Merit and Inheritance
Chapter Three
Al-Andalus
Pansy Parkinson sat across from Harry Potter, a battered wooden desk between them. Besides the blotter, a little organizer tray for quills and an ink bottle, the desk was clear. Harry Potter liked a clean desk. Harry's chair squeaked as he listened, some tight fastener protesting with each little rocking motion.
"Morag is doing well," Pansy began. "She is taking a break from career concerns while she cares for her mother. Mrs. MacDougal is over two hundred years old. She had a stroke some time past and won't ever be fit for anything but rest, that mostly bed rest. Madam is delightful, though. She had a pony named Pansy when she was a girl. She patted me on the back and told me Pansy was a good pony. I'm still not sure if she confused me with a Shetland pony."
Harry broke off studying Pansy's face to acknowledge her report with a smile.
"That's good," he said. "Very productive trip. Well done. Was Morag glad to see you?"
Pansy hadn't anticipated the question so there was the briefest pause.
"She warmed up," said Pansy. Harry continued to study her face.
"Sounds like she's engaged in a useful and stimulating pursuit," Harry said. "Dutiful daughter tasks. No one can be faulted for taking care of an aging parent. If we could help, in any way…"
Harry let the thought hang there, between them.
"I asked, Harry, the only thing I could get her to accept was a note now and then, via owl."
"Then that's all we'll send," Harry said as he stood. "Look at the time! Lunch? Have to eat sometime."
"Someplace that serves salads," said Pansy. "I haven't been paying close enough attention. Have to get some discipline back."
Harry looked at Pansy, then checked himself in a wall mirror.
"We're presentable enough, for Al-Andalus, aren't we?" he asked.
Pansy thought over what Harry'd just asked. Al-Andalus had an excellent kitchen and some of the best salads on the planet, but it was expensive. What's more, it was one of the restaurants in magical London that virtually guaranteed a recognizable person would be recognized. That is why a lot of people chose it. A magical person didn't go there if they cared about being recognized, and a lot of them went precisely to be recognized.
Ever since the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry had kept a low profile. He wasn't a recluse, although given his string of batterings he certainly would have been entitled. He liked socializing, while being very picky about the people he socialized with. That kept Potter sightings restricted to homes and a few public places. Pansy thought Harry must be having one of his rare sociable days, if he was in the mood for Al-Andalus.
During the first weeks after the final battle, Harry recognized that he was a mess. He made people mad. He blew up a series of promising romantic relationships in a very short time, all over inconsequential matters. He tried self-medicating, mainly with alcohol. When he observed alcohol wasn't fixing anything, he had the sense to leave it alone. Harry asked around and found that there were a number of magical schools for therapy and self-help. He tried several, finally settling with a magical therapist who used guided meditation and magical exercises that enhanced self-affirmations. There were some rough spots. Meditation brought out some trauma that Harry had had to patch over so he could function well enough to get on with the fight. The damage lay there alongside his unresolved and unexpressed emotional reactions.
Harry dealt with those, one by one. He put himself through his exercises again and again. He was determined to make himself fit company for decent people. Being magical, and making himself decent enough for magical company lowered the bar to a degree, but he still had to work at it. Eventually he felt like he could go out in public, interact a little bit, and not be a danger to himself or others. With luck and conscious self-discipline he wouldn't even be a jackass.
Pansy knew all that. She wondered if the clientele at Al-Andalus would be content to mind its own business in the presence of Harry Potter. There was one way to find out. If he took her along there probably wouldn't be any catastrophic damage.
"Chef salad, no meat, please," Pansy told the waiter.
"Same," said Harry. "Tall ice water, two or three lemon wedges?"
"Of course, Mr. Potter, Madam," said the waiter with two little bows.
"Gone vegetarian, Harry?" asked Pansy.
"No. It just simplified the order if I took the same as you."
"What next?" Pansy asked. She wondered if she'd get a coherent answer.
Harry took a half baguette from the basket in the middle of the table and broke it again, more or less in the middle.
"Will you accept one of these?" Harry asked, holding out the two non-halves. "End piece? The one that was more in the middle?"
"Harry, you know that I know you always like the end piece. Why do you always put me in this position?"
"You're the only person I know who is bothered by it. Everyone else just takes the piece from the middle," Harry said.
Pansy reached for the piece from the middle. She pinched off a chunk and dropped the rest on her little bread plate.
"Ohhh," Pansy said when she'd finished swallowing the first bite of bread. "I've heard there is an elf in back that does nothing but bread. Must be a saint. An elf saint."
"Why's that?" Harry asked.
"Because that bread is heavenly," said Pansy.
"That has got to be…" Harry began.
"What?" asked Pansy.
"No, I can't," said Harry. "I…value your friendship too much."
Had it been anyone else, Pansy would have thought the next conversational exchange would contain Harry's proposition to kill the afternoon at a nearby hotel. She'd been working with Harry for a number of months, though, and the proposition hadn't come yet. She was glad. Pansy enjoyed doing the things Harry asked her to do, like tracking down missing classmates who were practically on the edge of the tundra. She wasn't feeling romantic about him, nor did she think she would, ever. She liked thinking he was just comfortable with her, as she was with him. The one time she'd brought it up, Harry thought he was being asked why he wasn't hitting on Pansy. He'd danced around trying not to say he didn't find her attractive while conveying the idea that he was not feeling attracted to her.
It was funny, in retrospect. Pansy had written down some of the dialog. She thought it could be turned into a one act play.
"Does she need help?"
Harry's question went from baguette chat back to Pansy's last project, without warning or segue.
"Hmm?" Pansy asked, working another piece of bread. "Oh, Morag? Harry, it's hard to say. She was testy at first. Demanding. What did I want? Told me if she sensed I was lying even a little I could just climb the fence and disapparate back whence I'd come."
"Is there a way to make their lives easier? Household help? An elf? Regular food deliveries?" Harry asked.
"Morag said the cottage is what her mother wants. That's where she lived with her husband. The last one, anyway, Morag's father. I'd be careful and know exactly what I was proposing, and what the ramifications would be, before I made any offers."
"I couldn't say I knew her well at school," Harry said. "Although, I did find out about the parents, for some reason. It's remarkable how she managed to finish her basic education and go on for her qualifications in the midst of some serious disruption. Commendable."
Pansy snorted. The vocabulary Harry used to talk about the resistance to Voldemort could be surprising, and funny. He didn't like to call the conflict between the magical factions a war, although that was what it amounted to. Instead, he'd use 'serious disruption' or 'the recent period' and let that stand for the civil war within Magical Britain.
"Who was she friends with at school? Who were her chums?" Harry asked.
"I can ask around," Pansy said.
"Why don't we do that?" asked Harry. "We might develop some useful information about what kind of assistance we could provide, without giving offense."
"Will do," said Pansy. "I'll keep you current."
Harry nodded and went back to his salad.
"This is good," he said, letting a chunk of the excellent bread sit in the oil on the bottom of his bowl. Harry picked up the bread with his fork and put it in his mouth. He closed his eyes while he chewed.
"Maybe I'll get Morag and her mother a baguette," he said. "I wonder if they'd let me buy one to take?"
"Oh, something tells me if you asked the waiter for a baguette they might make some special accommodation," said Pansy.
"Really? Well, I'm going to give it a try," said Harry.