I do not own Harry Potter, the Wizarding World, or any canon characters.
Side Dishes
49th Course – Written Flavor
Takes place a few months after the 175th Course of Taste, after Lavender and Harry's wedding.
"Congratulations Rita!"
"Thank you, Dove!" Rita hugged Harry tightly, her smile from ear to ear. "If you ever told me I'd win the Golden Quill Award for my writing, and not because I blackmailed the committee, I'd say you were mad. But look at me now! Not only did I win it, I did it legitimately."
"You deserve it," Harry smiled. He tilted his head slightly. "Shouldn't you be celebrating with a giant party where you get to rub it into people's faces?"
She laughed merrily. "Oh you know me so well. I already did that at the official awards ceremony so all I want now is to celebrate in comfort. Which means here." She looked around the comfortably busy Hedwig's Hearth. Most of the tables were full, people were eating and chatting and laughing. Trays of delicious flood floated behind Julia and Willie as Henri and Nillie took orders from other guests. The bar had a few regulars sitting at it and Aberforth was behind the bar, shaking his head at a few of them as they argued about something.
She sighed happily as Harry put a plate before her. A small pie with golden brown crust sat on a platform of whipped mashed potatoes. A mound of roasted sprouts sat on one side and on the other, roasted carrots. He poured a thin brown gravy over the pie and it pooled lusciously over the potatoes. "This looks amazing," she said, smiling at him.
"Steak pie with an ale-based gravy," Harry said. "Whipped potatoes, roasted veg, and a glass of the same ale we use in the gravy."
"Scrumptious," Rita said through a full mouth, having taken a big bite of the pie and mash and gravy with a bit of the sprouts. She washed it down with a gulp of ale and looked and felt incredibly content. "Your food is the best."
She dug in and looked up at him. "So how's married life?" she smiled. "As if it's any different than how you two were before."
Harry laughed. "Well we have new jewelry," Harry said, admiring his wedding ring. "But you're not wrong. Not too different at all but it's amazing."
"Good! I'm glad."
"And we're settled back into work and stuff after getting back from our trip and I decided something."
"Oh?" Rita asked, raising an eyebrow.
Harry grinned. "It's time."
"Time for what? Or is this your joke about seasoning," Rita asked, looking down at her plate.
"There's a bit of thyme in the pie actually," Harry laughed. "But remember what I said about a little more than a year and a bit ago?"
Rita furrowed her brow in thought for a moment. "Hmm. Wait. Oh, oh!" She looked at Harry with wide eyes. "You better not be messing with me! Are you serious?"
"Very," Harry said. "If you're still interested of course-" He was cut off when Rita jumped and tackled him at the same time, whirling him around and laughing. His laughter joined hers and the other guests looked on with surprise and interest.
"You know, there was a time where I'd shudder at the sight of a happy Rita Skeeter," Bennets said, looking on from the bar.
"Same," Aberforth grunted.
-0-
"Oh wow, you really have been planning this for some time," Lavender smiled. She had come over to the Hearth after the Thread closed and Rita had taken over the back kitchen table. She had mounds of notes and piles of paper all over.
"I've just been waiting for permission," Rita smiled. "But I have been preparing for a while now. A recipe here and there. A moment written down. That sort of thing."
Pansy was there too and she was looking through some of the recipes. "I always thought cookbooks and recipe books to be rather odd," she said. "Why would cooks and chefs be so willing to share their secrets?"
"Just because you know how to make it, doesn't mean you can make it the same way," Aster said, bringing them a plate of dumplings to eat. "I still can't quite get things like Chef."
"You're fine," Harry said with a smile. "You're learning and getting better every day. Just like everyone here."
"Harry, you don't have to lie to her to spare her feelings," Pansy said, smiling at her little sister's scowl. Her smile turned into a coughing fit as she bit into a dumpling and was overwhelmed by flavored fire.
"Vengeance is spicy," Aster said smugly while the others laughed at Pansy's red face. "And don't you accuse me of trying to sabotage the Hearth! We're closed for service and I made sure to only spike yours!"
"Let's not do that at the Hearth at all unless it's mystery pie night or something special like that," Harry said, looking sympathetically amused and handing Pansy a rice ball.
"Yes Chef," Aster, Clover, and the rest of the Brigade that was still there chorused together.
"You're still a brat!" Pansy said, chewing furiously on the rice ball.
"Your face!"
"Your face!"
"Wow you really do just write down moments," Lavender giggled, watching Rita write in a notebook.
"Never know what'll come in handy," Rita nodded. "Right, so I've been doing a bit of research and the first thing we should establish is the book's tone." She smiled at Hedwig who barked musically. "Something like that, yes, thank you."
"Tone?" Pansy asked. She smiled at Hedwig who turned to her to continue her musical barking.
"Basically what kind of cookbook do we want people to read," Rita said. "You could go for the most straightforward of them: just recipes and techniques. While the most educational, not the most scintillating of things to read. Like a textbook essentially."
"People read textbooks for fun," Harry said. He sighed at the looks from the others. "Some can be fun."
Rita gave him a kindly pityingly look. "One day we can put out a techniques book-"
"You're already thinking of the second?" Pansy asked.
"I have plans for many," Rita said smugly. "But the first one to represent Harry and his skills and abilities has to pop, it has to draw attention and make people want more."
"So you want to make Chef more interesting?" Chloe asked.
"Yes and no. There's a difference between interesting and interested in," Rita said. "Interesting can sometimes mean doing something different or special to draw interest. Whereas interested in is using natural and normal behaviors and things to draw the reader in by their own volition. It's a fine line to write. Don't want to overdo or underdo."
"I'd like to say I'm pretty boring," Harry sighed as the others snorted and laughed at that, "but as others are so quick to correct me, I guess I'm not."
"You also don't want to turn them into memoirs with the occasional recipe," Rita said. "A lot of the books out there are like that and they're usually monuments to ego and are filled with tripe, and not the kind you eat."
"How do chefs view cookbooks?" Pansy asked.
"Chef Gabriel only looked at a few for a recipe idea and then never followed the recipe," Harry said. "He preferred to figure it out himself but if it was something he wasn't too familiar with, he'd look at a reference first. Chef Tony was the same way but he'd try the recipe as it was written first and then go from there. Chef Akari only looked at the recipe books or cookbooks from completely different cultures or things she wasn't familiar with already to see if she could use them. She liked technique books for the same reason. Chef didn't really care for cookbooks. Goblins have more of the reference style cookbooks, just the basics and things like that."
He grinned and pitched his voice a little. "Guy loves them, right?"
Guy snorted deeply. "I do," he said dryly, "when I have trouble sleeping and need aid in getting to sleep." He nodded at the others as he left and the others laughed as he did.
"So what kind of book do you want, Chef?" Clover asked eagerly.
Harry hummed softly. "I don't know," he said. "I don't mind sharing recipes, even my best ones. Good food deserves to be shared and like Aster said, other people making it won't be the same as me making it so I'm confident there."
"How about like your full course during the finale of the Rising Stars?" Lavender suggested. "Putting out your favorites and sharing why they are your favorites."
"That's a good idea," Rita nodded. "A nice little anecdote with each one, some pictures, and how they've changed through the years of your cooking."
"If you think that'd work," Harry said. "You're the writing expert."
"I do," Rita said confidently. "Your cooking, my writing, this is going to be a hit!"
-0-
For the next few weeks, Rita was an even more frequent visitor to the Hearth and to the Potter home. She already went to the restaurant multiple times a week as it was, but she became a daily visitor. Sometimes it was just a quick meeting with Harry and showing him something, others was to watch him cook as they talked. She came during prep times to take pictures of the finished plates made for the cookbook as well as action shots during opened hours.
One of the nights, she sat with Lavender in their home, going over some layout and compositions. Rita, also a firm customer of the Needy Thread, valued Lavender's eye for colors and design and she helped with how things looked in the page samples.
"Rita," Lavender said after they sat back and admired one of the spreads they worked on together.
"Yes?" Rita said, looking at her.
"How much backstory and history are you putting in?" Lavender asked slowly, giving the older woman a complicated look.
Rita sighed. "Don't worry, I know a little of what his so-called family members did to him."
"Oh." Lavender looked relieved and saddened in equal measure. "You do?"
Rita huffed unhappily. "Before the Finale of the competition, I asked Harry about something an acquaintance of mine said. The colleague knew I was friendly with Harry and had hoped I'd tell her what he meant. It had to do with what he said to Celine during the Gala and she asked the acquaintance who asked me."
Lavender nodded. While she had understood why Celine acted the way she did, and appreciated how much her attitude has improved in the years since, she still felt a twinge of displeasure regarding that night. "And what did you say?"
"After Harry shared with me, I told her that it was personal business," Rita said. "When she pressed, I told her to fuck off and if she kept pressing, I'd print some stuff about her past and see if she liked it." She laughed with Lavender. "And I won't write about it, unless Harry wants me to. That's no one's business save for his."
"Thank you," Lavender said gratefully.
"That said, if I ever had the opportunity to ruin them, I'd take it in a heartbeat," Rita said, eyes flashing. "Fucking hell. It's amazing Harry turned out the way he is with that kind of upbringing. Disgusting people!"
Lavender nodded, suppressing a growl. "I've tried to figure out where they are. Unfortunately, Harry told Hedwig to never take anyone there because he doesn't want trouble, for us, and that's something Hedwig will listen to Harry about even though she'd want revenge too. Sirius doesn't remember where and Professor Dumbledore hasn't told anyone either."
"Probably for the best," Rita sighed.
"Probably," Lavender sighed.
"'One doesn't eat with the help'," Rita said with deep disgust.
"I still can't decide if that was the worst one or not."
"How could something be worse than that?!" Rita asked, appalled.
Lavender looked at her friend and sighed even more deeply. "You know his beef stew?"
"I eat it once a week so very much so."
Lavender scowled. "His aunt told him it was a family recipe and it was his mother's favorite. Except it wasn't. It was a lie."
"I'm finding where that bitch is and slapping her in the face," Rita said in a cold voice but her eyes burned. "Won't even explain. Just find her and slap her. What the fuck?! I've said and written some cruel things but I can't think of one that's that close!"
"Some people don't deserve what they have or had," Lavender said, shaking her head. "And don't get what they do."
Rita guzzled his glass of wine and scowled as she refilled it. "Monster." She sighed and drained it again.
Lavender nodded in agreement. "That's why I'm thankful for him and make sure he knows how much we love and care about him."
"Damn straight," Rita said, tapping her glass against Lavender's.
-0-
"And that's almost all done," Rita said, looking on proudly as Harry paged through the sample copy. It was a large book with the pictures and words pinned into it or stuck to pages to show how it would look when everything was printed together.
"This is great!" Harry admired the layout of the pages and enjoyed the pictures she had selected to go with the words. He had already seen what she had written for each section and had approved of them with her. Now he was seeing the final layout and he liked it a lot.
"The only thing we need to decide on now is the name of the book. Normally one starts with that, but I haven't been able to decide on one. Sometimes it works fine because you come up with one by the end of writing but it's been a bit elusive for me," she said.
"Hmm," Harry hummed, looking up in the air. "I don't know either. I haven't really thought about it to be honest."
"Going simple isn't a bad thing for book titles. Harry's Home Cooking has a nice ring to it. It's straight and to the point. Sure catchy titles catch the eye a bit faster and are more memorable, but you can sort of stray into kitschy territory if you go too far into it."
"And there's stuff that's not just from the restaurant, so I don't suppose we should name it after that too," Harry mused.
"Save that for when we do the restaurant focused cookbook," Rita said with a wink and Harry snorted with good humor at that.
Harry looked through the pages. "There's a lot of my oldest and fondest recipes, aren't there?" he asked softly.
She nodded. "And I think it was good to include little stories and viewpoints from your friends and family with them. How they felt at the time of eating it, their thoughts and recollections. It feels like a nice homey book. Something you can reminisce and when you make the food, you can capture the taste and the feeling of the dish and the emotions around them."
"I have lived many years, far more than I care to spend the time counting," Harry read, a smile on his lips. "It is true what they say, that a sound or a taste or a smell can take you somewhere very far away in both space and time. Sometimes, it is a very strong feeling. Others, it is a gentle reminder. The first time I had this dish made by Harry was one of the strongest reactions I have ever had. It took me to a place I am quite fond of but have not been in some time, a little place up in the Alps, around a beautiful ice-cold lake that is as clear as glass. The ingredients are what anyone could see and have shown up in many dishes: cheese, potato, bacon, onion, salt and pepper. And yet, when cooked together, it made something truly magical and it was proof that one does not have to be from the place where the food originated from. What is truly important is that the maker has the belief and the intent of people who are experts in the cuisine."
"Perenelle has a way with words," Rita said fondly.
"She really does," Harry agreed. He looked up at her. "Say, how's this for a name?"
"Perfect," Rita said after he said it.
-0-
"Harry!"
"Hi Biblia!" He looked around the packed bookstore. "It's mad today! Having a special or something?"
"As if you don't know," she said, deeply amused.
"I don't know a lot of things," Harry said defensively.
Biblia laughed. "Come on then." She pulled him to the side and pointed.
Harry gaped at the giant pile of Hearth to Home there, right beside the counter. They had stacked the books in the shape of the sign of Hedwig's Hearth and there were more around it, but the books were steadily being taken away, picked up by the crowd. People were already reading it in line, pointing at pictures and making exclamations of delight over it.
"You're kidding," he said, looking at Biblia with shock.
"Seeing is believing my friend!" Biblia beamed. "We had enough pre-orders and reservations to fill the biggest shipping crate we order and good thing we ordered several of them because we're selling even more! I told you! I told you location is everything and you'd have a best seller."
"I can't believe it," Harry laughed.
"Everyone's so proud of you," she smiled. "Your restaurant is world-renowned and you've led the way for our culture and growth. So of course they wanted a look into your work and history and learn more about you, and appreciate you all the more."
"That's incredible," Harry said with wonder.
"We already ordered a second shipping from the next printing," Biblia said smugly. "And you'll get a cut of the profits." She giggled at his look of confusion. "A portion of it is going to a separate 'eat at the Hearth' a lot fund for all the employees here."
Harry laughed. "You'll all get a discount," he said with a big smile. "I may not be a full-time employee at Gringotts anymore, but we Diagon folk take care of our own, no matter where we are, right?"
"You know it!" She hugged him warmly. "At least, until you open a branch on Diagon," she teased. "Then it'll go double." Her laughter joined his, adding to the merriment in the air within Flourish and Blotts.
-0-
"Congratulations!" Harry smiled.
Rita hugged him mightily. "I told you. I told you! Bestseller Harry! You and me!"
"Are you going to try and convince him to do a second soon?" Chloe smiled.
"No, we deserve to rest for a bit. That and if you put out too much too fast, you increase expectation and lower the quality. Always leave them wanting more," Rita said confidently. "The only thing I'm going to convince him to do right now is to feed me much tasty food."
"Not too hard to do that," Harry smiled.
"No it isn't," Rita said lovingly.
-0-0-0-
AshokaTheGreat - It's fun exploring the vampires and see how they are and act.
mike3308 - That he did.
Hands Off MY Wolfie - That would be the best use of magic, getting tasty food. I think that makes sense for this Harry, he's a people person and genuinely likes people for the most part. Hedwig is definitely legendary. Thanks for reading.
odonnellzoo99 - Right? Anthony has cause for worry though. Glad you liked the parallel.
TheSphynx - Nope. Each for a specific use.
DOOOOOOM Lord of Waffles - Those two definitely have reason to have one and would actually use them too. Year of the Snake yes, never learned about the elemental part so unsure about that.
alix33 - It's nice that they got food they liked, right?
poka - Indeed. And it was good seeing Edwina and her line again. It's fun surprising people, even other vampires.