x
A week after the disastrous joint session, Alex was late again, this time for his very own appointment. He had a hope that he would avoid being interrogated by Lupin (now that he and Harry had actually met and spoken, however twisted that conversation had been, he would be likely more pushy than ever before), but he was developing a habit here that was liable to become the cause of someone's death in the future.
He was very nearly barreled over when Harry (whose surname he was still vainly attempting to discover) fell out of the clinic entrance and stumbled on the treacherous step in front of it. Alex instinctively twisted to the side to avoid getting crashed into, and then managed to catch Harry before he planted his face into the concrete.
"You run like you've got a raging bull on your heels," Alex remarked once Harry regained his balance.
"A curious metaphor," Harry noted. "It's more of an insulted Hippogriff at the moment, while we're on curious metaphors. I don't think that woman liked what I told her."
Alex filed interest in mythology for later pondering (it went together with 'archaic practices,' perhaps) and examined the boy. He was flushed – not with the heat today, when the rain was about to fall any minute, but probably with anger. He did seem supremely out of sorts.
"I was under the impression that she would accept just about anything, as long as you did talk."
Harry squirmed, edging further from Alex. "I might have insinuated that she should shrink her own head and score a government-paid vacation in an institute for people not quite capable of taking care of themselves… not precisely in those words."
Alex took a moment to translate it. As far as cussing went, that didn't amount to a very creative insult. "I'd have thought she was used to hearing it," he mused. A glance at his watch told him he was three minutes late already.
"I thought so, too," Harry agreed. "So I added, just in case, that I would rather have intimate relations with a male member of a non-human humanoid race than attend another session with her. I also might have slammed her door rather forcefully."
The corners of Alex' mouth twitched upward. After how frustrated Willowcrook had been last week, he could just imagine her hitting the roof in private. Maybe he was lucky to be late, just this once.
"Does this therapy thing actually help anyone?" Harry asked, frowning.
Alex contemplated for a moment and then nodded. "Yes, it really does." Responding to a quizzical glance, he elaborated: "I don't attempt to kill people who run into me anymore."
Harry stared at him for a while. Whatever conclusion he came to, he accepted the claim. "Good on you. I spent almost an hour there today, and I feel totally wrung. Experience tells me I'm going to have nightmares like you wouldn't believe tonight, courtesy of talking about things I like to keep buried deep inside my head. I need a drink."
"You drink?" Alex asked, surprised. He had drunk a glass of champagne here and there, of course, but he left vodka martinis to James Bond and steered clear of the demon of alcohol. Still, he had not a clue how a community that didn't show up on the records viewed underage drinking. Maybe Harry was used to a night-cap.
"Only if I can get away to do so. If I got smashed where someone could see me, I'd either get the scolding of my life or appear the next day on the front pages. So… rarely."
"So, where are you going?" Not a very subtle query, Alex had to admit, but at least it was better than 'who the heck are you and what sort of insane criminals do you live with?'
Harry gave him a look. "So you can tell Willowcrook and she can set Remus after me? Or worse, the Daily Prophet? I don't really trust her to keep her bloody mouth shut, the harridan."
Alex skipped on defending Willowcrook, who wasn't anywhere as bad as Harry portrayed her, and went straight for the newly generated information: "Daily Prophet?"
"The most annoying newspaper ever. And don't try to dodge the question."
Sharp kid. Alex smiled. "Not my business. If you get sloshed, don't pick up any older red-haired women." Not that Jack would be interested in a teenager, but she tended to give her common sense a vacation after the second glass. The reason she rarely got taken advantage of was because she had an awesome instinct for picking company… and moxie. Alex had had to phone Crawley once to help him bail Jack out after she had broken the nose of a mountain-sized guy, who had promptly broken down crying.
"You want to come with me?" Harry asked suddenly.
Alex laughed. "I'm seven minutes late for my weekly head-shrinking. The Doc's going to yell at me till she's blue in the face."
"Exactly." Harry grinned. "Why not save yourself the unpleasantness? I'll treat you. You seem like you're good company if you're not conspiring against me with the shrink from Hell."
Alex faced a decision: should he go upstairs like a good little MI6 agent he had promised to be, or should he get closer to this mysterious boy and break a few laws in the process? Well, it was not a hard decision.
x
"You said you can't be seen drinking," Alex remarked as they entered the underground room of an establishment. At a glance it looked clean and not too loud; two slot machines stood abandoned in the corner, and the music coming from the speakers was some kind of pointless instrumental sound.
The bar was occupied by what seemed to be regular clientele, consisting of men and women in almost equal ratio, and there was a free table in the corner so that both he and Harry could sit with their back to the wall and the exit within their sight (which, Alex guessed, was important).
"The trick is not to be recognised," Harry replied, winding his way between the tables. "No one here would recognise me."
"The Doc mentioned you were from an insulated community," Alex said, and followed the example in sitting down at the corner table he had noticed earlier. He picked up the menu and leafed to the back for alcoholic beverages. If asked, Harry could always flash an ID… if he even had an ID. There might pose a problem.
"She did?" Harry hummed. "Insulated community… Yes, I suppose. The idiots still use candles for light. But I grew up in normal world until I was eleven, so you don't have to talk to me like I'm retarded."
That illustrated 'archaic practices' for Alex. He imagined the Amish Paradise, as seen in a music video by Al Yankovich, and promptly discarded the fantasy.
"Why would you move to that community?"
"It's not like I had a choice," Harry implored him to stop being an idiot. "I had to get killed by their madman for them."
"Why didn't you run away and hide?"
"At eleven?" Harry maintained his 'don't be an idiot' tone. "'cause I didn't have an adult I could depend on. Besides, I make them sound mentally deficient, but some of the higher-ups are smart and well-connected. They would have found me anywhere."
Alex did have his doubts, but combined with Willowcrook's warning he was beginning to see an outline of what was going on, and it was sinister. He didn't argue with Harry, and instead smiled at the waitress that approached them.
"Have you had lunch?" Harry asked.
"No – I got up at noon and ate my cold breakfast."
Harry chuckled and turned to the young woman (Alex assessed her as twenty-five, slightly underweight, artificially blonde and content with her job), gesturing to her with his left hand. "I'd like a gin and tonic, and bangers and mash. You, Alex?"
Alex grimaced at Harry's absolute lack of taste, and quickly skimmed the menu. "Err… red wine, whatever you have on hand. And… you have cottage pie?"
The waitress nodded, taking notes. "I'll be right back with your drinks. The rest will take a while."
Harry hid himself behind the open menu, apparently having exhausted his capacity for civility, so Alex answered for both of them: "Thank you; we've got time."
They lapsed into silence. Alex practically went cross-eyed, trying to watch Harry at the same time as he observed the rest of the customers. Ultimately, Harry proved to be much more interesting, because while there were individuals who could turn out to be a threat under specific conditions, there was not a hint of acute danger within sight.
Harry, on the other hand, was fully concentrating on the people. He seemed to be looking for something different than Alex though (which was understandable) and let his eyes rest mostly on those people Alex had dismissed out of hand: a petit light-haired young man by the bar, a woman in an outlandish dress, an elderly gentleman with a pipe.
"No one you recognise?" Alex asked.
Harry shook his head, finally setting the menu down onto the tabletop. "No. But that means little. I know only a fraction of the people who know me. Or at least who think they know me."
"Would you be able to distinguish the people of your 'community'?"
"Not with any measure of certainty. About a third of them can, like me, blend in. The other two thirds rarely wander outside. When they do, they get strange looks, but a lot of people get strange looks. There are so many cultures mixed in London that you wouldn't notice someone who doesn't belong."
"Are they armed?" Alex asked.
Harry was accustomed to carrying a weapon, but he might have been exception rather than the rule, what with the role his people had cast him into.
Crushing Alex' hopes, Harry solemnly nodded. "We are an armed society. Different weapons than you're used to, as well, but I can't tell you more because of the laws."
By this time their alcohol had arrived, and Alex helped himself. The wine was perfectly palatable. He had a moment of trepidation, but the waitress had deemed them adult on sight. Even though Harry had the glasses and the empty expression, and Alex was built, that was a bit strange. Maybe she was more interested in the profit than in the laws; plus, they didn't look like the kind that got sloshed and raised hell.
By the way yet notably, Harry was clever enough to figure out that Alex was used to some kind of weapon.
Harry set down the half-empty glass of clear liquid and tilted his head. "So tell me, Alex, why shouldn't I pick up elder red-haired women? I'm quite partial to red hair."
Alex grinned and selected a Jack-related anecdote to tell.
x
Fed and bolstered by two glasses of gin and tonic, Harry had expressed a desire to do the 'touristy thing' and Alex, hoping to weasel out more from the tipsy teenager, invited himself along. Harry didn't mind, so they braved the tube and went to check out Westminster and Big Ben and Tower and… eventually a supermarket, where Harry – with some input from Alex – obtained a bottle of wine.
"I don't like drinking alone, I think," Harry mused, once the horizon began to change from grey to dark grey. He re-read the etiquette and packed the wine-bottle into the plastic bag together with a box of cheap chocolates.
"Get a drinking buddy," Alex suggested. He checked his phone – only three missed calls, and all from Willowcrook. Jack was finally trusting him to take care of himself. She would have expected him to be home by eleven, though, which meant he still had about an hour and half. No hurry.
"Are you free?" Harry asked.
Alex, startled, didn't reply.
Harry sank onto a nearby bench, set the plastic bag next to his hip, and craned his head to look at the overcast sky. The day was humid, but it had yet to actually rain, and it was warm enough for short sleeves even after sundown.
Alex pocketed his phone and sat down, too. "I have no pressing engagement," he replied. "Still, I wouldn't have expected you to latch onto me like this."
Harry chuckled, with a mirthlessness that was intimately familiar to Alex. "I feel comfortable with you," Harry confided. "There are no expectations, no preconceived notions, no need to pretend that I'm fine, or not fine, or not angry or… whatever. Just a chance to relax, while not being completely alone. Haven't had one since… I can't remember. Maybe never had one."
Alex chuckled. "I can see why psychotherapy didn't help you. It just added more stress."
"Right in one," Harry replied. "Plus, Willowcrook refused to give me an oath of silence – a cultural thing," he added swiftly, "and I can't trust her. No way I'm giving access to my mind to a stranger that won't swear an oath."
Alex could sort-of understand that. He had had his reservations, but Willowcrook had passed the strictest checks, and if she was reliable in the eyes of MI6, then he was free to talk to her. If she went to media about Alex, MI6 would have erased her from existence. If she went to media about Harry… Alex could understand the paranoia.
"Remus Lupin shows up on records," Alex said, out of blue.
Harry didn't look at him, still staring at the sky as if he could see the stars through the heavy clouds. "Does he? Well, I think he's a halfblood – half normal, half…you know."
Alex didn't know, and that was the point.
"I tried to check on you," he continued. "I couldn't identify you."
"You don't even know my surname," Harry said with a laugh. "Or do you?"
"I don't," Alex admitted.
"That would make the search difficult. Are you still being exploited by the government?" Harry returned, once again showing that he was quite clever and picked up a clue when it was offered.
"No. They pay me now."
Harry laughed. "When I was younger, I wanted to go into law enforcement. Conditioning, I suppose."
"You don't anymore?" Alex inquired. Conditioning didn't disappear just like that.
"I do. But I don't. I know it doesn't make sense."
It did to Alex, much more so than a lot of other things about Harry.
"I'm hoping I'll get interested in something different, but so far I haven't found anything."
"I wanted to be a football player when I was younger," Alex admitted.
"I think every boy goes through a phase when he wants to be a sports player." Harry didn't specify which sport, but it didn't matter. The 'community' wouldn't have let him go before he got killed, and there was no reasonable possibility for someone to survive death.
"It must have been a shock to find out you've survived," Alex said, led astray by his thoughts.
Harry sighed. "I learnt I had to die just before I've gone to meet him. I didn't have the time to get used to the idea. I survived, and that was it."
"But it changed you," Alex pointed out.
"I'm not sure. I think dying was less horrible than the walk, and the walk was far less horrible than the realisation that my whole life was a set-up leading to that moment." His voice was weary, with a hint of wetness to it.
Alex realised that he was, apparently, helping in Willowcrook's proclaimed goal despite having refused to. He banished the thought and firmly decided to be a sympathetic fellow human being to Harry, who had been dealt a bad hand and appreciated the sympathy.
"No wonder you want to get drunk once in a while," Alex said.
"You offering your company?" Harry repeated his earlier question.
Alex considered the possibility of walking into a trap and deemed it as good as zero. He recovered his cell phone and typed a text message to Jack. She was used to him staying out, even though it was mostly for work, and he reassured her that tonight's business had nothing to do with the Bank.
"I'm offering to help with the bottle," Alex said after hitting 'send,' and gestured to the plastic bag. "Unless you live an unreasonably long way from here, in which case I'm going home to crash."
Harry gave him a surprised smile. It made him look younger, maybe sixteen, like an errant schoolboy up to mischief. "I've got a house at Grimmauld Place. Number Twelve. It's not nice, and more than a little desolate, but it's habitable and not too far from here. I actually inherited it from my killed godfather."
Alex stood and offered his hand to pull Harry to his feet. His aid was graciously accepted.
"Lead the way, then, my host," Alex prompted.
Harry rolled his eyes, but confidently set out in the direction where, according to the signs, was the nearest tube station.