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fpb“What happens to the world, if all the heroes lose?”
(Jack Kirby – Captain America 211)
“Giles, I don’t want to stay with Buffy. I want to go to Hogwarts immediately.”
Giles had missed everything that Dawn had said and done the previous morning, and he had since been too busy with arranging for the flight to pay anyone much attention. The flight had really been a piece of self-indulgence; there were half a dozen ways, from Portkeys to scheduled airlines, to make the journey. But since the Hellmouth had been sealed for ever and his mission in Sunnydale become meaningless, Giles had been overtaken by a somewhat reckless, rebellious spirit. Long ago, in his rebellious phase, he had followed a childhood dream and trained as a pilot. It had been years since he had put his hands to the commands of an aircraft; now he had the opportunity to wipe the dust off his skills, big time. His last twenty-four hours in Southern California had been spent arranging for the flight and doing a little hurried testing; and he had spent the flight, apart from chats with his hired co-pilot, delighting in the use of a long-neglected expertise, and in Willow and Buffy’s uncomplicated, rolling happiness in each successive stage of their journey. None of them had even noticed that Dawn had hidden in the back of the plane, and spent the journey by herself, sometimes dozing fitfully, sometimes trying to read.
But, as Dawn was now telling Giles, to her the journey had been pure Hell. Every move, every word of Buffy and Willow’s drove home the existence of a relationship that hurt her, as she felt, at the very root of her being. She tried to sleep, to read, to turn away, to stop her ears; it did not work. Even when the duo went to sleep, Dawn – who had snatched some sleep during the previous stages, and was therefore not sleepy now – had them in front of her, curled up in each other’s arms as small children or lovers can. She had missed most of the epic beauty of the trans-continental flight; but she was awake through much of the ocean-crossing, dreary, nocturnal and empty.
She had plenty of time to question herself about the state of her feelings for her sister and for a woman who had been the dearest of friends. Midway across the Atlantic, she got up and made her way to the bunk where they lay together; she looked at their faces, asleep and vulnerable in the light of the moon, more like helpless children than two of the mightiest women in the world. She would have died for either of them; ah, yes, but to die for someone can sometimes be easier than to live with them. Especially when they are doing something that…
This she tried to explain to Giles, while the two still slept, while the plane was coming within sight of the Spanish Atlantic islands and only a few hours separated them from England. She could not live with her sister; not without feeling, even more than a threat, a sense of inner disgust that would make life a misery for her. She was going to Britain to go to Hogwarts; well, let her be taken there soon, at once.
Her attitude went against Giles’ convinctions, and he reacted with anger. “I cannot imagine where you learned homophobia, but it was not with your sister or with us – or with your mother, if I knew her at all. But let me inform you, young lady, that I am absolutely the wrong person to come to with this sort of complaint.” When he wanted to, Giles was capable of a hauteur frigid enough to freeze hot asphalt. Dawn felt, as he intended, crushed, and turned away, tears in her eyes. He had not really liked to rip into her like that, but he conceived that it was his duty. Even if the girl harboured this sort of views, it was not healthy to let her think that they were acceptable to others. Sometimes, he thought to himself, to make a person ashamed of her views could take her half-way to changing them.
Nevertheless, when they landed at Heathrow, Giles had arranged for someone to meet them and take Dawn to Hogsmeade, if not to Hogwarts.
………………………………………………………………………………………
That evening, Giles was sitting at home in front of a roaring fire, rather contented than otherwise. He had had a pleasant day to rest after more than thirty hours of flight; he had listened with pleasure mixed with some humour at the girls’ enthusiastic and sometimes ingenuous account of Combe-Mellen, Combe Giles and Batty’s Field; and he was looking forward to driving Willow to Oxford, tomorrow. Any day when he visited his old alma mater was always a good day in Rupert Giles’ book.
His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden flare-up in the fireplace. He recognized it instantly as the effect of Floo powder, and, in effect, it was followed by none other than Harry Potter coming tumbling into his living room.
Giles was astonished. He did not know Harry very well, but one thing he had heard from all and sundry was that, in spite of his fiery temper, the young man was naturally polite, almost a throwback to a more urbane age. That he should intrude unasked into his home was so strange as to demand answers.
“Dr.Giles… I apologize for this intrusion.” Well, at least he realize it was one. “We left on poor terms this morning, and I felt that… that I had left you with a false impression of my views.”
“You should not worry, Harry. It did not seem such a serious matter.”
“That – if you’ll excuse my bluntness – that is where you are wrong, Doctor.” The younger man caught his breath for a while, clearly tense and nervous. “It is serious to me… as serious as it can possibly be.”
“You mean…?”
“I mean that everyone thinks I feel pity for Laura, and that could not be further from the truth.”
“Good Lord…”
“Yes, I think that would be rather the popular reaction,” said Harry drily.
“Well, Harry, if that’s the case, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Not for the position I took, which was inevitable, but for the way I expressed myself about… may I say, the woman you love?” Giles wished to be certain that there hadn’t been a misunderstanding, however fantastic.
“You may indeed, Doctor Giles.”
“Well… do you want to talk about it? I suppose you think I got her wrong.”
“I wish it was as easy as that…”
…………………………………………………………………………………….
In their last few years at Hogwarts, both Harry Potter and Ron Weasley had had to put up with a great deal of speculation – and had done so with very bad grace. Harry’s own intolerance of the old stories had hit boiling point one day in the Hogwarts garden, when he had exploded, loud enough for dozens of people to hear - “I keep telling you, we’re friends! We’ve always been friends! Just bloody friends!” and then, lower and less angrily, “Can’t you just accept that a boy can just be friends with a pretty girl?”
“Frankly, Harry… no,” had retorted Justin Finch-Fletchley, with a maddening kind of knowing smile on his face.
Simeon Curtin, a Hufflepuff, had stood there nodding. “When you’re Dumbledore’s age, perhaps. Not here. Not now. Pretty boy… pretty girl…” and, infuriatingly, he had broken into Italian, singing Leporello’s lines: “Voi sapete quel che fa… Voi… sapete… quel… che… fa!”
Everyone else had seemed to find this very funny. To make matters worse, Snape, the unloved Potions master, had been in the garden himself and heard it all; at which point, he had been seen heading for his dungeon, hunched over as if he was laughing (an unsettling idea, to be sure).
Great, thought Harry. Now I am to have my tail pulled in public for the amusement of Severus Snape.
No matter how hard he had tried, he had never managed to disabuse people of the notion that his heart belonged to Hermione Granger; except, of course, for the large minority who believed that Granger was Ron Weasley’s girl, and the much smaller and rather morbid minority who thought that the lovers were Ron and Harry, and that Hermione just tagged along. Nobody had wanted to believe that they were all just good friends – as they were, to the point where Ron had once grievously offended Hermione (an episode that had become mythical among the three of them) by forgetting that she was actually female.
School ended. The war reached its climax: Voldemort died, and Harry survived. And the three friends had to leave a place they all loved. Hermione met a charming, sweet-tempered colleague of her parents’, a dentist, and married him within a year; Harry Potter (who was popularly reputed among the wizard community to be heartbroken or, alternatively, murderous), took an immediate liking to the man and soon developed a close friendship with him – luckily Dr. Jamie Vartan knew little and cared less about wizard events, and was not likely to suddenly fall down and adore Harry merely because of the scar. Ron was still unmarried and fancy free, but had developed a very pretty line as a ladies’ man. There was something about his long, lean, lanky figure, bony, big-nosed, freckled face, floppy sweaters, clownish humour, and puppy-dog eyes, that ladies of all ages, colours and characters found simply irresistible; and he managed to give and receive affection – and other things – without ever allowing anyone the painful delusion of permanence. He was a singularly fortunate adventurer, whom men almost admired and women desired. As for Harry…
Harry had found the one and only. But it was difficult; terribly difficult.
He had seen her across the room one evening, at the official dinner of an exceedingly tedious magical convention he had been sent to. It was literally a case of love at first sight – as if her pale, passionate, beautiful, fighting face – yes, long, slightly long; but beautiful – surrounded by a halo of short but nicely swelling black hair, with enormous brown eyes behind large round glasses, had answered to some model he carried in his heart, or to something he remembered from another life. He looked at her, then looked at her again, then went straight over; and found that the face was as fine as it had seemed from a distance – like a white steel blade out of its scabbard, naked, valiant, upright. For once, he was grateful for his superstar status, which allowed him any liberty and excused most misdemeanours.
But there was not only the face. At first he had thought that she was sitting down; it was only as he reached her that he realized that she was, frankly, deformed. Her middle and upper body were well enough proportioned, but her legs were horrible and ridiculous, short, stumpy as sausages, and bowed. She was barely four feet tall, purely because of those legs. Her walk was a swift but ridiculous-looking waddle. It was as well that he had seen that unforgettable face before the rest of her; or else some unconscious reaction might have inhibited him, even him – made it harder to recognize her for the one and only. He wondered for a second if she were human, or some sort of dwarf; so used was he to beings of all sizes and shapes.
Whatever she was, she was good enough for him. It took little to find out that she had a quick and lively mind. The conversation begun that evening – into which a number of officious bores tried to butt, merely in order to say that they had talked with the famous Harry Potter – was a fascinating experience. Her name was Laura Latini. She was a witch who had wanted to experience life as a Muggle, and had studied Muggle science in college. A scientist witch was something new in his experience; not even Hermione had ever thought of pursuing a Muggle education while training as a magician. It had also proved very useful that evening. Bore after bore had been cut out of the conversation and driven to leave, merely because the intricacies of chemistry were alien to them. Harry was absolutely delighted at how adroitly his new friend managed to drive the conversation so as to make interlopers feel unwanted. Snape, he thought, might have been interested; but it so happened that the conference had nothing to do with Potions, and not a single Potions specialist was in the room.
The conversation continued for the following two days. Other people did not much appreciate it. People wanted to talk to Harry Potter; they had come to meet the man to whom they owed so much; and he ignored them – clearly, carelessly, unthinkingly. He was wrapped up in Laura, like a man discovering a new continent; every new hour was a wonder and a delight to him – and his back was, metaphorically speaking, turned to the rest of the world. The world did not sympathize. His behaviour was widely felt as deliberate and discourteous. Harry had so far been generally popular, but for the first time, people came back from meeting him with tales of a swollen-headed celebrity too high and mighty for common politeness. And here is the interesting thing: nobody had noticed Laura Latini. Nothing is more closely scrutinized, more widely known, than the romantic life of celebrities; and here was the most famous figure in the magical world, the slayer of Voldemort, falling in love virtually in public with the most unlikely of objects – and nobody noticed. Some people, one can assume, may not even have seen Laura, short as she was; may not have so much as looked so far below their eye level. The majority simply did not consider the possibility. It may have been the case that an aging and increasingly seedy DAILY PROPHET veteran who had had more than her fair share of dealings with the Boy Who Lived had a good guess; but Rita Skeeter knew better, by now, than to tangle with him.
Laura was actually from London, and on the first steps of what she hoped would be a life-long career in the Ministry. Her competence in the area of Muggle science and society should have made her useful to the Ministry; they certainly brought her repeatedly into contact with his own office, the Corps of Aurors – investigators and enforcers of magical law, often concerned with crimes against Muggles. But things were not to be so simple.
Harry had the first hint of the trouble one day when he was handing Arthur Weasley – who had been promoted from the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office to Head of Muggle Affairs – a report on recent Muggle-related crimes. Laura came in on a related matter.
It would be painful to describe exactly the scene that followed, one for which Harry was not in the least prepared. Laura was arrogant, sarcastic, inconsiderate. Her very first statement consisted of a claim for herself and a put-down of other persons concerned in the work. Her every word and action seemed to proclaim her certainty of being absolutely superior to anyone. It was so undisguised as to be almost comical – Harry had seen egomaniacs such as Lucius Malfoy and how convincingly they concealed their vanity – but nobody was laughing. Worst of all, it was neither the first nor the last such episode. Harry soon found that Laura had been shifted from office to office, failing to fit in anywhere.
His first attempt to deal with the problem met with disaster.
“It so happens that I am right and they are wrong, Harry. And I see no reason to mince words about it.”
“Quite frankly, Laura, I do.”
(In a frigid voice) “Then kindly explain to me by whose leave you judge my actions.”
Harry was a young man, whose life had made him more used to fighting and holding his ground than to diplomacy and subtlety. He lost his temper – with a louder bang than necessary, just because he cared so much for this small, beautiful, deformed, aggressive woman. It degenerated into a shouting match, and Harry was unable to sleep afterwards. He was only a probationary Auror at the time, and he almost threw away his chance because, on the following day, he used excessive violence against a minor offender.
…………………………………………………………………………………..
“…you see, Mrs.Weasley, it matters terribly to me.”
“Oh, Harry, I don’t know what to say. I’m glad that you’re in love, of course, but Arthur says she’s terribly self-centred and difficult…”
……………………………………………………………………………………….
Arthur Weasley:
“Don’t get me wrong, Harry. If you love her, then you love her. I only say that nobody at the Ministry has found a way to cope with her, so if you do, you’ll have done better than any of us. Oh, my boy, need you ask? Of course it’s in confidence. I mean, what is in confidence? You didn’t tell me anything, did you? Of course not. I haven’t heard a thing.”
………………………………………………………………………………………
“Crikey, Harry, you like things difficult, don’t you?”
“Well, Hermione – after Voldemort, I thought this one should have been a breeze. How hard can it be to fall in love?”
“Harder than you think, sometimes,” said Hermione’s husband.
“So what’s your prescription, Doctor? What does the great Doctor Vartan recommend?” And Hermione, who was very protective of her husband, threw a pillow at him.
“Firstly, Harry, I prescribe complete abstinence from stupid jokes for at least three weeks.”
“Doctor,” (in a mock-tragic tone), “I’ll die without my fix!”
“I knew you were addicted. Second, I prescribe patience. Patience, patience and more patience. From the way you describe her, it seems clear that this is a wounded personality trying to protect her self-esteem by an exaggerated manner. You will not only have to convince her that you really do value her, but you will also have to deal with the fall-out from the disasters that she… will certainly cause elsewhere. This is a woman who will do damage, before she finds her place in the world.”
…………………………………………………………………………………………
But of all the intimate friends to whom he had unburdened himself in confidence, it was Ron who helped the most. That accomplished ladies’ man knew how to deal with suspicious and nervous women; how to reassure and cajole, to charm and encourage; and he knew the value of persistence. After every snub or partial success, he sat down with Harry and reviewed the situation; and every time he managed to make Harry feel moderately hopeful and reassured.
It was he who advised to try to involve Laura in areas that were at the edge of Harry’s public and private life: involve her in his life, rather than him in hers. And so it was that, when Dr. Rupert Giles – who knew Harry slightly, as so many people of importance did – was looking for someone to take a young woman from Heathrow to Hogsmeade at a few hours’ notice, Harry thought of Laura. She was available and willing, and it was she who met Dawn and Giles at the international arrivals hall of Terminal 3.
It was an uncomfortable meeting. Giles was one of many people who had already been irritated beyond endurance by Laura on a previous occasion, and he was not in the least pleased at the thought that she, of all people, would be taking care of Dawn. Next morning he rang Harry and complained about the choice; and the call developed into the row overheard by Willow and Buffy.
……………………………………………………………………………………….
Giles’ time with Buffy and her friends had made him used to being the older friend listening to young people’s heartaches and dispensing sympathy and the occasional piece of advice. It was a routine that came in useful once again, as he and Harry spent a couple of hours in front of the fire, rehearsing the young man’s unhappy love story. Harry had seen too much of Laura not to know how others were bound to feel about her. But he was sure that there was another side to her.
“The side you love?”
“No, Doctor. I love her, not any quality she may have. I mean I don’t go to her and say, I only love you when you’re nice. But… how can I say it? It’s a bit like being in love with an addict. Worse, because most addicts know they’ve got a problem, but she won’t admit it. It’s always someone else’s fault…”
………………………………………………………………………………………………
The conversation meandered on for a couple of hours, as Harry unburdened himself. One common feature of all lovers is that they would rather speak about their beloved than about anything else in the world, and Harry had plenty to say. Eventually his native good manners returned, and he apologized gracefully for wasting Giles’ time; they said polite farewells, and he left.
Giles, who had had enough shocks for one night, went to enjoy a long-delayed sleep in his own bed in his own home – the first in months, the first in years that promised to be permanent. He enjoyed the sense that he had returned and would not be leaving again. Night came, and morning; Giles was woken by an unusually vigorous dawn chorus; he realized that this was the day he would be driving Willow to Oxford. His heart rose, as it always did on the all-too-rare occasions when he knew he was about to see the Home of Lost Causes again.
And the sun shone on the road as Giles drove the most powerful witch of her generation to the ancient university that had been his alma mater and was to become hers.
(Jack Kirby – Captain America 211)
“Giles, I don’t want to stay with Buffy. I want to go to Hogwarts immediately.”
Giles had missed everything that Dawn had said and done the previous morning, and he had since been too busy with arranging for the flight to pay anyone much attention. The flight had really been a piece of self-indulgence; there were half a dozen ways, from Portkeys to scheduled airlines, to make the journey. But since the Hellmouth had been sealed for ever and his mission in Sunnydale become meaningless, Giles had been overtaken by a somewhat reckless, rebellious spirit. Long ago, in his rebellious phase, he had followed a childhood dream and trained as a pilot. It had been years since he had put his hands to the commands of an aircraft; now he had the opportunity to wipe the dust off his skills, big time. His last twenty-four hours in Southern California had been spent arranging for the flight and doing a little hurried testing; and he had spent the flight, apart from chats with his hired co-pilot, delighting in the use of a long-neglected expertise, and in Willow and Buffy’s uncomplicated, rolling happiness in each successive stage of their journey. None of them had even noticed that Dawn had hidden in the back of the plane, and spent the journey by herself, sometimes dozing fitfully, sometimes trying to read.
But, as Dawn was now telling Giles, to her the journey had been pure Hell. Every move, every word of Buffy and Willow’s drove home the existence of a relationship that hurt her, as she felt, at the very root of her being. She tried to sleep, to read, to turn away, to stop her ears; it did not work. Even when the duo went to sleep, Dawn – who had snatched some sleep during the previous stages, and was therefore not sleepy now – had them in front of her, curled up in each other’s arms as small children or lovers can. She had missed most of the epic beauty of the trans-continental flight; but she was awake through much of the ocean-crossing, dreary, nocturnal and empty.
She had plenty of time to question herself about the state of her feelings for her sister and for a woman who had been the dearest of friends. Midway across the Atlantic, she got up and made her way to the bunk where they lay together; she looked at their faces, asleep and vulnerable in the light of the moon, more like helpless children than two of the mightiest women in the world. She would have died for either of them; ah, yes, but to die for someone can sometimes be easier than to live with them. Especially when they are doing something that…
This she tried to explain to Giles, while the two still slept, while the plane was coming within sight of the Spanish Atlantic islands and only a few hours separated them from England. She could not live with her sister; not without feeling, even more than a threat, a sense of inner disgust that would make life a misery for her. She was going to Britain to go to Hogwarts; well, let her be taken there soon, at once.
Her attitude went against Giles’ convinctions, and he reacted with anger. “I cannot imagine where you learned homophobia, but it was not with your sister or with us – or with your mother, if I knew her at all. But let me inform you, young lady, that I am absolutely the wrong person to come to with this sort of complaint.” When he wanted to, Giles was capable of a hauteur frigid enough to freeze hot asphalt. Dawn felt, as he intended, crushed, and turned away, tears in her eyes. He had not really liked to rip into her like that, but he conceived that it was his duty. Even if the girl harboured this sort of views, it was not healthy to let her think that they were acceptable to others. Sometimes, he thought to himself, to make a person ashamed of her views could take her half-way to changing them.
Nevertheless, when they landed at Heathrow, Giles had arranged for someone to meet them and take Dawn to Hogsmeade, if not to Hogwarts.
………………………………………………………………………………………
That evening, Giles was sitting at home in front of a roaring fire, rather contented than otherwise. He had had a pleasant day to rest after more than thirty hours of flight; he had listened with pleasure mixed with some humour at the girls’ enthusiastic and sometimes ingenuous account of Combe-Mellen, Combe Giles and Batty’s Field; and he was looking forward to driving Willow to Oxford, tomorrow. Any day when he visited his old alma mater was always a good day in Rupert Giles’ book.
His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden flare-up in the fireplace. He recognized it instantly as the effect of Floo powder, and, in effect, it was followed by none other than Harry Potter coming tumbling into his living room.
Giles was astonished. He did not know Harry very well, but one thing he had heard from all and sundry was that, in spite of his fiery temper, the young man was naturally polite, almost a throwback to a more urbane age. That he should intrude unasked into his home was so strange as to demand answers.
“Dr.Giles… I apologize for this intrusion.” Well, at least he realize it was one. “We left on poor terms this morning, and I felt that… that I had left you with a false impression of my views.”
“You should not worry, Harry. It did not seem such a serious matter.”
“That – if you’ll excuse my bluntness – that is where you are wrong, Doctor.” The younger man caught his breath for a while, clearly tense and nervous. “It is serious to me… as serious as it can possibly be.”
“You mean…?”
“I mean that everyone thinks I feel pity for Laura, and that could not be further from the truth.”
“Good Lord…”
“Yes, I think that would be rather the popular reaction,” said Harry drily.
“Well, Harry, if that’s the case, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Not for the position I took, which was inevitable, but for the way I expressed myself about… may I say, the woman you love?” Giles wished to be certain that there hadn’t been a misunderstanding, however fantastic.
“You may indeed, Doctor Giles.”
“Well… do you want to talk about it? I suppose you think I got her wrong.”
“I wish it was as easy as that…”
…………………………………………………………………………………….
In their last few years at Hogwarts, both Harry Potter and Ron Weasley had had to put up with a great deal of speculation – and had done so with very bad grace. Harry’s own intolerance of the old stories had hit boiling point one day in the Hogwarts garden, when he had exploded, loud enough for dozens of people to hear - “I keep telling you, we’re friends! We’ve always been friends! Just bloody friends!” and then, lower and less angrily, “Can’t you just accept that a boy can just be friends with a pretty girl?”
“Frankly, Harry… no,” had retorted Justin Finch-Fletchley, with a maddening kind of knowing smile on his face.
Simeon Curtin, a Hufflepuff, had stood there nodding. “When you’re Dumbledore’s age, perhaps. Not here. Not now. Pretty boy… pretty girl…” and, infuriatingly, he had broken into Italian, singing Leporello’s lines: “Voi sapete quel che fa… Voi… sapete… quel… che… fa!”
Everyone else had seemed to find this very funny. To make matters worse, Snape, the unloved Potions master, had been in the garden himself and heard it all; at which point, he had been seen heading for his dungeon, hunched over as if he was laughing (an unsettling idea, to be sure).
Great, thought Harry. Now I am to have my tail pulled in public for the amusement of Severus Snape.
No matter how hard he had tried, he had never managed to disabuse people of the notion that his heart belonged to Hermione Granger; except, of course, for the large minority who believed that Granger was Ron Weasley’s girl, and the much smaller and rather morbid minority who thought that the lovers were Ron and Harry, and that Hermione just tagged along. Nobody had wanted to believe that they were all just good friends – as they were, to the point where Ron had once grievously offended Hermione (an episode that had become mythical among the three of them) by forgetting that she was actually female.
School ended. The war reached its climax: Voldemort died, and Harry survived. And the three friends had to leave a place they all loved. Hermione met a charming, sweet-tempered colleague of her parents’, a dentist, and married him within a year; Harry Potter (who was popularly reputed among the wizard community to be heartbroken or, alternatively, murderous), took an immediate liking to the man and soon developed a close friendship with him – luckily Dr. Jamie Vartan knew little and cared less about wizard events, and was not likely to suddenly fall down and adore Harry merely because of the scar. Ron was still unmarried and fancy free, but had developed a very pretty line as a ladies’ man. There was something about his long, lean, lanky figure, bony, big-nosed, freckled face, floppy sweaters, clownish humour, and puppy-dog eyes, that ladies of all ages, colours and characters found simply irresistible; and he managed to give and receive affection – and other things – without ever allowing anyone the painful delusion of permanence. He was a singularly fortunate adventurer, whom men almost admired and women desired. As for Harry…
Harry had found the one and only. But it was difficult; terribly difficult.
He had seen her across the room one evening, at the official dinner of an exceedingly tedious magical convention he had been sent to. It was literally a case of love at first sight – as if her pale, passionate, beautiful, fighting face – yes, long, slightly long; but beautiful – surrounded by a halo of short but nicely swelling black hair, with enormous brown eyes behind large round glasses, had answered to some model he carried in his heart, or to something he remembered from another life. He looked at her, then looked at her again, then went straight over; and found that the face was as fine as it had seemed from a distance – like a white steel blade out of its scabbard, naked, valiant, upright. For once, he was grateful for his superstar status, which allowed him any liberty and excused most misdemeanours.
But there was not only the face. At first he had thought that she was sitting down; it was only as he reached her that he realized that she was, frankly, deformed. Her middle and upper body were well enough proportioned, but her legs were horrible and ridiculous, short, stumpy as sausages, and bowed. She was barely four feet tall, purely because of those legs. Her walk was a swift but ridiculous-looking waddle. It was as well that he had seen that unforgettable face before the rest of her; or else some unconscious reaction might have inhibited him, even him – made it harder to recognize her for the one and only. He wondered for a second if she were human, or some sort of dwarf; so used was he to beings of all sizes and shapes.
Whatever she was, she was good enough for him. It took little to find out that she had a quick and lively mind. The conversation begun that evening – into which a number of officious bores tried to butt, merely in order to say that they had talked with the famous Harry Potter – was a fascinating experience. Her name was Laura Latini. She was a witch who had wanted to experience life as a Muggle, and had studied Muggle science in college. A scientist witch was something new in his experience; not even Hermione had ever thought of pursuing a Muggle education while training as a magician. It had also proved very useful that evening. Bore after bore had been cut out of the conversation and driven to leave, merely because the intricacies of chemistry were alien to them. Harry was absolutely delighted at how adroitly his new friend managed to drive the conversation so as to make interlopers feel unwanted. Snape, he thought, might have been interested; but it so happened that the conference had nothing to do with Potions, and not a single Potions specialist was in the room.
The conversation continued for the following two days. Other people did not much appreciate it. People wanted to talk to Harry Potter; they had come to meet the man to whom they owed so much; and he ignored them – clearly, carelessly, unthinkingly. He was wrapped up in Laura, like a man discovering a new continent; every new hour was a wonder and a delight to him – and his back was, metaphorically speaking, turned to the rest of the world. The world did not sympathize. His behaviour was widely felt as deliberate and discourteous. Harry had so far been generally popular, but for the first time, people came back from meeting him with tales of a swollen-headed celebrity too high and mighty for common politeness. And here is the interesting thing: nobody had noticed Laura Latini. Nothing is more closely scrutinized, more widely known, than the romantic life of celebrities; and here was the most famous figure in the magical world, the slayer of Voldemort, falling in love virtually in public with the most unlikely of objects – and nobody noticed. Some people, one can assume, may not even have seen Laura, short as she was; may not have so much as looked so far below their eye level. The majority simply did not consider the possibility. It may have been the case that an aging and increasingly seedy DAILY PROPHET veteran who had had more than her fair share of dealings with the Boy Who Lived had a good guess; but Rita Skeeter knew better, by now, than to tangle with him.
Laura was actually from London, and on the first steps of what she hoped would be a life-long career in the Ministry. Her competence in the area of Muggle science and society should have made her useful to the Ministry; they certainly brought her repeatedly into contact with his own office, the Corps of Aurors – investigators and enforcers of magical law, often concerned with crimes against Muggles. But things were not to be so simple.
Harry had the first hint of the trouble one day when he was handing Arthur Weasley – who had been promoted from the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office to Head of Muggle Affairs – a report on recent Muggle-related crimes. Laura came in on a related matter.
It would be painful to describe exactly the scene that followed, one for which Harry was not in the least prepared. Laura was arrogant, sarcastic, inconsiderate. Her very first statement consisted of a claim for herself and a put-down of other persons concerned in the work. Her every word and action seemed to proclaim her certainty of being absolutely superior to anyone. It was so undisguised as to be almost comical – Harry had seen egomaniacs such as Lucius Malfoy and how convincingly they concealed their vanity – but nobody was laughing. Worst of all, it was neither the first nor the last such episode. Harry soon found that Laura had been shifted from office to office, failing to fit in anywhere.
His first attempt to deal with the problem met with disaster.
“It so happens that I am right and they are wrong, Harry. And I see no reason to mince words about it.”
“Quite frankly, Laura, I do.”
(In a frigid voice) “Then kindly explain to me by whose leave you judge my actions.”
Harry was a young man, whose life had made him more used to fighting and holding his ground than to diplomacy and subtlety. He lost his temper – with a louder bang than necessary, just because he cared so much for this small, beautiful, deformed, aggressive woman. It degenerated into a shouting match, and Harry was unable to sleep afterwards. He was only a probationary Auror at the time, and he almost threw away his chance because, on the following day, he used excessive violence against a minor offender.
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“…you see, Mrs.Weasley, it matters terribly to me.”
“Oh, Harry, I don’t know what to say. I’m glad that you’re in love, of course, but Arthur says she’s terribly self-centred and difficult…”
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Arthur Weasley:
“Don’t get me wrong, Harry. If you love her, then you love her. I only say that nobody at the Ministry has found a way to cope with her, so if you do, you’ll have done better than any of us. Oh, my boy, need you ask? Of course it’s in confidence. I mean, what is in confidence? You didn’t tell me anything, did you? Of course not. I haven’t heard a thing.”
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“Crikey, Harry, you like things difficult, don’t you?”
“Well, Hermione – after Voldemort, I thought this one should have been a breeze. How hard can it be to fall in love?”
“Harder than you think, sometimes,” said Hermione’s husband.
“So what’s your prescription, Doctor? What does the great Doctor Vartan recommend?” And Hermione, who was very protective of her husband, threw a pillow at him.
“Firstly, Harry, I prescribe complete abstinence from stupid jokes for at least three weeks.”
“Doctor,” (in a mock-tragic tone), “I’ll die without my fix!”
“I knew you were addicted. Second, I prescribe patience. Patience, patience and more patience. From the way you describe her, it seems clear that this is a wounded personality trying to protect her self-esteem by an exaggerated manner. You will not only have to convince her that you really do value her, but you will also have to deal with the fall-out from the disasters that she… will certainly cause elsewhere. This is a woman who will do damage, before she finds her place in the world.”
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But of all the intimate friends to whom he had unburdened himself in confidence, it was Ron who helped the most. That accomplished ladies’ man knew how to deal with suspicious and nervous women; how to reassure and cajole, to charm and encourage; and he knew the value of persistence. After every snub or partial success, he sat down with Harry and reviewed the situation; and every time he managed to make Harry feel moderately hopeful and reassured.
It was he who advised to try to involve Laura in areas that were at the edge of Harry’s public and private life: involve her in his life, rather than him in hers. And so it was that, when Dr. Rupert Giles – who knew Harry slightly, as so many people of importance did – was looking for someone to take a young woman from Heathrow to Hogsmeade at a few hours’ notice, Harry thought of Laura. She was available and willing, and it was she who met Dawn and Giles at the international arrivals hall of Terminal 3.
It was an uncomfortable meeting. Giles was one of many people who had already been irritated beyond endurance by Laura on a previous occasion, and he was not in the least pleased at the thought that she, of all people, would be taking care of Dawn. Next morning he rang Harry and complained about the choice; and the call developed into the row overheard by Willow and Buffy.
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Giles’ time with Buffy and her friends had made him used to being the older friend listening to young people’s heartaches and dispensing sympathy and the occasional piece of advice. It was a routine that came in useful once again, as he and Harry spent a couple of hours in front of the fire, rehearsing the young man’s unhappy love story. Harry had seen too much of Laura not to know how others were bound to feel about her. But he was sure that there was another side to her.
“The side you love?”
“No, Doctor. I love her, not any quality she may have. I mean I don’t go to her and say, I only love you when you’re nice. But… how can I say it? It’s a bit like being in love with an addict. Worse, because most addicts know they’ve got a problem, but she won’t admit it. It’s always someone else’s fault…”
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The conversation meandered on for a couple of hours, as Harry unburdened himself. One common feature of all lovers is that they would rather speak about their beloved than about anything else in the world, and Harry had plenty to say. Eventually his native good manners returned, and he apologized gracefully for wasting Giles’ time; they said polite farewells, and he left.
Giles, who had had enough shocks for one night, went to enjoy a long-delayed sleep in his own bed in his own home – the first in months, the first in years that promised to be permanent. He enjoyed the sense that he had returned and would not be leaving again. Night came, and morning; Giles was woken by an unusually vigorous dawn chorus; he realized that this was the day he would be driving Willow to Oxford. His heart rose, as it always did on the all-too-rare occasions when he knew he was about to see the Home of Lost Causes again.
And the sun shone on the road as Giles drove the most powerful witch of her generation to the ancient university that had been his alma mater and was to become hers.
