Wheels Within Wheels – Part Three
Iolanthe
Chapter Nineteen
The Potters of Potter Manor
The Potters did find Plum, just the way Plum had said they would. They left word at the woods and Plum appeared shortly afterwards. They would eventually meet a number of Plum's associates from the neighborhood, and negotiate a mutually-agreeable division of the immediate property into land suitable and reserved for revels, and land that should be kept free of fireworks and bonfires, due to the proximity of buildings. A portion of the reveling ground was to be a green, with the grass clipped, and a portion of that set aside for the performance of pantomimes and farces. Harry offered to bring a distinguished magical landscape architect to design the plantings to frame a proper stage. Harry mentioned that he was James Potter's son, and was touched by the number of woodland creatures who sought him out to share a reminiscence of something James had done for, or with, his woodland pals. If James had gotten out of bounds during the revels, for it was obvious he had attended them many times, the fauns and sprites and tree spirits kept any indiscretions to themselves.
The Potters were assured they had a permanent invitation to any woodland fetes and observances. The Potters expressed thanks, and asked the woodlanders' assistance in keeping an eye on the manor when the family was away.
The hanging of art in the new house took on the aspect of a major holiday. Professor Davis stayed at Greengrass Manor. He spent one half day with his mother, who was actually pretty lucid most of the time, although Kendra supplied a strategic prompt at certain critical points in their conversations. Mrs. Davis had managed the aging process quite well in regard to her mental faculties, but around the time she celebrated her one hundredth birthday, her physical plant began to show signs of aging. She had become quite frail and spent most days in a stuffed wing chair that was placed to give her a view out a front window of her home. Her physical exertions consisted of a walk from her ground floor bedroom to her breakfast room, then to her chair in the salon that looked out her favorite window. She usually sat there until nearly time for lunch, receiving a caller now and then, reading from a volume of Elizabeth Browning, enjoying one cup of yellow label tea, with lemon, at half-past ten.
Kendra and Daphne agreed at the beginning of construction that it was unlikely Mrs. Davis would ever be able to visit the new Potter Manor in person, so they had shown her a few of the elevations Fabio had done, along with a small number of photos to keep her informed of the progress of the project. Lawrence and Kendra brought photos of the major paintings they were hanging, and a copy of the plan for the house, and took their mother on a virtual tour, showing her where each of the paintings would be hung.
Mrs. Davis stayed involved with the conversation, most of the time, and dropped little compliments here and there.
"Oh, Daphne, that will look so lovely in the salon," she'd enthused.
"Lawrence, that painting is much too dark. Your personality is all sunny skies. I look at that one and I worry for you," she'd said. "Now, THIS one is more like it…"
Besides Lawrence, Kendra and Daphne had brought Harry and Iolanthe. Mrs. Davis loved seeing Iolanthe running about, but in order for Daphne to do anything besides chase after Iolanthe, she needed someone to do that while she visited with her grandmother. Mrs. Davis had been wary when Daphne and Harry had first been mentioned as a couple. Because of her age, she had not participated directly in the Second Wizarding War, but she had followed events and the majority of her circle were pureblood enthusiasts who were convinced that the Dark Lord Voldemort was just the leader the purebloods had been lacking, who would set things right, first within the magical society, then in Britain as a whole.
Harry, of course, had put a stop to those ambitions, a historical fact that would not be affected by the passage of time. It was not until Iolanthe Astoria came that Mrs. Davis truly warmed to Harry. The sight of Iolanthe crawling on Harry and calling him 'Da-da' seemed to have shown he was capable of something more than crushing pureblood hopes and living to tell the tale.
Harry chose the chair directly across from Mrs. Davis when the family convened for lunch. Tracey and Astoria arrived, accompanied by Scorpius. Harry held Iolanthe and ignored his own plate while Iolanthe ate from hers, using both hands on her steamed carrots and peas. Mrs. Davis participated from her side by calling out to the Davis elves for a steady supply of damp face cloths for both Iolanthe and Scorpius.
The tea and coffee arrived just as Mrs. Davis was showing signs of being in desperate need of her post-lunch nap. Tracey and Kendra helped her up from her chair and stayed at her sides while she walked back to her bedroom, fussing at them the whole way, assuring everyone she did this every day and had never had a problem. Lawrence walked as far as his mother's room and gave her a kiss on both cheeks and his assurances that he would not wait so long before coming for a visit next time.
Tracey had come through for Harry and Daphne by the time of Lawrence's visit, recruiting an elf to support Potter Manor and the Black estate. Periwinkle had been attached to the household of an elderly witch who spent her last three decades on Earth in a slow and elegant decline, ending her days in a silk kimono, propped up on pillows, a pot of oolong on the side table. She was in the middle of a complex appreciation of the superiority of young witches she remembered from her own youth, in comparison to the current crop of air-headed, hormone-addled ingenues, who should be spending their time studying magical household management and honing their hostess skills instead of filling their heads with fantasies of doing magical social work with underprivileged magical youth, or, alternatively, concerning themselves with the latest scandals as reported in the Daily Prophet or Witch Weekly, when she suddenly clutched at the closure of her kimono, said "OH!" one time, and toppled forward, the momentum nearly sending her right off her couch and onto the floor.
Her octogenarian interlocutor, still in the bloom of youth, in comparison to Periwinkle's mistress, sprang to her aid, fairly nimbly for an eighty-year-old, calling for Periwinkle to come, call the healers, bring a damp towel, and help get her mistress upright, all at once. Periwinkle did get her mistress upright, and she did call the healers, but it was too late. If humans live long enough, they arrive at the point where they simply wear out. Her heirs consulted among themselves, trying to fit Periwinkle into their own domestic schemes, and finally, bringing Periwinkle into their discussions, explained that they were at a loss as to where any one of them could employ Periwinkle.
Tracey, who had become a de facto social media network in her own right, as far as household elf employment went, asked Periwinkle to come for tea at Greengrass Manor. She introduced Daphne and Kendra, and the Greengrass elves, and Daphne and Periwinkle decided to bring Periwinkle into the Potter household. Daphne was careful in her description of Periwinkle's duties. She explained the relationships between the Potters and Kreacher, Trix and Winky. Each of them were members of the family constellation and had existing duties and responsibilities. Periwinkle was coming to the family to handle house elf duties at Potter Manor and the Black estate.
Periwinkle, for her part, was thrilled to join a young family. She was devoted to her late mistress and was sad to see her go. At the same time, one old witch with so little physical stamina did not come close to taxing the abilities of an accomplished house elf. Periwinkle had been genuinely worried that she would live out her own life in a kind of one-dimensional household, when she longed for the cacophony of requests and contradictory demands of a position with management responsibilities for varying ages, personalities, and magical abilities.
The opportunity to participate in the outfitting and commissioning of a new family seat was an additional sweetener. Success in that venture would give an elf a special position in the house elf community. New wizarding homes were not unheard of, but to work for the Potters during the inauguration of the new Potter Manor, which Harry and Daphne had designed and built to replace the one destroyed by the Dark Lord Voldemort, was a once-in-several-lifetime's chance. To work alongside Mistress while she furnished her new home, to consult on household magical issues, spells, charms, and wards, was to infuse one's own spirit and personality into the house.
Daphne was working her way through the equipping and commissioning process in a methodical way. She had only so many hours to devote to the house, her responsibilities to Iolanthe and her patients getting the higher priority. She acquired a basic kitchen outfit through Seamus and Dean, utilizing Kreacher as a consultant. Neither Harry nor Daphne thought Kreacher ought to be taken away from his Grimmauld Place duties to follow them around as a chef, but Daphne did have Kreacher come to the new manor and prepare lunch on the weekends. Afterwards she made a point of joining Kreacher in the kitchen while Harry, or Tracey, handled Iolanthe. Asked the right open-ended questions, Kreacher was a source of information on all things kitchen-related. He had years of experience working with the Hogwarts kitchen elves, as well as the kitchen at #12. His knowledge of magical culinary practice was not only voluminous but current, and Kreacher was always bringing new dishes or ways of preparing and serving old dishes to the Potters' attention.
Harry and Daphne worked their way into living at the new Potter Manor, gradually establishing a cycle of movements between the Black estate, the new Manor, and #12 Grimmauld Place. Harry didn't get a lot of use out of his London flat, but every time he started to think seriously about selling it, it suddenly became useful, so he ended up hanging onto it.
One Wednesday afternoon in the late winter following Iolanthe's second birthday, Harry returned from his office to #12 Grimmauld Place and found Tracey Davis and Daphne sitting in Daphne's study.
"Come on in, Harry," Tracey said. She looked at Daphne. "Why not? He might as well hear it from me, now. It will probably be in the Daily Prophet tomorrow."
"Anything wrong?" Harry asked, pulling a chair away from the wall and turning to face the witches.
"No," Tracey said. "It could turn out to be the most-right thing I've done in my life, up to now. I'm pregnant. The Davis clan will be expanding by one, forty weeks from New Year's Day."
"Oh," Harry said. "Who's the lucky guy?"
"Blaise," said Tracey.
"Blaise?" Harry said. He looked at Daphne. "I didn't know you were seeing Blaise. What's wrong with our usual informants?"
"It's not Daphne's fault, Harry," Tracey said. "Your usual informants didn't know. Blaise likes the Caribbean. I like the Caribbean. I'd planned a trip to Tobago, just a few days over the New Year, and on a whim I floo-called Blaise to tell him I'd be in Speyside if he wanted to drink rum and dance all night, and he showed up. It was Tobago, rum, the most infectious music, dancing, maybe a little sweat on both of us…"
"Ah, Nature, I get it," Harry said.
"Exactly, Harry! I knew you'd see it immediately," Tracey said. "He's so smart, Daphne! It's not fair!"
"Blaise is smart," Harry said. "He has accomplished considerably more right now than lots of wizards accomplish in their lifetimes. Does he know? What does he think?"
"Harry…" Daphne started to ask him to be careful about that level of personal matter, but Tracey waved her off.
"It's fine, Daphne, really," she said. "They have to work together, it's better Harry really understands the situation.
"Blaise knows. We've talked about all those things. Raising the baby, marriage, names, all of it. Blaise is a gentleman. He told me the truth, that he hadn't thought about me as a long-term partner, but he offered to marry me. I turned him down, at least for now. I don't want someone who's marrying me to 'do the right thing.' Blaise and I have known one another forever and I hadn't thought about him as a long-term partner, either. When I thought it over it felt better to think of him as a long-term father to his child, who I see at family functions and with whom I have the most cordial relations. It does not feel as good to think of him as my husband. If Blaise wants to tell you this, it's okay, but don't repeat what I said, the way I said it, please? When I say it, it sounds hurtful, and it's not meant that way. I'm pretty sure he feels just the same as I do, but he is much too well-mannered to say so."
"In that case, Tracey, on behalf of Daphne and myself, the Potters have a place for you and the young Davis, pretty much every place we go, so don't stand on ceremony. You're always welcome," Harry said.
"Oh, Harry," Tracey said, trying to suppress sniffles as she pulled Harry into a hug. She let him go and tried to say some more, but couldn't get the words out.
"You tell him," she said to Daphne.
"Some of the Davises said some very unkind things to Tracey, Harry," Daphne said. "She needs her friends, her real friends, to close ranks and stand by her."
"Oh-h-h, Tracey, that's really too bad," Harry said. "The shame is on them, isn't it? Not you, and certainly not your child. You've been the best friend possible to Daphne, not counting Astoria. Come any time, stay as long as you like."
Harry looked at Daphne. "Right?"
"Absolutely," Daphne said. "You're one of us."
"Okay, thanks," Tracey said as she dabbed her eyes.
"You'll have to authorize Tracey to come and go," Harry said to Daphne.
"Already taken care of, Potter," Walburga's portrait chimed in.
"Now," Daphne said, "It does get just a little more complicated, so bear with me. Iolanthe is going to be getting a sibling. The runes say a brother. A week or ten days before Tracey's baby, if both are right on time."
"Oh," Harry said. He tilted his head back and squinted at the ceiling. "Our first night in our new room?"
"Exactly. Didn't I tell you he'd be a prodigy if only he'd been born a witch?" Daphne asked Tracey. "That night we stayed at the manor, Iolanthe in her new, semi-big-girl room, and ourselves in the master suite."
"Gosh, that is kind of special, isn't it?" asked Harry. "Isn't that something? I guess we won't ever forget where we were when young Master Potter got started. If that's of interest to anyone."
"Yes, and a fitting bookend to Iolanthe and the Mill," Daphne said.
"Does Iolanthe know?" Harry asked.
"I told her in English," Daphne said. "I showed her my tummy and explained babies, but I don't know how much she understood, if anything."
"I guess we'll have to do it in parseltongue, then," Harry said. "She understands that well enough."
Within the next hour Harry had done just that. He sat down in the kitchen with Iolanthe over some steamed vegetables and a glass of pumpkin juice and had a long parseltongue conversation about human hatchlings and where they come from and how they get here and how special it was to have a brother or sister in your family.
"She asked what his name is," Harry said, when he and Iolanthe returned to the land of English-speakers.
"We haven't given him a name," Daphne said. "We just found out he is coming."
Harry and Iolanthe exchanged a couple of sentences.
"We're supposed to decide on a name," Harry said. He turned to Iolanthe and said in English, "Soon."
Harry favored James, as long as they were going to have a boy. His father James was his personal hero, of course. James Potter also had a nice rhythm to it. If his son went to Hogwarts, James Potter appeared on plaques in the trophy case. It might give the latest iteration some goals to shoot for.
Daphne pointed out that if a son of Harry Potter came to Hogwarts and saw his father's and grandfather's names on plaques in a trophy case, there was a chance he'd be overwhelmed and discouraged from trying. Harry, after all, the youngest house quidditch player in a century, had nearly declined the chance to become Gryffindor's seeker for that very reason.
"Okay, we'll hold that in abeyance," Harry said. "Have you thought of any middle names? Because I just had an idea, if you haven't."
"Gosh, Harry," Daphne said, "It sounds like you've got something on your mind. I wonder if you'd just like to let me know what it is and be done with all the dancing around the periphery?"
Harry felt his face warm slightly.
"That obvious?" he asked.
"Uh-huh," Daphne answered.
"Fine," Harry said. "You don't have any brothers. Astoria and Draco didn't use Greengrass when they had the chance with Scorpius, so I wondered if you'd like to use Greengrass for your son's middle name? Just to keep it alive, or put everyone on notice, if you wish."
"That is such a generous thought, Harry," Daphne said. "Let's ask Mother and Father, although I think that might be a formality."
The Davises who had been profoundly rude to Tracey altered forever some of her perceptions. Although they all got around to apologizing, one way or another, and assured her they loved her just as much as ever, and would love her baby the same, throughout her pregnancy she gravitated more and more to Harry and Daphne, where she'd never felt more appreciated and protected.
Daphne returned to Greengrass Manor for a short confinement before James Greengrass's birth. Tracey was there for James just as she had been for Iolanthe. Harry took James from the midwife and held him for introductions before handing him on to Tracey while Daphne and the midwife finished their business. Tracey had gotten to know the midwife when Iolanthe was born, and had become her patient, so she stayed on at Greengrass Manor, helping with James, almost until the commencement of her own labor, and gave birth to Zelda Daphne Davis in her own room at Fabio and Kendra's.
Daphne brought Periwinkle from Potter Manor to give the Greengrass elves some extra help. Just keeping up with the laundry for the two newborns would have been a full-time job for one person without house elf magic to call upon.
Daphne's lifelong relationship with Trix could have been the cause of some stress were Daphne not a master of household diplomacy. She divided up the duties of the elves into logical categories and made a point of bringing Periwinkle and Trix together for little planning sessions several times a day. Thriving under the extra responsibilities and attention, the elves went about their work smiling, to the point of occasionally complimenting one another on the great job they were doing.
Harry and Daphne had gotten used to Tracey and Zelda, so when they started to talk about reintegrating into London, the question of where Tracey would go arose.
"She's your cousin," Harry said as he rocked James one evening. "We said they were always welcome. We've got the room. You have to decide, though. Maybe the two of you should take a day at the Mill and work through it."
"Two women under one roof…" Daphne said.
"There's that," Harry agreed. "What if we were to put off returning to Grimmauld Place for a while, and stay at the Manor? It's new and bigger. Would Tracey be an asset? We've been able to juggle Iolanthe between us so far, but I don't think that is realistic with two, do you? It's not as convenient to work but we'd adjust."
"You're suggesting we all go to the Manor, and Tracey can manage Iolanthe, James and Zelda," Daphne said. "That would be a load."
"It would," Harry said, "But we do have the luxury of being able to coordinate our schedules, and Periwinkle has shown she can adapt. With some thought, we ought to be able to minimize the time Tracey has everything and everyone by herself. Tracey might even know another elf who could join us and take on something like the kitchen. One elf to do all the food-related things, and one to manage the rest of the house.
"There's also the flat," Harry said. "I could get our things out of there and we could get Tracey a more complete kitchen setup. There are two bedrooms. She'd be close to everything. We could handle their laundry, or, Kreacher and Periwinkle could, just do it along with ours. They could come over for dinner every night if they wanted."
"That's quite magnanimous, Harry," Daphne said.
"Somewhat selfish, too," Harry said. "It lets me put off making a decision about the flat while Tracey uses it."
A pattern of sorts did emerge, eventually. Harry and Daphne had jobs that required near-perpetual availability, although they were free to manage the routine aspects much more flexibly. That meant on non-crisis days they could stagger their hours to minimize the time they would both be gone from home. Tracey's mother fell in love the instant she saw Zelda. She would drop almost anything if Tracey needed an extra adult to help her manage the three youngsters.
Potter Manor had plenty of space and a nursery/pre-school environment gradually developed that accommodated Iolanthe, James and Zelda, as well as Scorpius and Rose Granger-Weasley. Adult carers were actually in some abundance once the children were pooled. Blaise even came, usually for half-days. He and Tracey treated one another with respect, and a bit of warmth. They'd worked out an understanding, between themselves. Nature, as far as anyone could discern, did not assert itself in Devon the way it had in Tobago. Tracey and Zelda did make use of the flat regularly, though, and largely managed to avoid presence overload so that everyone enjoyed being together when they did share housing.
One morning Astoria brought Scorpius to Potter Manor, planning to spend the day. She had her copy of The Odyssey with her, and when a minor young peoples' disagreement arose, she asked, "Who'd like to hear a story?"
Iolanthe and Scorpius would probably have been ambivalent were it not for Astoria's obvious enthusiasm.
Astoria sat down with Fitzgerald and a little impromptu editing and soon had Iolanthe and Scorpius sailing alongside Odysseus and dodging clashing rocks and fighting cyclops.
"Who'd like a story?" was soon an established waypoint in the children's day. Zelda and James didn't really grasp stories right away, but they liked taking bottles while they watched the older children sitting cross-legged and getting involved with story time. Fascinating as The Odyssey is, when read at proper toddler levels of difficulty, there was soon a need for additional material. Hermione was a huge hit when she brought The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Iolanthe was not a huge hit when she presented her snake identification book and asked for it to be the resource for story time.
Harry and Daphne still tried to reserve Wednesday afternoons. Daphne had taken Kendra's advice and received her guests in her study at #12. Her Wednesday afternoon 'at-homes' were very well-established. Country witches were known to plan their trips to London on other business so that they came to town on Wednesday and had thirty minutes or an hour to pay a call on Daphne. It wasn't always clear why. Sometimes a witch was seeking advice or a neutral opinion, but many callers just seemed to want to have a quiet talk over a cup of tea. Daphne didn't care. If one caller was clearly in distress over some issue, Daphne might try to guide the conversation to a point where the witch thought of an approach she hadn't seen or tried before. If another didn't come right out with it, Daphne sensed there might be something in the background that tea and conversation could soften. It didn't matter.
Before long the natural evolution of social arrangements settled into a Wednesday afternoon gathering at #12 of Tracey, Harry, Iolanthe, Zelda and James, often upstairs, spilling in and out of all the rooms along the central hallway. If the weather were favorable, the venue would be the garden behind the townhouse. Zelda and James started learning to walk by pulling themselves up on the venerable red brick beds when they began toddling, just as Iolanthe had.
"What is going on?" Daphne asked one Wednesday as she stepped down onto the bricks from the second drawing room. She had just said good-bye to some callers. She had some documentation from work that needed updating, but the sound of children's voices won out.
"Mum!" Iolanthe called, trotting over.
James initially seemed to think mealtime had come early, but he settled for a hug.
"Who wants something to drink?" Harry asked. Everyone did. Harry called for Kreacher.
"Kreacher, could we have a pitcher of your approved iced tea, and the appropriate containers for everyone?" Harry asked.
Kreacher had concocted a decaffeinated tea with a little honey and orange blossom essence that, served cold, appealed to the entire family. Healer Daphne had blessed the recipe, which garnered the appellation 'approved.'
When Kreacher had delivered the tea and the proper numbers of cups with covers, cups with straws, and tumblers, everyone took a seat. James went through his iced tea faster than any of the others. Zelda was taking her time. James, who had just begun experimenting with his first words beyond Mum and Dad, apparently thought Zelda wasn't going fast enough, so he looked at her cup and said "Accio!"
When he got control of Zelda's cup, he laughed, genuinely delighted at his own cleverness.
Zelda looked to be on the verge of a volcanic reaction, but she squinted at James and said, in a chillingly calm whisper, "accio."
The cup went flying back to Zelda. The adults got their wits about them in time to stop further exchanges, popped the covers from the cups and gave everyone a second round of approved tea.
Harry looked around when all were back in their seats.
"Hogwarts letters. Ten years from next July," he said.
"I guess so," Tracey said, "But how did they learn to do it in the first place?"
Harry and Daphne shook their heads, to say they didn't know.
"Mum does it," Iolanthe said, showing off her recently-acquired command of complete English sentences.
"Ah, MUM does it, does she?" Harry asked, latent interrogator skills suddenly awakening. "How about you? Can you summon something with an accio charm?"
Iolanthe looked at her cup, then at Daphne, while Tracey tried to suppress the guffaw that was fighting to get out.
"Go ahead, Iolanthe, just tell Dad the truth," Daphne said.
"I can, but Mum said no," Iolanthe said. "Until I'm older."
"That is very impressive, Iolanthe," Harry said. "We are very proud of you."
"Slytherin," Daphne mouthed, silently, finishing off with a little sneer at the end.
"Ravenclaw," Harry mouthed in return, tapping his finger twice against his temple.
"Now that's not funny, Harry," Tracey said, unable to let such heresy pass unchallenged.
Harry and Daphne had suspended their treks to the Black estate while James and Zelda were tiny, but they'd gotten a birthday party organized for Scorpius at the end of June. They invited all the Black cousins they'd managed to identify in Britain and Ireland and got a fair response. Harry reminded everyone to charge their eleven-year-olds' initial Hogwarts outfits and to make sure the entering students knew how to make use of the Black owls.
Harry, Daphne, Iolanthe and Tracey took James and Zelda to meet the family portraits. Phineas Nigellus declared Zelda to be a fabulous addition, and Tracey had to admit she didn't know of a confirmed Black ancestral connection. The late headmaster advised Harry, with appropriate bluster, to act like a proper clan chief and declare Zelda a member, immediately. Harry stood between Tracey and Daphne, holding Zelda, and did so, taking Tracey in for good measure. Then he introduced Zelda and James to the portraits as the youngest, and second youngest Blacks.
Harry found Teddy Lupin out in the barely-surviving garden, strolling slowly through the beds, stopping to look, occasionally kneeling down to examine something, then going on.
"Do they have any potential? The plots, I mean," Harry asked. "No one has done anything with them, at least not seriously, for several years. What gardening time Daphne and I have had we've spent on the new place or the little garden at #12."
"The perennials are trying, but I think Professor Longbottom would recommend some crop rotation and turning manure into the soil, then planting. There is still time if you get to work this week," Teddy said.
"I heard you were something of an herbology phenomenon, Teddy," Harry said.
"Umh?" Teddy asked, clearly embarrassed.
"Oh, word gets around," Harry said. "Don't make me give away my sources. Tell you what. If you want to get a quill and some parchment, sketch a plan, and I'll see if I can get everything organized by next weekend and I'll ask your gran if you can come over and we'll put in a garden. Better late than never. You can find what you need in that desk in the little office next to the salon."
Teddy took off for the house.
Harry and Teddy returned the following Saturday and got to work. Harry had negotiated the assistance of two of the garden elves who helped Fabio, so the elves' magic made short work of the tedious bits such as hauling and spading. Harry noticed Victoire's braided straw necklace was still appearing and disappearing under Teddy's shirt.
"Is that thing charmed?" Harry asked, indicating the bit of rock, or fossil, braided into the straw thong. "You've had it for several years."
"I don't know," Teddy answered. "I asked Victoire once, and she didn't want to answer. I dropped it and didn't ask again. I think it must be because she just braided it out of dry straw, and that shouldn't last."
"Remarkable," Harry said.
"Victoire?" Teddy asked, a little eagerness in his voice.
"Oh, certainly, but I meant the charmed neck thing," Harry said. "You're still friends, I take it."
"Yeah," Teddy said. "I have other friends."
He stuck a garden fork he'd been using into the soil and propped a foot on it.
"They aren't like Victoire."
Harry let Teddy ponder his own comment for a bit.
"Any idea why?" Harry asked.
"Victoire is different, from everyone else," Teddy said. He looked away from Harry, from the garden, from the house, out into some indeterminate distance. "She makes everything different, just by being there."
"You're very lucky," Harry said, "Just knowing someone like that. It's quite an experience. It's not a distraction from your studies, is it? Having her for a friend?"
"No," Teddy said, then he laughed, "Most of the time, no."
"That's good," Harry said. "We all have to learn to manage our priorities. Everyone. I did, Daphne did. Your mother was an auror, she certainly did. Do you and Victoire have common interests? That gives you something to talk about."
"Do you and Daphne have common interests?" Teddy asked. "I mean she's a healer, and you're…not. I mean…"
"It's alright, you didn't say anything wrong," Harry said. "It's true, I was an auror, and then I got hurt and had to do something different. What have you heard about me?"
Teddy didn't say anything.
"It's okay, if you get into an area I can't talk about I'll just say so and we'll talk about something else," said Harry. "Ask me anything you want."
"Some of the people at school say you're some kind of secret agent," Teddy said.
"Well there you go, it's good we had this conversation," Harry said. "I'm an administrator. A boss, you could say, like the Headmistress. Some things the minister needs to know aren't readily available at the library, so, some people specialize in that kind of research. In my job, those people make reports that go through me to the minister. It just works a lot better if everyone doesn't go around talking about it. If anyone gets pushy with you, you're authorized to say I'm a supervisor, and if I were a secret agent, how would you know?"
"That's pretty logical," Teddy said.
"It is, when you think about it," agreed Harry. "Daphne and I do have common interests, as it turns out. We're both interested in you, the friends we've had pretty much forever, like Tracey and Ron and Hermione, and the children, and all of these houses. I'm interested in the kind of work she does as a professional, although it's obvious I don't have the scholarly abilities to get anywhere close to her level of qualifications."
"Sports?" Teddy asked.
"Uh, no," Harry answered. "That is not a common interest."
"Victoire will watch quidditch but she really isn't a fan," Teddy said. "She'll talk about plants, but I don't know if she likes working with them all that much."
"Just an observation," said Harry. "If you can identify a subject you both like, you can sit and talk about it for a good long time, read the same books about it and talk about those, that sort of thing. You do like talking to her?"
"Sure, we've talked about a lot of things," Teddy said. "What we want to do after we're finished with school. Music…"
Teddy's voice drifted off.
"It sounds like you're both serious thinkers, Teddy. Have you ever talked to Fabio Greengrass? My father-in-law? You met him at our wedding," Harry asked. "He buys from magical growers, then he sells to apothecaries, potion-makers, that kind of thing. He's a master gardener himself."
"Professor Longbottom mentions him in lectures," Teddy said. "I didn't talk to him all that much at the wedding."
"If you'd like, you can come with the rest of us when we go to visit," said Harry. "We'll get you a guided tour. You've got an affinity for this. It could be a career field, if you pursue it. At the very least gardening is something people can do for their whole lives."
They worked on in silence, pulling up last year's stalks, which were turned back under the soil by the elves, then planting according to Teddy's plan.
Teddy hadn't had much to say while they'd worked their way through a bed given over to herbs.
"Harry?" he began.
"Uh-huh," said Harry.
"Are you mad for Daphne?"
"You could say that, I suppose," Harry said. "She makes me very happy. Such a good mother to the children, as I'm sure you've noticed. She's fun to be around."
"I'm a bit mad for Victoire," Teddy said. "No one else looks at me or talks to me like she does."
"That's kind of how it starts," Harry said. "You're very lucky to have felt that. Some people go their whole lives and they never do. Of course, you and Victoire are really young. Your feelings and your perceptions, how you view things, are all subject to change as you grow and have new experiences on your way to maturity. Same for Victoire. Here's a rule I heard once: Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. We can all start to feel affection and then something happens to change that. Be honest, if it happens to you. Then you can still respect one another, and yourself."
Teddy went silent for a while longer, laying out a row and dropping lavender seeds.
"Like you and Ginny?" he asked, with something like a release of pressure.
"I'm not sure what you're asking, Teddy," said Harry. "It's well-known Ginny and I dated for some time. You could say we gave it a chance, more than one chance. We weren't right for one another. We both tried to be realistic and to avoid hurting the other. Now we're both happy with the people we're with. I respect Ginny and Millicent. They are both big admirers of Daphne. Is that what you mean?"
"Pretty much," said Teddy.
"Sometimes, though, a person will develop feelings in third or fourth year and it all works, eventually. Those people are extremely lucky. It's not unheard-of though, so why shouldn't it be you?" Harry asked. "Just remember, when you're around Victoire, don't get ahead of yourselves. You both have a lot of learning and new experiences ahead of you. Find at least one subject you both like reading and talking about before you start thinking about proposing. A couple is a social group. We wouldn't join a club or a team if we didn't like the people and had nothing in common with them. The same principle applies. Look for that subject you both like before you do anything else."
Teddy laid out a row in a new bed and got busy using a hoe to make a furrow.
"Do you think I could just ask Victoire what she wants to talk about?" Teddy asked.
"You could," Harry said. "I wouldn't say that's wrong, but it looks to me like the two of you have developed some rapport already. My guess would be Victoire is already telling you what her interests are when you two talk. Try listening carefully, then, if she expresses an interest in something, ask a follow-up question. It could open up a conversation. My information is the ladies really like it if gentlemen pay attention to what they say."
Teddy worked on his furrow, got it the way he wanted it, and started dropping seeds in. When he got to the end of his row, he used the hoe to pull soil over the furrow from the sides, then lightly tamped the soil down.
"She likes wands," Teddy said. "Wands always come up."
Harry thought that over.
"Good observation," he said. "To talk about wands a little more, ask a question related to wands. You could ask if her Uncle Ron is working with Ollivander. He was at one point. Maybe you knew that?"
"Uh-huh," Teddy said. "What did you and Daphne start talking about?"
"All the way back to the beginning?" Harry asked. He took a moment to stop and consider. "Raffles. Raffles, and, I think, Chelsea. Daphne isn't particularly fond of Chelsea, though."
Teddy finished planting the bed they were working on and Harry called a halt.
"Enough for today," he said. "Teddy, I'll need suggestions from you for some late varieties for those beds over there. Something that will make it to late fall if the frost holds off. Cabbages, ornamentals, anything as long as it likes it when the weather gets cool."
Harry thanked the elves for their help and told them they could get back to Greengrass Manor. He and Teddy gathered up the tools and put them in the garden shed.
"They're all supposed to be at the new place," Harry said. "Let's go check and see if anyone has made us something to eat."
They all were at the new place, including Fabio and Kendra as well as Andromeda. Harry and Teddy cast purgio before going inside to wash up. Purgio isn't a perfect charm, but it gets a man presentable enough to sit down to a sandwich.
"Teddy put in a day's work," Harry told the table, thoroughly embarrassing his godson in the process.
"Don't mind him, Teddy," Daphne said. "Thank-you for everything you did, though."
Daphne reached over and gave Teddy's hand a squeeze, which he clearly didn't mind one bit.
"What did you plant, Teddy?" Fabio asked. Teddy told him, bed by bed. Clearly, his focus on the garden hadn't been affected by all of his and Harry's jawboning. Harry thought that was pretty impressive.
Fabio took over, chatting Teddy up, exchanging all kinds of information on this or that variety. Teddy held his own. Harry thought he'd be able to follow one of Fabio and Neville's master gardener conversations.
"Well, Teddy," Andromeda said when they'd finished their sandwiches.
"I know," Teddy replied, yawning. "Long day."
Iolanthe spotted the movement toward the door and dropped into the group with Teddy, Andromeda, Harry and Daphne. They walked through some planted areas on the way to the green. Although they'd saved it for the woodlanders' revels, the part of the green outside the perimeter of the charms that protected the house made the most convenient point for disapparating. No one noticed Iolanthe pause and bend over one of the flower beds.
"Teddy," Iolanthe said when everyone got to the reveling ground. Teddy stopped and looked down at Iolanthe, who was holding out her hand, upon which coiled one of the little snakes that lived in the planted beds.
"Oh," Teddy said, kneeling down. "That is a good-looking snake."
"He says come back soon," Iolanthe reported.