Four: Ghent
Harry had a new favourite thing: his bed in Korenlei. His double bed in Korenlei. His double bed with four fluffy pillows and two different blankets and a heavenly soft mattress. In Korenlei. It was a fun street name to say: it rolled off the tongue as he tried it now in a whisper, wanting to say it as Ms Hetzel had said it, with a hard r that he couldn't quite get.
He'd found it a little difficult to follow what Ms Hetzel was saying to him at first, but then he'd got used to it and ended up actually learning what city and country he was in, which really shouldn't have been a source of joy in a normal world. She had taught him a few words in Flemish, too, and French, easy things like hello and please, so he could say them in shops and such; she'd left barely half an hour ago to 'give them some peace' and he'd already forgotten all the words, but then he didn't suppose Snape would be taking him to a whole lot of shops in which to practice.
Ms Hetzel was a squib, which meant Harry could show her his photo album. He'd felt a little silly, forcing it on a stranger who probably didn't even care what Harry's parents did or did not look like, but she had been the first person to express any sort of interest in what he had to say ever since he'd left Hogwarts—which hadn't even been that long ago when he thought about it. It felt like an age though.
Now, he lay on his new double bed, feeling much better than he had back in Brussels, and listened to the sounds from the kitchen, where Snape waged a war against the hob. Since picking Harry up from the hostel and telling him they were going to spend the night in Ghent, he hadn't said much to anyone at all, including Ms Hetzel. When she'd stayed with Harry, he'd gone to shower for ages, and then out to buy food, and then when he came back and saw Harry and Ms Hetzel were looking through the album, he'd exiled himself to the kitchen.
At least he hadn't gone off at Harry for carrying the album around. The morning with all its disasters and fears seemed far away, like maybe it had happened another day. Now, it felt to Harry like things were going his way for once, and after all the lying down and resting he had done first in Brussels and then now with Ms Hetzel, he was even feeling hungry again. He only hoped he would sleep well tonight and that nothing horrible would happen; he couldn't think of much worse than doing that in his new double bed, or having Ms Hetzel find out about it.
Curious, and maybe also a little keen to see Snape having trouble with something for once, Harry edged toward the door to the kitchen suite and peered through the creak. He spotter the hob, one of those he had seen only on TV. Induction hobs, they were called. The groceries were set to the side of the cramped table. And then there was Snape himself, fiddling with the knobs in severe concentration. Harry swallowed the laugh: it wouldn't do to alert Snape to his presence, and this was possibly a little mean, especially since Harry himself had never used a hob like that and wouldn't have known what to do either, even though he'd been raised by muggles.
Then again, it was Snape's own fault for not asking Ms Hetzel how to work it before she'd left. And Snape, even if he wasn't an aspiring murderer like Harry had once thought, was a pretty mean person on a good day, and likely never beat himself up for enjoying it when Harry or Neville struggled to make their cauldrons do as they were told, so Harry should be allowed to enjoy this, too—
Snape shoved at the hob. It banged against the wall: not so hard as to take damage, but loud enough that Harry's heart leaped to his throat in surprise. He hurried back to his bed and threw himself on it, trying to act like he'd never moved in the first place. The tension of this morning came flooding back, and Harry realised at once that he was all alone with a man who verifiably hated him, and they'd both had a pretty exhausting couple of days, and Harry didn't think Snape would actually hurt him, but he also recognized he barely knew him at all.
'Potter!'
Harry looked at his lap. He did his best to make his breathing and his thoughts extra quiet, as if then Snape might miss the fact he was even there.
'We're going out to eat. Are you ready?'
'Yes?'
'Are you asking me if you're ready? Get up then, let's go.'
They went down Korenlei. Lights glistened on the water, people chattered at tables set out on the low bank, and it seemed odd to be afraid of anything at all. By the time they'd found their way to a restaurant, with soft chairs precarious on the cobbles and food served out of a little boat, the sun had disappeared behind the building that loomed further down the river—it seemed to Harry like it would have been a church, or some sort of cathedral, maybe, but he imagined instead it was a castle much like Hogwarts, and that the whole of Ghent, medieval and strange and busy, was the campus of a magic school where Belgian wizards went, and instead of dormitories, they slept in the colourful houses that hanged just above the water front.
The waiter gave Harry a menu that had some English in it, looped between the strange syllables of words he couldn't read. Harry spent the first few minutes desperately trying to find a single item that wasn't wine, and after that, he didn't know most of the dishes. The waiter had left. Harry didn't know whether he would be back, or if he needed to get up and go somewhere to tell them what he wanted or what; he'd never been to a restaurant in his life and felt as though everyone around him could tell.
The waiter came back. He asked Snape for his order first, and Snape said something that went right past Harry. Then he turned to Harry, who sat dumb even as Snape barked at him to say what he wanted.
'I—I'm not sure,' he said lamely, looking through the menu as he tried and failed to understand a single thing.
'We have better things to do with our lives than wait around for you,' Snape said, and took the menu right out of Harry's shaking hands. He could tell the tremble didn't go unnoticed, from the way the waiter gave him a sad smile and from the way Snape's eyebrow twitched; Harry quickly pushed his hands between his thighs to hold them still.
In the end, it would have probably been quicker if Harry had been allowed to pick something at random, because it took Snape ages to decide for him. He tried to pay attention at first, but soon deemed the experience too mortifying, and eased his thoughts instead into a soft buzz, hoping that if he were very quiet even in his own head, everyone might forget he was there.
He hoped at least he wouldn't be getting anything too disgusting. Hermione had told him once that her grandmother had gone travelling and eaten all sorts of bugs, and even this little squid that was still alive. He didn't think that had been in Belgium, though he couldn't remember really, and he felt sick now at the very idea. Ron had said that once, when he was seven, he'd eaten a worm on a dare, and it had been horrid. Due to this, he understood perfectly what Hermione's grandmother had been through, he'd said, and he had a lot of respect for her.
Would he even see them again? Dumbledore had said that he could probably come back to Britain in a few weeks, but Harry hadn't missed the probably, and anyway, the two days he'd been away with Snape already felt like much longer. What if he didn't make it back in time for when school started up again? Would they expel him for not showing up? And if he did show up, would Ron and Hermione even be his friends anymore, if they were going to spend all summer reading bad things about him in the paper and thinking he was rubbish for never writing them to explain?
Snape hadn't ordered any worms. Instead, Harry was brought what looked like boiled vegetables and chicken breast, and a cup of tea. He was a little annoyed at first, since Snape's food looked way better and fancier, and he had a cold drink that came from a bottle with a pink elephant, but then he remembered how his stomach had been just a few hours ago. It was more consideration than he'd have expected. Also, the drink that came from the elephant bottle turned out to smell like beer, which was just poor branding as far as Harry was concerned.
When they were done, the waiter brought them the bill in a little ashtray that had glitter in it and complimentary mints, which Snape naturally didn't let Harry take. On their way out, they were intercepted by their waiter, because it turned out Snape had paid in the wrong currency, only the waiter said it in a way Snape didn't immediately understand, and there followed a terrible awkwardness as they each worked to remedy the other's perceived confusion, trying to flatten their accents and enunciate and rephrase, and by the time Snape had caught up to what had happened, he had gone a little red.
This time, though Harry still enjoyed the spectacle, it was for a different reason altogether: it was plain nice, he supposed, to see that Snape didn't feel completely at ease either, and that he didn't have it all figured out. It made Harry feel a little more confident himself, and he walked with his shoulders pulled straight as they strolled back up the river, lit now only by the orange lights from bars and illuminations.
Harry knew there wasn't really a magic school here, or surely Ms Hetzel would have mentioned it, and anyway he wasn't allowed to be near magic at the moment—but as he looked around the night, he felt the same rush he had when he'd first visited Diagon Alley or Hogwarts. It tingled in the back of his neck and warmed his fingertips: as if there were magic here, too, in the water, the evening breeze, and in the ground beneath their feet.
Two chapters again? I don't know what to tell you. These two are such short, tiny things that I felt bad for them and decided they'd do better with company.
