Luckily, Guidry was there, lounging on his chair, still brooding over their meeting with Carmelita Lundelville when the policeman arrived late that afternoon. Harry couldn't shake off that sticky, uncomfortable feeling that Carmelita had left on his skin like she was some gigantic, perverse and racist lollipop that had left her sickly sweet scent on him.
The things that Guidry had hinted at after she left also didn't do much to ease his mind. Around six, the cop arrived, and Harry was waiting for Guidry to indicate that they should close up shop.
Harry didn't even think twice when he heard the door open, and he was about to open his mouth to greet the customer when he saw the navy suit, the badges, and the funky hat which clearly indicated an old police uniform.
It was horribly antiquated to Harry's eyes, and he couldn't understand how anyone could consider such a thing to be comfortable. Still, he recognized it all the same, and he immediately shut his mouth as Guidry stood from his chair respectfully, his posture as straight and commanding as he dared. "Good evening Mr. Cormier," the man greeted, his accent a rough cut between Carmelita's poshness and Guidry's casual one.
From the second he had entered the shop, he hadn't stopped eyeing Harry even for a moment, sizing him up from his semi-ill-fitting clothes and his lanky, pale look.
Harry hadn't recovered any color on his face since he had arrived here, unfortunately. He feared that that didn't do much in the way of helping Guidry with the suspicions the white people felt towards him. Harry thought it was funny (in a twisted, horrible way, granted) how Carmelita seemed so naturally and blatantly suspicious of Guidry and yet still demanded his services and delighted in them.
Harry had never seen such hypocrisy displayed before him in an obvious way like this one. "Good evening, Sheriff Wallanby," Guidry greeted with a nod.
If Harry hadn't known any better, he would've thought that Guidry didn't dislike the man, judging by how genuinely cordial he seemed - that was how good he was being at pretending that he wasn't repelled by the Sheriff's presence. The Sheriff? Harry thought uneasily.
He had understood that the white folks here were apprehensive and distrustful of the black people but did Harry's presence alone and a word from Carmelita Lundelville warrant the Sheriff coming to their door?
The man's clunky, knee-high boots stomped on the shop floor, hard, its overly shiny material gleaming as if trying to ascertain power through sheer noise and shoe polish. He was puffing his chest ridiculously, to the point where it seemed like he had a back problem.
Under the carefully maintained and lustered mustache, the man's face seemed quite forgettable, even generic. If he had left after a moment Harry thought he might not have remembered even one of his features save for that thick mustache that completely coated his upper lip.
He looked around, sizing up the shop as if he were inspecting if it was properly maintained, and his face betrayed some sickness and revulsion as he eyed the crystals hanging from the ceiling. His eyes always flickered back to Harry, and when he had made a bad show of pretending not to notice Harry, his eyes finally landed on him with some decision and feigned surprise. "I've never seen the likes of you around, tha's forsure - you new here, boy?" He asked Harry.
Harry hesitated a moment before replying, waiting to see if Guidry stepped up for him. He didn't. "Yes, sir," was Harry's curt response. He didn't want to seem nervous in case that might implicate Guidry, but the Sheriff set him on edge. Decidedly less than Carmelita had, though, funnily enough.
The Sheriff kept walking closer to him until he was right by the desk, on which he propped himself on one elbow, looking at Harry curiously, his thick brows pulled into a suspicious frown. It wasn't like Harry wasn't used to being inspected by strangers, but this kind of scrutiny was different, like someone that was searching for trouble. Up close, Harry could see the fat drops of sweat that had begun to bead up on the man's temples and the overall clamminess of the man's skin.
That, together with his buttonlike, bulldog eyes and the perturbing pornstache, left an overall bad taste in Harry's mouth. "Say something again, boy," the man commanded. "I-I'm sorry, sir?" Harry stuttered. "Funny accent you got there, whereabouts you from?" He asked. Harry coughed, his mouth suddenly incredibly dry. "London, sir," Harry told him, resisting the urge to fan himself. The heat was stifling, sure, but now he felt he was suffocating.
The Sheriff suddenly let out a stiff, violent bark of laughter, as if 'London' was the funniest thing he had ever heard in his life. Harry jumped at the sound of it and was even more perturbed when, after that dry howl, the man's face morphed back into its serious, blood-sniffing-shark expression. "And just what are you doin' down here, of all places in this great big world?" He demanded to know. Harry gulped before replying, but now Guidry did cut in. "He a relative, Sheriff," Guidry informed him curtly.
The Sheriff now cocked his head to look at Guidry, irritated, like he had interrupted a conversation that he wasn't a part of. However, Harry was still immensely grateful for it because Guidry sounded far more confident than he did.
Now the Sheriff stepped away and snapped his head between Harry and Guidry, like a curious dog. He pointed at them. "Well, pardon me, but I don't see any… family resemblance," he said with a sick smile, his teeth a tobacco-chewing yellow.
Harry looked over to Guidry, and he thought he could almost see how Guidry physically swallowed down the response he actually wanted to give. "He comes from a line of… mixing, sir," Guidry explained, and Harry almost cringed with the explanation, even though he knew there probably wasn't a more tactful way to go about that sort of information. "Hm," the Sheriff stroked his mustache, and despite his brute look, it seemed he had understood fully well what Guidry had said. Harry remembered that despite all hatred towards black people, white men considered black women their property, and thus there were a lot of children born from rape.
He didn't know whether that could be applied to the current state of the world, but it was probably still an ongoing thing, white men forcing themselves of women that couldn't say anything about it, much less press any charges.
He wished he had studied some more Muggle history - after all, what was Hogwarts: A History going to give him in the way of helping him with his current situation? "Well, I suppose that if he really is a relative," the Sheriff began as if such a thing was debatable, "you got some paperwork to prove his identity? I like to know who's staying in my own town, I'm sure you understand," he told Guidry with another whipping smile. Harry's heart froze.
He didn't have any idea what to do in a situation like that; he hadn't thought that anyone would ask him for his papers. "'Fraid that information got lost in the same shipwreck his mama did, sir. I was only handed the boy as part of my sister's will. Don't know nothing else," Guidry said smoothly.
Harry was surprised but concealed it. Was Guidry good at lying on the spot, or had he prepared for a situation like this one? Had he expected this? He had predicted that a policeman would come to their door, after all, so maybe it wasn't so far-fetched to think that he could've thought that something like this might happen.
Or maybe Harry hadn't given him enough credit on the whole voodoo thing, and Guidry had glimpses into the future. That didn't seem accurate, though. Regardless, the policeman huffed, looking now extremely irritated, the beads of sweat that had accumulated on his receding hairline rolling down as they became denser.
The man removed a handkerchief from one of his many pockets and wiped himself down. "Damned hot," he complained, and Harry thought that he had seen that the man had more fight in him, but the heat was wearing him down. "Well, give me a name, at least, gotta keep track of 'im," he said grudgingly. "Alastor," Harry told him eagerly, wanting the man to get the hell out as soon as possible. "Full name," the Sheriff demanded eagerly. "Boy's a bastard, Sheriff, his papa never claimed him," Guidry told him calmly as he watched with measured satisfaction as the man's underarm spots expanded with sweat. "Can give you the name of his mama, though - Cormier, jus' like mine," Guidry told him. "Fine, fine. You should really get some ventilation in here," the Sheriff told him, removing a notepad and jotting down Harry's fake name. Harry relaxed a little as he watched the man make as if to head for the door. "Will do, Sheriff Wallanby," Guidry said coolly.
But before the Sheriff left, he seemed to have one more little bout of energy. He looked from Harry to Guidry with subdued anger and distrust in his eyes. "I'll be in touch," he told them. And then he was out the door.
Guidry flopped back down to his chair grumpily, and immediately the Sheriff was gone, an arid cloud seemed to settle over the two of them, unbroken by speech. Harry hovered, petrified over the counter, hoping no customer would come in and have him snap out of his strange set of mind.
He knew that Guidry was angry and probably quite upset over having to lick the boots of such a disagreeable man as the Sheriff, maybe even thinking of a way to solve their problem or estimating what other hardships might arise in the future - but what was wrong with Harry?
All he could think of was how real everything seemed, and it appeared to him that he hadn't yet gained the dimension of everything due to the dreamy quality of his new reality. He felt detached from all he had seen, and things like this only seemed to snap him back to how precarious the situation was, how dangerous and how very, incredibly, sickeningly real it all was. He was putting himself, Guidry, and Mrs. Cormier, at-risk staying here. He felt the sudden urge to leave so as not to endanger them any further - but where would he go?
He was clueless, penniless, without real skill, a menace to the future and the entire wizarding community should he decide to approach them. And even if he did have the strength to leave the comfort of the Cormier's, how would he get home without their help? He needed to begin studying, trying to find his way back to his time and country.
That was the only real, plausible way to keep everyone out of danger and not find himself indigent when he set foot outside.
He looked back at Guidry, fuming, brooding, his dark brow deeply pulled in concern. He had the look of an adult, and Harry had never felt more like a child than he did then. After a few minutes with no new customers, Guidry gruffly commanded Harry to close up shop and stood from his chair, going upstairs with a dragging gait.
He didn't give Harry any instructions on how he should actually close everything up, so he did as best he could. He changed the sign on the door from Open to Closed; closed up the ledger with the information on all their clients and set it neatly on the desk together with the pen; swept the floor a little bit with a broom he found tucked away in the shadows, and looked around for anything else that he could do.
He sighed before realizing he had no idea what it actually meant to close up shop and went upstairs in search of Guidry, to ask him if he had done it properly, but when he crept up the stairs and found him in his usual stool, taking a deep drag from his cigarette.
He decided against talking to him due to the shadowy look on Guidry's face. Whatever was going on with him went far deeper than a visit from the Sheriff, and Harry wasn't all too keen on interrupting his ruminating. He tried to keep himself busy as best he could, itching to ask Guidry whether he could go downstairs to his workshop and look over his books, but he decided that today wouldn't be the day that he began his studies. Luckily, he didn't have much time to idle by because Mrs. Cormier arrived shortly after.
She looked weary but not as beaten down as she had in the afternoon. Her case seemed to weigh heavily on her, though, and halfway up the stairs, Harry rushed down to meet her and took it from her hands. "Ain't you a gentleman," she said with a smile. "Thank you, Harry, you can just leave that by the table," she told him, looking extremely grateful.
The moment she arrived upstairs, she took one look at Guidry, and her face fell. Guidry, in turn, looked up at her, noticing how tired she was, and they both seemed to contemplate each other with some unhappiness at the other's condition. "What happened?" Mrs. Cormier asked in a small voice, trying hard to keep her tone from being too grave but failing. "I'm making dinner," Guidry said gruffly, ignoring Mrs. Cormier's question. "Guidry Cormier, I am perfectly fine, and we both know it's my job to make dinner, so sit yo ass down and tell me what happened that justifies that look on your face," she said, clearly irritated. Harry had the feeling this hadn't been the first time that they had had a conversation of his nature. "Sorry for my language, sugar," she said, looking at Harry apologetically. "No worries," he replied awkwardly, feeling like a child caught witnessing a friend's parents fighting.
Guidry huffed and puffed, but he sat down and started to roll himself another cigarette as Mrs. Cormier left her bag in the room in the back and came outside, bringing out some vegetables from the pantry and starting to chop them up. "So, y'all gon' tell me what happened today?" She pressed, looking expectantly at both of them.
Guidry wouldn't meet her eyes, so she just focused her stare on Harry, who she probably knew to be the weaker one. "The Sheriff came," Harry blurted out. Guidry looked over at him with an expression of betrayal but said nothing. Mrs. Cormier's gaze snapped towards Guidry and immediately demanded what had happened, now not even bothering to pressure Harry on it. With some reluctance, Guidry narrated a very summarised overview of what had happened earlier that evening.
With each word, Mrs. Cormier seemed to bring down her knife harder and harder. Harry felt even more intrusive than ever. "Well, all's gonna be good, I'm sure," said Mrs. Cormier, but her tone didn't match up with her words, and she seemed to be thinking the exact opposite of what she said. "If that gotdamned cracker gon' sniff about then-" started Guidry. "Guidry!" Mrs. Cormier warned, turning to look at him gravely. "- then we gon' end up just like the Robinsons," he concluded with a defiant air, and though he seemed headstrong, his voice wavered as he pronounced the name. Mrs. Cormier held his gaze, her nostrils flaring, but she looked a combination between angry and on the verge of tears.
Harry had wanted to stay silent through the events, but now he felt an irresistible urge to know just what they were talking about. "Who are the Robinsons?" Harry asked in a weak voice. "I'll tell you who the Robinsons are," Guidry snarled, looking like he was about to break something. "Guidry, don't," Mrs. Cormier protested, but it was a half-hearted attempt, and she just turned back around to chop of her vegetables. Harry thought he had heard her voice break. "And why not? He oughta know who in the hell it is he dealing with here," Guidry said, looking like he was calming down. But the fury burning in his eyes remained strong as ever.
He looked back at Harry. "The Robinsons was a family that lived here, in this godforsaken town some years ago. Negroes," he clarified. "They ran a butcher shop - real grade A meat, considering the kinda crap that's to be found in this place. They mostly sold to black folks, you know - just the way things work, as you can imagine," he said matter-of-factly.
Harry understood the truth in his words but hadn't been able to picture that for himself. Even though they all lived together, it would make sense that there would still be different shops people, depending on their skin color, frequented. "But they gained a lot of popularity, got some things none of them other white butchers could get they hands-on, and the white folks got they panties all in a twist when they seen a bunch of negroes eating better 'an them," at that, Guidry gave a dry, humorless laugh. He looked into the fire as if remembering something particularly bitter and then went on with his story. "Any case, some white folks started buying from them. Once that first set of white folks bought from them, it seemed alluvem did.
Their business was booming, living they best life…." Guidry said sadly, and there was true regret in his tone. Harry felt sorry for having asked for the story, and he was even physically nervous to hear the rest of it. But he had to know. He felt it was important to take the dimension of the kind of thing that happened around here. "Happens that some kid, cousin of a white butcher around here or sumin like that, suddenly take sick to the stomach. Real sick. Throwin' up all night, liquid shittin' out everywhere, the works.
He says the last thing he ate was from the Robinson's. It might've passed, but then a whole wave of people come round, saying they got the same symptoms, feeling sick, saying that they had also bought from the Robinsons'. One of them that piece 'a work, Carmelita Lundelville; another the deputy's own son, friend a' the first boy that got sick.
You can imagine how people reacted. They snatched the Robinsons right from they beds, said they'd hold a trial… but ain't no law in this country gon' look kindly on a negro," he said. Harry watched his face almost melt as he told the story, and he felt deeply saddened, dreading whatever tragedy the story ended in.
His eyes occasionally flickered over to where Mrs. Cormier stood, expecting her to cut in during certain, very unsavory moments. Still, she kept her silence, slicing the vegetables dejectedly as if she'd rather be doing anything rather than taking part in the story Guidry was telling. "The charges was worse than just selling bad meat - all the black folks denied that they'd ever been sold bad meat, trying to help 'em, but that only made for the conclusion to be that the Robinsons was poisoning the white folks. Ruled it a hate crime and attempted mass murder. They hanged in the town square the day after they so-called 'trial,'" Guidry concluded bitterly and abruptly.
He looked emptily at the wooden surface of the table and then suddenly stood up, opened a tiny door on the pantry, and produced a bottle of some amber-colored liquor that Harry couldn't decipher since the bottle didn't have a label.
The smell of cooking aubergines and squash filled Harry's nostrils sweetly, but all he could think of was of those people's bodies hanging, their necks snapped under a hot sun, and an insufferable crowd hollering for their unjust deaths. "But they didn't do it, did they?" Harry asked through clenched teeth as Guidry poured himself a finger of amber liquid into a heavy, fancy-looking crystal glass. Guidry shook his head ruefully, but it was Mrs. Cormier that answered. "They were good people. The best kind," she said, finally turning away from her cooking and facing Harry with angry and hurt tears in her eyes. "They were your friends," Harry realized out loud, his voice small, his heart shrinking. This new world was a terror.
This new life was a nightmare, worse than anything he had ever seen, any vision that Voldemort had forced into his head. "In the future, none of this-" "I ain't want to know about the future!" Guidry grunted, bringing the bottle down hard on the counter. "There ain't no use thinking about the future when the present's all you get," he said bitterly, but there was a lot of meaning behind his words, and as he took a gulp of his drink, Harry thought that there might be something that the Cormiers might not be telling him. Something big.
Though they seemed open and kind enough, he couldn't help but feel like they kept their distance in a lot of ways. They kept their secrets, sure enough, but Harry wasn't sure if those secrets were ones that could hurt just yet. The rest of the dinner passed quietly, no more tears visible in Mrs. Cormier's eyes, Guidry looking like he was desperately craving another glass of liquor.
Harry didn't know why, but again he felt the urge to overstep his boundaries. "Why do you stay here?" He asked as they were finishing up, and he reckoned that the only reason they didn't take the question as an offense was that his tone was that of concern rather than judgment. "We can't leave," Mrs. Cormier told him, a haunted look in her eyes. Harry was taken aback by their reactions to the question.
They seemed almost afraid. Mrs. Cormier snapped out of her strange state of mind and looked at Harry, realizing she was acting frightfully weird. She checked herself and spoke before Harry could ask what she had meant. "That's to say, there ain't no other place to go, sugar. Life's tied up here, and I don't think there's a better place for people like us.
Still, we grateful," she said, taking Guidry's hand and holding it affectionately as if she were about to say grace. Harry was surprised to notice that they genuinely did look very grateful. But how could they be? How could these two incredibly strong, able, kind, and intelligent people be alright being subjected to live in a constant state of fear, with neighbors that would hang them in the town square the moment they had the opportunity? Harry couldn't even begin to comprehend it, but he also understood that it wasn't within his rights to be upset on their behalf.
He forced himself to swallow down the bitterness, the urge to run away anywhere but here getting stronger and stronger with each passing second. He wanted to close his eyes and be back home when he woke up, where people like Guidry and Mrs. Cormier were just in a history book.
It was horrible to think like that because they were real people, but he did feel some resentment towards them, unjustified and unfair, but they're all the same. He felt sick, the food settling awkwardly in his stomach. He was incredibly grateful when Mrs. Cormier took their dishes away with no great ceremony, and they all headed over to bed almost immediately with a few kind goodbyes. But Harry could never agree with any of this, and he felt completely at odds with the world he now lived in.