Chapter 7. Trouble with Tiffany
Harry couldn't believe his luck. Nothing horrible so far had resulted from his adulterous affair with his best friend. He had expected Hermione to ask him to stop coming by, tell him off, or just…something. But, instead, she had seemed oddly unaffected by their tryst.
The thought of his own words, "adulterous affair" and "tryst", brought an unbidden chuckle to Harry's throat. "Maybe I am over-dramatizing a bit," he thought, smiling to himself as he tightened his grip on his beloved Firebolt riding broom, sending it into a corkscrew dive at blazing speed. "Still, there's no arguing with the fact that I practically mauled my only female friend." Not three feet from the floor of the Auror's Training Arena, Harry yanked back on his broom handle and sent himself upward to get set for another Kamikaze-style dive.
Never one to let himself off easy, Harry had been punishing himself for a week following the movie incident with an unrelenting training regiment. It was Friday night and Harry had already finished working out in the combat facility where he practiced throwing spells at what looked like giant beanbag chairs (but were really advanced training dummies) for two hours after he'd finished his work assignments for the day. Assault spells were very physical, and Harry had worked up quite a sweat, only to jog two miles to get to the flying arena for a round of punishment-by-flying, putting his Firebolt through one dangerous maneuver after another. He wanted his muscles to ache. He wanted blood to pound in his ears. He needed to pay in some way for his failings.
Finally, Harry eased his broom down to the floor of the arena and levitated it back to a secure storage shed, dragging his tired body into the shower room.
"Hey, Potter!"
Tom, a tall Auror from Harry's department approached as Harry was pulling his T-shirt over his head, grinning from ear to ear.
"My wife's visiting her family this weekend…took the kids with her." Tom cocked his head and gave Harry a hopeful smile. "Want to shoot some of those Muggle darts or something?"
Harry considered the offer carefully. He had been planning on going to the dart bar, but hadn't allowed himself company since the thing. Grinning as Tom wagged his eyebrows, egging him on, Harry gave a quick nod. "Sure," he said. What could be the harm in having an ale or two? After all, Harry thought, it wasn't as if he was going to get drunk and accost Tom, was it?
Harry felt a slight pull at his conscience as he thought of Tiffany, however. His girlfriend usually spent a few evenings during the week at Harry's flat, but his training schedule and Tiffany's bout with the flu had conveniently made seeing one another impossible this week. She would have expected, of course, to go out tonight, but Harry hadn't yet been able to face his girlfriend. He still needed to find a way to tell her about his mistake with Hermione and still felt that he'd make a right mess of things if he tried to speak to her tonight.
"Tomorrow I'll face Tiffany. Tonight, maybe I'll think up something amazing to say," he thought without even a hint of a hope that it might happen.
At the Muggle pub near Harry's flat, the two Aurors made quick work out of beating five pairs of challengers at the dartboard.
"Wouldn't it shock the Hell out of these blokes if they knew they were playing dark wizard catchers?" Tom asked, laughing and splashing his mug of ale down sloppily on the dark pub table.
"Tom!" Harry whispered sharply, his eyes wide with shock at his friend's indiscretion. "Are you mad? We'll lose our Auror's licences!"
"Relax, Harry," Tom said, eying Harry with concern. "I was only joking. I'm just not used to being around Muggles, this is new for me," Tom said, shrugging. "You're a bit jumpy tonight, aren't you then?"
Feeling foolish for reprimanding a senior workmate, Harry willed himself to relax a bit as Tom refilled their mugs from a pitcher. "Sorry. I guess I am a bit over-the-top lately," Harry replied, laughing.
"Ah, the life of a single wizard," Tom sang. "Full of interesting conquests with gorgeous witches. It'd make anyone on edge. Don't worry, mate," he said, looking off in the distance as if suddenly lost in fond memories of his own past adventures.
Harry laughed. "That bad, eh? Married life?"
"No," said Tom. "Not that bad. Actually, my wife's a saint." Tom rubbed the smooth glass of his mug, playing with the drops of moisture that had condensed onto the surface of it. "And the kids are the cutest things…you've no idea how attached I am to those little runts." He turned his attention back toward Harry and smiled wistfully. "I just sometimes miss the thrill of the chase, is all."
"Thrill of the chase," Harry repeated blandly.
He had never found it particularly thrilling to go after a witch's attentions, not that he'd had to spend a whole lot of effort at it. Harry knew that his celebrity had afforded him quite an advantage in securing dates when he wanted them. He had never felt necessarily confident, but over the years, Harry learned how to recognize a witch who'd be willing to accompany him here or there. There wasn't anything exciting about that, he thought.
Harry didn't really thrive, either, on getting to know lots of different witches. He preferred to keep his circle of friends small, and tended to be either completely alone, or involved in a serious relationship. "No," Harry thought, "thrilling chases are definitely not part of my life experiences."
"So," said Tom, giving Harry a friendly poke on the shoulder, "'fess up. How are things with that lovely girlfriend of yours?"
"Okay," Harry answered. He didn't much like talking about Tiffany and himself, and hoped that the subject would pass quickly.
"Come on now, give me more than that!" Tom persisted. "How long have you been dating,
anyway?"
Harry furrowed his brow and calculated. "About seven or so months in total," he said, frowning slightly. "There was a breakup in there somewhere." Seeing that Tom still looked unsatisfied, Harry quickly added, "Our very first date was right here in this pub - last Halloween."
"Halloween, eh?" Tom chuckled. "There's a night for romance if I've ever heard of one."
Tom went back to his mug of ale, leaving Harry to wonder whether Tiffany too had thought it a strange evening for him to have asked her out.
"Well," Harry offered thoughtfully, "I don't much care for being alone on Halloween…and I saw Tiffany in the park and asked her out."
Harry shrugged and cast about for a new line of conversation. He remembered the day well, in fact, and it surrounded a subject to which he would never be willing to give air. He had sequestered himself off from his friends and coworkers, as he did every year at the same time, and spent the day strolling through streets and parks of Muggle London, waiting for it to end. He couldn't bear to be among wizards on the day of his parents' death. It brought about a painful pull in his chest even now, thinking back on last Halloween, or looking ahead toward another one.
The irony of meeting a witch in a Muggle park on the very day that Harry was trying to avoid reminders of magic had intrigued him, and he felt compelled to ask her out. Tiffany was with a group of children, and he spied her using an ever-so-faint Aguamenti spell to put out a little fire that one of the children had started in a pile of leaves. Harry had walked over to the witch and struck up a conversation, using his position as an Auror to break the ice, and asking her to join him for drinks before they parted.
"And…" Tom said, attempting to bring Harry back into their conversation.
"Did you see that the Cannons traded Jones?" Harry replied, sitting back in his chair and rubbing his hand through his hair in order to shake himself of any further thoughts of Halloween and Tiffany.
"Nice try," Tom goaded. "What's this `Tiffany'?" he asked. "I thought her name was Harriet or something like that. The pretty girl you brought to that wedding - brown hair, long legs, horrible dancer…She's been by the department before too."
"Brown hair?" Harry asked, shaking his head. "No, Tiffany is a blond." Then he remembered who he had brought to the boss's daughter's wedding as a buried memory came to surface of Hermione asking him to kiss her on the sofa. A shiver ran down Harry's spine. No, that memory would just have to find a deeper spot to hide. He didn't need anything more to feel guilty about right at the moment.
"Hermione is my friend. Tiffany and I were broke up at the time, so Hermione agreed to come with me to the wedding thing. We've been friends since we were eleven."
"Too bad," said Tom, simply. "She's cute in an elegant sort of way. Smart too. Just the kind of witch I could see you with. Did you say they traded Jones?" he asked as if suddenly comprehending Harry's news.
Harry jumped on the chance to talk about something more interesting than his love life and his weird relationship with his best friend, and the two Aurors spent the rest of the evening forming their own trade deals to help the Cannons field a better defense. They stayed at the pub until two in the morning, enjoying a few more victories at the dartboard and sticking mostly to talking about sports and reliving their favorite Auror adventures in careful whispers.
Harry felt good for the first time in almost a week as he readied himself for bed that night. Not that he was happy with himself: guilt and regret still sat in his belly like he'd swallowed a lead weight. But, for some reason he felt brave and strong enough now to face Tiffany. After all, Hermione had been very understanding, and so it could be possible that Tiffany would be as well. Perhaps she'd get mad and yell and they could spend the evening making up again like the night she came back to him. That had been one of Harry's favorite nights with Tiffany - all passion and lust, desperate to get to know one another all over again. But, just as the fond memories threatened to rouse Harry's libido, he shook his head and laughed.
"Right," he said aloud. "She's going to jump all over you because you spent an evening snogging a witch she despises….Git!" Laughing to himself and giving a huge yawn, Harry stripped down to his boxers and slid into bed.
It was with a variety of emotions that Harry appeared in Hermione's living room the next morning. She had made him promise that he'd stop by and help her do some shopping down at Diagon Alley in London. Not fooled for a second, Harry knew this was just a ploy to restore some normalcy to their friendship; She was forcing him to take her out to prove to them both that fifteen years of friendship would not dissolve over something as unoriginal as a Saturday night snogfest.
Harry appreciated the sentiment, and even embraced the idea. His stomach, however, was definitely not on board. It felt as if he'd swallowed eels. His palms were damp with sweat and his brain kept coming up with frightening situations that they might find themselves in. What if he tripped and landed on her? What if he complimented her dress and she thought he was making a pass? What if Hermione changed her mind and decided to tell him that they really shouldn't see each other any more? Just as Harry's mind began searching for a decent excuse to go back to his own flat and hide, Hermione bubbled into her living room.
"Harry!" she beamed. "I thought I heard your pop!" Hermione continued to rattle on about their shopping plans in an overly animated tone, all smiles and happiness. She was trying with all the subtleness of a gorilla to get Harry to relax into his former self.
"Well," she said after her itinerary had been explained sufficiently, "let's get going. As you've heard, I've loads to do today. You're so great to have offered to help."
"You made me," Harry replied. He was finding Hermione's behavior so humorous that he began to forget his nervousness.
"We can catch a quick bite at the Leaky," Hermione continued, leading Harry to the fireplace and grabbing a handful of Floo powder.
The pair spent the morning going from store to store, stocking up on various potions and ingredients that Hermione swore she needed for her new research project. After what seemed to Harry like days, his friend finally crossed off the last of the items on her shopping list and declared with a sigh that they were done.
Harry held up the two small sacks he'd been carrying and laughed. "Good thing I came along. How ever would you have carried it all?" Although they had purchased dozens of vials, each was so small that there really hadn't been much of a shopping load.
"Why, without my huge, bulging muscles --"
Hermione interrupted her friend with a hand wave, smirking despite her annoyance at being caught in a game. "Okay, okay," she laughed. "Maybe I just wanted your company."
Harry looked down at his feet. "Yeah," he said. "Me too." He gave as confident of a smile as he could manage, stepping alongside Hermione to lead her to their favorite tavern. Once they arrived, the familiarity of the Leaky Cauldron seemed to ease Harry's tension quite a bit. He ordered a sandwich and a Coke, not wanting to take any chances with anything stronger, which caused Hermione to lift her eyebrow and offer him a sardonic smile.
They kept their conversation light as they ate their way through lunch. Fortunately, Hermione's married boss was still carrying on with the mail witch, as was discovered by a rather unfortunate orderly who had gone to the supply cupboard at a very inopportune time. Hermione was able to stretch that story out for half of an hour, lasting all the way through the meal.
Neither friend mentioned the incident, and Hermione was deeply grateful for this. She did not inquire after Tiffany, as she would normally have done, but apart from this small transgression she felt that the morning and afternoon had been quite a success. To Hermione's relief, the pair did not run into their party friends, but she and Harry did spend a little while retelling stories from the evening when they had all met, laughing and teasing and starting to feel more at ease with each other.
Before she knew it, Hermione was back at her flat, sighing deeply as she plopped down on her sofa. She hoped that she had made some headway. Harry looked at first as if he was being tortured just to be in her presence and although she tried to swallow it with grace, willing her heart not to feel hurt by Harry's obvious desire to escape her company, Hermione couldn't help but long for the Harry of old. The Harry she knew before they got drunk and before he forgot that she was just a platonic friend. She already missed him terribly. But, she thought, today had been a good leap forward. By the afternoon's end, Harry was laughing and joking, and Hermione allowed herself to really believe that things were going to work out now.
"I hope so," she muttered softly into the empty room.
For his part, Harry was only halfway out of the fire. He had worked himself into quite a predicament with his newly-reestablished relationship with his girlfriend. Tiffany had not been the least bit happy when Harry had sent Hedwig along with a note explaining his plans for that Friday night - plans that had not included her. She sent back a note suggesting that they try for Saturday afternoon instead.
When Harry opened the parchment, he cringed and his gut wrenched as he realized his error. He had promised Hermione to help with shopping and didn't know how long she would expect him to stay with her. Harry didn't think that, under the circumstances, Hermione would appreciate being told that he had to leave early for a date, so he instead wrote another note to Tiffany explaining that he would be unavailable Saturday until later in the evening.
The note that Hedwig next dropped into Harry's lap simply said, "Fine." Harry knew that this "fine" definitely meant anything but "fine". He may not yet have told his girlfriend about his ghastly behavior on the weekend prior, but ignoring her for this entire weekend was going to cost him nonetheless.
Taking a deep breath, Harry reached into his Floo tin to grab a fistful of powder. Chucking the grey substance forcefully toward the burning logs, he muttered, "Tiffany's flat." As he drummed up his Gryffindor courage, he set himself to face the music and mend his love life once again.
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