Chapter Five: Flyers and First Days

Monday rolled around quickly. For one thing, Harry had relented on his attempt at solitude and headed to the nearest animal rescue shelter. The result was a small ginger cat called Oscar, who had been abandoned by his family in the summer. Harry had been taken by him the moment they'd met. For one thing, it was impossible not to see Crookshanks in the wiry cat. The other? Well, Hermione had always said he had a saving people thing. Apparently, the sentiment extended to mildly friendly cats.

More and more deliveries arrived at his door too, some of the recommended by Lizzie, others he'd picked out himself. He'd received her contract, along with a small thank you note and a hastily scrawled list of other books that he should order.

When the day finally came Harry woke up early. He'd never been anyone's boss before. Not properly. There had been junior Aurors that always came up to him for advice, but he'd never been the final decision maker. What did bosses wear? What did bookshop owners wear? After a desperate attempt at making his hair lie flat, it didn't, he settled on a checked shirt and black jeans that were so faded they could no longer be considered black.

Oscar climbed up on the kitchen counter as Harry made toast, the feline scoundrel eagerly awaiting his own food. When Harry ignored him, he stretched up to his full length and began pawing at the high cupboard where the small packets of cat food were stored.

"Alright, alright. Fine, you can eat first." The toast was cold and the cat was fed. From Oscar's point of view, the proper order of things. Harry couldn't even grumble as he quickly cast a heating charm on his slightly charred bread, buttered it and then hastily clasped it between his teeth as he raced up to the shop.

Thankfully there was no new employee loitering on the steps waiting for him and he was able to finish his toast, fetch the inventory list and stack the final few boxes they were due to open on one of the small tables before nine.

"I'm not late, am I?" Lizzie asked when she hurried through the door, the patter of heavy rain and the squelch of sodden boots piercing the quiet.

"No, no, I just thought it'd be good to be prepared." His hand went to his back pocket, intent on drying her coat and boots with a quick charm, before he caught himself. Not for the first time, he was glad he'd made a rule of leaving his wand in the flat downstairs. Living in a world where everyone knew magic existed for so long made it difficult to remember that not everyone knew witches and wizards even existed.

"Oh thank God for that." She draped the same leather jacket she'd worn to her interview over one of the coat stand's arms. She'd chosen a light grey NASA jumper, the print of the logo cracking from wear, and pale blue jeans. Once again her hair was tied up, this time a flash of green ribbon keeping it in a controlled bun. "Sarah, she lives in my apartment, she kept going on and on at me saying I'd be late. And look at that, not late. Screw you, Sar."

Harry could only take in the sheer force of nature that was Lizzie Tyler. It was strange. He was used to people becoming either incredibly subdued or smarmy around him. Either way, it was Harry Potter, or rather the Boy Who won, that they cared about. The opposite was rather refreshing.

"Oh, you have a cat." Oscar, probably tired of the limelight not being on him, had jumped neatly onto the counter and was staring at her.

"I do, I hope that's okay? He's new, well, new to me."

"I love cats." Rolling up her sleeves, Lizzie slowly walked towards Oscar. His light green eyes tracked the whole way and when she extended a hand, he ignored it for a second, only to relent a moment later.

"He loves attention."

"Don't we all? Isn't that right, Oscar? Yes, it is. Oh, you're so cute. Yes, you are." The cat was purring. Harry had had him a week and nothing as much as a small hum. "How old is he?"

"Three, I picked him up from a shelter."

"I wish our Super would let us have a pet," Lizzie moaned, Oscar, the traitor, had rolled onto his back and was happily accepting tummy rubs from the latest member of staff. "Mum and dad always had dogs. Huge fuckers. I mean they were basically wolves. You should've seen them." She froze. "Crap. Sorry. You don't - you're not gonna, you know?"

"For swearing?"

Lizzie's shoulders sagged. "Sar's boyfriend hates it."

"Good thing I'm not him." Aurors were the most foul-mouthed bunch there was. It'd take more than the occasional curse word to upset him. "Just maybe hold off in front of customers."

"I can manage that," Lizzie smirked, returning to her duty as Oscar's newest companion. "So, what's the plan, boss?"

"Get the latest shipment put out." He pointed to the stack of books. "Then we'll look over the stock, see if we're missing anything we shouldn't be. Then get started on this thing."

"It's a coffee machine, not a bomb."

Harry privately thought it was a haunted piece of junk, but then he'd had to rope Houria into getting it set up for him - much to the fairy's amusement. "I'll believe it when I see it."

"You big baby, it'll be fine. You've just gotta practice and I'll be here to help. Anyway, books!"

Her enthusiasm was infectious and before long they'd managed to put away all of the books Harry had ordered. The majority of them found homes on the shelves, a few best-sellers were stored in the backroom in case they went too quickly and any stock that wasn't quite right for the arrangements they were making.

The coffee machine wasn't as hideous as he'd dreaded. Lizzie had a knack of explaining the various mechanisms, knobs, handles and hissing spouts in a way that actually made sense - unlike the manual that he'd thrown across the room after burning his hand unexpectedly on one of the aforementioned pipes.

His first attempt, he had to admit, was vile. The second came out bitter and the third far too watery, but Lizzie was patient. Even though she teased him and poked fun, it was done with good humour. It was a far cry from the instructors in the academy or the stern glare of McGonagall.

"So," Lizzie began when they'd finally wrapped up on his coffee-making tutorial. Harry looked up over the mug of tea he had contentedly returned to after his escapades into the foreign realm of bean-based brew. "When're we opening? You never said."

"I didn't," Harry agreed. "I'd hoped next week, but I need to get the word out. Trouble is, I don't know anyone here."

"You know Harvey."

"Everyone knows Harvey." It was a fact he had become familiar with from his now semi-regular trips to his bar. "Any ideas?"

"A promotion. Free coffee with your first purchase or something. Get people through the door. No offence, but they've not got a clue who you are and they're not gonna pick up shit unless we give them a reason to. We can put out flyers, Sar'd probably let me stick a few in the museum. Other shops might be interested. Not coffee shops, obviously. Harv'll let you use the bar. Then there's forums."

"Forums?"

"Yeah, online forums. Wait, you know what a forum is. Right?"

Harry shook his head, painfully aware that he had been excluded from the world he was trying desperately to disappear into for a very, very long time. The word rang a vague bell from Uncle Vernon's various rants about computers, but it wasn't anything he'd ever really paid attention to.

"God, you're such a grandpa. They're like noticeboards but on the internet. People post stuff and talk about it. We could post in a few, no, scratch that, I'll post in a few."

"Hey, I'm not stupid!"

"Just oblivious." The corner of her lips pulled in what Harry was beginning to learn as the closest he was getting to a genuine smile. "What do you use in Britain, they still got you guys with cans and string?"

"We prefer smoke signals."

"Ah, old school. Nice. We could try press, too. Local news loves this kind of shit. Brit opens up shop downtown, that kinda thing. Harv had this one, God what was her name? Nina? Tina? Something 'Ina'. Anyway, she'd be all over it."

"Press could be good."

"Uhuh," Lizzie hummed casting a sideways look at him from over her mug. "Not a fan?"

"Not really," Harry admitted, unsurprised that she'd seen through his fairly pathetic attempt at lying. "Let's just say I've had my fair share of -" he searched for a diplomatic word "- unkind reporters."

"Guess that goes with the territory, right? Ex-cop. What was it? You got burned for a famous case or something?"

"Not quite." There was no real way to explain he was famous for saving a world she didn't even know existed. "Anyway, it's getting late. Let's call this a day and we'll get started on reaching out to people tomorrow."

They said their goodbyes and Harry locked up behind them. There was a slightly awkward walk down the stairs and then they parted, Lizzie heading Uptown and Harry heading to Houria's.

It took a lot of persuading, but eventually, the fairy agreed to put him in touch with a designer he knew, which was how three hours later and after a lot of debating over things like colour schemes, quantity, and, all importantly, price; Harry ended up with two featherlight boxes of flyers.

People were gawking at him as he trudged through the rainy streets, seemingly not struggling to carry what ought to be incredibly heavy boxes. He ignored them. Muggles had a good way of explaining things they didn't understand. The one that always sprang to his mind was the fact they happily accepted the Leaning Tower of Pisa's reopening after eleven years of 'repairs' - which had in actual fact been ten-and-a-half years of head scratching and a few weeks of enchantments by some members of the Italian Ministry.

"Where did you get those?" Lizzie asked when Harry presented her with a very heavy box of flyers.

"I know a guy."

"Oh, you who knows no one suddenly gets an actual tonne of flyers. I know I said a lot but Jesus," she wheezed as she put the box back down on the counter before pulling out one. Harry waited rather anxiously, trying to ignore the hammering of his heart or the sweat in his palms. He'd faced dragons and this was scarier.

"What do you think?"

"That Adhara Books is a cool ass name," Lizzie said, her lips curling with approval. He felt the thundering of his heart somehow quicken at that, nerves replaced with excitement. Not that she would get it. But he rather liked the sly nod to Remus and Sirius. After all, what better than a wolf constellation to pay homage to the two best men he'd ever known? "Not too sure about the promo though."

"Free coffee with your first book, what's not to love?"

"Apart from the fact that I'll be making it all?"

"We can share," Harry told her.

"If you say so, boss." But she hefted the box back into her arms good-naturedly. He was starting to figure out why she'd perhaps struggled to get work anywhere else. There was a brash outspokenness to everything she did. It was as if she were looking for a fight or at least trying to let people know she was there with every word. At times he felt as though he had hired a partner rather than an employee, but that mightn't be such a bad thing.

Together they closed the shop and took to the streets, Lizzie leading the way and pointing out various different facets of the city that Harry should visit - including a bunch of restaurants he hadn't even seen.

On the whole, people were fairly happy to accept their flyers. The odd shop would refuse them and they learned fairly quickly to hit up independent sellers. More often than not they'd provide Harry with their own promotional material and assured him they'd be over to check Adhara Books out - or make sure he'd actually stuck their own flyers up as Lizzie pointed out.

"Why Seattle?" Lizzie asked at a small intersection. They stood at a red light, cars chugged past, sometimes splashing water from the previous day's rain.

"It rains."

"Really?"

"Kinda," Harry admitted. It oddly had been something that had drawn him to the city he now called home. There was a familiarity to the semi-permanent sodden nature of the city. He'd thought about Europe or even Australia, but they felt wrong somehow. Anywhere should've felt wrong, he knew that. He knew it was selfish to even be there, pounding the pavement with a woman he barely new, setting up a business he'd not even imagined a year ago.

"It's the same," he managed to say when Lizzie looked at him expectantly. "But not. I spent a lot of time in London, with my godfather and I don't know, I guess, I like cities."

"Getting lost." There was way too much understanding in her words for him to be the only one that felt that way.

"Yeah, it's nice to just be."

"Too much shit?"

"I guess," Harry shrugged as they began to cross the now clear road. "Sometimes. No, all the time. I just wanted it to be easy. For a long time, it wasn't. I needed to get away. For me." It was the first thing he'd ever really, truly done for himself. Even at Hogwarts, he'd lived to fight Voldemort or to try and do his parents' memory justice. But this, Seattle was what he wanted. He wasn't giving that up.

"How'd your family take it? You mentioned a godfather, right? Is he here?"

"He died." It sounded blunt, but it was the only way Harry could tell anyone. It wasn't that he didn't care or that he'd even 'gotten over' it. There was no getting over something like that. It seemed stupid, crazy even that he'd never get to talk to Sirius again. It was oddly worse than his parents. At least that was longing to fill a hole that blurred at the edges, one he couldn't quite be sure how to fill. Sirius though, he knew exactly what should rest in that hole. Only it would always be empty. And there were so many more.

Once he'd thought about commissioning a portrait, but it wouldn't be the same. It would never be Sirius, just a husk that wore his face.

"I'm sorry." It was what you said, but that didn't make it any easier. Pity was never what he wanted to hear.

"It's fine. It was a while ago."

"It doesn't make it any easier."

"No," Harry agreed. "It doesn't."

They fell into an awkward kind of silence, neither knowing the other well enough to give them what they needed. Not for the first time, guilt panged in Harry's heart as he thought, not of Sirius, but of the boy he was godfather to. Andromeda had owled to say she'd be there soon, that Teddy was excited to visit, but that didn't shake the feeling that he should be in England. He probably should, but that didn't mean he could.

"D'you ever think you're doing the wrong thing sometimes, even if it's the right thing for you?"

Lizzie didn't speak for a moment, the pregnant pause filled only with the noise of car horns and coughing engines. "All the time. I don't think anyone does the 'right' thing a hundred per cent of the time. You can't please everyone, right?"

"I guess."

"Having second thoughts?"

"More like revisiting first thoughts."

"Well, stop it."

"Wow, thanks. Why didn't I think of that?"

"Shut up, that's not what I -" She took a deep breath. "I think you're doing what's right for you and I'm not just saying that 'cause you gave me a job. Sometimes, you'll be a mess. Life'll suck and it's just too much crap to walk through. No one but you can tell you when you've had enough. And so what if you have? We all crack sometimes. Taking time for you, living the life you want, that doesn't sound all that wrong to me."

"Thanks." He wanted to say that she didn't know him, that she had no idea what he'd been leaving behind, that he lay awake some nights thinking he was just another coward that couldn't face up to the hand life had dealt him. The words threatened to spill from his mouth, but he couldn't let them. He didn't want to be Harry Potter anymore. The boy an entire generation had turned to, the man who couldn't move through life without being reminded of a war he just wanted to forget. To Lizzie, he was just Harry and he planned to keep it that way.

"How about you?" Harry asked, trying to steer the conversation away from England. "In Seattle?"

"Nothin' special. Born and bred," Lizzie said. "Mum and dad have always been here. They're by the harbour. Dad's a teacher, English, mum's done odd jobs since I was a kid."

"Is it just you?"

"It is now. Alice moved like what? Six, seven years ago? She's got a boyfriend, Dan, in Washington, he works on political campaigns on something. She does too. God knows why but I think they like it."

There was a small hardness in her voice, the kind that Harry had seen build up into full-blown resentment and then lead to hideous spells used on siblings or parents. There was nothing like a family feud.

"Never interested?"

"No, God, no. All that arguing and backstabbing to get the tiniest amount of shit done, no thanks." They turned a corner, heading towards the museum where Lizzie's friend worked at. The conversation drifted and moved away from Harry's self-doubts. Lizzie didn't push, even though Harry could sense she wanted to. She was a Hippogriff in the bookshop of life, but Hippogriffs could be the most loyal and kind creatures alive. It just helped not to upset them.

The museum was a grand building, clearly the home to expensive art and people with infinitely more expensive tastes. It was the kind of building that Harry abhorred out of sheer principle. So many people had wound up dead for money, either because they had too much or because the person doing the killing felt they didn't have enough. Either way, there was it felt oddly perverse to him that pictures held so much more value than peoples' lives. A few strokes of a paintbrush, half a million pounds, a man desperate to save his family or a woman scared of being lost on the stress, a few hundred quid. Yeah, life wasn't fair.

Beside him, it was impossible not sense the change in Lizzie. She'd become quieter, her movements stiff and her jaw clenched. Even the Hippogriff feared something, which according to Hagrid was cats.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, fine. I'm fine. You can stop looking at me like I'm going to break, 'cause I'm not, you know. I'm okay. This is totally okay."

"Want to talk about it?"

"There's nothing to talk about." Which clearly signalled that there very much was something to talk about. Unlike Hermione or even Ron, Harry stayed silent. He had his privacy and for the most part Lizzie had respected it, he could only offer her the same.

Besides, he had a funny feeling he knew what was upsetting her and it approached them wearing a form-fitting dark blue dress and smiling with the practised ease of someone who swam in the 'right' kind of circles.

"Lizzie, hey!"

"Hey," Lizzie said a little stiffly, using her free hand to tug her jacket closed, as though she were trying to hide the jumper she'd arrived in that morning. "Sar, this is Harry. My boss. Harry, Sarah Atkins."

Roommate, art specialist and the apparent manifestation of the road Lizzie could've taken, Sarah beamed at Harry, seemingly oblivious to her friend's discomfort. Sometimes, being too close to the problem really could make you blind. "Lovely to meet you."

"You too." It wasn't true, but it wasn't a lie either.

"We've come for a favour," Lizzie continued, "I know you guys are busy, but we're opening next week and I thought…" She held up the now mostly empty box of flyers. Sarah's smile seemed to freeze, her bright eyes flicking across the busy foyer to a slender man in a crisp suit who was eyeing the conversation with interest.

The hesitation was gone in a second.

"Of course, I can take…" She considered it for a moment. "Thirty? Forty? How many have you got?"

"About ninety," Harry answered. "How about you have thirty? That'll give us some for the opening day?"

"Sure."

Lizzie passed the flyers out. Behind her the man in the suit withdrew a small notebook from his pocket and made a note. The curator probably, some kind of authority figure that was for sure. Clearly he didn't like small businesses or 'riff-raff'. If only he knew how much money was stacked to the ceiling in the Potter and Black vaults. He'd have soon changed his tune then. He'd probably have slapped flyers over every free surface. Jeans and trainers didn't say money or at least, not the kind of money he valued. 'Old' money prevailed everywhere, as if age somehow added extra value.

"Thanks for this, Sar. Really." The sentiment was muttered, but not outside of the edge of Harry's hearing.

"What're friends for," Sarah said gently, squeezing Lizzie's arm.

The man made another note.

"This is an art museum, right?" Harry asked loudly. Lizzie quirked an eyebrow, her roommate hesitated but answered.

"Yes, we house some of the finest collections in the state."

"And how do you feel about donations?"

"Donations?"

It was almost hysterical how quickly the curator swept across the room, like a moth to a dollar-shaped flame. His voice was as crisp as his suited, clipped with years of training. "Is there a problem?"

"No, sir. This gentleman was just asking about our exhibits." Sarah's fake smile was back although there was a curiosity in her eyes that it was unable to shift.

"And donations," Harry added, grinning. "I just moved to the city. I thought, I'd help out where I can."

"Ah, sir, perhaps you misunderstand. This is a ticketed museum, if you wish to support us may I suggest that you simply visit the front desk. Now, Miss Atkins, if you are quite done -"

"Sorry," Harry interrupted. "Sorry. I don't think you quite understood. Maybe this'll help." He withdrew the notebook and pen he'd taken to carrying everywhere, for notes and ideas about the shop. He scrawled a number and handed it to the man. A smug twisted part of him enjoyed watching his eyebrows try to flee from his head in shock.

"You know where to find me," Harry grinned, patting the man on the shoulder. "Sarah, lovely to meet you. Lizzie, I'll be outside."

He only had to wait a few minutes for Lizzie to come barrelling out of the museum. Bewilderment, confusion, whatever anyone wanted to call it, was etched across her face in more detail than some of the so-called paintings that hung in the art gallery.

"What the hell was that?"

"A donation."

"A donation! I've never seen him like that. What are you, a millionaire or something?"

"Probably," Harry admitted, still unable to shake the grin off his face. So much for a low profile, Potter. But he didn't care. He'd just wanted to wipe the man's stupid smug sense of superiority off his face. It hadn't been how he'd looked at Harry, he was used to people giving him dirty looks for no reason. It was the disgust he'd shown Lizzie, all because she'd not had the exact same experience as her friend? It had probably been a mistake. It was a mistake. But if it meant helping out a public museum that likely had tonnes of youth programmes or would direct people his way, then what was the harm?

"Probably?"

"Exchange rates," he managed to say, realising that he actually had no idea how many galleons he had and what that looked like in muggle money.

"No wonder you dish out healthcare. Fuck. I was right."

"Right?"

"You really are an idiot."

"Why else do you think I keep you around?"

"Yep, definite idiot." But that didn't stop her infectious grin or the spring in her step as they headed back to the shop. "C'mon rich boy, let's get a drink. You're buying."