Disclaimer: Harry Potter and his world belong to J. K. Rowling
Part 3/Chapter 11
The weeks went by, and the weather turned balmy. Bellamy worked every week, as there was such a backlog from those years in which he'd wandered in the wilderness. And every weekday, whenever Bellamy was absent, Caradoc supervised Bellamy's employees as they practised their spells, and Pat and Victor practised with their rifles, although Pat was beginning to think that a handgun was more likely to be useful. She knew now of the spells and enchantments that kept the location of the home protected, and Bellamy had told her that there was a hidden London house too, that he'd show her one day.
Pat loved her new home more and more as flowers bloomed, and the baby animals played in the sunshine. A half grown tabby kitten came strolling into the lounge room one day, studied Pat sitting in her chair, and leapt onto her knee. The kitten had chosen, and Pat had a new friend.
Pat was beginning to spend more and more time with Caradoc. Clare was usually either in a dream, or off painting, sometimes both at the same time. She was working on a painting of Jester at the moment, which Pat wanted for Bellamy. But there were three small paintings of mares and foals also in progress. Clare was becoming a very well known artist in the medj world.
It was confirmed now that Pat was pregnant, and Graham had a list of specialised healers for her to choose from. But Pat consulted Ursula, who recommended Healer Esme Rutherford. Ursula found herself quite unable to keep it quiet, and the news spread, first through the family, with all its ramifications, and then through the wizarding world generally. One result was the sudden appearance at breakfast of a pair of house-elves, who politely requested that they be allowed to return to service with the Potters.
Pat was still staring, mouth open, never having seen a house-elf before. But Bellamy had a smile all over his face. They were odd creatures, house-elves, but very useful to have around. "You will not be Bonded, of course," he said, "And I hope you will accept a wage."
The female stood proudly erect, and said, "I am a descendant of Dobby and Winky. I am a free house-elf, and will accept a wage."
Her mate gave her a look askance, and nodded. "Whatever Ricos says," he muttered.
Graham ordered a two week break from spell-breaking. Some of the patients Bellamy had been curing lately, had been cursed a long time, which often made it harder, and he was needing the strong magic more often. On a few occasions, he'd tired himself, and chosen not to risk apparating, but stayed with the team overnight instead. Don, who arranged the trips, queried Graham, but was told firmly that Bellamy was irreplaceable, and that his health had to be guarded. Bellamy was pleased to have a holiday, and thought that soon, he'd ask to go back to only alternate weeks spell-breaking, as he'd mostly done in the past. He'd never actually intended devoting his life to undoing the results of other people's stupidity, after all.
The first day of his holiday, a treat was arranged. It was bright sunshine, and he joined Paul and Victor as they saddled their horses for a long ride on the moors. Paul had a backpack on his shoulders, as did Bellamy himself. Nothing special, just a picnic lunch. They were laughing, joking, all of them happy with the planned excursion. Victor had his own horse, that he'd ridden for many years, a solidly built black horse, while Paul had a chestnut mare, a speedier, lighter animal. Bellamy was on Jester.
Margaret confronted them. "I want to come," she declared.
Bellamy looked at the pugnacious girl, and said, surprised, "I thought you didn't like riding, and anyway, there's no suitable horse for you."
"I want to come," the child repeated.
Bellamy slipped off Jester, lifted the child onto his horse's back, leapt up behind her, and asked if that was all right.
Margaret twisted in her seat, and gave him a blinding smile.
"We'll have to tell your mum, then," said Bellamy.
Paul and Victor had been thoroughly annoyed with the child making a nuisance of herself, but as the three horses loped easily across the moors, their irritation vanished. Margaret was blissfully happy, held firmly by a strong arm around her, moving as easily with the horses' motion as did her Grandfather Harry. To the men's astonishment, it was little Margaret who spread a red and white checked table cloth, and laid out the picnic on the grass, at a high place that overlooked the sea. She was especially attentive to Bellamy. "I have to look after you," she announced seriously, as she brushed crumbs off his front. "It's the Barnes family tradition. Peter can have Mrs. Boss, but I'm getting you."
Victor and Paul were trying hard not to laugh, but Bellamy only said gravely, "Thank you, Margaret. I'll be very happy to have you look after me." A delighted smile spread across the face of the little girl, as she watched him possessively.
Later, Bellamy did mention to Ursula and Archie that they must make it clear to their children, that they could, if they chose, do something else with their lives, that it was not compulsory to look after him just because their name was Barnes. Archie grinned. "We never told them they had to, and Ursula even suggested to Margaret that she should be a nurse, like her mother and grandmother."
"And what did she say to that?" asked Bellamy, curiously.
"She said she didn't want to look after sick people!"
Margaret's birthday was coming up, and, with her usual lack of diffidence, she demanded a small horse. "The boss will teach me to ride," she announced.
Archie bought her a grey pony, but it was mostly Victor who taught her to ride. With unusual severity, Ursula told her that she was not to pester the boss, that he had his own things to do. With unusual docility, Margaret stopped pestering the boss, even though she always had a very good idea where he was, and what he was doing whenever he was home. She still ignored Pat, and Pat took little notice of the child.
Pat was happy and well, and beginning to read her way through Bellamy's library, though she thought it might take several years. She frowned at him once, though, as he dropped to the grass beside her in the garden. "I'm not accustomed to reading books I don't understand," she said, in an annoyed tone. Bellamy looked questioningly at her, and she showed him the book.
"Grasstici Luculi," he said. "Even with a wizarding background, only about a dozen people in the world fully understood it, I suspect." She still looked cross, and he laughed. "Do you think I understood your thesis on the internal telemetrical physical structure of black holes?"
"That's not what it's called," Pat said.
"Well, it was something like that," said Bellamy.
Pat agreed, smiling, "Something like that."
She lay the book down. "You've written quite a few books," she stated.
Bellamy was lying on his back, and now a ginger cat stepped casually onto his chest, sat herself down, and started washing herself. "Most were for the wizard market," he said, "And with that type of book of theory, I only ever print a few, just on the writing machine."
"I love the writing machine," said Pat. "Just say what you want, and it makes your book for you." She stood and lifted the cat from her husband's chest, so that he could sit up.
Bellamy looked at her. "Is there something you want?"
Pat replied, "I'd like to buy a car, as I'm beginning to find it irksome to rely on you whenever I want to do something."
"I think I've got one," said Bellamy, getting to his feet. "There was one in the garage, anyway."
But Pat regarded the sleek and flashy car dubiously. "Not really my style."
Bellamy looked rather helpless. "I don't know where to go to buy a car."
Pat suggested, "Connor Maguire?"
Bellamy nodded confidently, "He'll know!"
Not long later, Bellamy watched admiringly, as Connor and Pat discussed her requirements and Connor drove them to a town. Pat drove him back in a new car, far more sedate looking than the other, though with a more powerful engine. It was not in a conspicuous make or colour. She was very aware, by now, that her husband had enemies. As a matter of routine, he put a charm on the car. It would not be followed, not stolen, and not ever be noticed by meddlesome medj policemen. All the same, Ursula casually presented Pat with an apparently genuine British driving license, and that had a charm on it, too.
"You can have a helicopter, with a pilot, if you want," Ursula mentioned. "Bellamy asked about it before you were even married, though he said it was for Clare and Sybil who can't apparate, and Caradoc, who doesn't any more."
Pat declined, saying that a car was quite sufficient for the time being.
Now that Pat was more independent, she went back to Connor with a different query, but Britain had very severe laws about the possession of firearms, and she found no help. "I just don't know," he said. "I understand why you want one, and if you ask Ursula or Archie, they can probably even put a spell on so that if someone sees it, they'll think it's a book, or something, but I have no idea where you'd get one."
Connor knew quite a bit of Bellamy's history from Adrian. His life could be dangerous. And he also knew that Pat wasn't telling her husband that she was planning to carry a gun. But Connor was already developing a profound respect for the tall woman with the penetrating intelligence, and had no intention himself of telling Bellamy, who, he thought, was likely to be silly about the need for people around him to take defensive action.
In the second week of their holiday, Bellamy and Pat went to Bellamy's London house, planning to stay a few days, and eat out each day as there would be no-one to cook, Pat being a worse cook, if possible, than Bellamy. "Beth and Adrian know about it," he told her, as they paused in the entry hall, "But no-one else."
He caressed her tummy, now showing a very slight curve. "We'll tell the little one too, of course, when it's time."
Pat looked at the oddly furnished and decorated house. There was still some old and valuable silverware, from the time of the Black family residence, heavy antique furniture, which, she suspected, might be very valuable, but a lot of stark white walls, with occasional flashes of vivid colour. Bellamy casually started moving about, vanishing and re-conjuring certain of the furniture. "My stuff seems to last between seventy and eighty years mostly, but it's always a bit unpredictable, and this must be about sixty years old."
Pat mentioned, "Kitty was telling me that the record's sixteen months."
Bellamy shrugged, "I never told the records people." Wandering around after Pat, who was exploring, he said, "The house-elves must still be looking after it. I don't remember when I was here last."
Pat said, puzzled, "Is there a shower?" Bellamy conjured a shower recess, and said something about it being lucky that at least they'd done the plumbing part without magic.
Pat reached out to him, and her tone changed. "I think we should christen the house!" And when the house-elves turned up a little while later to look after the boss and his wife, they quickly took themselves discreetly off to the basement. But Pat and Bellamy had no need to go out to dinner, and a bed was already made up for them, with clean sheets and warm blankets. Pat had never been short of money, on a good salary, and with no children, but she hadn't known the sort of coddling that Bellamy had enjoyed most of his life either. She thought she liked it!
After two weeks of sunshine and holiday, the Monday when Bellamy went back to work was cold, and sleet started to fall. Kitty knocked, and came into the loungeroom where Pat was reading, and waved her wand at the fire, which immediately started burning warmer. Two reclining cats blinked at the flames, in what appeared to be approval. Pat took that sort of action for granted, now, and only thanked her.
"Defence practice, ten o'clock," mentioned Kitty.
Pat nodded, "I'll be there." Her aim was improving, but as they never practised when Bellamy was about, there were no plans to miss a day just because the weather was bad.
Kitty wandered around, plumping up cushions, and straightening a newspaper, quite unnecessarily. Pat put down her book, and paid attention. Kitty said, rushing it. "I'm engaged, and I want you and the boss to come to my engagement party, and to tell me if I'm allowed to bring Sidney here."
Pat had never been part of one of those groups that form, cooing over new engagement rings, but she'd seen the phenomenon enough to know what she was supposed to do. Kitty was satisfied with her attention, congratulations, and her admiration of the pretty ring that she wore. She'd been supposed to notice it without prompting, but after Kitty had casually waved it for three days in front of her, and she said nothing at all, Kitty had given up.
Saturday, at Sidney's place, Pat was told. "There'll be a lot there, so I'll tell my brother, who's an auror, and he can organise for your bodyguards."
Pat frowned. "Would we need bodyguards at a private party?"
"The great wizard always needs bodyguards," Kitty said firmly. "One of the aurors was killed just a few years ago, only because he was mistaken for him."
Pat was surprised. "Henry didn't tell me that!"
Kitty looked uncomfortable. "He probably doesn't know. Best not to tell him."
"No. Best not to tell him." Pat was beginning to know her husband. He was apt to feel himself responsible for things that were not really his fault.
Kitty plumped up another cushion. "He's saved the lives of a lot of aurors, you know. There were three, late last year, who were prisoners, and then there's been others over the years, as well. And that's not counting the ones he's pulled out of spells. They think the world of him, Homer says."
She went off, then, leaving Pat thoughtful, and after a while, gently rubbing her abdomen, which was uncomfortable. And then she smiled. No matter what the dangers, life was very good for her now, and she brooded tenderly over a memory of a special time with her husband, nearly two weeks before, on soft grass, in a thick grove of trees, where no-one could see them. It was always rather special, love-making in the open air.
Gradually, the way that Pat was relating to the staff was beginning to change. On her orders, the gates were now kept shut at night, and whenever they were not watched. On her request, Caradoc put a spell on the gates and on the fences to ring an alarm if somebody tried to force an entry. Being Medj, Pat was apt to think of the sort of precautions that Medjkind took, although Bellamy, when questioned, only said that Medj had never seriously threatened him, and he really preferred the gates left open, at least during the days.
On being asked, Ursula agreed there was plenty of money to hire security guards, but said that Bellamy always preferred people around him whom he knew. The reward for his death was very large, and treachery was always a risk. No new employee was hired without being looked at by Beth or by Bellamy. But then they were apt to get married, and then there were families, which could also lead to complications. Pat spoke to Caradoc about it, too, who said that the greatest protection they could organise was the secrecy of the place.
***chapter end***