A golden flicker blurred past Jamie's head.
A high-pitched chittering that had no business accompanying tea was carried in on the salty sea breeze. Harry had not been exaggerating, it seemed, about the fairies' peculiarities. She would need to adapt, should she be visiting as regularly as she’d prefer.
Below, Jamie lunged, fingers closing on the golden ball. Or perhaps not. He'd missed once again. The fairy darted higher, clutching the Snitch, as its fellows joined in on a chorus of taunting squealing, pirouetting as they bobbed in the air. Charming.
"That's my Snitch, you thieving little—" Jamie's voice cracked mid-shout as he stumbled into a gorse bush. Puberty. That, she certainly did not miss.
Sirius had already packed it in. He lay spreadeagled on the lawn, chest heaving, one arm flung across his eyes. "Just… let them have it, mate," he got out between gasps.
"Never!" Jamie was scrambling out of the gorse now, thorns catching at his robes and yellow flowers tangled in his hair. They could still be cute, really, when the little beasts weren’t busy making absolute menaces of themselves.
Father's laugh rolled across the terrace, deep and unguarded — one she’d never heard outside the family.
She glanced across the table. Fleamont had a smirk on his face as he watched the boys over the rim of his teacup, Euphemia sat beside him, tittering into her hand. Her mother looked on rather stoically, though Narcissa caught the hint of a twist at the corner of her mouth.
She picked up her cup. Heavier than expected. It was rather queer, not at all the thin, fine bone china she was used to. It was thick, rustic even. The rim was glazed in a rich, almost tar-black band, which bled down the body in an uneven brown marbling. Beneath it was an animated Oriental design: bold, sweeping indigo-blue crests rising and falling, one after another, rolling like a restless sea. A large black catfish with long whiskers poked its head up between the rolling waves, blinking slowly as it looked around. The cup grew heavier on that side; she tilted against the creature's mass to maintain the cup's balance.
Bergamot rose with the steam. She took a sip. Just the right temperature. Whimsy seemed a particularly competent elf, and a far sight more pleasant than Kreacher had ever been.
The wrought iron chair beside her creaked, Harry shifting. He was close enough that if she leaned even slightly, their shoulders would brush. The small, round table had forced them together. There was barely room for the service between them. Iron armrests, not polished mahogany. There was no full service arranged to maintain proper margins between the parties. Her mother was right there, gaze checking on them with regularity.
She carefully placed the cup back onto a cast iron trivet resting on the table—clunk. She glanced over at him. He was taking a sip. The catfish on his cup was floating in the waves with its eyes closed, snoring. Harry glanced at her and she looked back down. The stare of the upside-down catfish met her gaze, one eye blinking sluggishly. Then the other. Well then.
Her father held his cup in both hands, tilting his head to the side with wide eyes and a slight smile as he looked down at it. The catfish pressed to the rim. He chuckled and gave the cup a quick spin. The catfish's eyes went very round. It shot around the cup, whiskers streaming.
He's going to be at this all afternoon.
“Bollocks!”
She looked back toward her cousins. Sirius hadn’t moved, but Jamie had. He was bent over, face pressed into the sod, backside high in the air. "It seems the boys are unlikely to win this game of keep-away."
Harry's mouth pulled up at one side. That boyish smirk. Her cheeks warmed. Lips twitched. Her face, it seemed, had its own opinions, and was not consulting her.
"The game's rigged. They've been training on Whimsy for weeks now. I suppose the blighters see just about anything that’s not nailed down as fair game. Wingless and wandless, I don't much like the boys’ chances." He raised his voice. "I’ve got a spare snitch if you’re ready to pack it in, James!"
"A Potter never gives up!" Jamie surged to his feet, a broad grass stain across his cheek.
To her other side, Andi had her elbows resting on the iron surface, leaning forward to watch the chaos below, a wide, toothy smile on her face. Her mother's left eye would be twitching if she noticed, but fortunately her attention was focused elsewhere — her gaze sweeping the courtyard, travelling up the cliffs beyond, across the grey waters that stretched to the horizon. That was her mother. Ever taking stock.
The Snitch, startled loose from a fairy that had misjudged its grip, shot upward into a tight spiralling arc, streaking toward the terrace. It ricocheted off Fleamont's cup with a sharp ping, sending a neat arc of tea across his face, and vanished over the balustrade.
Euphemia touched her own chin. "Dear, you seem to have something, just there."
"Ah, so I have." Fleamont regarded the tea dripping across his shirtfront with interest, then returned to watching the boys in the courtyard, taking a sip.
Narcissa looked back to her own cup. A faint damp ring clung to the trivet that she couldn't account for. The catfish had retreated to the far side, the indigo waves still running a touch choppy. She took the cup back in hand, feeling it wobble slightly.
"It really is quite remarkable. A place like this, sealed for centuries, so married to the environment…" Her mother’s words trailed off as she looked at Harry, expression perfectly interested and polite.
"Indeed, a most impressive estate, Harry." Father leaned in, the laughter lines around his eyes on display as he smiled broadly. "Though, I daresay, I don't see the Snidgets as half so much a burden now."
Her mother's eyebrow twitched. Father's smile briefly turned wooden, and he shifted in his seat, his shin having found her mother's boot, apparently. "Yes, very true. Though, I imagine maintaining all this is rather more than one young lord can manage alone, even one as accomplished as yourself."
Always so mortifying. Subtle as Bella trying out a new curse.
She studied her teacup. The catfish had drifted to the far side, the indigo crests undulating steadily. A stray leaf fragment floated in the amber liquid, catching the afternoon light. How interesting.
The cup tugged hard, to the side. She tightened her grip.
"It is a fair bit of work," Harry said easily. "Between the main house, the grounds, the greenhouse, and the residents—" He gestured towards the courtyard where Jamie was now attempting to negotiate with the fairies, a chocolate frog held forward in his open palm.
There was a pause. Her mother, regrouping, no doubt.
Mother reached for her teacup, lifting it to her mouth. Her brow furrowed as the teacup quavered mid-sip. A catfish surfaced on the cup, peering up at her mother, who pursed her lips as she set the cup back down. There was a small rattle as the catfish bellyflopped back beneath the waves.
"—Registration Act's coming up, though, after that Prophet piece..." Fleamont's voice carried across the table. "Charlus says he might not even need to fight it. Half the fence-sitters won't touch it now."
"I'll admit, I was rather shocked when I read the details." Father's voice. "Public registry, employment bans, reclassification as creatures..." He shook his head. "Yaxley burying that sort of thing in the fine print—unacceptable. I'd have been open to discussing reasonable oversight, but this?" He set his cup down with some force. "An utter waste of the Wizengamot's time."
"But hounding werewolves and muggleborns is far more exciting than mending the Floo Network’s patchy connection around Cardiff, I imagine." Euphemia's voice was as sweet as always. "You boys in the Wizengamot must have your fun, after all."
Fleamont snorted into his cup.
"Indeed," Father said, the word carrying a familiar weariness.
Narcissa's gaze drifted to Andi. Her sister's fingers had gone flat against the table.
Andi hadn't moved. That pinched look around her eyes. She always had possessed a bleeding heart.
Andi's fingers started drumming. Four taps, pause, four taps. Her gaze drifted toward the glass structure across the courtyard.
The cup pulled in Narcissa’s grip. She compensated, tilting back against it.
"Lord Peverell," Andi said. Loudly. Narcissa winced, glancing at her mother.
Harry turned. "Harry, please."
"Harry." Andi's smile didn't quite reach her eyes. "That greenhouse. The one you mentioned at dinner… You said you’d sealed it back up after your, ah, run-in with the Tentacula?"
“Straight away.” He nodded. “I’m in no hurry to repeat the experience.”
“How long had it been sealed? Before that, I mean.”
“Centuries, as best as I can tell. The whole estate. The greenhouse itself must’ve been hermetically sealed the entire time.”
"Sealed." Andi's drumming stopped. "So whatever's inside—"
"Has been evolving in complete isolation."
"How fascinating." Andi leaned forward. And there she goes. The Herbology madness, rearing its head.
"I don't suppose—" Andi began, then stopped. Her eyes flicked to their mother.
Druella's expression hadn't shifted from its pleasant neutrality.
"If your parents agree, you're welcome to catalogue it. I'd appreciate someone competent taking stock before I dare venture into my own greenhouse once more." He smiled at Andi, who miraculously was restraining herself from vibrating out of her seat. "I've already arranged for Professor Thornberry to come out and do an initial survey. I’m sure he'll handle any eldritch horrors that may have taken root in my arboretum."
Her mother's chin lifted, just slightly. Her gaze moved to Harry. The furrows between her brows had smoothed.
"Thornberry." Father looked up from his cup entirely, pausing the resumption of his investigation. "From Hogwarts? I know that man. Andromeda, he was your professor, wasn't he?"
"Fourth through seventh year."
"Remarkable teacher. Truly one of Hogwarts’ finest." Father's hands had opened, reaching out to drop his hand on Andi’s shoulder. "You know, my girl received an Outstanding in Herbology — Outstanding. Thornberry told me himself he hadn't seen anyone as gifted as her in years. Had the talent ever since she was small. Born to it, you might say. I'd come home to find whatever she was propagating that week had staged a full occupation of the windowsills. Peonies, mostly, wasn’t it, my little sprout?"
Andi's chin had come up with the praise, only to drop and turn away as he went on. A bright colour bloomed along her cheekbones. Narcissa couldn’t stop the wide grin.
Her mother's hand reached forward. On her cup, the catfish had surfaced — one eye above the rim, watching. She put her hand back down.
"Well." Her mother's eyes moved from the cup to Father, lips pressed together, brows gathered — a sigh and a smile, warring as they always did when Father’s unrestrained love of his girls was on display. Then her gaze paused on Harry, before finally settling on Andi, face softer than it had been all afternoon. "If Professor Thornberry is supervising, I imagine it would be a worthwhile use of your time."
Andi’s exhale was audible, if only just.
Narcissa felt the catfish circling the cup, the heavy weight rotating slowly but rather manageably if she only loosened her wrist.
"It really is a considerable undertaking." Her mother looked at Harry again. "The estate, the sanctuaries, researchers coming and going. The practical management of it all must be rather difficult to keep on top of."
Fleamont smiled widely, opening his mouth, the familiar Potter look dancing in his eyes. Then he hissed, hand going to his side, eyes watering.
“Poor dear, have you pulled something? Age must be catching up with you.” Euphemia reached over, rubbing his back with the look of faux-concern the woman wore so well. One must keep one’s man in line. She had heard often enough in the women’s circle. So, she supposed this was just the natural order of things.
Harry’s gaze had been pulled to the Potter’s, concern clear on his face, but seeing that all was in hand, he turned back to her mother, nodding, even as his brows furrowed slightly.
"You're not wrong, I've been meaning to find someone good with numbers and estate management. A proper steward. Three sanctuaries won't manage themselves. Permits, habitat coordination, keeping the griffins from snatching up too many of the mooncalves. And that’s not including all that needs done to get the estate back in proper order."
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
"Three sanctuaries?" Euphemia paused her ministrations of her husband’s back. “Are you starting a Menagerie, Harry?”
"I’m afraid it’s become one all on its own." The corner of his mouth pulled wryly. "Which is why I keep telling myself I'll hire help, then get distracted by something else buzzing about."
Andi cleared her throat and leaned forward. "I might know someone worth considering." The particular evenness Andi used when she'd been thinking something through.
"He works in accounting. At Grunnings and Thrush. Excellent with complex systems. Very organized, and good with people, too."
Narcissa's fingers went still around her cup, knuckles going white. Her eyes shot to her mother.
The catfish drove hard into the rim. She felt it an instant before she registered the tilt. The whole cup lurched, the indigo waves pitching steep and close, cresting against each other. Tea surged up the interior wall, the surface tension of the liquid just keeping it from spilling over. She clenched it tightly with both hands, pulling back.
"His name is Ted Tonks." Andi's fingers were splayed as she pressed her hands against the tabletop, leaning forward. "He's been helping me work through some mathematical models for growing conditions. He'd be quite good at coordinating permits and scheduling." She paused, taking a breath, looking around.
Her mother's cup sat on the trivet silently. Then it began to shake, the trivet almost quaking. A spray of tea splashed along the porcelain rim. She reached down with both hands, trying to hold the cup in place. It didn’t work. The rattling began to pick up.
“Alfie, my lad, that’s quite enough from you.” Harry’s voice was firm, but not unkind. The catfish peered up at Harry. A moment passed, the rattling abating but refusing to cease. Harry arched a brow. The creature bobbed its head and submerged, the cup going still.
"I'd be happy to meet with him. If he's willing, have him send an owl. Anyone you vouch for is worth a conversation at the very least."
Andi's hands uncurled from the table.
"Of course," Harry continued, "the retraction probably makes the whole matter rather less fraught. Convenient, that."
Her mother's gaze moved to Harry. Resting on him. "Yes." She paused. "Very convenient. One might almost think someone had taken an interest in ensuring the record was corrected."
"I suppose one might." His expression stayed pleasant. "Though perhaps the writer simply realized the story didn't hold up under scrutiny and retracted it out of a sense of journalistic integrity."
Her father guffawed. Her sentiments, precisely. Her mother regarded Harry for a few moments longer. Then she smiled. “Yes, perhaps so.”
Across the courtyard, Jamie was still negotiating with the fairies. The golden ball glinted between tiny fingers, held just out of reach. Sirius had rejoined the effort, offering up a handful of Bertie Bott's as tribute. It looked like an accord had been reached, then the lead fairy ate the bean. Moments later, it was chittering in a fashion she suspected was most impolite.
Earwax, perhaps?
"Think the fairies will return it?" Narcissa asked.
Harry followed her gaze. "Eventually. They're mischievous, not cruel. I’ve no doubt they'll give it back once they've exhausted their fun."
Her mouth began to pull upward. She caught it before it became a smile.
The corners of his eyes creased. Drat, he’d seen. It was the same look he’d shown at their first meeting at the Black Estate when she’d demanded he elaborate. Pleased to see her lose her composure. The man was a menace.
"Andromeda," Father said, drawing her attention back, "if you're serious about that greenhouse, you'll need equipment. Reference texts, specimen jars, preservation supplies. The works!"
"I have most of it," Andi said quickly. “And Professor Thornberry offered access to some of his rarer texts, if ever I needed them.”
"Did he now?" Father's smile broadened. "Well, I'm not surprised! The man knows talent when he sees it. I daresay you were his finest student in two decades!"
"He said that, actually."
"Haha! Of course he did! The man isn’t blind, now is he?"
Druella watched. The set of her mouth eased, minutely.
The wind picked up, rattling the vines along the manor's grey walls. Harry gestured toward the eastern boundary, explaining mooncalf breeding cycles to the Potters. Andi leaned forward, firing questions. Whimsy appeared with fresh tea, the pot floating gently to refill cups. Father's laugh — that booming "Haha!" — rang across the terrace.
Her mother cautiously stirred her tea before picking the cup up. There wasn’t a splash nor a rattle. It seemed Alfie was behaving.
Narcissa looked at her own cup. The catfish had slipped beneath the waves. Only the indigo crests remained, rising and falling. She traced the rim with her thumb, feeling where tar-black bled into brown.
She'd been resisting the weight all afternoon. She loosened her grip. The cup settled into her palm, evenly balanced. Then the slightest of tugs, pulling her to the side, just an inch.
Their shoulders met.
She did not move away. Neither did he.
Below, Jamie's final negotiation succeeded. The fairy released the Snitch with a reluctant squeak, accepting three chocolate frogs and a sickle. Sirius pumped his fist, no doubt already plotting how to steal it all back.
Euphemia caught her eye, glancing meaningfully from Harry to her. She lifted her cup in a tiny salute, its catfish swimming lazily around the rim.
Narcissa looked down at her own cup to escape the knowing look.
The catfish had surfaced too. Looking from Harry to her. It blinked, then slowly submerged beneath the waves. After it was gone, bubbles continued to come to the surface.
She smiled.
He smiled.
Folding the parchment once, he tucked it into his breast pocket. Done. Five weeks of paperwork, two rounds of verification, one rather stiff interview with a mandarin who’d examined his field methodology like a wizard who’d been handed a rubber duck. Now, he was, officially, a Fellow of the Institute of Arcane Antiquities.
Again.
Turns out the membership dues were considerably more reasonable in 1972. Mint.
He straightened his tweed jacket and turned from the registry office. His footsteps rang off the stone. Pre-Norman metalwork on the right. A bridle bit and a pair of corroded sceattas he'd once spent three days arguing over the provenance of. Garton-on-the-Wolds, piece of piss.
He turned left.
High vaulted ceilings. Display cases running the length of the walls. Bobbing beeswax candles that were doing their best at illuminating the displays. Poorly, as ever.
He glanced at the case as he passed. He recognized the shoulder of a Late Geometric pithos on the left, its painted horses plodding their eternal circuit.
And a Corinthian amphora beside it. The sphinx on the register had its eyes half-shut, neck tilted toward the afternoon light coming through the far window. The idle sod had been having a lie-in for millennia.
And then — oh. That krater was new. In a manner of speaking.
Attic red-figure. Wide-mouthed. The Phaeacian court covered the full body, the whole lot of them properly going for it. The king's head thrown back as his body was shaking. Courtiers were weaving between each other, cups up. A gangly figure was flailing about at the far edge. Dancing, probably. Ah, no. Falling, it seemed. A warrior by the rim accepted a cup, drinking, downing it in a single pull, before throwing it to shatter on the ground.
And there, among the gifts on the painted shore, stood a guest. Wild black hair.
Harry leaned forward, catching that particular scent from the case. Dry clay, faint iron. A year out of the war, and he’d been held together mostly by… well, hardly held together at all, really. He’d had nowhere particular to be on a Tuesday.
He'd come here.
Moving on, he looked around the hall.
He spied the door ajar off the east corridor. A cheeky look wouldn’t hurt.
The same long table. Five chairs along the far side. Someone's notes spread at the near end.
His palms had been sweating, sitting there. Desktop cool, the grain rough under his forearm.
— Nauthiz. Isa. Jera. Hagalaz. Isa —
Still kept him from sleep some nights, the sequences unending.
A penannular brooch set on the table between them. Hammered silver. The pin worn smooth at the tip. Pictish, for sure. Second century? The knotwork grammar on terminals placed it north of the Forth.
They’d scratched away at their parchment without looking up. Terrifying, that.
He’d passed, somehow.
Not one of them had asked about the scar. Or the war. Or any of the rest of it. Though, there apparently had been a rather spirited debate between Sowilo and Sigel. He never was consulted.
He’d come back the next day. And the day after.
It’d taken three years of fieldwork, site reports, and self-built credibility. No amount of prophecies or Witch Weekly’s Most-Charming-Smile awards let him jump the queue. This time, five weeks and the Gask Ridge report saw the job done.
Maybe next time it’d be sorted with same-day turnaround.
He moved on, rolling his shoulders. Shoulder. Hers. The warm, soft—
He shook his head.
Sort yourself, you great bellend.
The memory had been at him since yesterday afternoon the way a tongue finds a loose tooth — not on purpose, just whenever his mind went somewhere unguarded. The cup had nudged her toward him. She'd leaned. She hadn't shifted back, just stayed against him.
And neither had he. Hadn't shifted. At all.
Idiot.
She's seventeen. You're twenty-four.
Eighteen next month.
...Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant, Potter. You complete and utter—
He sighed and walked on.
Halfway down the corridor, a painted panel hung between two display cases. Flat figures, with no shadow to them. Archaic work, the paint solid and even, every figure outlined in black. It was a shore scene. A young woman, her companions’ robes billowing as they fled inland. There was a man kneeling at the waterline, head bowed.
As Harry watched, she shifted her weight, looking down at him with her arms crossed.
Fair hair, loosely pinned. Full, pouty lips. Shoulder exposed. He kept watching.
Seconds passed.
Her eyebrow climbed slowly. Brilliant, he was standing there, gawping like an absolute muppet. He’d end up having a reputation with the Homeric lot at this rate.
“Ah… Just watching the waves, is all.”
The corner of her mouth pulled up.
He cleared his throat and looked away. Loads of interesting art here.
The afternoon came back.
Not the shoulder. Before that. The Daughter-of-the-House-of-Black act slipping, for just a moment. That had been the problem, really. Narcissa Malfoy, defier of the Dark Lord, still the girl whose ears went pink.
The corridor opened into the main library hall.
The shelves went up past the galleried walkways, past where the ladders ran out, and kept going. Harry had never found the ceiling. Wasn't sure there was one. He'd never met anyone who was.
A volume was making its way along the upper gallery railing, going wherever it was going, in no particular hurry.
"—I said Samnite, and Samnite goes in the Italic collection, not—"
The trolley wasn't listening. It hauled steadily toward the Etruscan cases, and the archivist went with it, boots squeaking across the flagstones, both hands locked on the handle.
On the landing gallery, a portrait of a woman — sharp-faced, mid-sentence — was jabbing a finger at the empty frame beside her. Whoever had been in it had gone elsewhere.
There was a fresco fragment on the wall beside the stack’s exit. Roman, first century, Campanian red ground. A man on a rocky shore with his back to the sea, looking inland. The island rose behind him. The painted surf moved.
Harry walked past it.
The restricted stacks were something else. Dimmer.
Three rows over, a researcher he didn't recognize was reaching for a volume. The shelf scrabbled up, just out of reach. He stood on his toes, leaning forward. The stack leaned away. He turned for the ladder. It rattled down the stack and careened around the corner.
Harry’d seen this before. He’d spent a solid hour on it, absolutely certain he was looking in the right place. Turns out, he’d been playing a game of piggy in the middle the whole time.
Right. To work.
The grimoire had been sitting on his shelf for weeks. He still couldn’t properly read the bloody thing. The standard linear variety of Old Ogham was already a pain in the arse. This was prestandardization. He could translate it. Sort of. With enough lexicons and grammars to crush a man beneath them.
Not that it was much help.
What he’d managed to cobble together looked like English, but was hardly more legible than before. Archimedes Lovegood had called it. Enchantment theory. And not the Beginner’s Guide to Crafting Hallows that he’d hoped for. The thing read like a dissertation on quantum mechanics when he'd only just got round to long division.
Maybe… Another time.
He moved into the enchantment theory rows.
Thaumaturgical Binding pulled out easily, its spine well-worn. He opened it.
'The classification of self-sustaining enchantments must first account for the distinction between passive and active permanence—'
He shelved it.
The Animated Book of Animations went past on the shelf above, shuffling sideways.
Foundations of Relic-Craft, the Whitmore edition. He cracked it open.
'—the anchoring matrix, when correctly oriented to the object's crafting intent, will resist entropy at a rate proportional to the complexity of the original working—'
Now we’re getting somewhere. He kept it.
Warding the Wardens sat at the end of its row. The books beside it were keeping their distance. He kept his.
Further along, a slim leather-backed notebook with a blank spine and only ‘I. Loew’ written on the title page.
'NB: Whitmore is wrong about the anchoring matrix. See Gaultier's objection p.34 — the decay rate compounds. His formula doesn't account for it.'
Jackpot. Someone's personal notes, gone through with a pen and a grievance. He flipped a few pages. The acidic commentary continued. Detailed, specific, occasionally rude about Whitmore personally.
The grimoire could’ve done with some footnotes as well. At this point, he'd have more luck with a cup of Trelawney's builder's. He tucked the journal under his arm. S’pose this’d have to do. Not like he could go back and root around for a companion guide.
He'd gone back to Brodgar on Tuesday, the cavern still as he left it. Scrying charms. Divining rods. Rune arrays. They’d all turned up the same thing. A fat lot of sod all.
Still, the grimoire was real. The encrypted notes were real. The galleons were real. Though, serial numbers from a mint run that hadn't happened yet. He was left with just breadcrumbs, really.
They’d have to do.
The memory surfaced while he was moving back through the stacks.
Druella had taken the chair by the east window. Back straight, hands folded, voice going pleasant and unhurried.
Certain things were simply expected, Lord Peverell. Families such as ours understood these things.
He'd have had an answer for that. Could've done, easily. Except Narcissa had gone very still beside him, looking at her teacup, and her ears had gone that particular rosy tint, and apparently that had been that.
Cygnus hadn't needed much after. Hand on the shoulder, the warm laugh. Arm out, enjoying the full tour, and wasn't it all just very natural.
Extraordinary bones in this east wing, Harry — you really must let Narcissa show you the grounds at Black-upon-Avon properly, she knows every inch of it by now.
And he didn't know if he could go back home. Didn't know, increasingly, whether it mattered to him. Where home even was. Whether the Narcissa he'd known — who never once sat with her back to a door — was the same person as the girl who'd gone scarlet when Cygnus called her his little scholar in front of company.
He rounded the last stack toward the exit.
The fresco stopped him.
He'd walked straight past it on the way in. Campanian red ground, first century, and he'd just not clocked it. A rocky shore, fruit trees swaying on the slope behind, leaves turning. A spring gurgled somewhere in the background. A dwelling, its door standing open.
A figure stood at the waterline, the surf coming in around his feet and pulling back out, coming in and pulling back out. He turned his head, away from the waves, looking off the right edge of the frame.
Harry's gaze followed.
The Ithaca panel hung by the scriptorium. Late Archaic, possibly transitional. The figures had that slightly stiff quality, an artist caught between two conventions. A shore. A figure stepping out of the surf and looking inland, water still moving behind him, smoke going up from somewhere off the left edge. A woman in the middle distance, her head turned toward the water.
The Calypso man was looking across the room. At her.
Harry stood there, books under his arm.
Yes, alright. Very good. Top marks.
He walked on.
Hoo-poo-poo. Hoo-poo-poo.
He looked up. The hoopoe stood on its clock and bowed. Two o'clock. He adjusted the books under his arm and moved back toward the main floor.
Andi was still home. Not burned off the tapestry or run off and eloped. Could be it wouldn’t go that way at all. Ted Tonks, his potential estate steward, introduced at tea by a girl who'd pressed her hands flat to the table to stop them shaking. Who’d gone red to her hairline at Cygnus’ call of my little sprout.
Druella's mouth had rippled oddly, not settling into anything he knew. Reminded him of how Andi looked at Teddy when he got into mischief. Too cute by half.
Golden vertical pupils. Whiskers. A face of tortoiseshell fuzz.
Uncle Harry! Look, Uncle Harry, look! I’m Mrs. Pickles!
Edward Remus Lupin, put Philomena down this instant!
Hehehe!
Teddy? Sorry, Andi. I’m afraid I’ve not seen him.
Hehehe!
Hmm? No, I can't say that I hear the curtain giggling at all.
He'd stopped walking.
He glanced at his watch. Half two.
Righto. This temporal whatnot isn’t going to sort itself, now, will it.
Maybe Teddy'll have his mum and dad this time round.
Harry moved on. His feet did, anyway.
He was halfway across the main floor when someone at the far reading table caught his eye.
Bracken tweed herringbone, ink smudged across the left cuff. The table buried in documents, a reference volume propped open against a second. The man’s left hand found the quill without looking up, the nib turning in his fingers. A familiar figure-of-eight.
The hair was redder. Considerably less of the beard, too. The face was thirty years younger, but the set of the shoulders was right. The slight forward lean. The way his leg bounced in place.
Harry stood there, books pressed tight against his ribs.
"Duncan."