes on him. If he met her eyes she would know he was a wizard and since his face was probably one of the most famous in the wizarding world, this could be a major problem. His heart was racing with terror. He wanted to reach up and touch his hair, making sure that his scar was covered, but he knew that that would be a major mistake. He tried to slow his breathing as he forced himself to rise from his crouch and took Cassie's hand again. Even if he looked vaguely familiar, if she thought he was just a Muggle . . . . He stepped determinedly again, not daring to glance back at her, but out of the corner of his eye as he turned his head slightly he could see that she was gone. He needed to get home, desperately, immediately. He really was terribly vulnerable out on the street and that brief encounter had driven the point home in the worst way, much more than all of Dumbledore's lectures had done.

Harry was just about to ask how much farther her house was when she said, "Here, Harry. The white house on the right" and he looked at where she was pointing to see a house that looked comfortable and friendly, its lights shining out onto the darkening street, welcoming Cassie home.