Chapter 6: Giacomo Maggi-Magico's, Diagon Alley
The following day, Tonks's head pops up in the Burrow's kitchen fire, and she asks for Charlie. She asks him when he's leaving, and he says Sunday. She says, "Great." She says, "Meet us for dinner tomorrow night." She says, "Remember where Florean Fortescue's ice cream parlor used to be, back when we were teenagers? An Italian wizard took it over, and he's put in a pasta place that's rather good. Beats cooking, anyway." She says, "Seven o'clock."
Charlie says, obediently, "Okay." There's really nothing else one can say to Tonks when she's in a certain mood.
Giacomo Maggi-Magico's Restaurant is crowded when he arrives, but there is no sign of Tonks, Remus, or Stella. Charlie is precisely on time, but he didn't expect to be the first, not if Remus was coming. He scans the room twice, and his eyes light on Katie, sitting alone on a stool at the bar. She waves tentatively. He walks over to her.
"How are you?" he asks.
"I'm fine," she says. "I'm meeting friends, but they aren't here yet."
"Neither are mine," says Charlie.
"Mine should be easy to spot," says Katie. "Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin?"
Oh. Charlie opens his mouth and shuts it. "I'm meeting them too."
Katie looks startled, then embarrassed. Then she laughs.
Charlie says the first thing that pops into his head. "You know a lot about dragons."
"I read up," says Katie, nodding. "That's what I supposed to be doing, you see."
He cocks his head.
"I was supposed to be interning on a dragon reservation. You've probably heard of it. The Transylvanian Dragon Research and Breeding Facility? It's in Romania."
"I've heard of it," says Charlie.
"That was my original career plan, you see. Dragons. Professor Grubbly-Plank put me in touch with the director, and I got accepted early, contingent on my NEWT grades of course, but that shouldn't have been a problem."
This information sinks in slowly. Charlie says quietly, "You didn't come."
"No."
"You changed your mind?" he asks. He has heard this story a score of times, from a score of no-show interns.
"No, I—" begins Katie, but she breaks off. She gestures helplessly with her hands.
He senses there's more coming, and he doesn't interrupt.
"I got Imperiused," she says after a minute, in a far-away voice, looking over his shoulder at the crowded restaurant. "I was still at school. I went into the Three Broomsticks with a friend one Hogsmeade weekend, and I got Imperiused, by someone else who had been Imperiused, too. I was given an opal necklace to take to Albus Dumbledore. Absurd, really, but when you're Imperiused you don't ask questions. But then I—I touched the thing, through a hole in my glove. I spun in the air, fell, got knocked out, and woke up six months later in St. Mungo's."
She doesn't know it, but Charlie has heard this story before. He heard it years ago, at some family gathering, from Ron and Hermione.
He just didn't know the girl was Katie.
And of course he didn't know that she was supposed to be interning at the Transylvanian Dragon Research and Breeding Facility.
"I was so happy to be back," says Katie. "I missed most of my seventh year. I was so, so happy to be back. But I wasn't really prepared to take my NEWTs, and that was worrisome. Then Albus Dumbledore was killed, and exams got postponed. I studied all summer and took my NEWTs in the autumn. By then, things were looking bad, and I'd been ill so long, my parents didn't want me going far from home. They thought I would be safer in Britain. But there aren't any really first-class dragon training programs in Britain, so I had to give up on that. I just did a one-year certificate in hippogriffs."
"Were you in the war?" says Charlie quietly. "I mean, after—I didn't mean—"
"I know what you mean," says Katie. "Sort of." She lowers her voice. "Have you ever heard of an organization called the Order of the Phoenix?"
"I've heard of it," says Charlie.
"I thought you might have," says Katie. "I mean, if you're friends with Tonks and Remus—and, of course, you're a Weasley—I mean, I know your father—"
"Were you in the Order of the Phoenix?" asks Charlie quietly. By now, he is starting to realize how much happened in England that he never knew, how much he was never told. By now, he is past being surprised.
"No. No, nothing like that. I was too young. I left school just a year before the war ended, and then I went into the hippogriff program. But I did odd jobs for the Order from time to time. Beaky—Buckbeak—the hippogriff at the wedding, you know—was working for the Order, so to speak, during the war. I used to deliver Beaky to wherever the Order needed him, especially when Hagrid was away. That's why—well, that's why I got in the way."
She takes the index finger of her right hand, and she runs it down the length of the scar, from the mark on her forehead to the scar tissue puckered over the eye that won't quite open to the dimple in her chin. Even though it's only the second time he's met her, he knows this is a trademark gesture. He knows he will be seeing this gesture hundreds and thousands of times.
"I fell on the blade of a sword. I was waiting in Professor McGonagall's office, with Buckbeak, the night the second Battle of Hogwarts broke out. I was alone and I heard the noise, but I didn't know what it was. I waited and waited, and a Death Eater smashed the door in. Almost before I realized what was happening, he grabbed Godric Gryffindor's sword from its case and attacked me. He kicked me and slashed me, and I fell on the blade of the sword. And then—I don't understand exactly—but the sword made a decision. It turned a blunt edge to my face and it stopped."
Wordlessly, she fingers the scar. One side overlaps the other. Two thin sheets of overlapping skin, straight down the right side of her face. He can see exactly where the sword fell, exactly where it stopped. Exactly where it sliced the corner of her eye.
He says, "I didn't know swords could make decisions."
She says ruefully, "Neither did I."
He thinks, there was a powerful lot of magic in that old sword.
She says sheepishly, "So that's my war story. I always seem to get in the way and get clobbered. What about you?"
He shrugs. "I don't have one."
She looks skeptical. She says, "How did you know about the Order of the Phoenix?"
"Oh," says Charlie, embarrassed. "Oh, well, I was in it. But I didn't really do much."
Again, she looks skeptical.
"I was out in Romania."
"But I always heard—"
Well, yes, of course she heard. That is what everyone says. Everyone knows that the Balkans and the Black Sea were seething with Death Eaters. It was not as romantic as it sounds.
"Conditions were so bad we couldn't take risks," explains Charlie. "Conditions were so bad we couldn't risk any sort of battle at all. We had to keep our heads down. I funneled intelligence, I hosted spies, I did a bit of intelligence work myself. But I don't have any war stories. We couldn't risk a war out there. We just kept our heads down."
Katie smiles ruefully. She says, "Sounds a lot more useful than getting Imperiused and spending six months in St. Mungo's." She says, "Sounds a lot more useful than standing around an empty office and falling on the blade of a sword." Her voice is tinged with something like envy.
"Charlie!"
It is Tonks. Remus follows her, carrying Stella in a backpack, which she has almost outgrown. They are twenty minutes late, and since Remus is never twenty minutes late anywhere, Charlie knows it's Tonks's doing. And he knows she did it on purpose. Tonks is rarely late by accident, but she does all sorts of daft things on purpose.
She wanted him to run into Katie.
They linger over dinner, the four of them, chatting lazily, as if they've known each other all their lives. The wizarding world is small, the options few. Katie and Charlie have only just met, but they have shared references, shared memories, shared friends. Stella eats half a roll and two strands of spaghetti, then loops several more strands of spaghetti round her wrist in the form of a bracelet. She makes another spaghetti bracelet for Katie. She falls asleep with her head on her highchair.
As soon as the check is paid, Tonks and Remus disappear, as young parents are wont to do, amid flurried references to belated bedtimes and a welter of unspoken tact. Charlie and Katie linger over coffee, cup after cup, until the waitwizard tells them that Giacomo Maggi-Magico's is closing now. At last they stroll out into Diagon Alley, dark and damp with the scent of approaching rain.
"How are you getting home?" he asks.
"Oh," she says, slightly surprised. "Oh, well, I guess I'll just apparate." She does not sound eager to go.
"I wish I had known you before the war," says Charlie softly, not quite looking at her. "Or during the war. Or even last month, or last week."
"Why not now?" says Katie.
With the tip of his index finger, Charlie touches the mark on her forehead. He trails his finger down the scar tissue buckled over the corner of her eye, the dark line on her cheek, to the dimple in her chin. He kisses her awkwardly. The fact is, he's a little out of practice. But she relaxes into his arms. Their noses bump, and it starts to rain. They stand there, in a damp, shadowy corner of Diagon Alley, kissing slowly and awkwardly.
"Katie," says Charlie huskily, "let's elope."
She is silent, and his heart sinks to the pavement. He wasn't serious, of course. At least, not entirely. He was trying to be dashing, romantic, exciting, the way a Dragon Keeper should be. As usual, it has backfired.
"Let's just elope for a day or two," says Katie quietly, "and see how it goes."
His heart springs back to his chest. "Where do you want to go?"
"Transylvania."