The best kind of friend is the kind you can sit on the porch swing with, never say a word ...
It was nearly seven, but Mira wasn’t overly fussed. She had known Harry a long time now, and the likelihood that he would be on time was slim to nil. He was especially terrible at getting himself out of the office at the end of the day - regardless of the promise of food.
Nate’s lips curled into a smirk as he leaned in the doorway and spied Mira looking contemplatively into her closet. “What does one wear on a date with the Boy Wonder you think, Cass?”
“Well, if she listened to me it would be something that at least showed off some leg or cleavage, but Mira gets upset when I suggest she and Harry are north and south-bound trains on Shag Highway, headed for a collision,” Cassie replied with a grin. Mira was determinedly oblivious to her attraction to her former boss, and his to her.
“In that case,” Nate said as he stepped into the room, “you should wear this.” He reached over Mira’s shoulder into her closet and pulled out the black dress he’d spied. It was tiny. He grinned. “This seems appropriate for Shag Highway.”
Mira snatched the little dress out of his hands and turned her back to him to stick it back in her closet. “I have no idea what you both are on about,” she said loftily. When Harry had asked her to dinner at the beginning of the week, she’d thought nothing more of it than him finally following up like he always told her he would.
Ever since she’d told Cassie and Nate of her change of plans for Friday evening, however, they’d both been bound and determined to see it all for more than it really was. They just didn’t know Harry like she did. He didn’t see her like that.
“We’re just friends,” she said, not for the first time, as she pulled out one of her favorite cashmere cardigans, “and we’re probably just going to a pub. Plus,” she turned and faced them both, “I haven’t worn that dress in ages and it probably doesn’t fit anymore.” She stuck out her tongue.
“If you mean it’s probably ‘too small’, then it’s perfect,” Nate said, blue eyes twinkling.
Cassie snorted. Mira hadn’t gained an ounce since school. “It fits fine. It’s barely even risque and it looks amazing on you.” Nodding toward the jumper in her twin’s hands, she added, “That looks nice on you, but it’s hardly designed to induce a man to snog you.”
“Good thing then,” she said, “because that’s not on tonight’s itinerary.” Mira ignored the flutter in her chest at the idea of snogging Harry. As she’d told her twin and cousin, she and Harry were just friends. She knew the very idea of snogging her would just make him uncomfortable - which was why she firmly pushed such thoughts from her mind. She valued his friendship too much to ever mess it up with some silly schoolgirl crush that would likely pass soon anyway.
That Cassie, and now Nate, had constantly felt the need to infer all the things her dinner with Harry wasn’t - like a date, with snogs, and other things - made it a little more difficult to not think about it all though.
She eyed the two then. “Shoo. I have to change.”
Nate flicked his wand and the tiny black dress flew into his hand - which he tossed at Mira again. “Be a tease, cousinmine. It’s fun,” he said with a toothy grin before snatching Cassie around the middle and pulling her from the room with him.
The door shut before Mira could say anything else. She could hear Cassie giggling though, and the ruckus they made as they tumbled back down the stairs made her roll her eyes.
A tiny smile curled her lips as she slipped into a pair of denims; they were annoying and loud, and she knew they were going to make a scene when Harry came to pick her up, but she was glad they were there - she was glad Nate was there. He was alive. Cassie was happier than Mira had seen her in a long time. She couldn’t begrudge them.
They were lucky she was feeling soft, else she might have felt the need to exercise her knowledge of charms on them. Mira giggled to herself as she pulled a small tank over her head, slipped on a pair of flats, and then grabbed her pink sweater before bounding down the stairs after them.
*~*~*~*
The week hadn’t gone fast enough, crawling at a snail’s pace toward Friday, but once it had arrived, it’d passed by in a blur. Harry was almost positive that Aaron super-loaded his schedule on purpose in an attempt to frustrate him. Every time he’d glanced at the clock it seemed like several hours had passed, and before he’d even realized it, it was 7:20. He was late. Late late.
His quill flew over the remaining forms he needed to sign off on, not even pausing to skim what he was approving or denying. He’d worry about it later.
Harry’s foot tapped a heavy rhythm on the floor as he waited for the lift to get to the atrium. It seemed to stop at every floor in between the second and the one that would let him apparate out. He’d debated using the emergency apparation point in the MLE offices, but had decided being late to meet Mira didn’t technically count as an emergency. Head of the department or not, it’d have been an abuse of power.
Glad that he’d memorized the coordinates to Mira’s house, as he’d lost the address like he’d known he would, he hurried to an apparation point, popping onto soft grass a second later. Pushing his wand back into his sleeve, he made his way to the front door, hoping he wasn’t too late. He hated that he’d kept her waiting. Merlin knew she’d already proved she had copious amounts of patience when it came to him and his schedule, but Harry didn’t like pushing it.
He rapped quickly on the door, pulling his coat tighter around his body. It was getting colder, less than a month until Christmas now, and he should have thought about bringing gloves or a scarf.
Nate watched both girls look towards the entryway, but moments later all their eyes met. He grinned as adrenaline raced through him, and even as he made a move towards the door, all hell broke loose as they raced.
Mira was wily and always had been, but Nate easily plucked her out of the way only to allow Cassie to slip ahead. He managed to snake an arm around her waist and tossed her back too.
Cassie was giggling like mad, her breath coming in pants from the mad dash toward the door. “Why don’t you introduce yourself to Mira’s boyfriend, Nate? He already knows me.”
“He’s not my boyfriend!” Mira said as she grabbed at her sister. “Don’t you dare, Nate!” Despite the alarm pinging through her, she couldn’t help giggling, and had to keep a firm grasp on Cassie as they crowded in by the door, momentum making them a human puppy pile for several moments.
“Ah, you know better than that, Mira. Bad form to issue a dare at the most inopportune moment,” Nate said with triumph as he herded them out of the way and opened the door with a flourish.
The man on the stoop blinking at him nearly made Nate laugh, though he kept it to a wide grin. “You must be Harry Potter. Nice to meet you, old boy,” he said as he stuck out a hand.
There was a man in Mira’s home. Harry’s eyes shifted past the dirty-blond body in front of him to find Mira and Cassie on the floor. His heart had started beating a little faster when he’d heard a commotion on the other side of the door, and was currently debating whether finding her tangled with her sister on the ground with a strange man was better than what he’d been imagining, or just more confusing.
“Hello?”
Mira scrambled up and pushed Nate and his outstretched hand out of the way. She glared up at him, but still happy with the giggles and she was grinning merrily at Harry moments later. “Harry, Nate - my cousin - Nate, Harry,” she said by way of introduction. “He beat us to the door,” she explained even as she felt the heat of a blush crawl up her neck. She was definitely going to be charming all of Nate’s pants with timed-stingers.
Turning his attention to Mira’s cousin, ignoring the swelling relief that they were related and there weren’t just random guys that hung out at their house that seemed to be out of breath, Harry held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, too,” he greeted. Something he nearly remembered about Mira’s cousin was floating at the back of his mind, but he was still scattered enough that he couldn’t recall what exactly it was.
“Pleasure,” Nate said, grin wide. He shook Harry’s hand, and despite his giddy humor, was pleased to note the man had a firm handshake.
Nate stepped back into the frame of the door then and slung his arm over Cassie’s shoulders, blue eyes dancing merrily as they flicked from the slightly startled Harry Potter to his blushing younger cousin. “Well, off you go then, lovebirds.”
Mira’s eyes were as wide as saucers and her mouth dropped into a small ‘o’.
Later Cassie would be grateful for Mira’s momentary shock. Had her sister had her wits about her it was likely Cassie would have paid dearly for the bark of laughter that burst from her lips and subsequent attack of giggles that had her nearly dragging Nate back to the ground.
Before Mira could say or do anything, they disappeared into the cottage and she was left staring at the door. She was blushing furiously when she turned to face Harry. “I’m so sorry. They’ve always made each other worse when they’re in a mood, and I’ve already plans to charm every pair of Nate’s pants to sting his arse when he puts them on. And something for Cassie too. Gods.”
“Okay.” Harry wasn’t quite sure what else to say. He felt like he’d walked into the middle of something that was above his head. Whatever it was, it’d made Mira’s cheeks flame with color. The pink of her skin matched her sweater, and made her eyes somehow more blue. “Are you sure you’re still fine for dinner? If you’d rather stay with your family...”
“No,” she rushed to say with a shake of her head. “No, don’t leave me with them now. You’ve already witness what I’d be putting up with for the rest of the night.” A tiny smile curled her lips and she reached out to take his hand and give it a light squeeze. “I’m sorry about that, really.”
“It’s fine. I’m used to loud households. I used to spend the holidays with the Weasleys. All of them. Including the twins.” He smiled. He really should have remembered gloves, but he didn’t mind keeping his hands warm by holding hers. “Are you hungry?”
“Mmhmm. I may have spoiled myself with a bit of ice cream though,” she said, first real grin lighting her features as she felt the blush finally fade. “What did you have in mind? Or did you have anything planned?” It wasn’t out of the question. Mira had been his assistant for over a year. She knew these kinds of details often slipped his mind. “I know some places...?”
“We actually have reservations.” He almost didn’t tell her, but seeing the surprise on her face made him feel guilty. “Well, we had reservations made for us,” he clarified, sheepish grin curling his lips as he pulled on her hand lightly and started toward the edge of her wards. “When I told Aaron that I wanted to get out of the office at a decent hour-”
He cut himself off mid sentence, turning to face her. “I’m sorry I was late. I tried to get out of there as soon as I could, but the budget deadline is coming up and the financial department is breathing fire down my neck, which means they’re putting pressure on Aaron to make sure I do it...”
“Harry, it’s fine,” she said, voice soft, but firm. “I didn’t expect you’d be here exactly on time anyway. I know how busy you are, and I know what time of year it is. I used to be in the trenches with you,” she reminded him. If part of her was pleased he hadn’t released her hand yet, she ignored it - and the comments that Nate and Cassie would make if they saw. He was going to apparate in a moment and they needed to be in contact for her to side-along. That was all.
She glanced over at him, but could only see his profile in the dim light cast from the cottage. “I bet Aaron made the reservation for at least half an hour after the time he told you to be out the door. I would have,” she said, tiny grin pull at her lips.
Harry snorted, betting that’s exactly what Aaron had done. “When I told him the reason I needed to be out by seven, he said he knew the perfect place. Andrew Edmunds? Ever heard of it?”
“Is it in London?” she asked, brow furrowing. “If it was, I should have heard of it. I swear to every kind of god out there I’ve been to nearly every restaurant London has to offer - unless it’s something upscale?” That didn’t sound like Harry, but then Harry hadn’t made the reservation.
“I have no idea,” Harry said with a shrug, “but it is in London.” When they reached the edge of her wards, he turned to face her, reaching out to grab her other hand as well. “Ready?”
There was that flutter again. She sighed internally, but murmured her reply and moments later they reappeared in a dark alley. All alleyways looked the same to Mira; creepy. It was a shame they had to use them for Apparation so often.
Keeping one hand wrapped around hers - for warmth, he reasoned - he led them toward the street, checking the placard to make sure they were on Lexington and had come out of the right end of the alley. “Aaron said we should like the food, so I’m assuming it’s not as upscale as the Blue Owl. Whenever I go there, I always end up leaving hungry.”
“Mmhmm,” she hummed, good spirits making her feel light and warm as Harry led her into the more populated walkway, “because miniscule portions are apparently ‘in’. I like the pub that’s a little down the way? The Broom Shed? I mean, it’s a Quidditch pub,” she said with a slight crinkle of her nose, “but the food’s really good. They have a delicious Shepherd’s Pie.”
“Right?” He glanced over at her as they passed a few brightly lit store fronts, obviously gearing up for the holidays. “I’ve never understood why some girls refuse to eat. You eat like a normal person, and you’re perfectly fit.”
“Thanks, I think,” she said, blush creeping back up her neck. Despite, there was a smile in her voice and she tightened her grip on Harry’s hand as she took a few quick steps to match his stride. “I think it helps that I have great genes. I suppose I walk a lot, but I think it’s my metabolism. All of us girls are like that in my family - huge appetites for all the wrong kinds of food, but we don’t seem to suffer much from it. Always drove our housemates mad back when we were in school.”
“Ron’s the same way,” Harry said. A second after the words left his mouth, he turned to look at her, the apology unable to tumble past his lips fast enough. “Not that you and Ron are... I mean, you can’t really compare... he could eat anything he wanted and stay thin too, is all.”
Genius, he berated internally, girls just love it when you compare them to large, gorilla-sized quidditch players. Brilliant.
He was eternally grateful when he spied the dark facade of the restaurant ahead. As they neared it, his eyebrows knit together in a frown. “It’s kind of dark. It doesn’t even look like it’s open.” As they got closer, though, he could see that people were walking in and out.
“It’s just one of those intimate little hole in the wall places,” Mira said, now tugging him towards the door. “I bet the food’s fantastic. I’ve always found the more nondescript the place, the better the cuisine,” she said, smiling over her shoulder at him.
Willing to follow Mira’s enthusiasm, Harry let her lead him into the dim interior, realizing that the restaurant was warm but noting that he really hadn’t felt too cold since picking her up. He nodded at the woman standing behind a podium, green eyes sweeping the room as he came flush with Mira’s side. “We have a reservation under the name Montgomery?”
As the woman looked for the name on a list, Harry leaned into Mira’s ear and whispered “I thought it’d probably be best to not put it under my name, just in case.”
The heat of his breath on her skin blanked Mira’s mind for several seconds, and when she shifted slightly to meet his gaze, several more seconds were lost when she realized how close he was. “Just in case...?” she echoed softly. She was quite sure the whole restaurant could hear the sudden pounding of her heart.
And then she gave herself a healthy mental shake, forced her brain to work and her focus to stay on the green eyes that were very near her own. “Just in case you were followed,” she clarified. “Because you’re you.” She refrained from saying his name because repeating it aloud after all the trouble he’d gone through to make sure their dinner was actually private would spoil the effort he’d gone to.
Harry nodded, embarrassed that he’d had to worry about the issue at all. Even something as easy as dinner became tricky when it involved going somewhere public. Maybe next time he’d just suggest they stay in and cook. Not that he could cook, but he could have Dobby make something. The elf would probably be ecstatic at the prospect.
When the woman told them to follow her, Harry tugged softly on Mira’s hand, letting her go ahead of him. It wasn’t that he didn’t like her at his back, it was simply he didn’t like the thought of anyone else at hers. They were led toward the back of the restaurant and a set of stairs that led downward. The hostess didn’t give a second thought to heading down them, but Harry gave a cursory look around anyway. It wasn’t very often you were led to the basement for dinner.
“Aaron was very detailed and thorough in his reservation,” Mira observed, brows raised slightly as she padded down the stairs after the hostess. Harry had mentioned earlier that he’d had his new assistant make their dinner plans, but only in that moment did it really occur to her that he’d had his assistant make their dinner plans. After all the ribbing she’d been getting from Nate and Cassie the past several days, she was fairly sure she could now recognize what was going on here as well.
Aaron had to have been a snake. “Do you happen to know what House he was in, in school?” she asked lightly.
“No,” Harry answered, “but that’s what we hired him for, right? To be detailed and thorough?”
The basement opened into another dining area. The ceiling was heightened by magic, but the entire atmosphere made it appear more private than the upstairs. The tables were covered with fabric cloth, pillows scattered along the wall-length seat for comfort. The entire room was lit by small sconces and candles on the tables, which gave just enough light to see, but not enough to fill the room. There were shadows in some corners, and Harry was relieved when they were led to a table which gave him a full view of the area with nothing at their back.
Harry almost slid onto the seat against the wall, but remembered at the last second and straightened, pulling out Mira’s seat for her. Her back would be to the room, but he’d be watching for anything or anyone dangerous.
Mira was a little surprised that Harry held her chair, but it was easily dismissed and forgotten as he slid into the booth seat opposite her. She watched him scan the room behind her before his gaze came back to her. “Are we safe?” she asked, small smile pulling at her mouth.
“What?” When he turned and realized she had seen what he was doing he ducked his head, shrugging out of his jacket and placing it beside him while giving her a small grin. “It’s dark enough in here that no one will be able to recognize anyone else, so we should be good. I can see you just fine, though.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” she said, smile curling her lips as she leaned forward and set her chin in her hands. “You won’t be forced to talk to a disembodied voice.”
Mira was fine with their arrangement, truth be told. Harry could be ‘ever vigilant’ to his heart’s content, and for her part - there was nothing to distract her from her companion for the evening.
Content that he wouldn’t have to be paying attention to anyone else for the time being, other than the amount of concentration he unconsciously gave to his surroundings, Harry smiled at Mira as he began to relax. “That’d be a neat trick, though, being able to talk to me without actually being there. Then I’d have no reason to actually come visit you at your office, you could just scold me for not eating from a distance.”
“I hear they call such thing a tellyphone in the Muggle world,” Mira said as she reached over to flick an unruly lock of hair out of Harry’s face. “Disembodied voices, and you don’t even have to leave the comfort of your office.”
She settled back, put her chin into her hands again, and grinned. “I’ve found that my threats aren’t as effective if not done in person though, and I should think you’d miss seeing me anyway. I’m very winsome and charming. I’ve been told,” she said, eyes twinkling.
“Telephone,” Harry corrected her with a smile. It still took some getting used to, after all these years, knowing that some of the people he was surrounded by had no real clue how the non-magical lived. “You’re correct, though. Winsome, charming, and much more threatening in person. Not that you’re very threatening in the first place, but...”
“You just haven’t been the target of my charm arsenal. I know spells you probably haven’t even dreamed of. Any witch or wizard in their right mind should be terrified of me,” ” she said, nose crinkling at him before she smiled again and leaned forward.
“I have to ask though, do you have a telephone?” she queried, lips trying out the sound of the word Harry had offered. “Have you ever used one? A lot of the Muggle students at the university had ones they carried about with them - at least that’s what I think they were,” she said with a little frown. “They didn’t look anything like the contraption shown to us in Muggle Studies, but the Muggles talked into them as if they were speaking to someone.”
She tipped her head as a thought occurred to her. “I wonder if there’s a charm that could be used to cause the same effect...”
“There was one at my Aunt and Uncle’s when I was younger. I never really got to use it, but I know how. There’s no line at Grimmauld Place because it was Sirius’ and his family was pureblood and would have burned the place to the ground rather than have anything muggle in their home. I don’t have anyone I would call, anyway.”
Harry had always entertained the idea of calling Dudley, usually around the Holidays, but now he was gone and his Aunt and Uncle wanted nothing to do with him, so he had no more ties to the muggle world.
“Yeah, my uncle’s family was like that too,” Mira said. Her mind supplied her with images of Uncle Hunter, in Azkaban now, and the only mental recall she had of her mother’s parents was the painting of them at Falcon Court. She hadn’t ever had the opportunity to meet them; her mother’s ‘betrayal’ of marrying a blood-traitor had been too much for Nathaniel Sr. and Victoria, and they hadn’t ever desired to meet their grandchildren.
She stirred from her thoughts and blue eyes met Harry’s again. “Falcon Court is just like Hogwarts and the Ministry. None of the Muggle technologies like their computers or wireless boxes, or telephones, seem to work. Experimenting with their devices is difficult.”
“I don’t think it’s like that at my place. I suppose I haven’t tried, though.” Harry really hadn’t had any reason to bring muggle technology into Grimmauld Place, but now he was interested. The Blacks probably hadn’t thought about putting up wards against those types of things because they hadn’t ever expected them to be brought into the Noble House of Black, quite literally.
Mira’s brows lifted. “Maybe we could try sometime?” she asked, tone hopeful even as her mind ticked through what such an experiment would require and the possible pitfalls. It was the latter that had her shaking her head. “I doubt it would actually work. It’s something about the heavy concentration of magic that seems to disturb Muggle gadgets and if you’re living in the Black’s old home it’s likely saturated from top to bottom.”
“It’s possible, but Molly went to a lot of trouble to clean everything up. We had to get rid of a lot of spells and hexes to make it liveable before I moved in for good.” Usually the idea of someone new getting the location of Grimmauld Place bothered him, but it didn’t. Not with Mira, anyway. “If you make a new charm because of what you learn, you’d have to name it after me, though,” he said with a grin.
“Like ‘Potter’s Telephony’ or something?” she asked even as laughter shook her frame moments later. “They’d use ‘Hear like Harry’ to market it,” she managed before giggling again.
Harry frowned at the thought. The last thing he needed was one more thing that was endorsed by him. Almost everything that used his name had nothing to do with him, but the name ‘Harry’ immediately seemed to sell stuff, and people just assumed he had a hand in it. He didn’t. He’d turned down everything except (insert cool sounding thing here), and all proceeds he’d received had gone to St. Anne’s Orphanage.
“Nevermind,” he said with a shake of his head, “the naming rights are all yours.”
Mira sobered some, but laughter still danced in her eyes as she reached across the table to lay her hand atop Harry’s reassuringly. “I wouldn’t ever call it something like that. It doesn’t hurt to smile over a little silliness though,” she said. “The name would likely be derived from the Latin words used to develop the charm anyway. Probably amicus and audi. Maybe even voco.”
“Voco,” Harry repeated, weighing the word. “I like how that sounds. Think you’d actually be able to make something like that work? It’s be a lot easier than owls, or having to find a fireplace and hoping the person you want to talk to is at home.”
Mira shrugged. “I don’t know. Like the forms charm I got the grant to work on, it would probably end up being two charms. It’s difficult to manipulate the magic to do too many things at once. You could use a spell to charm something so it could receive sound, but then there would need to be a spell developed that would enable the same object to be charmed to send sound. And then it would all have to work simultaneously and in tandem, begging the question whether the same spellcaster would need to cast the two spells, or whether some other connection between the sending and receiving would need to be discovered.”
Heat crept up her neck and Mira shook her head, gaze dropping. “This is all very theoretical, of course.”
“Of course,” he agreed, nodding as though he understood or had followed anything she’d just said. He’d never been too good with charms, unless they could be used defensively, and had always leaned on Hermione’s help to get him through that class. “I can’t believe you were ever a receptionist. It must have been so boring for you. Why did you stay for as long as you did?”
Mira looked up, slightly startled. “You needed me,” she said before she had time to think on her response. Not that she would have said anything different as it was the truth as far as she was concerned.
“True, but running my schedule and opening owls are levels beneath someone with your brain. You could have found a much better job somewhere else in the Ministry until you graduated, doing something more important. You shouldn’t have been wasted on me.”
Mira pursed her lips at him. “I liked what I did, and whether it was ‘not good enough’ isn’t really important. It made me happy to be where I was. It’s not as if I needed further mental stimulation, Harry. I was working on my thesis and preparing to graduate from Oxford.”
Harry wasn’t sure what he’d said to make tone slightly irked, but he felt like what he was meaning to say wasn’t coming across right. “I just meant that you’re brilliant, and the charms department is lucky to have you,” he tried to clarify, sitting back when their waiter finally approached the table. Realizing he hadn’t even glanced at the menu yet, Harry grabbed the folder and began deciding what he wanted.
Their orders were taken and drinks were brought, but somehow she and Harry had lost their usual easy camaraderie. It was because of her temper, though she hadn’t truly lost it, not yet anyway. It had irked her that Harry seemed to doubt her ability to make choices for herself though, and that had leaked into her voice. Mira knew he wasn’t being deliberate about the veiled insinuation, and she had to mentally talk herself down from full-on indignation.
She took a sip of the soda that had been brought out for her and finally lifted her gaze to Harry’s again. “I worked for you at first because I wanted to fill my free time. I work best under pressure, and having a job plus course-work put enough stress on me to really perform last year. I aced my thesis,” she told him. “Taking on anything more challenging at the time would have been silly. I would have failed both.”
She paused, eyed flicking over his face, his disheveled hair. He ran his hands through it at least a dozen times a day, usually because he was stressed or frustrated, and it always left the slightly long strands standing on end. Mira was particularly fond of the look. “I appreciate that you think I could have done better,” she said, “but truly, working for you was the best thing for me in the end. Everyone has to start somewhere, and I was fortunate to start somewhere that put me in contact with every prominent figure at the Ministry. Tactically, it was a rather genius position. Mostly though, I liked working for you.” A tiny smile touched her lips. “I got an amazing friend out of the deal as it turned out.”
Harry laughed, “you’re the only one who was still on speaking terms with me when they left. Everyone else left either screaming at me, or in tears. I’m not quite sure what that says about me.”
“Are you sure you want to know what that says about you?” A smile curled her lips.
“I know it says you must have the patience of a saint,” he answered, deciding it was probably best he didn’t travel down the road of ‘why I can’t keep a secretary for more than a few months at a time.’ “You should have a holiday in your honor.”
“And what shall we call this most deserved of holidays?” she asked. Mira was glad that whatever tenseness that had developed seemed to have evaporated. She didn’t get to see Harry as often as she once had, unfortunately, and she didn’t want this spoiled by her temper and their occasional bouts of miscommunication.
“All Saint Mira’s Day,” Harry offered with a wry smile. “Everyone will be able to stay home from work and be able to eat ice cream all day long. Non-denominational, so everyone would love it.”
“It does have a nice ring to it,” she said, her expression mirroring Harry’s. “We should definitely celebrate it sometime.”
The talk of faux, but well-deserved holidays was interrupted when their meals arrived. Aaron had been right about the food, and though the atmosphere projected something much more upper-class, Harry quite enjoyed the taste of his food, as well as the amount that he’d been served. When he swept the last bit out of his bowl of stew with a chunk of bread, he was comfortably full.
“Aaron might be able to pick a restaurant better than you could,” Harry said after swallowing the last of his meal, pushing the bowl away from him with a smile as he looked across the table at Mira.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ll try to focus on the ‘might’ part of that statement,” she told him. Despite the words, humor hovered at the edges of her mouth.
Mira was satiated. The food had been fantastic, and she made a mental note to bring Cassie and Nate sometime, but it was tonight’s company that gave her a warm glow of contentedness. It’d been ages since she’d really had a chance to spend any real time with Harry, and she felt as if she’d been thoroughly indulged.
All too soon, the bill was paid and they were making their way out of the restaurant. “You think you’re ready to brave Nate and Cass again?” she asked with a small grin over her shoulder as she stepped into the cold.
“Do you think bringing them something sweet might appease them for not asking them along?” Harry countered. It was colder now that whatever warmth the sun had given was completely gone, and their breath fogged as the door fell shut behind them. “There’s a shop up ahead that I saw coming in. Unless they’re not the ‘sweet’ type and are more the ‘spirit’ type. There’s one of those ahead, too.”
Though Mira’s sweater, the very pink one that made her eyes even more blue, clung to her body and looked soft to the touch, it didn’t look particularly warm. Instead of pulling his jacket around his shoulders as they began moving, he slipped it over hers.
“Thanks,” she said, smile touching her eyes, “but you’re not getting off that easy.” Mira slipped her arm through his and tucked into his side. She should have brought her own coat. It was nice of Harry to give up his though, and the least she could do was share the warmth.
“As for Cass and Nate, I’d say they’re probably more the ‘both’ type, and that they’ve probably already indulged in both.” She tipped her head in thought as they walked. “Well, at least they’ve had the sweet. We have a mess of flavors of ice cream in the icebox, but our spirit cabinet is woefully empty.”
“Woefully,” Harry repeated, his lips curling in a smile. “I don’t drink normally, but you wouldn’t believe how many Christmas bottles of firewhisky I get sent each year. It’s not the type of gift you can donate to a charity, which I do with almost everything else. Orphanages and hospitals don’t really look too kindly on a couple dozen bottles of alcohol being sent to them. I think Dobby’s been shoving them into one of the rooms in the back for years now.”
Realizing he was rambling, he shook his head and gestured to the shop down the street. “Should we pick something up, then? The last thing I want is to make a bad impression on your family. I’ve heard your mother is particularly scary and, as you’ve assured me, it’s been passed down.”
“Sure,” she said, “nothing softens people like sweets. At least in my family.”
Several ornate cupcakes were purchased, and Mira was licking the frosting off of one as they stepped outside again. “You know. I was thinking that you could probably re-gift those firewhisky bottles,” she told him as they ambled along. “Send one to each of the department heads, to the people who run the charities you like. If you included some bikkies or something, and added a festive bow,” she looked up at him, “they’d be proper, professional gifts. It’s a great way to endear yourself personally to people. They know your name, but a thought and a gift can go a long way.”
“I just realized how old I’ve gotten when ‘proper, professional gifts’ includes alcohol,” Harry remarked, shaking his head slightly as they made their way back to the alley they’d first appeared from. It was good idea, something he knew would help not only his professional career, but also forge bonds personally as well, which, in his line of work, tended to be useful at opportune times.
As they entered the darkened mouth of the alley, Harry took a step closer to Mira. He didn’t sense any immediate danger, but he didn’t want to take any chances, either. “If I knew how to tie bows, I’d be all set.”
“I know how to tie bows, so you are set,” Mira said, smile twitching at her lips.
Between one breath and the next, he Apparated them back to the Rosier estate and Peregrine Cottage. Her little home was lit up merrily, and it made Mira smile. Cassie was waiting for her, and Nate too. “Sometime soon we’ll have to make a list and tie some bows together,” she added as an afterthought as she tugged Harry towards her home.
“And see about your telephone charm,” he agreed, fingers threading through hers as they approached the brightly lit home.
Harry had only ever seen the stoop, really, so when she pulled him into the foyer he took a long moment to take in the surroundings. They practically screamed ‘Mira’ and, he supposed by extension, Cassie as well. Classic and elegant, but soft with an edge of fun and what Harry could only describe as ‘girl’. Creams and warm taupes, accented by pops of color. It was friendly and infinitely more welcoming than Grimmauld Place could or would ever be.
“And the charm,” Mira agreed as she made a note in her head to write something up about it later. Despite the improbability that anything could be done immediately except the hands-on research with Harry and the Muggle technology, it was a worthy line of study and was something she could bring up to the Committee at the very least.
Hearing Nate and Cassie’s voices in the living room, Mira banished any further thoughts from her mind. She had her family, and she had Harry, and there was cupcakes to be eaten.
Squeezing his hand, Mira grinned up at him. “Shall we go make our peace offering?”
Harry nodded and let Mira lead him towards her family.
SUMMARY: Nate and Cassie help Mira get ready for her evening out with Harry. After a bit of family chaos, Harry and Mira’s night flies by (with hand-holding).
Nate’s lips curled into a smirk as he leaned in the doorway and spied Mira looking contemplatively into her closet. “What does one wear on a date with the Boy Wonder you think, Cass?”
“Well, if she listened to me it would be something that at least showed off some leg or cleavage, but Mira gets upset when I suggest she and Harry are north and south-bound trains on Shag Highway, headed for a collision,” Cassie replied with a grin. Mira was determinedly oblivious to her attraction to her former boss, and his to her.
“In that case,” Nate said as he stepped into the room, “you should wear this.” He reached over Mira’s shoulder into her closet and pulled out the black dress he’d spied. It was tiny. He grinned. “This seems appropriate for Shag Highway.”
Mira snatched the little dress out of his hands and turned her back to him to stick it back in her closet. “I have no idea what you both are on about,” she said loftily. When Harry had asked her to dinner at the beginning of the week, she’d thought nothing more of it than him finally following up like he always told her he would.
Ever since she’d told Cassie and Nate of her change of plans for Friday evening, however, they’d both been bound and determined to see it all for more than it really was. They just didn’t know Harry like she did. He didn’t see her like that.
“We’re just friends,” she said, not for the first time, as she pulled out one of her favorite cashmere cardigans, “and we’re probably just going to a pub. Plus,” she turned and faced them both, “I haven’t worn that dress in ages and it probably doesn’t fit anymore.” She stuck out her tongue.
“If you mean it’s probably ‘too small’, then it’s perfect,” Nate said, blue eyes twinkling.
Cassie snorted. Mira hadn’t gained an ounce since school. “It fits fine. It’s barely even risque and it looks amazing on you.” Nodding toward the jumper in her twin’s hands, she added, “That looks nice on you, but it’s hardly designed to induce a man to snog you.”
“Good thing then,” she said, “because that’s not on tonight’s itinerary.” Mira ignored the flutter in her chest at the idea of snogging Harry. As she’d told her twin and cousin, she and Harry were just friends. She knew the very idea of snogging her would just make him uncomfortable - which was why she firmly pushed such thoughts from her mind. She valued his friendship too much to ever mess it up with some silly schoolgirl crush that would likely pass soon anyway.
That Cassie, and now Nate, had constantly felt the need to infer all the things her dinner with Harry wasn’t - like a date, with snogs, and other things - made it a little more difficult to not think about it all though.
She eyed the two then. “Shoo. I have to change.”
Nate flicked his wand and the tiny black dress flew into his hand - which he tossed at Mira again. “Be a tease, cousinmine. It’s fun,” he said with a toothy grin before snatching Cassie around the middle and pulling her from the room with him.
The door shut before Mira could say anything else. She could hear Cassie giggling though, and the ruckus they made as they tumbled back down the stairs made her roll her eyes.
A tiny smile curled her lips as she slipped into a pair of denims; they were annoying and loud, and she knew they were going to make a scene when Harry came to pick her up, but she was glad they were there - she was glad Nate was there. He was alive. Cassie was happier than Mira had seen her in a long time. She couldn’t begrudge them.
They were lucky she was feeling soft, else she might have felt the need to exercise her knowledge of charms on them. Mira giggled to herself as she pulled a small tank over her head, slipped on a pair of flats, and then grabbed her pink sweater before bounding down the stairs after them.
*~*~*~*
The week hadn’t gone fast enough, crawling at a snail’s pace toward Friday, but once it had arrived, it’d passed by in a blur. Harry was almost positive that Aaron super-loaded his schedule on purpose in an attempt to frustrate him. Every time he’d glanced at the clock it seemed like several hours had passed, and before he’d even realized it, it was 7:20. He was late. Late late.
His quill flew over the remaining forms he needed to sign off on, not even pausing to skim what he was approving or denying. He’d worry about it later.
Harry’s foot tapped a heavy rhythm on the floor as he waited for the lift to get to the atrium. It seemed to stop at every floor in between the second and the one that would let him apparate out. He’d debated using the emergency apparation point in the MLE offices, but had decided being late to meet Mira didn’t technically count as an emergency. Head of the department or not, it’d have been an abuse of power.
Glad that he’d memorized the coordinates to Mira’s house, as he’d lost the address like he’d known he would, he hurried to an apparation point, popping onto soft grass a second later. Pushing his wand back into his sleeve, he made his way to the front door, hoping he wasn’t too late. He hated that he’d kept her waiting. Merlin knew she’d already proved she had copious amounts of patience when it came to him and his schedule, but Harry didn’t like pushing it.
He rapped quickly on the door, pulling his coat tighter around his body. It was getting colder, less than a month until Christmas now, and he should have thought about bringing gloves or a scarf.
Nate watched both girls look towards the entryway, but moments later all their eyes met. He grinned as adrenaline raced through him, and even as he made a move towards the door, all hell broke loose as they raced.
Mira was wily and always had been, but Nate easily plucked her out of the way only to allow Cassie to slip ahead. He managed to snake an arm around her waist and tossed her back too.
Cassie was giggling like mad, her breath coming in pants from the mad dash toward the door. “Why don’t you introduce yourself to Mira’s boyfriend, Nate? He already knows me.”
“He’s not my boyfriend!” Mira said as she grabbed at her sister. “Don’t you dare, Nate!” Despite the alarm pinging through her, she couldn’t help giggling, and had to keep a firm grasp on Cassie as they crowded in by the door, momentum making them a human puppy pile for several moments.
“Ah, you know better than that, Mira. Bad form to issue a dare at the most inopportune moment,” Nate said with triumph as he herded them out of the way and opened the door with a flourish.
The man on the stoop blinking at him nearly made Nate laugh, though he kept it to a wide grin. “You must be Harry Potter. Nice to meet you, old boy,” he said as he stuck out a hand.
There was a man in Mira’s home. Harry’s eyes shifted past the dirty-blond body in front of him to find Mira and Cassie on the floor. His heart had started beating a little faster when he’d heard a commotion on the other side of the door, and was currently debating whether finding her tangled with her sister on the ground with a strange man was better than what he’d been imagining, or just more confusing.
“Hello?”
Mira scrambled up and pushed Nate and his outstretched hand out of the way. She glared up at him, but still happy with the giggles and she was grinning merrily at Harry moments later. “Harry, Nate - my cousin - Nate, Harry,” she said by way of introduction. “He beat us to the door,” she explained even as she felt the heat of a blush crawl up her neck. She was definitely going to be charming all of Nate’s pants with timed-stingers.
Turning his attention to Mira’s cousin, ignoring the swelling relief that they were related and there weren’t just random guys that hung out at their house that seemed to be out of breath, Harry held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, too,” he greeted. Something he nearly remembered about Mira’s cousin was floating at the back of his mind, but he was still scattered enough that he couldn’t recall what exactly it was.
“Pleasure,” Nate said, grin wide. He shook Harry’s hand, and despite his giddy humor, was pleased to note the man had a firm handshake.
Nate stepped back into the frame of the door then and slung his arm over Cassie’s shoulders, blue eyes dancing merrily as they flicked from the slightly startled Harry Potter to his blushing younger cousin. “Well, off you go then, lovebirds.”
Mira’s eyes were as wide as saucers and her mouth dropped into a small ‘o’.
Later Cassie would be grateful for Mira’s momentary shock. Had her sister had her wits about her it was likely Cassie would have paid dearly for the bark of laughter that burst from her lips and subsequent attack of giggles that had her nearly dragging Nate back to the ground.
Before Mira could say or do anything, they disappeared into the cottage and she was left staring at the door. She was blushing furiously when she turned to face Harry. “I’m so sorry. They’ve always made each other worse when they’re in a mood, and I’ve already plans to charm every pair of Nate’s pants to sting his arse when he puts them on. And something for Cassie too. Gods.”
“Okay.” Harry wasn’t quite sure what else to say. He felt like he’d walked into the middle of something that was above his head. Whatever it was, it’d made Mira’s cheeks flame with color. The pink of her skin matched her sweater, and made her eyes somehow more blue. “Are you sure you’re still fine for dinner? If you’d rather stay with your family...”
“No,” she rushed to say with a shake of her head. “No, don’t leave me with them now. You’ve already witness what I’d be putting up with for the rest of the night.” A tiny smile curled her lips and she reached out to take his hand and give it a light squeeze. “I’m sorry about that, really.”
“It’s fine. I’m used to loud households. I used to spend the holidays with the Weasleys. All of them. Including the twins.” He smiled. He really should have remembered gloves, but he didn’t mind keeping his hands warm by holding hers. “Are you hungry?”
“Mmhmm. I may have spoiled myself with a bit of ice cream though,” she said, first real grin lighting her features as she felt the blush finally fade. “What did you have in mind? Or did you have anything planned?” It wasn’t out of the question. Mira had been his assistant for over a year. She knew these kinds of details often slipped his mind. “I know some places...?”
“We actually have reservations.” He almost didn’t tell her, but seeing the surprise on her face made him feel guilty. “Well, we had reservations made for us,” he clarified, sheepish grin curling his lips as he pulled on her hand lightly and started toward the edge of her wards. “When I told Aaron that I wanted to get out of the office at a decent hour-”
He cut himself off mid sentence, turning to face her. “I’m sorry I was late. I tried to get out of there as soon as I could, but the budget deadline is coming up and the financial department is breathing fire down my neck, which means they’re putting pressure on Aaron to make sure I do it...”
“Harry, it’s fine,” she said, voice soft, but firm. “I didn’t expect you’d be here exactly on time anyway. I know how busy you are, and I know what time of year it is. I used to be in the trenches with you,” she reminded him. If part of her was pleased he hadn’t released her hand yet, she ignored it - and the comments that Nate and Cassie would make if they saw. He was going to apparate in a moment and they needed to be in contact for her to side-along. That was all.
She glanced over at him, but could only see his profile in the dim light cast from the cottage. “I bet Aaron made the reservation for at least half an hour after the time he told you to be out the door. I would have,” she said, tiny grin pull at her lips.
Harry snorted, betting that’s exactly what Aaron had done. “When I told him the reason I needed to be out by seven, he said he knew the perfect place. Andrew Edmunds? Ever heard of it?”
“Is it in London?” she asked, brow furrowing. “If it was, I should have heard of it. I swear to every kind of god out there I’ve been to nearly every restaurant London has to offer - unless it’s something upscale?” That didn’t sound like Harry, but then Harry hadn’t made the reservation.
“I have no idea,” Harry said with a shrug, “but it is in London.” When they reached the edge of her wards, he turned to face her, reaching out to grab her other hand as well. “Ready?”
There was that flutter again. She sighed internally, but murmured her reply and moments later they reappeared in a dark alley. All alleyways looked the same to Mira; creepy. It was a shame they had to use them for Apparation so often.
Keeping one hand wrapped around hers - for warmth, he reasoned - he led them toward the street, checking the placard to make sure they were on Lexington and had come out of the right end of the alley. “Aaron said we should like the food, so I’m assuming it’s not as upscale as the Blue Owl. Whenever I go there, I always end up leaving hungry.”
“Mmhmm,” she hummed, good spirits making her feel light and warm as Harry led her into the more populated walkway, “because miniscule portions are apparently ‘in’. I like the pub that’s a little down the way? The Broom Shed? I mean, it’s a Quidditch pub,” she said with a slight crinkle of her nose, “but the food’s really good. They have a delicious Shepherd’s Pie.”
“Right?” He glanced over at her as they passed a few brightly lit store fronts, obviously gearing up for the holidays. “I’ve never understood why some girls refuse to eat. You eat like a normal person, and you’re perfectly fit.”
“Thanks, I think,” she said, blush creeping back up her neck. Despite, there was a smile in her voice and she tightened her grip on Harry’s hand as she took a few quick steps to match his stride. “I think it helps that I have great genes. I suppose I walk a lot, but I think it’s my metabolism. All of us girls are like that in my family - huge appetites for all the wrong kinds of food, but we don’t seem to suffer much from it. Always drove our housemates mad back when we were in school.”
“Ron’s the same way,” Harry said. A second after the words left his mouth, he turned to look at her, the apology unable to tumble past his lips fast enough. “Not that you and Ron are... I mean, you can’t really compare... he could eat anything he wanted and stay thin too, is all.”
Genius, he berated internally, girls just love it when you compare them to large, gorilla-sized quidditch players. Brilliant.
He was eternally grateful when he spied the dark facade of the restaurant ahead. As they neared it, his eyebrows knit together in a frown. “It’s kind of dark. It doesn’t even look like it’s open.” As they got closer, though, he could see that people were walking in and out.
“It’s just one of those intimate little hole in the wall places,” Mira said, now tugging him towards the door. “I bet the food’s fantastic. I’ve always found the more nondescript the place, the better the cuisine,” she said, smiling over her shoulder at him.
Willing to follow Mira’s enthusiasm, Harry let her lead him into the dim interior, realizing that the restaurant was warm but noting that he really hadn’t felt too cold since picking her up. He nodded at the woman standing behind a podium, green eyes sweeping the room as he came flush with Mira’s side. “We have a reservation under the name Montgomery?”
As the woman looked for the name on a list, Harry leaned into Mira’s ear and whispered “I thought it’d probably be best to not put it under my name, just in case.”
The heat of his breath on her skin blanked Mira’s mind for several seconds, and when she shifted slightly to meet his gaze, several more seconds were lost when she realized how close he was. “Just in case...?” she echoed softly. She was quite sure the whole restaurant could hear the sudden pounding of her heart.
And then she gave herself a healthy mental shake, forced her brain to work and her focus to stay on the green eyes that were very near her own. “Just in case you were followed,” she clarified. “Because you’re you.” She refrained from saying his name because repeating it aloud after all the trouble he’d gone through to make sure their dinner was actually private would spoil the effort he’d gone to.
Harry nodded, embarrassed that he’d had to worry about the issue at all. Even something as easy as dinner became tricky when it involved going somewhere public. Maybe next time he’d just suggest they stay in and cook. Not that he could cook, but he could have Dobby make something. The elf would probably be ecstatic at the prospect.
When the woman told them to follow her, Harry tugged softly on Mira’s hand, letting her go ahead of him. It wasn’t that he didn’t like her at his back, it was simply he didn’t like the thought of anyone else at hers. They were led toward the back of the restaurant and a set of stairs that led downward. The hostess didn’t give a second thought to heading down them, but Harry gave a cursory look around anyway. It wasn’t very often you were led to the basement for dinner.
“Aaron was very detailed and thorough in his reservation,” Mira observed, brows raised slightly as she padded down the stairs after the hostess. Harry had mentioned earlier that he’d had his new assistant make their dinner plans, but only in that moment did it really occur to her that he’d had his assistant make their dinner plans. After all the ribbing she’d been getting from Nate and Cassie the past several days, she was fairly sure she could now recognize what was going on here as well.
Aaron had to have been a snake. “Do you happen to know what House he was in, in school?” she asked lightly.
“No,” Harry answered, “but that’s what we hired him for, right? To be detailed and thorough?”
The basement opened into another dining area. The ceiling was heightened by magic, but the entire atmosphere made it appear more private than the upstairs. The tables were covered with fabric cloth, pillows scattered along the wall-length seat for comfort. The entire room was lit by small sconces and candles on the tables, which gave just enough light to see, but not enough to fill the room. There were shadows in some corners, and Harry was relieved when they were led to a table which gave him a full view of the area with nothing at their back.
Harry almost slid onto the seat against the wall, but remembered at the last second and straightened, pulling out Mira’s seat for her. Her back would be to the room, but he’d be watching for anything or anyone dangerous.
Mira was a little surprised that Harry held her chair, but it was easily dismissed and forgotten as he slid into the booth seat opposite her. She watched him scan the room behind her before his gaze came back to her. “Are we safe?” she asked, small smile pulling at her mouth.
“What?” When he turned and realized she had seen what he was doing he ducked his head, shrugging out of his jacket and placing it beside him while giving her a small grin. “It’s dark enough in here that no one will be able to recognize anyone else, so we should be good. I can see you just fine, though.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” she said, smile curling her lips as she leaned forward and set her chin in her hands. “You won’t be forced to talk to a disembodied voice.”
Mira was fine with their arrangement, truth be told. Harry could be ‘ever vigilant’ to his heart’s content, and for her part - there was nothing to distract her from her companion for the evening.
Content that he wouldn’t have to be paying attention to anyone else for the time being, other than the amount of concentration he unconsciously gave to his surroundings, Harry smiled at Mira as he began to relax. “That’d be a neat trick, though, being able to talk to me without actually being there. Then I’d have no reason to actually come visit you at your office, you could just scold me for not eating from a distance.”
“I hear they call such thing a tellyphone in the Muggle world,” Mira said as she reached over to flick an unruly lock of hair out of Harry’s face. “Disembodied voices, and you don’t even have to leave the comfort of your office.”
She settled back, put her chin into her hands again, and grinned. “I’ve found that my threats aren’t as effective if not done in person though, and I should think you’d miss seeing me anyway. I’m very winsome and charming. I’ve been told,” she said, eyes twinkling.
“Telephone,” Harry corrected her with a smile. It still took some getting used to, after all these years, knowing that some of the people he was surrounded by had no real clue how the non-magical lived. “You’re correct, though. Winsome, charming, and much more threatening in person. Not that you’re very threatening in the first place, but...”
“You just haven’t been the target of my charm arsenal. I know spells you probably haven’t even dreamed of. Any witch or wizard in their right mind should be terrified of me,” ” she said, nose crinkling at him before she smiled again and leaned forward.
“I have to ask though, do you have a telephone?” she queried, lips trying out the sound of the word Harry had offered. “Have you ever used one? A lot of the Muggle students at the university had ones they carried about with them - at least that’s what I think they were,” she said with a little frown. “They didn’t look anything like the contraption shown to us in Muggle Studies, but the Muggles talked into them as if they were speaking to someone.”
She tipped her head as a thought occurred to her. “I wonder if there’s a charm that could be used to cause the same effect...”
“There was one at my Aunt and Uncle’s when I was younger. I never really got to use it, but I know how. There’s no line at Grimmauld Place because it was Sirius’ and his family was pureblood and would have burned the place to the ground rather than have anything muggle in their home. I don’t have anyone I would call, anyway.”
Harry had always entertained the idea of calling Dudley, usually around the Holidays, but now he was gone and his Aunt and Uncle wanted nothing to do with him, so he had no more ties to the muggle world.
“Yeah, my uncle’s family was like that too,” Mira said. Her mind supplied her with images of Uncle Hunter, in Azkaban now, and the only mental recall she had of her mother’s parents was the painting of them at Falcon Court. She hadn’t ever had the opportunity to meet them; her mother’s ‘betrayal’ of marrying a blood-traitor had been too much for Nathaniel Sr. and Victoria, and they hadn’t ever desired to meet their grandchildren.
She stirred from her thoughts and blue eyes met Harry’s again. “Falcon Court is just like Hogwarts and the Ministry. None of the Muggle technologies like their computers or wireless boxes, or telephones, seem to work. Experimenting with their devices is difficult.”
“I don’t think it’s like that at my place. I suppose I haven’t tried, though.” Harry really hadn’t had any reason to bring muggle technology into Grimmauld Place, but now he was interested. The Blacks probably hadn’t thought about putting up wards against those types of things because they hadn’t ever expected them to be brought into the Noble House of Black, quite literally.
Mira’s brows lifted. “Maybe we could try sometime?” she asked, tone hopeful even as her mind ticked through what such an experiment would require and the possible pitfalls. It was the latter that had her shaking her head. “I doubt it would actually work. It’s something about the heavy concentration of magic that seems to disturb Muggle gadgets and if you’re living in the Black’s old home it’s likely saturated from top to bottom.”
“It’s possible, but Molly went to a lot of trouble to clean everything up. We had to get rid of a lot of spells and hexes to make it liveable before I moved in for good.” Usually the idea of someone new getting the location of Grimmauld Place bothered him, but it didn’t. Not with Mira, anyway. “If you make a new charm because of what you learn, you’d have to name it after me, though,” he said with a grin.
“Like ‘Potter’s Telephony’ or something?” she asked even as laughter shook her frame moments later. “They’d use ‘Hear like Harry’ to market it,” she managed before giggling again.
Harry frowned at the thought. The last thing he needed was one more thing that was endorsed by him. Almost everything that used his name had nothing to do with him, but the name ‘Harry’ immediately seemed to sell stuff, and people just assumed he had a hand in it. He didn’t. He’d turned down everything except (insert cool sounding thing here), and all proceeds he’d received had gone to St. Anne’s Orphanage.
“Nevermind,” he said with a shake of his head, “the naming rights are all yours.”
Mira sobered some, but laughter still danced in her eyes as she reached across the table to lay her hand atop Harry’s reassuringly. “I wouldn’t ever call it something like that. It doesn’t hurt to smile over a little silliness though,” she said. “The name would likely be derived from the Latin words used to develop the charm anyway. Probably amicus and audi. Maybe even voco.”
“Voco,” Harry repeated, weighing the word. “I like how that sounds. Think you’d actually be able to make something like that work? It’s be a lot easier than owls, or having to find a fireplace and hoping the person you want to talk to is at home.”
Mira shrugged. “I don’t know. Like the forms charm I got the grant to work on, it would probably end up being two charms. It’s difficult to manipulate the magic to do too many things at once. You could use a spell to charm something so it could receive sound, but then there would need to be a spell developed that would enable the same object to be charmed to send sound. And then it would all have to work simultaneously and in tandem, begging the question whether the same spellcaster would need to cast the two spells, or whether some other connection between the sending and receiving would need to be discovered.”
Heat crept up her neck and Mira shook her head, gaze dropping. “This is all very theoretical, of course.”
“Of course,” he agreed, nodding as though he understood or had followed anything she’d just said. He’d never been too good with charms, unless they could be used defensively, and had always leaned on Hermione’s help to get him through that class. “I can’t believe you were ever a receptionist. It must have been so boring for you. Why did you stay for as long as you did?”
Mira looked up, slightly startled. “You needed me,” she said before she had time to think on her response. Not that she would have said anything different as it was the truth as far as she was concerned.
“True, but running my schedule and opening owls are levels beneath someone with your brain. You could have found a much better job somewhere else in the Ministry until you graduated, doing something more important. You shouldn’t have been wasted on me.”
Mira pursed her lips at him. “I liked what I did, and whether it was ‘not good enough’ isn’t really important. It made me happy to be where I was. It’s not as if I needed further mental stimulation, Harry. I was working on my thesis and preparing to graduate from Oxford.”
Harry wasn’t sure what he’d said to make tone slightly irked, but he felt like what he was meaning to say wasn’t coming across right. “I just meant that you’re brilliant, and the charms department is lucky to have you,” he tried to clarify, sitting back when their waiter finally approached the table. Realizing he hadn’t even glanced at the menu yet, Harry grabbed the folder and began deciding what he wanted.
Their orders were taken and drinks were brought, but somehow she and Harry had lost their usual easy camaraderie. It was because of her temper, though she hadn’t truly lost it, not yet anyway. It had irked her that Harry seemed to doubt her ability to make choices for herself though, and that had leaked into her voice. Mira knew he wasn’t being deliberate about the veiled insinuation, and she had to mentally talk herself down from full-on indignation.
She took a sip of the soda that had been brought out for her and finally lifted her gaze to Harry’s again. “I worked for you at first because I wanted to fill my free time. I work best under pressure, and having a job plus course-work put enough stress on me to really perform last year. I aced my thesis,” she told him. “Taking on anything more challenging at the time would have been silly. I would have failed both.”
She paused, eyed flicking over his face, his disheveled hair. He ran his hands through it at least a dozen times a day, usually because he was stressed or frustrated, and it always left the slightly long strands standing on end. Mira was particularly fond of the look. “I appreciate that you think I could have done better,” she said, “but truly, working for you was the best thing for me in the end. Everyone has to start somewhere, and I was fortunate to start somewhere that put me in contact with every prominent figure at the Ministry. Tactically, it was a rather genius position. Mostly though, I liked working for you.” A tiny smile touched her lips. “I got an amazing friend out of the deal as it turned out.”
Harry laughed, “you’re the only one who was still on speaking terms with me when they left. Everyone else left either screaming at me, or in tears. I’m not quite sure what that says about me.”
“Are you sure you want to know what that says about you?” A smile curled her lips.
“I know it says you must have the patience of a saint,” he answered, deciding it was probably best he didn’t travel down the road of ‘why I can’t keep a secretary for more than a few months at a time.’ “You should have a holiday in your honor.”
“And what shall we call this most deserved of holidays?” she asked. Mira was glad that whatever tenseness that had developed seemed to have evaporated. She didn’t get to see Harry as often as she once had, unfortunately, and she didn’t want this spoiled by her temper and their occasional bouts of miscommunication.
“All Saint Mira’s Day,” Harry offered with a wry smile. “Everyone will be able to stay home from work and be able to eat ice cream all day long. Non-denominational, so everyone would love it.”
“It does have a nice ring to it,” she said, her expression mirroring Harry’s. “We should definitely celebrate it sometime.”
The talk of faux, but well-deserved holidays was interrupted when their meals arrived. Aaron had been right about the food, and though the atmosphere projected something much more upper-class, Harry quite enjoyed the taste of his food, as well as the amount that he’d been served. When he swept the last bit out of his bowl of stew with a chunk of bread, he was comfortably full.
“Aaron might be able to pick a restaurant better than you could,” Harry said after swallowing the last of his meal, pushing the bowl away from him with a smile as he looked across the table at Mira.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ll try to focus on the ‘might’ part of that statement,” she told him. Despite the words, humor hovered at the edges of her mouth.
Mira was satiated. The food had been fantastic, and she made a mental note to bring Cassie and Nate sometime, but it was tonight’s company that gave her a warm glow of contentedness. It’d been ages since she’d really had a chance to spend any real time with Harry, and she felt as if she’d been thoroughly indulged.
All too soon, the bill was paid and they were making their way out of the restaurant. “You think you’re ready to brave Nate and Cass again?” she asked with a small grin over her shoulder as she stepped into the cold.
“Do you think bringing them something sweet might appease them for not asking them along?” Harry countered. It was colder now that whatever warmth the sun had given was completely gone, and their breath fogged as the door fell shut behind them. “There’s a shop up ahead that I saw coming in. Unless they’re not the ‘sweet’ type and are more the ‘spirit’ type. There’s one of those ahead, too.”
Though Mira’s sweater, the very pink one that made her eyes even more blue, clung to her body and looked soft to the touch, it didn’t look particularly warm. Instead of pulling his jacket around his shoulders as they began moving, he slipped it over hers.
“Thanks,” she said, smile touching her eyes, “but you’re not getting off that easy.” Mira slipped her arm through his and tucked into his side. She should have brought her own coat. It was nice of Harry to give up his though, and the least she could do was share the warmth.
“As for Cass and Nate, I’d say they’re probably more the ‘both’ type, and that they’ve probably already indulged in both.” She tipped her head in thought as they walked. “Well, at least they’ve had the sweet. We have a mess of flavors of ice cream in the icebox, but our spirit cabinet is woefully empty.”
“Woefully,” Harry repeated, his lips curling in a smile. “I don’t drink normally, but you wouldn’t believe how many Christmas bottles of firewhisky I get sent each year. It’s not the type of gift you can donate to a charity, which I do with almost everything else. Orphanages and hospitals don’t really look too kindly on a couple dozen bottles of alcohol being sent to them. I think Dobby’s been shoving them into one of the rooms in the back for years now.”
Realizing he was rambling, he shook his head and gestured to the shop down the street. “Should we pick something up, then? The last thing I want is to make a bad impression on your family. I’ve heard your mother is particularly scary and, as you’ve assured me, it’s been passed down.”
“Sure,” she said, “nothing softens people like sweets. At least in my family.”
Several ornate cupcakes were purchased, and Mira was licking the frosting off of one as they stepped outside again. “You know. I was thinking that you could probably re-gift those firewhisky bottles,” she told him as they ambled along. “Send one to each of the department heads, to the people who run the charities you like. If you included some bikkies or something, and added a festive bow,” she looked up at him, “they’d be proper, professional gifts. It’s a great way to endear yourself personally to people. They know your name, but a thought and a gift can go a long way.”
“I just realized how old I’ve gotten when ‘proper, professional gifts’ includes alcohol,” Harry remarked, shaking his head slightly as they made their way back to the alley they’d first appeared from. It was good idea, something he knew would help not only his professional career, but also forge bonds personally as well, which, in his line of work, tended to be useful at opportune times.
As they entered the darkened mouth of the alley, Harry took a step closer to Mira. He didn’t sense any immediate danger, but he didn’t want to take any chances, either. “If I knew how to tie bows, I’d be all set.”
“I know how to tie bows, so you are set,” Mira said, smile twitching at her lips.
Between one breath and the next, he Apparated them back to the Rosier estate and Peregrine Cottage. Her little home was lit up merrily, and it made Mira smile. Cassie was waiting for her, and Nate too. “Sometime soon we’ll have to make a list and tie some bows together,” she added as an afterthought as she tugged Harry towards her home.
“And see about your telephone charm,” he agreed, fingers threading through hers as they approached the brightly lit home.
Harry had only ever seen the stoop, really, so when she pulled him into the foyer he took a long moment to take in the surroundings. They practically screamed ‘Mira’ and, he supposed by extension, Cassie as well. Classic and elegant, but soft with an edge of fun and what Harry could only describe as ‘girl’. Creams and warm taupes, accented by pops of color. It was friendly and infinitely more welcoming than Grimmauld Place could or would ever be.
“And the charm,” Mira agreed as she made a note in her head to write something up about it later. Despite the improbability that anything could be done immediately except the hands-on research with Harry and the Muggle technology, it was a worthy line of study and was something she could bring up to the Committee at the very least.
Hearing Nate and Cassie’s voices in the living room, Mira banished any further thoughts from her mind. She had her family, and she had Harry, and there was cupcakes to be eaten.
Squeezing his hand, Mira grinned up at him. “Shall we go make our peace offering?”
Harry nodded and let Mira lead him towards her family.
SUMMARY: Nate and Cassie help Mira get ready for her evening out with Harry. After a bit of family chaos, Harry and Mira’s night flies by (with hand-holding).