Everything you recognise belongs to JKR and Ure. This is a rip-off or an adaptation, to please myself, of Ure's gentle bawdy frolic 'You win some, you lose some'. You have been duly warned.
Chapter 10 everyone had tasted avocado
Going to lunch at Wychwood with Hermione's family (minus the Prick) would be all right (good, actually), he thought, so long as they didn't have anything too fancy - anything he didn't know how to deal with. (Did it matter that he tackled the wrong bit of food, or the right bit of food at the wrong time, or the right bit of food the wrong way?). He still remembered the episode of the artichokes. He defied anyone who'd never had an artichoke to know what to do with them. He hadn't known you had to pull off all the leaves and drag them through your teeth one by one to strip or suck the 'meat' off, with ever-mounting plates of discarded leaves scarred with rabbit-toothed marks! (No, He didn't think of Hermione's ex-front-teeth. Thinking about Hermione was painful, yet again.)
To be fair, Hermione's family were nothing but informal and relaxed to many things: 'Dining etiquette rules are made to be broken' said Dad; they liked minimalist table setting, 'eating weapons' delivered with each course as it came. Still, once in a while they treated themselves with a whiff of starchy formal dining: the array of quality cutlery, laid out on crisp damask napery, positioned precisely one inch from the edge of the table (What an impressive sight it was!). Harry found he enjoyed a bit (just a bit) of 'flummery'* ('As a true Brit!' Mum laughed). He also found that he had paid more attention to his table manners recently (he wasn't, back at Hogwarts, not much more than Ron, although he knew the basics, drilled into by the Dursleys.) The family, even Hebe, knew all the rights and rituals of formal dining, so he didn't relish the idea of being the odd one out, no, not in front of Hermione, not now (even though oddity, no, eccentricity ran in the family).
Hermione, when he turned up as ordered at one o'clock, seemed unusually quiet (maybe subdued?) - unsure how to treat him, as if at any moment he might turn on her and bite (he might, maybe a different kind?). After her exhibition of last night (It hurt, still hurt), he was not surprised. Since he himself, however, was also treading warily, no longer certain just where he stood (what got into her?), it was as well that the rest of the family was there: without them, the conversation would have been decidedly sticky.
'Models are dumb,' passing her judgement again was Hebe. 'and skinny.' (Hmm, Hermione'd qualify on that count, skinny as a flaming broom handle. Wasn't he bitter? Sour grapes, maybe. He was certain she was not. Skinny was when you haven't got any shape. That's not the impression he got when she had hugged him, tightly, the few times.)
'Who was that beastly boy,' asked Hebe. 'you were with last night?'
'What beastly boy?' asked Auntie Loveday.
'That Terry.'
'He's my room mate,' said Harry, 'and he isn't beastly.' (Hebe really was a gawker.)
Hermione turned her back to him, and moved to the French window.
'Yes, he is! … with that lardy, dardy sort of voice,' piped Hebe. 'Thinking he's funny. Well, he's not, I don't think so.' (As if what she thought or didn't think mattered. She was every bit as trying as Terry at times.)
Fortunately, he and Dad were on familiar terms by now. They didn't have a great deal in common, since Harry knew nothing whatsoever about being a dentist (apart from being drilled on) and Dad knew very little more about training for an auror. But in spite of that they had developed their own brand of what Hermione had once, in somewhat contemptuous tones, called 'masculine bonhomie', which meant that Dad quite often winked at Harry over Hermione's head, or grinned at him, knowingly, man to man (Were they chauvinist? No, they were merely resisting the female ruling party), or applied to him for support in moments of crisis when Mum and Hermione had ganged up against him. Today, as they were tackling their starters (half an avocado pear with some sort of yellowy sauce poured in it) he said: 'So how is the world treating you, young man? Well, I trust?'
'You know it is,' said Mum. 'We told you he passed his assessment.'
'Ah!' Dad nodded. 'Of course; I was forgetting. I take it congratulations are in order?'
'That's the reason we invited him to lunch,' said Mum.
'Is it?' said Dad. 'I hadn't realised. I thought we were just being sociable.' He beamed amiably at Mum and then winked at Harry.
Harry, having waited a moment to be certain, selected the smallest of the spoon and dug it into the avocado.
'Well, well! There you are. One lives and learns.' Dad was obvious in one of his talkative moods. 'And how are you getting on? With all the little dolly birds? Now that you have a little place of your own… leading the life of O'Reilly. I'd be bound.'
'He doesn't have little "dolly birds" anymore,' said Hermione. 'He's given them up.'
With his mouth full of avocado, Harry froze. He didn't like the way she'd said that.
'Given them up?' echoed Dad. 'At this age?'
'Yes,' Hermione smiled, and with the air of cool poise, which she sometimes would assume when Ron annoyed her, push her hair over her shoulder. She looked at Harry, challengingly, across the table, 'He has boy friends now, instead.' (What?!)
There was a moment of silence. Hebe was fascinated, staring at him with widened eyes. Harry swallowed a mouthful of avocado and made an unwelcome discovery: avocado pear tasted like soap. He wondered how he was going to get through the rest of it (both the pear and the lunch with Hermione).
'A boy friend,' said Hermione. 'anyway.' (Oh, Hermione!)
It was Mum and Dad he mainly felt sorry for. They hadn't used to doing battle with philistines: they probably weren't used to people throwing out that sort of remark at their own dinner tables (so much for Hermione's perfect table manners: 'making pleasant table conversation free of controversial subjects'). Hermione ought to have known better. He didn't understand why she had said it. On purpose, presumably, to embarrass him, -- but why should she want to? In any case, it had misfired. All she had succeed in doing was embarrassing Mum and Dad.
'Really,' said Auntie Loveday, trying to pretend that it hadn't happened, 'I don't know what Mrs A has done with this vinaigrette. It's far too oily - don't you find it so?'
She addressed the question to the table in general. Dad made a vague agreeing noise at the back of his throat: Hermione, punch drunk on her own little burst of malice, said nothing (She must have been angry with him. Why? What did he do?).
'I've never had an avocado before,' said Harry. If no one else was going to come to the rescue, then obviously he would have to do so. 'I've seen them in the shops, and on menus and things, but I've never actually had one.'
Mum latched on to it, gratefully.
'Haven't you?' she said. 'I do hope you like it.'
'It's a bit sort of … soapy,' he said. Hebe laughed cheekily.
'Soapy!' Hermione gave a superior little laugh of amusement (She had never ever sniffed at anything he said before. To Ron's, maybe she had). Mum looked at her, sharply.
'The first time you had one you were sick all over the place.'
'That was when I was seven.'
'It's still an acquired taste, whatever your age. Don't eat it if you don't like it, Harry.'
'I might as well give it a bash,' he said. 'Might grow into it.' (For Hermione's sake?)
Hermione watched him, across the table (He had been watching her, or how could he know she's watching?)
'I'd have thought everyone had tasted avocado.' (He'd never thought she could be spiteful, towards him.)
'I'd have thought, everyone knew what a Châteaubriand was,' said Dad. 'It just shows how wrong you can be. Would you believe --' he turned to Harry: one man of the world to another - 'Would you believe only a few weeks ago she was under the impression it was something to drink? A kind of red wine, if I'm not much mistaken.'
Hermione flushed, angrily. Obviously, thought Harry, whatever a Château-whatever-it-was was, it wasn't wine. (If anyone had asked him, in a quiz, it was what he'd have plumped for. Not that he would tell her that.)
'I knew perfectly well it was steak! That was just a momentary slip.'
'Many things are,' (Did Dad mean Harry had been having a momentary slip? ) said Dad. 'On the whole, it does not do to refine too much upon them. Nor to draw attention to them in public - not unless one wants a taste of one's own medicine. If I were you, young lady, I should remember that for the future - Harry, why don't you give that pear up as a bad job? I must say I've always found them grossly overrated. Let me pour you some liquid refreshment - take the taste away.' (He could say the same about Hermione. But giving her up? Never thought of it, never heard of it, never wanted it.)
'Uncle Andrew, you are the champion!' chanted Hebe. 'Are you really, Harry?' (Hermione had the grace to look shame faced.)
'That's enough, Hebe!'
Hermione spent the rest of the meal in silence. He couldn't understand what her problem was, other than the fact that she had been made to look small, which, he knew, she didn't like, but she could hardly blame him for that. She was the one who had started it: he hadn't even retaliated (how considerate of him!). He would have liked to tackle her (maybe literally) about it afterwards, but she made very sure he didn't get the chance. Wherever Mum went, Hermione went too ('I'll help take the dishes down', 'I'll help bring the coffee up') flying out of the room like a startled fawn the minute there seemed the least danger of their being left alone together. (When Hermione wanted, she could be very astute. He could never catch her if she didn't let him, as always. Just you wait, Hermione.)
'I'll give you a ring,' said Harry at last, before he got in the car, leaving for West Hampstead.
Hermione shrugged her shoulders. She didn't actually say 'suit yourself', but it was plain that that was what she meant. (Yes, he would! Make no mistake about it.)
He telephoned her on Monday evening, after training.
'When can I see you?' (he'd rather think that he sounded demanding, not like one with a heartache.)
There was a silence; then: 'When did you want to see me?'
'Any time that suits you … soon as possible.'
More silence.
'What d'you want to see me for?'
Exasperated, he said: 'Do I have to have a special reason?' This was like fixing an appointment with the dentist (never mind the dentists' daughter). 'Maybe I just want to see you because I just want to see you.'
'That would make a change,' said Hermione.
He held the handset away from him and looked at it, reproachfully. What had he done to deserve that?
'I suppose I could see you tomorrow evening,' she said. She said it in the grudging tones of one who is prepared to bestow precisely five minutes of her precious time and not a second more. (Good, better than none.)
'I'll come round and pick you up,' said Harry.
'Pick me up? Why? Where are we going?'
'Go and have a butter beer somewhere.' He wanted to stand her something to eat. 'Go to Leaky Cauldron,' He said.
'I don't like Leaky Cauldron.'
She didn't like Leaky Cauldron - Why didn't she like it? She had been perfectly happy there more times than being anywhere else. As a matter of principle, that was why. She wouldn't like anywhere if he were the one to suggest it.
'All right, then,' he said. 'You think of somewhere.' (Didn't he indulge her? Just don't spoil it.)
'We could go to the Country Life.'
'OK, We'll go to the Country Life.' He didn't care where they went, so long as they went somewhere. 'I'll come round directly after training.'
A.N.
Flummery -- a complicated often ritualistic observance with elaborate trappings.
Vicomte de Châteaubriand - a writer and statesman who helped usher in the Romantic Movement in the years following the French Revolution.
It was at the Vicomte's behest that a chef named Montmireil experimented with cooking techniques for beef tenderloin and thus hit upon the idea of cooking the meat between two thin steaks (which were subsequently discarded) for a uniformly pink and juicy result.