Springfic: "Strength in Numbers" for katmarajade
Title: Strength in Numbers
Author/Artist: miramiraficfic
Recipient: katmarajade
Character(s): Marietta Edgecombe, Millicent Bulstrode, Lavender Brown, Percy Weasley(/Audrey as a background pairing)
Rating: G
Wordcount: 5,095
Warnings (highlight to view): None
Summary: Individually, Marietta Edgecombe, Millicent Bulstrode, and Lavender Brown bear the scars of their experiences during the war. Together, though, they just might find a recipe for healing.
Author's/Artist’s Notes (if any): Thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to write about these characters. I hope you enjoy the story!
Betas: dilbert719
Strength in Numbers
“You’re sure about this?” asked Percy Weasley, Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, glancing over the top of Junior Assistant to the Improper Use of Magic Office Marietta Edgecombe’s resignation letter with concern. “I hate to see the Ministry lose such a valuable employee.”
“I doubt most people would see my departure that way,” Marietta replied, with a tiny smile. She liked Percy. In the months under Thicknesse’s administration (inasmuch as Thicknesse himself had done any of the actual administrating), they’d established a largely unspoken understanding: neither of them approved of what was going on, but they were going to keep their heads down and hide what rebellion they felt they could get away with deep in the paperwork, where no one else would care to look. But when the final call to arms came, Percy had answered, while she had justified her continued caution by telling herself she had already earned her battle scars. Only in the light of the morning after, with Harry Potter’s victory secure, had she realized those same scars would brand her a “sneak,” a coward, and a traitor all over again…and this time, she wasn’t entirely sure she didn’t deserve them.
That didn’t mean, however, that she was prepared to confront those accusations from the person who’d inflicted them on her in the first place. And while Hermione Granger might only have been an official Ministry employee for a week, Marietta knew they weren’t going to stay at the same pay grade for long. Sooner or later, as more of Harry’s friends took on roles of importance, there’d be nowhere for her to go but out. Despite her mother’s insistence that she was being ridiculous, she’d decided she might as well do it sooner, and under her own power. “Yes, I’m sure.”
Percy continued to frown, but pulled out his quill pen and scrawled an approval across the top of the letter, then reached into his files. “All right. Here’s the form you’ll need to fill out to collect your final salary and benefits, and here’s the one you’ll need to notify the Ministry of your new employment or continuing search status within the next six months, whichever comes first. Out of curiosity, have you secured a position already?”
“Erm…not exactly.” The concern on Percy’s face deepened at this admission. Honestly, it was disturbing how much he resembled her mother sometimes. “But there’s a bookkeeping post that’s just come open at St. Mungo’s. Cho’s arranged an interview for me tomorrow.”
Percy relaxed. “Best of luck, then. It’s been a pleasure working with you, Marietta. I mean it.”
“Likewise.” She shook his proffered hand, then turned and began the long walk out of the Ministry.
Although it was still only ten in the morning by the time she made it outside, she’d concluded somewhere between the lift and the atrium that she needed a drink. And not from the Leaky Cauldron, either. Somewhere there was no risk of anybody knowing her name.
Half-dazed, she wandered past familiar shops down side passages, taking note only as she realized that her general surroundings were giving way to the seediness of Knockturn Alley. A lone painted green awning on the corner, labeled “Millie’s Café” in a cheerful white script, stood out like a daisy in a field of crabgrass.
Inside, the store proved as cozy as its exterior promised, putting Marietta in mind of Madam Puddifoot’s back in Hogsmeade, only less twee and pink. It was also completely empty. While the lack of customers at this time of day didn’t shock Marietta, the absence of any staff was discomfiting. “Hello?”
“Coming!” replied a gruff female voice from the back of the shop, in the direction of what Marietta assumed to be the kitchen. Its owner didn’t sound much like a Millie, or at least not the sort of Millie who Marietta expected to find working in a clean, well-lit café: more like a hard-faced waitress serving burnt coffee in a five-table dump where the floor was kept in shadow for a reason. “Have a seat anywhere.”
Still mildly unnerved for reasons she couldn’t quite pinpoint, Marietta chose a chair near the door just in case. A moment later, the door at the back of the shop swung open, releasing a brief but potent whiff of fresh bread, citrus, roasting peanuts, and various other delectable scents that set Marietta’s stomach growling.
The woman who emerged along with them looked as though she could easily have ripped the door off its hinges if she so chose, if not for the slightly stiff way she held her left arm. Her black hair was cropped in a short bob; her dark, utilitarian robes were liberally splattered with what Marietta assumed to be the products of her work; and the expression in her beady brown eyes as she sized up her customer left Marietta feeling a bit like an ingredient herself.
“A-are you Millie?” Marietta stammered.
The other woman scowled. “The former owner was. I prefer Millicent.”
Marietta frowned. Millicent. The name struck a chord for some reason. In fact, now that she looked more closely at the distinct lack of wrinkles on the stolid face before her, she realized that the other woman couldn’t be much older than herself, if that. But where…?
A sudden memory from sixth year flashed through her head: one of the ones she preferred to forget. She’d rounded a corner and run smack into a large set of robes embellished with an Inquisitorial Squad badge. “Professor Umbridge wants to talk to you,” the figure had said, in the same gruff voice.
Marietta gasped. Knocking over multiple chairs in her haste to stand, she backed toward the door.
“Don’t go!” Millicent yelled: not in the commanding voice Marietta had expected, but a pain-tinged one that sounded familiar for entirely different reasons. It was the voice of someone grown accustomed to being judged on first sight, and yet unable to simply resign herself to all that entailed. “Dammit. Please. What did you want?”
Marietta took a step back toward the table. “Irish coffee.”
Millicent gave Marietta a long, appraising look. “I’ve got a better idea. Wait fifteen minutes. I’ll bring you some tea in the meantime. Want milk?”
Under normal circumstances, Marietta might have offered some biting commentary on the customer being right. Having decided that she was staying for the other woman’s sake, though, she merely nodded and edged into one of the still-upright chairs.
The tea was good: heavy on the milk, the way Marietta liked it. And true to her word, Millicent returned fifteen minutes later bearing something brown and pillowy in a white ridged dish. Marietta sank her fork into it and took a tiny bite. Chocolate and orange and a sharp tanginess she couldn’t quite place melted on her tongue, before exploding through the rest of her head. Her eyelids fluttered. “What is this?”
“Today’s special. Chocolate soufflé drizzled with orange liqueur syrup. Normally I don’t start serving ‘em until lunch, but if you were asking for alcohol this early, I figured you could use one.”
Marietta could only murmur agreement. She couldn’t tell whether five seconds or an hour elapsed between her next bite and when she finally set down her fork: only that it wasn’t nearly long enough. “That was…” She struggled for adequate words to describe the dish’s effect on her, but gave the task up as hopeless. “Amazing. How much do I owe you?”
Millicent gave her another thoughtful look, then grunted. “No charge.”
“Oh, come on. I’m not having that bad a day.” In fact, although she suspected she was still under the influence of the soufflé, she could barely remember why the day had seemed bad in the first place.
“The way you reacted when you came in here, I must owe you for something. Besides,” Millicent sunk into one of the chairs herself and cast her gaze to the floor. “One more sale’s not going to keep this place open.”
Marietta glanced at the empty tables around her again. “Business is bad, then?”
“Or I’m bad at business. Same thing, really. Maybe there’s a way to make the numbers add up, but I’ll be damned if I can find it.”
“I can do numbers.”
Millicent glanced up, her expression doubtful.
“I can do numbers,” Marietta insisted. “I got an O on my Arithmancy NEWTs. I have an interview for a bookkeeping job tomorrow. Let me take a look. If you’re not going to let me pay, it’s the least I can do.”
After a moment’s appraisal, Millicent smiled. The sparkle in her eyes lasted only a fraction of a second, but it was remarkable how the shift from beady to warm lingered. “Come on back, then.”
-
Marietta never did fill out the Ministry form for her position at St. Mungo’s. She lasted two months, doing the bare minimum required of her before rushing off at five on the dot to Millie’s Café, where she spent hours eking out meaningful cost reductions. The night she burst into the kitchen with news that she’d squeezed out enough of a profit margin for a tiny salary, Millicent just looked at her and said
“You’re coming on, then?”
The official title they settled on was chief financial officer, though there were also waitress and cleanup duties involved. Her mother yelled for weeks, and Cho shook her head in disappointment, but Marietta just told them she couldn’t remember having been so happy in years. “Fifth year at Hogwarts, to be exact,” she noted when Mum’s lectures got particularly contentious, “before….” Then she’d run a hand through her hair to make sure it hung in front of her cheeks. That put an abrupt and awkward end to the scolding. Marietta felt a little guilty about such blatant manipulation, particularly after Millicent talked her into wearing her hair up while in the kitchen, but it seemed a small price to pay for not having her judgment questioned.
Especially when she spent enough time on her own worrying that Mum was right, and the small price that Millicent paid her every month was going to send the café over the edge after all. As conservative as she’d been in her projections, business still crept along at a flobberworm’s pace. Oh, there were a few regular faces. Like dear Cho, who came once out of solidarity and returned several times afterward without the slightest prompting from Marietta. Or Percy, who stopped by shortly after she finally filed her form with the Ministry, vanished for weeks, then turned up one day accompanied by a pretty, bespectacled brunette who kept staring at the fairy lights in wide-eyed amazement.
“Audrey, this is Marietta Edgecombe: my former colleague I was telling you about. Marietta, I’d like you to meet Audrey Barnard,” he said, before lowering his voice conspiratorially. “It’s her first time visiting Diagon Alley. I’m trying to give her the full tour.”
Marietta smiled. “We’ll do our best to make it memorable.”
By the end of the meal, Audrey had stopped asking questions about the spells required to get everything to the table and switched to raving about the chocolate silk pie.
From then on, Percy came by to pick up a slice after work so frequently that Millicent was forced to add it to the regular menu.
And then there were the visitors who, like Marietta, seemed to have found the place entirely on their own. Visitors like Roger Davies, who stopped by every other Tuesday with a different woman: none of them the one the Prophet indicated he was dating seriously. Or Lavender Brown, who’d stop in on her way to and from Knockturn Alley for the components of what she termed her “beauty treatments.” (Marietta always fought back the urge to ask her what they were: although Lavender’s injuries made hers look like a bad case of acne, somehow the other woman always seemed cheerful and chic in spite of them, and maintained a perfect peaches-and-cream complexion in the areas between the scarred ridges.) Sometimes, Roger’s dates even came back on their own, though Marietta did her best to encourage them to adopt separate schedules.
But even with these encouraging signs, there weren’t nearly enough frequent customers, and their numbers weren’t growing: at least not quickly enough to outrace the red figures on the expense side of Marietta’s ledgers. Which was why Marietta responded with alarm when Lavender showed up one early afternoon, slid into one of the many unoccupied seats in the otherwise empty café, and said, in an unusually downcast voice, “Chamomile tea and pumpkin cheesecake. And make it a nice big slice, please. Might be my last one for a while.”
“Why? What’s wrong?” asked Marietta, in between charming Lavender’s cup full of hot water and summoning the teabag.
The expression on Lavender’s face flickered somewhere between a smile and a grimace. “I just quit my job.”
“Really? But I thought you loved Divination.” Before their brief exchanges at the café, in fact, Marietta had known little else about Lavender, other than her participation in Dumbledore’s Army. She hadn’t seemed particularly enthusiastic about the exercises, either, though, so Marietta wasn’t inclined to hold it against her.
Lavender sighed and pushed her teacup away. “I thought so, too. But doing horoscopes for the Prophet isn’t Divination. Not really. There always has to be more good news than bad, and even the bad news can never be too terrible, no matter what the stars say. Besides, ever since the war, I keep thinking…” Her hand and voice began to tremble. “I know everything happens for a reason, but if I had any real Sight, maybe…” She reached up to trace the scar tissue scored across her cheek.
Marietta caught herself mirroring the gesture on her own face, and wrenched her arm back. “Any idea what you’ll do instead?” she asked, in lieu of comforting platitudes. After all, she’d never heard any that worked.
“No,” Lavender admitted, letting her hands fall to her lap. “I know it sounds ridiculous, after everything I just said, but I can’t help hoping that something perfect will come along out of nowhere.”
“It could happen. That’s how I ended up here.” But remembering how soon the perfect opportunity might come to an end, Marietta felt her smile fade.
Apparently Lavender noticed as well. “What’s wrong?”
Marietta hesitated. But Lavender’s concern seemed so genuine…. Before she knew it, she was pouring out the entirety of the café’s financial troubles.
“That’s horrible!” Lavender said when she’d finished, her good eye still wide with sympathy. “You know, I’ve been doing everything I can to convince my friends to come here, but they keep saying they’re too busy.” She snorted. “Too busy for Millicent Bulstrode, they mean, even after what she did in the final battle.”
The question ”What did she do?” hung on the edge of Marietta’s lips. She’d assumed a connection between Millicent’s recurring arm troubles and the war, but her employer refused to bring the subject up, and Marietta wasn’t about to inquire. Until now, though, it hadn’t occurred to her that there was anything particularly odd about Lavender’s patronage, and the curiosity nearly overwhelmed her.
But Lavender, oblivious to Marietta’s internal conflict, had already moved on. “Shame you can’t bring the food to them and show them what they’re missing.”
“Yes, that would…” Marietta trailed off as the significance of Lavender’s words hit her. Abruptly, she reached out across the table and caught the other girl in a hug. “That’s brilliant!”
With a superfluous “Stay right there!” to the stunned Lavender, she raced toward the back office, calling out Millicent’s name.
Two minutes later, she returned, with a dubious-looking, flour-coated chef in tow. While Millicent dusted off her hands, Marietta distributed parchment and quills around the table. “Here. I need you to think of everyone you know who works or might know someone who works at one of the shops nearby. You too, Lavender. Between the three of us, we should be able to come up with a pretty comprehensive list.”
Millicent frowned. “I tried that already. Remember?”
“Not like this. We’re going to put together a boxed lunch menu. Three or four choices of sandwich, soup or salad, and dessert. You decide which ones and let me know how long it takes you to make them; I’ll figure out what kind of volume discounts we can offer. Meanwhile, our new chief marketing officer-” Marietta clapped Lavender on the shoulder. “-will find out who makes the purchasing decisions at all of the businesses on our list, so that she can she knows who to bring the menus and samples to once they’re ready.”
“Me?” Lavender squeaked.
“Why not? It was your idea.” More importantly, Lavender’s charm and war hero status would open far more doors than the sight of either Marietta or Millicent. Not that Marietta wanted to remind Lavender of the precariousness of this venture. No more than necessary, at any rate. “Who knows? You might even land a few job offers in the process. Though if this works out, we should be able to pay you for your efforts. Hopefully.” Of course, now that she’d allowed reality to intrude on her inspiration, she also remembered that the decision wasn’t hers to make. “Erm…that is, assuming Millicent agrees.”
“Don’t see that I have much choice,” grumbled Millicent, before a tiny smile curved upward to match her sparkling eyes. “Hmm. Tomato bisque for the samples, I think. With some nice bacon, lettuce, and tomato on good, thick bread for dipping.”
“Ooh! And what about red velvet cake to match?” Lavender suggested.
Marietta smiled and began scribbling calculations on her sheet of parchment.
-
“Well?” Lavender asked from over Marietta’s left shoulder. Millicent said nothing, but hovered closely enough on the right that Marietta could feel her rapid, shallow breathing.
Marietta set her quill down on the pile of order forms and turned, slowly enough to give them time to back away. “Ladies, we are officially victims of our own success.”
Lavender frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means we’ve hit capacity. Remember how crazy those first few weeks were when the orders started coming in, until we figured out a system? Ever since we decided to cater that junior clerks’ meeting at Gringotts, we’re hearing from new shops every day. We can’t put together any more boxed lunches than we’re already doing. And we especially can’t do it and run the café at the same time, now that more of our customers are deciding to come here.”
“So we hire more staff,” Millicent shrugged.
Marietta shook her head. “That won’t be enough. We need a bigger kitchen, more storage space, more supplies…and as much business as we’re getting, I don’t think it’ll cover all of that.”
Millicent still looked dubious, but realizing that the conversation wasn’t going to end so easily, pulled up a chair and settled in. “So what are our options, then?”
“Well, we could shutter the café and focus on catering full-time.” Marietta glanced from Lavender’s stricken face to Millicent’s stony one. “I know. I don’t like that idea, either. Or we could take out a loan from Gringotts, though the interest may kill us before the investments start to pay off.”
“We could bribe them with baked goods,” Lavender suggested.
“Actually, that’s not so far off the next alternative,” said Marietta, causing Lavender’s smirk to transform into an open-mouthed gape. “We could approach one of the groups we’re currently doing business with and see if they’d be interested in taking an investment stake in the café. The trouble is, the ones that have the most logical reason to do it are also the most likely to try and use it as an opportunity to take full control. Flourish and Blotts, for instance: they’ve been happy using our pastries in their café and giving us credit so far, but they might decide they want to turn us into a second location.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you think like a Slytherin?” Millicent asked.
“Once or twice,” Marietta acknowledged. She decided to refrain from noting that it hadn’t been with nearly the same degree of approval.
“Floating fairy cakes!” Lavender exclaimed suddenly.
Millicent and Marietta both stared at her. “Never heard that one before,” said Marietta, at nearly the same time as Millicent’s, “I know this might be hard for a Gryffindor to believe, but I meant it as a compliment.”
“No, George Weasley, remember?” explained Lavender, or at least spoke with the sort of mounting enthusiasm that suggested a coherent explanation might be forthcoming. “He asked us if we could do those floating fairy cakes for Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes, and you both said you didn’t think that’d be possible in our current space without the ingredients getting into everything else. But if we had a new kitchen, and someone to work on projects like that…”
“…And they’d leave us in peace when it came to everything else,” Marietta finished, having fit the threads of the conversation together.
Lavender smirked again. “How’s that for Slytherin thinking?”
“No, that would be pure Gryffindor: just crazy enough to work.” Millicent was smiling as well. “Is he the one who likes the chocolate pies?”
“That’s Percy,” Marietta corrected. “But we might as well send one to him, too. It couldn’t hurt.”
The next day, Lavender and Marietta delivered their respected packages and sales pitches. A week later, they had the contract signed.
-
“Marietta!” Lavender called out in a sing-song tone, rendering her knocking superfluous as she opened Marietta’s office door a crack and peered through. “You’re not leaving, are you? Have you forgotten the meeting scheduled at 5?”
“Oh, right, the wedding job for the mystery client you refuse to identify,” Marietta groaned, setting her bag back down. “Please tell me it’s not Roger Davies.”
In response, Lavender merely grinned and pushed the door the rest of the way open. Marietta took one look, started, and leapt up to embrace her favorite investor and his new fiancée in turn.
“Congratulations!” she exclaimed once again, after Lavender had left and Percy and Audrey were seated. “And you’re letting us do the catering instead of your mother? That may be the highest compliment we’ve received.”
Percy’s neck burned red. “Erm… I haven’t had that conversation with her just yet. But I think she’ll come ‘round once I point out that it’ll be more difficult for George to tamper with the refreshments this way.”
Marietta laughed as she pulled the appropriate forms from her desk. “Even so, I’m afraid we’ll need to ask you for the standard down payment. Though I’m sure we’ll find a way to make up the cost before we’re done. Have you spoken to Millicent about the menu already?”
“We have.” Percy cleared his throat, voice suddenly nervous. “Though actually, we, er, had an unrelated matter we wanted to discuss with you first.”
“Oh?” Marietta looked up, forms still dangling from her fingers.
Percy and Audrey exchanged awkward glances. This time, Audrey was the one to clear her throat. “I hope I’m not being offensive, but…you’re not…Muggleborn, are you, Marietta?”
“No,” said Marietta slowly, setting the forms back on the desk carefully. She didn’t know exactly where this conversation was going, but otherwise, she had a feeling she might drop them before it was over.
“Right.” Audrey took a deep breath. “Well, I don’t know how much you know about Muggle medicine, but our doctors-or healers, if you’d rather-can do some impressive things to alter…unwanted aspects of someone’s appearance. Not quite on the level of some of your spells and potions, but they might have solutions that a wizard wouldn’t consider.”
For the first time in she couldn’t remember how long, Marietta’s hand flew to her cheek. “I don’t think I’d have the money for something like that,” she said, her voice sounding flat and distant to her own ears.
“I have…friends in the medical profession,” said Audrey, looking to Percy again, although this time he refused to meet her gaze. “Consultations are often free, and between I’m sure we could work out something if…there were more to be done.”
Marietta held the desk with her free hand for support, staring at both of them in bewilderment. She had no idea how to respond to this-generosity? insult?-beyond reaffirming that the café’s most loyal supporters hardly needed to go to extremes to secure a good rate.
Loyal supporters. Then she realized. For all that Percy had done to champion the partnership between Millie’s Café and Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes, he didn’t even have the largest stake in the family enterprise behind George. That belonged to the brother she’d avoided dealing with, out of-respect? disdain? -and his presumptive bride. “This isn’t your idea, is it?”
She gave Percy credit for finding the grace to look at her directly, as uncomfortable as it clearly made him. “Hermione…when we signed the contract, she had some questions about you. I did my best to answer without sharing too much-not that I know too much-but she’s been…persistent. The war…some of the choices she made…I think she understands how far someone might go to protect a parent, in a way she didn’t before. And she knows, now, that some choices, some consequences can’t be undone.” On that point, he sounded completely in sympathy; Audrey clasped his hand in a futile effort to prevent tears from springing to his eyes. “I think…I think she wants a chance to fix what can be fixed.”
Marietta swallowed, absorbing this information. “Tell her I’ll consider it,” she said at last, keeping her voice steady through tremendous force of will.
Percy nodded.
“Shall we take the forms with us?” Audrey asked gently.
It took Marietta a second to remember what she was talking about. Wordlessly, she plucked them off the desk and handed them over.
“Thank you,” said Audrey, offering her a hand squeeze of her own.
“You’re invited to the wedding, by the by,” said Percy. “As a guest, not staff.” His expression remained anxious. “I hope you’ll come.”
Marietta smiled: forced at first, then with a gradual easing of tension. “That much I think I can agree to. Unless it conflicts with Cho’s. She hasn’t set a date yet, but she’s asked me to be a bridesmaid.”
“Of course.” Percy flashed his own relieved smile. “We’ll let you know if we have any questions on the forms.”
Marietta shook their hands and saw them to the door, then returned to her chair and sat in silence. How long she remained there or what thoughts passed through her head during the intervening period, she could not have said: only that the trance was broken by a broad shadow falling across her field of vision.
“Said something about your scars, did they?” Millicent grunted as she took one of the empty seats. “I told them it was a bad idea.”
“Did Hermione offer to fix your arm, too?” asked Marietta, still lingering in the land of no-thought. Then, startled into full recognition of what she had said, she clapped a hand to her mouth.
Millicent just let out a single bark of a laugh. “If she had, I’d probably have decked her and her messengers with the good one.” She cast a sidelong look at Marietta. “You’re the only one who wasn’t there that’s never asked me about it, you know that?”
“I’m not surprised.”
Millicent raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to?”
Marietta fought the urge to conceal her cheek again. “You don’t have to.”
“I don’t mind telling.” Millicent leaned back in her chair. “I was never much for all the blood purity nonsense, no matter what some might say. I’m only half-blood myself. Muggle relatives, not trolls, no matter what they say about that, either. I joined up with Umbridge and her lot ‘cause fighting was the only talent I thought I had back then, and I thought I might as well get some respect out of it. But by seventh year, with the Carrows, it wasn’t something I wanted to be good at any more. When McGonagall sent Slytherin away before the battle, at first I didn’t know whether to be glad or angry that I’d have to go on and try to make a life out of nothing. Then, after fifteen minutes of listening to all the pureblood brats whining about how they couldn’t show the Dark Lord their devotion now, I decided I didn’t need to live in a world full of that. So I followed Slughorn back and ran smack into a Death Eater menacing a pack of other girls.”
“And he hit you?” Marietta asked breathlessly.
“No, I took him down in one shot. But the other girls were still scared and confused, and one of ‘em-Lavender’s friend, Parvati-assumed I was on his side and hexed me. She was really sorry when she figured it out. Her father gave me a reward for saving her life. That’s how I got the money to buy the café in the first place.”
Marietta frowned, remembering Millicent’s earlier statement about not thinking she had any talents. “But how did you decide on a café?”
“Ah, see, that’s the important part.” Millicent grinned. “We all took shifts in different areas during the castle repairs, and since the house elves were needed for the really nasty cleanup, some of us wound up in the kitchen. By the end of my second stint, I pretty much refused to leave - and once everyone tasted my food, they didn’t have any complaints about that.”
“So you’re a war hero,” said Marietta in summary. Her voice had gone distant on her again, the unexpected revelation leaving her feeling more alone than ever.
Millicent scowled. “Weren’t you listening to anything I just said? I’m a cook. And a damn good one at that.” Her face relaxed as she clapped Marietta on the shoulder. “And Lavender’s good with people and making things look nice, and you’re good with numbers and strategy. Once you’ve found the thing that makes you strong, who cares about everything else?”
Marietta mused on this for a while, then broke into a smile. “I don’t know. I think I could find it in me to care about some chocolate pie.”
“Oh, well, now, that’s different.” Millicent rose with a smile of her own. “I’ll bring you some milk, too. Want tea in it?”
Marietta laughed, standing. “That’s all right. I’ll come fix it myself.”
Author/Artist: miramiraficfic
Recipient: katmarajade
Character(s): Marietta Edgecombe, Millicent Bulstrode, Lavender Brown, Percy Weasley(/Audrey as a background pairing)
Rating: G
Wordcount: 5,095
Warnings (highlight to view): None
Summary: Individually, Marietta Edgecombe, Millicent Bulstrode, and Lavender Brown bear the scars of their experiences during the war. Together, though, they just might find a recipe for healing.
Author's/Artist’s Notes (if any): Thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to write about these characters. I hope you enjoy the story!
Betas: dilbert719
Strength in Numbers
“You’re sure about this?” asked Percy Weasley, Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, glancing over the top of Junior Assistant to the Improper Use of Magic Office Marietta Edgecombe’s resignation letter with concern. “I hate to see the Ministry lose such a valuable employee.”
“I doubt most people would see my departure that way,” Marietta replied, with a tiny smile. She liked Percy. In the months under Thicknesse’s administration (inasmuch as Thicknesse himself had done any of the actual administrating), they’d established a largely unspoken understanding: neither of them approved of what was going on, but they were going to keep their heads down and hide what rebellion they felt they could get away with deep in the paperwork, where no one else would care to look. But when the final call to arms came, Percy had answered, while she had justified her continued caution by telling herself she had already earned her battle scars. Only in the light of the morning after, with Harry Potter’s victory secure, had she realized those same scars would brand her a “sneak,” a coward, and a traitor all over again…and this time, she wasn’t entirely sure she didn’t deserve them.
That didn’t mean, however, that she was prepared to confront those accusations from the person who’d inflicted them on her in the first place. And while Hermione Granger might only have been an official Ministry employee for a week, Marietta knew they weren’t going to stay at the same pay grade for long. Sooner or later, as more of Harry’s friends took on roles of importance, there’d be nowhere for her to go but out. Despite her mother’s insistence that she was being ridiculous, she’d decided she might as well do it sooner, and under her own power. “Yes, I’m sure.”
Percy continued to frown, but pulled out his quill pen and scrawled an approval across the top of the letter, then reached into his files. “All right. Here’s the form you’ll need to fill out to collect your final salary and benefits, and here’s the one you’ll need to notify the Ministry of your new employment or continuing search status within the next six months, whichever comes first. Out of curiosity, have you secured a position already?”
“Erm…not exactly.” The concern on Percy’s face deepened at this admission. Honestly, it was disturbing how much he resembled her mother sometimes. “But there’s a bookkeeping post that’s just come open at St. Mungo’s. Cho’s arranged an interview for me tomorrow.”
Percy relaxed. “Best of luck, then. It’s been a pleasure working with you, Marietta. I mean it.”
“Likewise.” She shook his proffered hand, then turned and began the long walk out of the Ministry.
Although it was still only ten in the morning by the time she made it outside, she’d concluded somewhere between the lift and the atrium that she needed a drink. And not from the Leaky Cauldron, either. Somewhere there was no risk of anybody knowing her name.
Half-dazed, she wandered past familiar shops down side passages, taking note only as she realized that her general surroundings were giving way to the seediness of Knockturn Alley. A lone painted green awning on the corner, labeled “Millie’s Café” in a cheerful white script, stood out like a daisy in a field of crabgrass.
Inside, the store proved as cozy as its exterior promised, putting Marietta in mind of Madam Puddifoot’s back in Hogsmeade, only less twee and pink. It was also completely empty. While the lack of customers at this time of day didn’t shock Marietta, the absence of any staff was discomfiting. “Hello?”
“Coming!” replied a gruff female voice from the back of the shop, in the direction of what Marietta assumed to be the kitchen. Its owner didn’t sound much like a Millie, or at least not the sort of Millie who Marietta expected to find working in a clean, well-lit café: more like a hard-faced waitress serving burnt coffee in a five-table dump where the floor was kept in shadow for a reason. “Have a seat anywhere.”
Still mildly unnerved for reasons she couldn’t quite pinpoint, Marietta chose a chair near the door just in case. A moment later, the door at the back of the shop swung open, releasing a brief but potent whiff of fresh bread, citrus, roasting peanuts, and various other delectable scents that set Marietta’s stomach growling.
The woman who emerged along with them looked as though she could easily have ripped the door off its hinges if she so chose, if not for the slightly stiff way she held her left arm. Her black hair was cropped in a short bob; her dark, utilitarian robes were liberally splattered with what Marietta assumed to be the products of her work; and the expression in her beady brown eyes as she sized up her customer left Marietta feeling a bit like an ingredient herself.
“A-are you Millie?” Marietta stammered.
The other woman scowled. “The former owner was. I prefer Millicent.”
Marietta frowned. Millicent. The name struck a chord for some reason. In fact, now that she looked more closely at the distinct lack of wrinkles on the stolid face before her, she realized that the other woman couldn’t be much older than herself, if that. But where…?
A sudden memory from sixth year flashed through her head: one of the ones she preferred to forget. She’d rounded a corner and run smack into a large set of robes embellished with an Inquisitorial Squad badge. “Professor Umbridge wants to talk to you,” the figure had said, in the same gruff voice.
Marietta gasped. Knocking over multiple chairs in her haste to stand, she backed toward the door.
“Don’t go!” Millicent yelled: not in the commanding voice Marietta had expected, but a pain-tinged one that sounded familiar for entirely different reasons. It was the voice of someone grown accustomed to being judged on first sight, and yet unable to simply resign herself to all that entailed. “Dammit. Please. What did you want?”
Marietta took a step back toward the table. “Irish coffee.”
Millicent gave Marietta a long, appraising look. “I’ve got a better idea. Wait fifteen minutes. I’ll bring you some tea in the meantime. Want milk?”
Under normal circumstances, Marietta might have offered some biting commentary on the customer being right. Having decided that she was staying for the other woman’s sake, though, she merely nodded and edged into one of the still-upright chairs.
The tea was good: heavy on the milk, the way Marietta liked it. And true to her word, Millicent returned fifteen minutes later bearing something brown and pillowy in a white ridged dish. Marietta sank her fork into it and took a tiny bite. Chocolate and orange and a sharp tanginess she couldn’t quite place melted on her tongue, before exploding through the rest of her head. Her eyelids fluttered. “What is this?”
“Today’s special. Chocolate soufflé drizzled with orange liqueur syrup. Normally I don’t start serving ‘em until lunch, but if you were asking for alcohol this early, I figured you could use one.”
Marietta could only murmur agreement. She couldn’t tell whether five seconds or an hour elapsed between her next bite and when she finally set down her fork: only that it wasn’t nearly long enough. “That was…” She struggled for adequate words to describe the dish’s effect on her, but gave the task up as hopeless. “Amazing. How much do I owe you?”
Millicent gave her another thoughtful look, then grunted. “No charge.”
“Oh, come on. I’m not having that bad a day.” In fact, although she suspected she was still under the influence of the soufflé, she could barely remember why the day had seemed bad in the first place.
“The way you reacted when you came in here, I must owe you for something. Besides,” Millicent sunk into one of the chairs herself and cast her gaze to the floor. “One more sale’s not going to keep this place open.”
Marietta glanced at the empty tables around her again. “Business is bad, then?”
“Or I’m bad at business. Same thing, really. Maybe there’s a way to make the numbers add up, but I’ll be damned if I can find it.”
“I can do numbers.”
Millicent glanced up, her expression doubtful.
“I can do numbers,” Marietta insisted. “I got an O on my Arithmancy NEWTs. I have an interview for a bookkeeping job tomorrow. Let me take a look. If you’re not going to let me pay, it’s the least I can do.”
After a moment’s appraisal, Millicent smiled. The sparkle in her eyes lasted only a fraction of a second, but it was remarkable how the shift from beady to warm lingered. “Come on back, then.”
-
Marietta never did fill out the Ministry form for her position at St. Mungo’s. She lasted two months, doing the bare minimum required of her before rushing off at five on the dot to Millie’s Café, where she spent hours eking out meaningful cost reductions. The night she burst into the kitchen with news that she’d squeezed out enough of a profit margin for a tiny salary, Millicent just looked at her and said
“You’re coming on, then?”
The official title they settled on was chief financial officer, though there were also waitress and cleanup duties involved. Her mother yelled for weeks, and Cho shook her head in disappointment, but Marietta just told them she couldn’t remember having been so happy in years. “Fifth year at Hogwarts, to be exact,” she noted when Mum’s lectures got particularly contentious, “before….” Then she’d run a hand through her hair to make sure it hung in front of her cheeks. That put an abrupt and awkward end to the scolding. Marietta felt a little guilty about such blatant manipulation, particularly after Millicent talked her into wearing her hair up while in the kitchen, but it seemed a small price to pay for not having her judgment questioned.
Especially when she spent enough time on her own worrying that Mum was right, and the small price that Millicent paid her every month was going to send the café over the edge after all. As conservative as she’d been in her projections, business still crept along at a flobberworm’s pace. Oh, there were a few regular faces. Like dear Cho, who came once out of solidarity and returned several times afterward without the slightest prompting from Marietta. Or Percy, who stopped by shortly after she finally filed her form with the Ministry, vanished for weeks, then turned up one day accompanied by a pretty, bespectacled brunette who kept staring at the fairy lights in wide-eyed amazement.
“Audrey, this is Marietta Edgecombe: my former colleague I was telling you about. Marietta, I’d like you to meet Audrey Barnard,” he said, before lowering his voice conspiratorially. “It’s her first time visiting Diagon Alley. I’m trying to give her the full tour.”
Marietta smiled. “We’ll do our best to make it memorable.”
By the end of the meal, Audrey had stopped asking questions about the spells required to get everything to the table and switched to raving about the chocolate silk pie.
From then on, Percy came by to pick up a slice after work so frequently that Millicent was forced to add it to the regular menu.
And then there were the visitors who, like Marietta, seemed to have found the place entirely on their own. Visitors like Roger Davies, who stopped by every other Tuesday with a different woman: none of them the one the Prophet indicated he was dating seriously. Or Lavender Brown, who’d stop in on her way to and from Knockturn Alley for the components of what she termed her “beauty treatments.” (Marietta always fought back the urge to ask her what they were: although Lavender’s injuries made hers look like a bad case of acne, somehow the other woman always seemed cheerful and chic in spite of them, and maintained a perfect peaches-and-cream complexion in the areas between the scarred ridges.) Sometimes, Roger’s dates even came back on their own, though Marietta did her best to encourage them to adopt separate schedules.
But even with these encouraging signs, there weren’t nearly enough frequent customers, and their numbers weren’t growing: at least not quickly enough to outrace the red figures on the expense side of Marietta’s ledgers. Which was why Marietta responded with alarm when Lavender showed up one early afternoon, slid into one of the many unoccupied seats in the otherwise empty café, and said, in an unusually downcast voice, “Chamomile tea and pumpkin cheesecake. And make it a nice big slice, please. Might be my last one for a while.”
“Why? What’s wrong?” asked Marietta, in between charming Lavender’s cup full of hot water and summoning the teabag.
The expression on Lavender’s face flickered somewhere between a smile and a grimace. “I just quit my job.”
“Really? But I thought you loved Divination.” Before their brief exchanges at the café, in fact, Marietta had known little else about Lavender, other than her participation in Dumbledore’s Army. She hadn’t seemed particularly enthusiastic about the exercises, either, though, so Marietta wasn’t inclined to hold it against her.
Lavender sighed and pushed her teacup away. “I thought so, too. But doing horoscopes for the Prophet isn’t Divination. Not really. There always has to be more good news than bad, and even the bad news can never be too terrible, no matter what the stars say. Besides, ever since the war, I keep thinking…” Her hand and voice began to tremble. “I know everything happens for a reason, but if I had any real Sight, maybe…” She reached up to trace the scar tissue scored across her cheek.
Marietta caught herself mirroring the gesture on her own face, and wrenched her arm back. “Any idea what you’ll do instead?” she asked, in lieu of comforting platitudes. After all, she’d never heard any that worked.
“No,” Lavender admitted, letting her hands fall to her lap. “I know it sounds ridiculous, after everything I just said, but I can’t help hoping that something perfect will come along out of nowhere.”
“It could happen. That’s how I ended up here.” But remembering how soon the perfect opportunity might come to an end, Marietta felt her smile fade.
Apparently Lavender noticed as well. “What’s wrong?”
Marietta hesitated. But Lavender’s concern seemed so genuine…. Before she knew it, she was pouring out the entirety of the café’s financial troubles.
“That’s horrible!” Lavender said when she’d finished, her good eye still wide with sympathy. “You know, I’ve been doing everything I can to convince my friends to come here, but they keep saying they’re too busy.” She snorted. “Too busy for Millicent Bulstrode, they mean, even after what she did in the final battle.”
The question ”What did she do?” hung on the edge of Marietta’s lips. She’d assumed a connection between Millicent’s recurring arm troubles and the war, but her employer refused to bring the subject up, and Marietta wasn’t about to inquire. Until now, though, it hadn’t occurred to her that there was anything particularly odd about Lavender’s patronage, and the curiosity nearly overwhelmed her.
But Lavender, oblivious to Marietta’s internal conflict, had already moved on. “Shame you can’t bring the food to them and show them what they’re missing.”
“Yes, that would…” Marietta trailed off as the significance of Lavender’s words hit her. Abruptly, she reached out across the table and caught the other girl in a hug. “That’s brilliant!”
With a superfluous “Stay right there!” to the stunned Lavender, she raced toward the back office, calling out Millicent’s name.
Two minutes later, she returned, with a dubious-looking, flour-coated chef in tow. While Millicent dusted off her hands, Marietta distributed parchment and quills around the table. “Here. I need you to think of everyone you know who works or might know someone who works at one of the shops nearby. You too, Lavender. Between the three of us, we should be able to come up with a pretty comprehensive list.”
Millicent frowned. “I tried that already. Remember?”
“Not like this. We’re going to put together a boxed lunch menu. Three or four choices of sandwich, soup or salad, and dessert. You decide which ones and let me know how long it takes you to make them; I’ll figure out what kind of volume discounts we can offer. Meanwhile, our new chief marketing officer-” Marietta clapped Lavender on the shoulder. “-will find out who makes the purchasing decisions at all of the businesses on our list, so that she can she knows who to bring the menus and samples to once they’re ready.”
“Me?” Lavender squeaked.
“Why not? It was your idea.” More importantly, Lavender’s charm and war hero status would open far more doors than the sight of either Marietta or Millicent. Not that Marietta wanted to remind Lavender of the precariousness of this venture. No more than necessary, at any rate. “Who knows? You might even land a few job offers in the process. Though if this works out, we should be able to pay you for your efforts. Hopefully.” Of course, now that she’d allowed reality to intrude on her inspiration, she also remembered that the decision wasn’t hers to make. “Erm…that is, assuming Millicent agrees.”
“Don’t see that I have much choice,” grumbled Millicent, before a tiny smile curved upward to match her sparkling eyes. “Hmm. Tomato bisque for the samples, I think. With some nice bacon, lettuce, and tomato on good, thick bread for dipping.”
“Ooh! And what about red velvet cake to match?” Lavender suggested.
Marietta smiled and began scribbling calculations on her sheet of parchment.
-
“Well?” Lavender asked from over Marietta’s left shoulder. Millicent said nothing, but hovered closely enough on the right that Marietta could feel her rapid, shallow breathing.
Marietta set her quill down on the pile of order forms and turned, slowly enough to give them time to back away. “Ladies, we are officially victims of our own success.”
Lavender frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means we’ve hit capacity. Remember how crazy those first few weeks were when the orders started coming in, until we figured out a system? Ever since we decided to cater that junior clerks’ meeting at Gringotts, we’re hearing from new shops every day. We can’t put together any more boxed lunches than we’re already doing. And we especially can’t do it and run the café at the same time, now that more of our customers are deciding to come here.”
“So we hire more staff,” Millicent shrugged.
Marietta shook her head. “That won’t be enough. We need a bigger kitchen, more storage space, more supplies…and as much business as we’re getting, I don’t think it’ll cover all of that.”
Millicent still looked dubious, but realizing that the conversation wasn’t going to end so easily, pulled up a chair and settled in. “So what are our options, then?”
“Well, we could shutter the café and focus on catering full-time.” Marietta glanced from Lavender’s stricken face to Millicent’s stony one. “I know. I don’t like that idea, either. Or we could take out a loan from Gringotts, though the interest may kill us before the investments start to pay off.”
“We could bribe them with baked goods,” Lavender suggested.
“Actually, that’s not so far off the next alternative,” said Marietta, causing Lavender’s smirk to transform into an open-mouthed gape. “We could approach one of the groups we’re currently doing business with and see if they’d be interested in taking an investment stake in the café. The trouble is, the ones that have the most logical reason to do it are also the most likely to try and use it as an opportunity to take full control. Flourish and Blotts, for instance: they’ve been happy using our pastries in their café and giving us credit so far, but they might decide they want to turn us into a second location.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you think like a Slytherin?” Millicent asked.
“Once or twice,” Marietta acknowledged. She decided to refrain from noting that it hadn’t been with nearly the same degree of approval.
“Floating fairy cakes!” Lavender exclaimed suddenly.
Millicent and Marietta both stared at her. “Never heard that one before,” said Marietta, at nearly the same time as Millicent’s, “I know this might be hard for a Gryffindor to believe, but I meant it as a compliment.”
“No, George Weasley, remember?” explained Lavender, or at least spoke with the sort of mounting enthusiasm that suggested a coherent explanation might be forthcoming. “He asked us if we could do those floating fairy cakes for Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes, and you both said you didn’t think that’d be possible in our current space without the ingredients getting into everything else. But if we had a new kitchen, and someone to work on projects like that…”
“…And they’d leave us in peace when it came to everything else,” Marietta finished, having fit the threads of the conversation together.
Lavender smirked again. “How’s that for Slytherin thinking?”
“No, that would be pure Gryffindor: just crazy enough to work.” Millicent was smiling as well. “Is he the one who likes the chocolate pies?”
“That’s Percy,” Marietta corrected. “But we might as well send one to him, too. It couldn’t hurt.”
The next day, Lavender and Marietta delivered their respected packages and sales pitches. A week later, they had the contract signed.
-
“Marietta!” Lavender called out in a sing-song tone, rendering her knocking superfluous as she opened Marietta’s office door a crack and peered through. “You’re not leaving, are you? Have you forgotten the meeting scheduled at 5?”
“Oh, right, the wedding job for the mystery client you refuse to identify,” Marietta groaned, setting her bag back down. “Please tell me it’s not Roger Davies.”
In response, Lavender merely grinned and pushed the door the rest of the way open. Marietta took one look, started, and leapt up to embrace her favorite investor and his new fiancée in turn.
“Congratulations!” she exclaimed once again, after Lavender had left and Percy and Audrey were seated. “And you’re letting us do the catering instead of your mother? That may be the highest compliment we’ve received.”
Percy’s neck burned red. “Erm… I haven’t had that conversation with her just yet. But I think she’ll come ‘round once I point out that it’ll be more difficult for George to tamper with the refreshments this way.”
Marietta laughed as she pulled the appropriate forms from her desk. “Even so, I’m afraid we’ll need to ask you for the standard down payment. Though I’m sure we’ll find a way to make up the cost before we’re done. Have you spoken to Millicent about the menu already?”
“We have.” Percy cleared his throat, voice suddenly nervous. “Though actually, we, er, had an unrelated matter we wanted to discuss with you first.”
“Oh?” Marietta looked up, forms still dangling from her fingers.
Percy and Audrey exchanged awkward glances. This time, Audrey was the one to clear her throat. “I hope I’m not being offensive, but…you’re not…Muggleborn, are you, Marietta?”
“No,” said Marietta slowly, setting the forms back on the desk carefully. She didn’t know exactly where this conversation was going, but otherwise, she had a feeling she might drop them before it was over.
“Right.” Audrey took a deep breath. “Well, I don’t know how much you know about Muggle medicine, but our doctors-or healers, if you’d rather-can do some impressive things to alter…unwanted aspects of someone’s appearance. Not quite on the level of some of your spells and potions, but they might have solutions that a wizard wouldn’t consider.”
For the first time in she couldn’t remember how long, Marietta’s hand flew to her cheek. “I don’t think I’d have the money for something like that,” she said, her voice sounding flat and distant to her own ears.
“I have…friends in the medical profession,” said Audrey, looking to Percy again, although this time he refused to meet her gaze. “Consultations are often free, and between I’m sure we could work out something if…there were more to be done.”
Marietta held the desk with her free hand for support, staring at both of them in bewilderment. She had no idea how to respond to this-generosity? insult?-beyond reaffirming that the café’s most loyal supporters hardly needed to go to extremes to secure a good rate.
Loyal supporters. Then she realized. For all that Percy had done to champion the partnership between Millie’s Café and Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes, he didn’t even have the largest stake in the family enterprise behind George. That belonged to the brother she’d avoided dealing with, out of-respect? disdain? -and his presumptive bride. “This isn’t your idea, is it?”
She gave Percy credit for finding the grace to look at her directly, as uncomfortable as it clearly made him. “Hermione…when we signed the contract, she had some questions about you. I did my best to answer without sharing too much-not that I know too much-but she’s been…persistent. The war…some of the choices she made…I think she understands how far someone might go to protect a parent, in a way she didn’t before. And she knows, now, that some choices, some consequences can’t be undone.” On that point, he sounded completely in sympathy; Audrey clasped his hand in a futile effort to prevent tears from springing to his eyes. “I think…I think she wants a chance to fix what can be fixed.”
Marietta swallowed, absorbing this information. “Tell her I’ll consider it,” she said at last, keeping her voice steady through tremendous force of will.
Percy nodded.
“Shall we take the forms with us?” Audrey asked gently.
It took Marietta a second to remember what she was talking about. Wordlessly, she plucked them off the desk and handed them over.
“Thank you,” said Audrey, offering her a hand squeeze of her own.
“You’re invited to the wedding, by the by,” said Percy. “As a guest, not staff.” His expression remained anxious. “I hope you’ll come.”
Marietta smiled: forced at first, then with a gradual easing of tension. “That much I think I can agree to. Unless it conflicts with Cho’s. She hasn’t set a date yet, but she’s asked me to be a bridesmaid.”
“Of course.” Percy flashed his own relieved smile. “We’ll let you know if we have any questions on the forms.”
Marietta shook their hands and saw them to the door, then returned to her chair and sat in silence. How long she remained there or what thoughts passed through her head during the intervening period, she could not have said: only that the trance was broken by a broad shadow falling across her field of vision.
“Said something about your scars, did they?” Millicent grunted as she took one of the empty seats. “I told them it was a bad idea.”
“Did Hermione offer to fix your arm, too?” asked Marietta, still lingering in the land of no-thought. Then, startled into full recognition of what she had said, she clapped a hand to her mouth.
Millicent just let out a single bark of a laugh. “If she had, I’d probably have decked her and her messengers with the good one.” She cast a sidelong look at Marietta. “You’re the only one who wasn’t there that’s never asked me about it, you know that?”
“I’m not surprised.”
Millicent raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to?”
Marietta fought the urge to conceal her cheek again. “You don’t have to.”
“I don’t mind telling.” Millicent leaned back in her chair. “I was never much for all the blood purity nonsense, no matter what some might say. I’m only half-blood myself. Muggle relatives, not trolls, no matter what they say about that, either. I joined up with Umbridge and her lot ‘cause fighting was the only talent I thought I had back then, and I thought I might as well get some respect out of it. But by seventh year, with the Carrows, it wasn’t something I wanted to be good at any more. When McGonagall sent Slytherin away before the battle, at first I didn’t know whether to be glad or angry that I’d have to go on and try to make a life out of nothing. Then, after fifteen minutes of listening to all the pureblood brats whining about how they couldn’t show the Dark Lord their devotion now, I decided I didn’t need to live in a world full of that. So I followed Slughorn back and ran smack into a Death Eater menacing a pack of other girls.”
“And he hit you?” Marietta asked breathlessly.
“No, I took him down in one shot. But the other girls were still scared and confused, and one of ‘em-Lavender’s friend, Parvati-assumed I was on his side and hexed me. She was really sorry when she figured it out. Her father gave me a reward for saving her life. That’s how I got the money to buy the café in the first place.”
Marietta frowned, remembering Millicent’s earlier statement about not thinking she had any talents. “But how did you decide on a café?”
“Ah, see, that’s the important part.” Millicent grinned. “We all took shifts in different areas during the castle repairs, and since the house elves were needed for the really nasty cleanup, some of us wound up in the kitchen. By the end of my second stint, I pretty much refused to leave - and once everyone tasted my food, they didn’t have any complaints about that.”
“So you’re a war hero,” said Marietta in summary. Her voice had gone distant on her again, the unexpected revelation leaving her feeling more alone than ever.
Millicent scowled. “Weren’t you listening to anything I just said? I’m a cook. And a damn good one at that.” Her face relaxed as she clapped Marietta on the shoulder. “And Lavender’s good with people and making things look nice, and you’re good with numbers and strategy. Once you’ve found the thing that makes you strong, who cares about everything else?”
Marietta mused on this for a while, then broke into a smile. “I don’t know. I think I could find it in me to care about some chocolate pie.”
“Oh, well, now, that’s different.” Millicent rose with a smile of her own. “I’ll bring you some milk, too. Want tea in it?”
Marietta laughed, standing. “That’s all right. I’ll come fix it myself.”