Vana'diel Potter
A Fanfic by Viral Inque
Author's Note: Please, oh, please, let there still be someone out there who still cares about what happens to our two heroes. And this is the chapter I think you were waiting for, sort of . More to come.
Chapter VI: San d'Oria Nights
Harry could very literally feel his heart sink into the pit of his stomach at the sight of the sickle. Fleur looked like she might scream, but instead she pocketed the coin and sulked at the cart filled with fresh fruit.
"Now what?" she frowned.
"Excuse me," a rather large man said as he sauntered up to them, "Might I take a look at that coin you were holding?"
Fleur looked at Harry questioningly. He didn't know what to make of the rosy cheeked man, so all he could do was shrug. After some thought, Fleur decided it couldn't do any harm, and handed the man the coin.
The man held the coin between his thumb and index finger and examined it closely. He did this for quite some time, giving the occasional introspective 'hmm' or 'ah-hah'.
"Where'd you get this, young lady?" he finally asked, turning his eye to Fleur and scrutinizing her.
"Zis woman found it," Fleur lied instinctively, coming off as very convincing, "In a cave near, um, Windurst. She said she 'ad no use for it and zat we could 'ave it if we want."
"Windurst, huh?" the man said in the same thoughtful manner he seemed to do everything, "I've never seen anything like it. You see, I have this friend who's a fanatic for old and rare coins. Collects them for whatever strange reason. If you'd be willing to part with this, maybe we could both make us a little money."
"How much?" Harry asked, though it hardly mattered one way or another.
"What do you say to ten gil?" the man pitched, scratching his chin, "I doubt we can be sure how much it's really worth, but it's really not worth anything to you just sitting in your pocket, right?"
"What if we had more?" Harry asked, digging in his robes, finding two sickles, five knuts, and one galleon. He snuck the galleon back into his pocket, just in case, and handed the man the rest.
The man went about examining the coins again, paying special attention to the newly introduced knut. "Same deal. Ten a piece. I'll take them all. Don't you worry, I'll make my money back on them."
This was hardly a problem. Fleur found another sickle and two more knuts in her robes. All together it came to four sickles and seven knuts, or a hundred and ten gil. Harry silently hoped that would at least buy them breakfast. They exchanged the coins for a different set of coins. After Harry had counted their gil, they said their goodbyes to the man and parted ways.
Harry examined the coins. They were square and had a bird engraved on one side with some strange writing encircling it. On the other side there was a numeric value- one gil, five gil, and so on. The coins increased in size slightly depending on the value.
"Zat was a lucky break," Fleur said when the man was out of sight, "But I don't exactly feel at ease yet."
"Yeah," Harry smiled, "I was thinking the same thing."
They walked back to the fruit stand. Harry grabbed two small, star shaped fruit and two that looked like they might have been kiwis in a past life.
"How much for these?" he asked the old woman stooped over the chair next to the cart. The woman must have been dozing, because she snapped to attention with a start.
"That'll be twelve gil, son," the woman said, squinting hard at the fruit in Harry's hand.
Harry counted out the money and handed it to the woman. Fleur let out a long, relieved sigh. They not only had money now, but they had enough money to actually survive off of, at least for a little while.
They found a place to sit nearby, on a bench in front of a weapon shop. They looked at the weapons displayed in the window as they enjoyed their fruit. There were all types of swords and daggers, and even an oddly shaped gun. They all had weird names like The Blood Reaper or The Vengeance Seeker.
"I zink our luck may be changing for ze better," Fleur smiled as she tossed a pit from one of the fruit aside and licked her lips in delight.
"Yeah, we sure needed a break, and we've had two in the last hour," Harry agreed, licking the sticky, sweet fruit juice off his fingers.
"Now all I need is a bath and a bed and I can die 'appy," Fleur smiled, getting lost in the idea of it.
"Agreed," Harry agreed again, but added, "Just don't forget we still have to figure out how to get home."
"Right, I 'ad almost forgotten," Fleur said glumly, surprising Harry slightly and actually making him feel kind of bad.
"But we can worry about that tomorrow," he said, trying to make up for his previous statement, "Let's look around some more."
They walked around with no particular goal in mind. San d'Oria turned out to be far bigger then it looked from the outside, full of labyrinthine alleys and buildings to get lost in. It was a metropolis trapped in a hole in time and space, filled to the brim with people and sights to be seen. There were street performers, beggars, merchants selling tonics and potions to cure anything and everything, and shady con artists that might slit your throat for five gil, and that was probably just the tip of the iceberg.
They walked around for time untold, until fatigue started to creep into their bodies once again and they had to consider where there were going to stay for the night even as the night sky started to lighten. There was still much of the city they had yet to see. In fact, it could possibly take days to see the whole city, while still finding something new at every turn.
"Ah, zis is like no place imaginable," Fleur said as they rested at another bench in another part of the city with a fountain in the center of a plaza.
"It's endless," Harry added, "I wonder what else there is to see?"
"Do you zink we can ride a chocobo tomorrow?" Fleur asked excited, thinking of the stables they had found earlier, full of stalls with the big yellow birds.
"Yeah, I think I'd like to stay here at least one more day," Harry replied, deliberately trying to forget about going home and instead trying to make the most of their current situation, "We have to see how much money we have left by then, though."
"I zink we'll be alright," Fleur said, staring up at the sky pensively, "Zere appeared to be a lot of ways for a person to make some money, even for us."
"I just hope it's not shoveling chocobo poop," Harry laughed.
"Yeah," Fleur chuckled, "But I zink it's time for us to call it a night for now."
"I think it was that way," Harry said, pointing in the direction of where he thought they had seen the residential district, and they sluggishly headed in that direction.
By now the crowds had started to thin ever so slightly, thought there were still great masses of people wandering around the city. The concentration increased as they got closer to the residential district. Through the throng, they saw a small gate were people were trying to squeeze in and out of, and beyond that rows upon rows of small buildings lined up tightly together.
A sign directed then to a table sitting to the side of the gate under a bright tent. A guard sat in a chair at the table, sleeping quietly. Harry cleared his throat loudly to get his attention. The guard slowly came to and looked at then lazily.
"What?" he asked, annoyed.
"How much is it for a room?" Harry asked, flipping the gil in his pocket around nervously.
"How long you want it?" the guard asked, coughing up some phlegm sharply and spitting it onto the ground casually.
"Well, zat kind of depends on 'ow much it costs?" Fleur offered.
"It's forty for the night, but for twice that you can stay as long as a week if you like," the guard scoffed, "Do you want a room or not?"
Harry dropped eighty gil on the table, eager to be done with the guard, who was beginning to get on his nerves. He looked doubtfully at the meager eighteen gil they were left with. The guard looked through an enormous ring full of keys and pulled one out for them. 4227-B was carved neatly onto the key's handle. Harry mumbled an abrupt thank you and they made their way slowly through the crowded entrance to the residential district.
There appeared to only be a loose pattern to the way the building were arranged. There were no real streets, just small alleys keeping one row of buildings from bleeding into the next. Then if you moved from one row to another, the numbers on them shifted abruptly. Finally, they found building 4227 all the way near the end of the cavernous residential district, mostly by chance.
The first thing they came to when they walked in was a small living area with tables and chairs strewn around it randomly, like a make-shift bed and breakfast. Several of these were occupied by individuals either eating or drinking, supplied from a bar in one corner. There was a man wearing an apron, presumably the barkeep and the cook, roaming around the room attending to the customers. On the far wall there was a fireplace, and to it's left was a staircase.
There were three floors to the building, and four rooms on each floor. The landing on the second floor was barely big enough to fit the four doors to the rooms on it. They had no problem finding theirs.
There wasn't much to the place. There was a window and a shabby rug and a coat stand. A table with two chairs, and a lamp which provided all the light for the room. A copper bath to one side, separated by a tattered folding partition. And there was an end table on either side of the only bed in the room.
"There's only one bed," Harry chuckled in spite of himself.
"Zere's only one bed," Fleur sighed, not seeming the least bit surprised, "So much for our run of luck."
"Ladies first," Harry said, gesturing towards the tub.
"Zanks," she said gratefully.
Harry sat on the edge of the bed facing away from the tub while Fleur took her bath. He tried to occupy his mind with thinking about something else. This was no difficult task, since the soft, albeit lumpy, bed was beckoning him to lay on it.
"So what do you zink we should do tomorrow, 'Arry?" Fleur called from the other side of the partition.
"I thought you wanted to ride a chocobo?" Harry asked.
"About going 'ome, I mean," she sighed, as if the bath had awoken her sensibilities.
"I really don't know," Harry shrugged. Apparently, Fleur didn't have any clever ideas either, because they both fell silent after that.
Eventually, Fleur emerged from the tub. She was still wearing her skirt, which had managed to remain reasonably tidy thanks to her robes, but she had shed down to a clean light blue t-shirt with the Beauxbaton's coat of arms emblazed on it in glittering silver. The shirt was an eerie match to her crystal blue eyes and silvery blonde hair, which was now held together in one long wet braid going down her back.
"We need to do something about our clothes," Fleur said glumly.
"I don't think they have a dry cleaners in San d'Oria," Harry offered, trying to sound clever. Fleur didn't find it the least bit funny. Harry, looking at his own mud and grime caked clothes, and didn't really find it funny either.
There appeared to be some sort of working sewer system in San d'Oria, so Harry was able to run himself a nice hot bath to compensate somewhat for his pathetic looking clothes. His robes had taken the majority of the punishment from the last couple of days as well, but the legs of his pants were in serious need of some care. The bath was exquisite nonetheless, and he might have stayed in it for hours, but a thick film of grime quickly accumulated on the top of the water.
He emerged wearing his own Hogwart's t-shirt matching his house colors. He couldn't help but still feel dirty wearing the same dirty pants, but there was nothing he could do for now. Besides, he had another matter to attend to.
Fleur had made herself comfortable on the bed, propped up with a pillow against the headboard staring out the murky window, her bare toes wiggling contently.
"I was zinking we could take turns sleeping on ze bed," Fleur said when she noticed Harry had exited the tub.
"No, you take the bed" Harry decided, not entirely happy about it, but sure it was the only polite thing to do, "I wouldn't feel right having you sleep on the floor."
"Are you sure?" Fleur asked.
"Yeah, I'll be fine," Harry said, grabbing a pillow off the bed, "It's not the first time I've slept on the floor."
The moth eaten throw rug laying defeated at the foot of the bed seemed like the safest bet. It smelled musty and old, but wasn't altogether that uncomfortable. Once situated, Harry reached over to the table and shut down the flame of the lamp with a poof and a puff of smoke, then the room went dark, save a thin ray of dirty lamplight seeping in from outside.
"Good night," Harry called to Fleur through the dark.
"Good night, 'Arry," Fleur replied, and the room fell silent as well.
Harry tried to think of a plan. It felt like they'd done so much and come so far, but all they'd managed to do was survive for the last few days. They were still as close to getting home as the moment they first found themselves in San d'Oria. They had no leads, no information, and they'd be spending at least the next couple of days working to keep their stomachs full.
His normally resourceful mind failed him and he wished more then anything that Hermoine were there to offer one of her know-it-all opinions on the matter. He'd have settled for Ron just for emotional support. Laying on the cold, hard floor even made him think about the Dursley's and his time at number 4 Privett Drive. He began trying to get that out of his head when Fleur called to him.
"'Arry, are you still awake?" she whispered.
"What is it?" Harry asked.
"Get into bed with me," she replied quietly.
"What?" Harry asked dreamily, then, in a wheezy kind of whisper, added, "What?"
"Come on, I can't very well let you sleep on ze floor any more zen you could let me," she stated matter-of-factly, "You've been through at least as much as I 'ave. We both deserve a good night's sleep. Besides, what's ze big deal with a bed at zis point?"
It was true. They'd been together every minute for the last two days, sleeping only a few feet away from each other. Needless to say, this did not put Harry any more at ease.
He stood at the edge of the bed, clutching his pillow like it would protect him. Fleur shrugged nonchalantly, and inched as far over to one side as she could. Harry slid onto the bed, leaving a whole half of himself hanging off his side of the bed.
"Thanks, Fleur," Harry said after some time.
"It's no problem," Fleur replied.
Harry had trouble focusing on sleeping and lay in the bed quietly for what seemed like a long time. Fleur shared the silence with him, which finally gave way to the soft sounds of her sleeping. Harry was considering moving back to the floor, sacrificing one discomfort for another, when he slowly drifted off to sleep, once again, as the sun welcomed the sky to morning.