A/N: Late again! I'm sorry T-T

The usual fanfic excuses - laptop died, using a borrowed laptop, beta has sporadic internet access, only eleven hours of sleep in the past two and a half days, bouts of insanity and what-not.

This chapter is not betaed. Betaed chapter will be posted when available.

Chapter Sixteen

Tentative Truce

"Does this door have a lock?" the pirate asked, as he stepped in and closed the door behind him, looking down at the knob and seeing nothing there to account for him being unable to open the door just then.

Harry winced.

"Er, no, I," Harry mentally scrambled about for an explanation, "I used a pin." Harry knew it was possible from watching the twins pick locks, but he wasn't very good at it himself, so hopefully he wouldn't be asked to demonstrate.

"Right."

The two stood there awkwardly, Harry waiting for the pirate to start, whether with pointed questions or accusations, and the pirate trying desperately to decide how he was supposed to treat someone who he disliked – because he was a risk to the crew! – but had probably just saved his friend's life.

"Right," Harry echoed, then went back to the counter to start making tart crusts. He could handle being interrogated and cooking at the same time.

The silence stretched on, and Harry was just working on the tart filling, having already put the tart crusts into the fridge to chill and started to preheat the second oven, when the pirate finally spoke up.

"Who knows?"

Harry stilled. About magic? Harry thought to himself, no one. But seeing as that was admitting he could do a lot more than even the pirate currently knew or believed, he chose to keep that thought to himself. No doubt the man already suspected there was more to his ability than he was letting on, but there was no need to remind anyone of it.

"Shanks and Beckman have seen it. Otherwise, just Spaz, me, you, and probably that other pirate from earlier."

The man snorted.

"Him? The guy's a lazy idiot, probably already forgot all about it in favor of sneaking a nap."

Harry didn't reply and started boiling a few jars of apple jelly to use as glaze. He would have to start working with the apples in storage as the jam supply was dwindling after the heavy use today.

The silence continued, and finally Harry was feeling a bit impatient. The tart filling was in the fridge to cool, the crusts he put into the oven, and the glaze was simmering on the stove. He wasn't going to just stand around waiting while this pirate tries to decide what to do about him!

"Is it really that important?"

"Under normal circumstances, no," the pirate conceded. "We don't have any Devil Fruit users in our crew, but I don't think we'd care if one joined. And the captain is pretty good at Haki and is trying to train some of us to use it too, though most of us are only at the point of being able to sense killing intent. They're all pretty dangerous abilities."

He stopped talking and watched Harry cook for a bit. Fruit all the colors of the rainbow covered the kitchen counter.

"You're different. Usually, people join us after a demonstration of their abilities. You didn't do that, so both you and your friend are unknowns."

"Everyone has secrets, aces in their sleeves," Harry offered, segmenting a neon yellow-green fruit.

"Sure, and we all know that, but –. We're all pirates; we follow a certain way of life, chose which side of the law to respect, pledged ourselves to the Jolly Roger."

"And you're afraid that since I'm not a pirate, I'd have no compunctions against betraying you to the marines, or killing a few of you for your bounties," Harry concluded as he coated the tart crusts with glaze. "If it helps, Shanks could kill me anytime."

"Of course the Captain could! What do you mean, comparing yourself to him, huh?" A quick look backwards showed the pirate fuming at the implication that there was any doubt his Captain couldn't defeat a kid who was neither pirate nor marine.

Okay, so maybe that wasn't the best thing to say, but at least it reminded the man of his loyalty to a powerful man who couldn't be threatened by Harry's unexplained tricks, and maybe it would force him to accept the outsider's presence, even if only to show his trust in his captain.

"We all know the Captain is strong, one of the strongest, and he could be the Pirate King if he wanted, and we'd all take him there. Just, sometimes, he isn't as serious as he should be."

Ah. Harry could understand that. Shanks was the kind of person who could win just about any head-on duel, but always seemed incredibly vulnerable to assassination. Harry doubted it would ever happen – if Shanks could survive this long as one of the Four Emperors, he likely had a highly polished natural talent in seeing the intentions of people around him in addition to his Haki. If the marines hadn't managed to assassinate him yet, it was doubtful Shanks let just anyone on board his ship.

But life wasn't that easy; especially when looking up at someone you admire and worry for him. Sometimes, you just wanted to hex the guy for being too trusting, like Dumbledore when he insisted Snape was trustworthy over and over without ever giving a proper reason for it.

Harry had worried. Despite Dumbledore's façade of invincibility, despite how he managed to survive just fine for so many years, through so many wars, trusting the people he chose to trust, Harry had worried.

Like this pirate worried now.

Harry sighed and filled the crusts with the pastry cream from the fridge.

"I'm afraid I don't know what I'm supposed to do," Harry told the pirate, arranging the fruit slices and berries in concentric circles on the first tart.

"You could tell me what you are."

Harry chuckled a bit as he cut another fruit, purple with small, bright red seeds that formed triangles in the middle of each slice.

"I'm afraid I don't know the answer to that question."

"Then your power?"

"Hmm," Harry intoned, "well, one is the power to turn immaterial, as you saw in the bar back on the island, but I'm sure you figured out then that I also have very little control over it."

"And your quick recovery after our fight? The tins and pans from nowhere? And pulling a man from tens of meters away?"

Harry didn't reply right away. He was surprised the man noticed the things he had conjured since none of the pirates reacted strangely at all when he brought them out, but he supposed it was rather foolish of him to assume that none of them took inventory of the kitchen supplies. How could he salvage this situation, or at least downplay what he was capable of?

"The pie tins and such I brought with me."

"You packed kitchen equipment and yet neither you nor your friend has a change of clothing?" came the skeptical reply.

"Well, I certainly don't know what my friend chose to bring or not bring. As for me, I lost most of my things in a small fire," Harry fibbed. "I left the campfire burning one night and the wind blew it a little farther than I expected. My kitchen equipment survived, but my wardrobe was mostly ruined. That's why I was staying at an inn on the island."

"Fine, and the other events?"

Harry silently breathed a sigh of relief at the pirate's acceptance of his explanation so far. Creating objects from thin air was a power he definitely did not want everyone to know. It defied every bit of logic and science there was to create something from nothing and if the wrong person found out, the consequences would be disastrous.

Harry sliced another fruit, this time red with purple seeds that zigzagged along the edges, trying to buy a bit of time.

"That Haki you talked about earlier, Shanks once mentioned it. He didn't do a very good job of explaining it, but from what I can tell, it's an energy, strengthened by a human's ambition and honed to do different jobs. How close am I?"

"Close enough. There are three types of Haki: the Color of Observation, the Color of Armaments, and the Color of the Conquering King. The last one, though, only certain people are born with, including the captain."

"I see, neat. So Shanks can use them all, and I know Beckman is training in the second one."

"Beckman's practically a genius at the Color of Armaments, and we're all training in the first one. It's required that the crew members can all at least feel killing intent, whether we use Haki or just instinct. Yassop can shoot people releasing killing intent a hundred meters away with his eyes closed."

The pirate narrowed his eyes, as if daring Harry to even try going up the first mate, or to tempt the sniper by revealing killing intent, before continuing.

"What does this have to do with anything? Your skull certainly didn't feel any harder than most skulls, so you didn't use the Color of Armaments to block and quickly recover from my attack."

"No, I don't know Haki, unfortunately. I do however, have an energy that I can manipulate similar to how Shanks manipulates his Haki. Mine does different things though."

Harry paused a bit, trying to word it properly.

"My control is limited, but I can speed up the healing process if necessary, and push or pull at objects from a distance. Nothing too large. What happened earlier was me pulling out the guy's shirt. Luckily, it stretched out far enough for you to reach because the weight of a human body is too much for me."

Harry stopped there, choosing not to say more than he needed to. Instead, he played around with the fruit and their funny seed designs as he finished decorating the remaining tarts.

"I don't like you," the pirate concluded. "You do strange things like dodge bullets but not punches and even dress weirdly, but the captain invited you, so I can't exactly kick you off or anything. Just know I'm watching you, so don't think you can get away with any funny business."

"Yes, yes, I understand." Harry searched through the drawers for a brush before giving up and making a huge show of patting down his robe. Conjuring a brush, he pulled it out of a pocket and glazed the fruit on the tarts. "Well, I'm glad that's done with. Now, I've got half a fish left over and nowhere to put it. I don't suppose you have any ideas?"

"You didn't cook the whole thing for lunch?"

"It's a dead big fish! I put the head into the fridge for fish head soup later in the week, but there's a lot of flesh I don't know what to do with."

"Can't you just salt it and store it in the storage room down below?"

"Er," Harry fiddled with the fruit pits and remaining berries, "there's supposedly a process to that, right?"

The pirate gaped. "You can bake pies and cook curry but you can't salt fish?"

"Hey," Harry protested, "I learned cooking in a very domesticated setting. This is my first time even aboard a ship, let alone cooking for one."

The pirate huffed. "I'll do it for you." He went to the dining table where the fish was left, the top half stripped clean to reveal its gleaming backbone and the bottom half of its flesh. Gathering a large vat, knife, board, and salt, the pirate sliced up the remaining fish and layered the segments in the vat, alternating with layers of salt, before topping it all off with a wooden board to weigh it down.

"It'll take about two weeks to cure completely."

"Right," Harry said, as he watched the process.

"I'll drop by daily until then to add more salt."

"Thanks."

"Don't lock the door with your pin trick anymore."

"Right."

The pirate grunted. "You better figure out how to do things like this soon. Preserving food is important onboard ships, you know."

"Yeah… I don't suppose you could teach me stuff like that, er, what's your name anyway?"

Arms crossed, the pirate gave Harry another one of his ridiculous glares with his teeth bared before replying. "I'm Farkas Gregory, and you better be a quick learner, 'cause I'm not the patient type."

A/N: So, yeah, uh, I hate this chapter, really. Out of all the chapters so far, this one's the most awkward, I think. But after, like, four different scenerios, I was just like, whatevs.

Some of you will be pleased to hear that this is the LAST CHAPTER WITH DETAILED COOKING. I'm finally moving on, and now that this chapter is over, the cooking doesn't play too important a role in future chapters anyways.

Uh, what else?

Oh yeah, I'm kinda pissed that there's a fortune telling mermaid now, in One Piece. So either Rakma's a liar, or it's not "magic" and "prophecies" in the HP world's definitions which I will later have to explain. Grr.

Yeah, these author's notes are kinda negative. I'm tired. Next week will be better.

Like, the chapter will be more fun, too.

224 reviews as of today, January 25. Thanks everyone :)