Amateur Stealth and Tracking
"Throw me that broom polish, will you?" Harry's voice carried around the corner from the study into my old bedroom. My Hogwarts chambers seemed smaller now that we were usually there together. I dug the polish tin out from under the pile of blankets hanging off the end of the bed and brought it into the sitting room, hooking my earring through my earlobe with my other hand as I walked. Harry's welcoming grin fell into a grimace when he saw what I was doing. "I don't know how you can do that," he groused.
"I've had them pierced since I was ten, Harry. They're healed. It's like putting on socks." He wrinkled his eyebrows a bit more. "Your face is going to stick like that."
"There's coffee if you want." Of course there was. From the morning after our marriage, Harry had made coffee before I woke up. Every single day. I felt half a grin crawl up the side of my face as I walked over to pour myself a cup. I had him drinking it every morning too, now.
"Jack's coming in through Heathrow with Lana and Max." I walked over to the side of the chair where Harry sat with his servicing kit and broom, and I ran the tips of my fingers across his scalp.
"You told them about Voldemort." His voice was flat, but not a bad flat. Demanding, maybe.
"I did. Jack already knew most of it; I didn't keep the war secret from him." I wandered over to the chair across from Harry and sat with my feet tucked beside me. "Jack was kind of surprised you'd marry little old me."
"Doesn't he know you're a looker?" Harry teased. I whipped the pillow out from behind me and hurled it at his head. He raised his hands.
"Don't remind me of that guy!" I hollered. "I'd almost forgotten, too…"
Harry just smirked back at me for a moment before returning to his polishing. He'd been referring to the night we made our first public appearance as a married couple. It was early spring, and we'd been invited to the home of one of Harry's bosses for a small party. I was wound tighter than an eight day clock, and I think my grip on Harry's arm was painful as we walked to the front door of the mansion. I'm sorry to say it only got worse once we were inside.
I first sensed that something was off when I noticed the smell. The entire place smelled faintly of men's cologne—the kind you get in little vials from the coin-op machines in gas station restrooms. Then there were the lights. There wasn't much illumination, and what there was had been filtered through pinkish shades. Yes, mood lighting. I remember thinking, as we'd entered the foyer, that we might have misunderstood the kind of party this was.
Before I could open my mouth we were relieved of our cloaks and put into a line of couples waiting to be introduced by a man dressed as a footman. Well, he was sort of dressed as a footman. Let me put it this way: if footmen didn't wear shirts, but still had collars and cuffs, they'd look like this guy. By then I was actively seeking an exit, having decided this would be very embarrassing and maybe illegal.
There wasn't an exit, though. That's what you get for going to a high-up Auror's house for a party, I suppose. You can't just ditch. But still I looked. I didn't share my worries with Harry, who seemed to be looking around as much as I was. I assumed he thought what I did. It turns out I was wrong. Harry stepped forward, and ushered me with him. The half-naked footman pressed a set of keys into my hand as he drew us toward the door to the ballroom. My stomach dropped into my feet.
Keys! If this were a sitcom I would face the camera and say "I think we all know what that means," and we would all know. But it wasn't. It was my first married appearance in public with Harry Potter, and it was at a key party, and I was pretty sure Harry didn't know a key party from a hole in the head.
"Harry," I hissed. I elbowed him, hard, for good measure. He turned just as I did, and waved at a balding man across the room. I grabbed for his bicep before he could step away from me. "Harry!"
"What is it, Anna?" He gave me an irritated look. I imagine I was giving him one right back.
"We can't go in there!"
"Of course we can," he turned toward me and put his palms down heavily on my shoulders. I squirmed. "Tom said they'd meant to send us an invitation; it was just an oversight."
"That's not it," I hissed. I caught movement in my peripheral vision and pulled Harry with me into the shadows of the heavy draperies beside the ballroom doors.
"What's wrong, then?"
"This!" I dangled the set of keys in front of him. "Harry, it's a key party!"
"Where'd you get those?"
"At the door, Harry. It's a key party." Come on, Potter. Don't tell me you don't know what a key party is.
"What's a key party?" Damnation. I pulled Harry closer to me and against the wall and started to whisper.
"You know, a key party. Like in the seventies?" He gave me a blank look. I could see the shift from irritated to worried starting to take place, though. "It's a swingers' party, Harry."
I will carry the mental image of Harry's thunderstruck look with me to my grave. I almost laughed aloud. Instead I gripped his arms and pulled him closer to me and farther into the folds of the draperies.
"The men leave their keys at the door, and the women get a random set of keys out of the pile. The women find the man whose keys they have and, um," I looked at the ceiling a moment, then at Harry. "You get the rest."
"No," he hissed. He snatched the keys out of my hand and held them so tightly I wondered if he was trying to bend them out of shape. Then he looked down at them, and his face fell. He turned the ring of keys over in his hands and separated out a bottle opener formed from two dragons. "Charlie," he breathed.
"Harry?" I bent down to catch his eyes. He looked up at me and blinked once, then took me by the shoulders.
"This is Charlie Weasley's or I'm a grindylow." I had to hold very still for a moment while the traitorous jig of excitement in my chest finished. I mean, the man's a dragon tamer. Come on.
"So we'll ditch them somewhere and make our excuses. I'm sure some other witch would love to… never mind." I made to grab the keys back from Harry and walk off, but he held me still.
"Would you want to?" He had me tight between his chest and the wall behind me, and the folds of the drapes obscured my peripheral vision. For a moment I forgot why we were even talking.
"With Charlie? Why?" I blundered. Smooth, Anna, real smooth.
"Would you?" Harry put his fist against the wall next to my ear and leaned down to look me in the eye. I started to shift, but he put his other hand against my ribs and held me still.
"No," I managed. Harry gave me a quick kiss before straightening up and stepping away from me.
"Correct, Mrs. Potter," he intoned. "Let's find Charlie, shall we?"
"No," I blurted. Harry raised an eyebrow at me. I grinned. "Let's find Charlie a woman." Harry gave me a long look that made me think of Hermione. "Come on, if he's here he must need to get laid." Harry's eyebrows shot upward. I looked around quickly; no heads had turned our way. I lowered my voice a little. "What about the blond by the wine bar?"
"We're not doing this, Anna." Harry's hand clenched momentarily where it rested on my forearm. I started walking toward the blond, pulling him with me. His steps dragged.
"I'd do it myself if you'd give me those keys," I muttered.
"No." He put his chin up a fraction higher. I dug my nails lightly into his arm. His lips twitched a little at the edges.
"Harry. He's not here on accident."
"He could be!" A woman carrying a tray of hors d'oeuvres glanced over at Harry. He lowered his voice. "We are," he hissed.
"He took off everything but the house key and his bottle opener," I reasoned, "and Lord knows wizards don't even need metal keys."
"That doesn't mean anything," Harry grunted.
"Yes it does," I hissed. I tugged Harry to an empty end of the long bar. "He left his house key, printed with a street address number, and a dragon bottle opener. It practically says 'I'm a dragon tamer, come fuck me.'"
If Harry had anything to spit, he'd have spit it. Instead he made a very inelegant noise and nearly dropped the keys. "Anna!"
"What? He's a grown wizard. Besides, we'll find him a good one." Harry's face had turned a sunset-worthy shade of pinkish-red. He seemed to be having trouble breathing. I handed him a flute of champagne. "So, what do you know about the women he dates?"
"Anna!" Harry blurted. I looked at him, and he looked at me. I think he was gathering his thoughts, but I never found out. Instead, the balding man he'd waved to when we walked in arrived. He clapped Harry hard on the back and beamed at me.
"Harry Potter," he announced, "is this the young missus you've been hiding? Quite a looker, she is."
I'll admit I had a really hard time not snorting the champagne in my mouth right up into my sinuses when he said that. I think I made some kind of face, because Harry very smoothly started to draw the man's attention. I tuned in about here: "…haven't wanted to be much in the public eye so soon after our wedding, knowing how the press can be. I'm sure you understand, Mr. Pfaltzbottom."
"Of course, of course," the man nodded. "Lovely to have you here, my dear; quite a compliment to us I'm sure."
"Thank you," I blathered, still stuck on the 'looker' moniker.
"I'll just let you both get back to the festivities," the man said. He gave Harry an old-boy-at-the-club punch on the shoulder and nodded his head to me before walking on down the bar to the next person.
"Well, looker," Harry smirked, "what was your plan?"
"Shush," I snapped. "We've got to find Charlie a woman. Then we've got to get out of here without doing anything that we wouldn't want Hermione to know about."
"Too late for that," Harry muttered.
"You didn't answer. What about the blond?" Harry craned his neck around and didn't hide his open appraisal of the statuesque woman drinking a deep red wine at the bar. He turned back to me and shook his head.
"No. Charlie likes brunettes." He glanced up at the ceiling, then back to me. "He likes them fit, too. Muscular."
I cast my eyes around the room, crossing out all the blonds and redheads. My eyes came to rest on a head of gold-brown hair. I could see the woman's toned back exposed by the cut of her dress. I narrowed my eyes. "Dark blue dress, second from the rightmost pillar, next to the guy with the glasses and white hair."
"I don't see," Harry squinted toward the space I'd pointed out. "Oh, there. I think—yeah, that's Perla Martine, she works on my floor."
"Think she'd sleep with Charlie?"
Harry made a mournful noise as he turned back toward me. "I don't know, Anna." He turned back toward her. "I don't want to know," he muttered. "I think she might."
"Good." I held my palm out to him. "Keys, please."
"What?"
"I'm going to go offer her the keys. I'll say I'm trying to cheat to get your keys, and that I have to trade hers to make all the other trades work." Harry gave me a confused grimace for a long moment before releasing the keys into my hand. I set my champagne flute next to his and gave him what I figured was a reassuring look.
Perla Martine was charming as all hell. Her teeth were gleaming and her lashes long. She'd have made me sick with envy in high school. I felt pretty good about handing her those keys. She gave me a conspiratorial look, then tugged me close to whisper in my ear. Several heads turned our way, and I was a little unnerved by the open lust I saw on the faces of some of them.
"Just drop them in a plant and leave with your man, mija," she purred. "No one will say one word."
"But it's the game," I smiled. Her smile widened.
"Good hunt," she winked. I brought the traded keys back to Harry at the bar. That set we foisted on an elegant blond woman with quicksilver eyes. The next set we gifted to a woman with dyed red hair and dark eyeliner. The next we shuffled toward a woman whose brown curls were flipping out of her hairpins in all directions, and the final set we put in the hands of a woman with almost perfectly black eyes. At last we had Harry's keys. Actually, I did. I dropped them down the bodice of my dress so the metal rested against my breastbone and walked back to Harry.
"Next?" He gave me a longsuffering look. I smiled back at him.
"Nothing." He raised his eyebrows. "Take me home."
"You have them?"
"Do you trust me?" His eyes rested on my face, then skimmed my body before returning to meet my gaze. He nodded. I smirked at him and turned away to walk toward the door. I could see the bald man out of the corner of my eye, and on a whim I turned to wink at him. I could hear Harry make a choked noise behind me—I guess he saw me—but I kept walking. Outside in the wet chill of early morning in spring I wrapped my arms around Harry and apparated him home with me.
Two days later we received two packages by owl. One was for me, from Perla, and contained a bottle of obscenely expensive perfume. The other was for Harry, from Charlie, and contained a dragon-hide wand holster. At the next Weasley dinner neither one of them was present. Harry never told me whether Mr. Pfaltzbottom mentioned the party again. I suppose he never did.
Harry's voice jerked me from my memories. "Anna? Are they staying in London?"
"Sorry… Yes, they're staying in London. They're more comfortable in a muggle hotel," I gave my head a little shake and started searching my travel bag for the swatches of fabric Ginny'd sent.
"It's all right." He put the last of the tins back in its place in the kit and set his broom to the side of the mantel. "I suppose it's easier for you to stay here while they're visiting."
"No, Harry," I said quickly. "They're here to see us. I want to stay at the house." He nodded, but I had the feeling he didn't get what I really wanted to say. "I have to let them know I really married you, you know? That I meant it."
