Harry Potter: Master of Talismans

Emma found me at the hall mirror, trying to decide whether my hair had looked better before I began improving it. She asked where I was going, and the noise she made when I mentioned Luna sounded unusually well informed for a single syllable.

‘You’ve mentioned her before,’ she said, taking the discarded shirt from my arm. I pointed out that I mentioned quite a lot of people. ‘You haven’t changed your shirt twice for Harry.’

Several possible answers occurred to me, but none survived the sight of her folding the evidence. She asked about Luna’s journey home instead, giving me something I had a better chance of explaining.

Her father had brought her through to the Leaky Cauldron that morning and would meet her there again tonight. The arrangements had taken three letters: Luna suggested the day, I suggested London, and her father had someone to visit while she was out. Emma had agreed to take us to the place I had chosen for dinner. A simple invitation involved more transport than I had expected.

I reminded her that she could have lunch without me. She said she had intended to, kissed my forehead and handed over the jacket I had forgotten while organising the rest of my appearance.

On the way to her car, I glanced into the other part of the garage. Four sports cars waited beneath fitted covers, bought and cared for by Ken, then left to someone too young to drive them. Remembering how to drive from another life did not supply my thirteen-year-old self with a licence.

Emma told me to keep walking. I explained that I had not done anything, but she seemed to consider stopping beside the keys a sufficient declaration of interest. I followed her to the car and left the covers undisturbed.

By the time I reached Diagon Alley, I was a few minutes late. The queue outside Frozen curved past the next shop window, which ought to have pleased me. Instead, I wondered whether Luna was standing in it, concluding that I was as reliable as a boy who needed two attempts to choose a shirt.

Then I saw her at an outside table. She wore a blue dress, with the carrot-embroidered bag beside her chair and pale hair falling over one shoulder. The Quibbler lay open upside down in her hands, apparently occupying enough attention for me to approach quietly from the side.

‘Hello, Oswald.’ She lowered the magazine before I reached her, and I asked whether she could let me surprise her once. Luna pointed towards the window, where my reflection stood with one hand still half raised.

I said that seemed unfair. ‘Only if you try from that direction,’ she told me, folding the magazine and making space on the table. I sat opposite her and discovered that I had not stopped looking.

The dress was simply different from school robes, something she had chosen for a day we would spend together. That was enough to interfere with the apology I had prepared. I told her she looked lovely, and she thanked me before observing that I was late.

‘Yes, I’m sorry.’ Her smile grew as she explained that both things could be true. I admitted that they could and asked whether she wanted a drink, glad to find a question which did not require another defence of my punctuality.

She would, but thought we ought to give up the table if we were going elsewhere. People were waiting, and she glanced towards the queue as she said it. I explained that I had reserved it when we fixed the day and would like to stay for a while if she did.

One of the staff came out with a menu and a pencil behind her ear. She asked Luna about tea, milk and sweetness, wrote down the answer and turned to me. ‘The cold one again?’ I agreed, receiving a further question about whether I intended to drink it this time.

I promised to try. When she had gone, Luna looked from me to the sign above the window and asked whether I came here often.

‘I own it.’ I watched her consider that, trying to look less interested in the effect than I was. She glanced towards the staff member disappearing through the door.

‘That explains why she sounded as though she could tell you off.’ I laughed before I could make the revelation any more impressive, then told her it was one of the places I had bought last summer. It had sold quite different things before we changed it.

The shop occupied the third of the Diagon Alley properties Emma and the advisers had helped me acquire. The bookshop still sold books, and the restaurant served meals; this place had taken longer to decide on. I had wanted to try drinks I remembered, although remembering them proved much easier than producing them.

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My first description of the pearls resulted in something the cook refused to put in a paying customer’s cup. After trying one, I agreed with her. We worked through letters, samples and failed batches until what I meant by the texture became something we could serve.

I suggested flavours, chose what to try next and learnt to describe failures more precisely. The staff did the repeated kitchen work, while Emma made sure equipment, experiments and wages appeared in the accounts. The resulting menu had a small range of teas, cold drinks and cakes. We were still finding out which would bring people back.

Luna asked whether it was doing well. ‘Today, yes,’ I said, watching the queue move. ‘Ask me again after we’ve paid for everything.’ A boy came out inspecting the pearls in his cup more suspiciously than the owl perched on his shoulder, and I hoped he would try them before writing us off.

I told her about the two small Muggle places trying the same menu outside the Alley. Other people managed those too, after Emma approved the trial leases and equipment on the managers’ estimates. The money came from the estate; a busy opening week had not persuaded her to stop asking what the next one would cost.

I caught myself before describing the arrangements any further. I had begun to sound like someone who had invited her out to review the accounts, and her drink arrived in time to give us something better to examine.

Luna turned the glass, watching the contents move. ‘You wanted me to be impressed,’ she said, and I admitted that I had hoped for it a little. She tried the drink before answering, then made a second attempt when a pearl escaped the first.

She thought the person who had made them deserved some of the credit. I pointed towards the serving hatch as the cook appeared there, said something forceful to an assistant and vanished again. I would tell her, I promised, assuming I could find a moment when she was not carrying anything hot.

‘You can still be pleased,’ Luna added. ‘It was your idea to try.’ I drank my tea, finding that easier to accept than I expected, and asked what she had been doing at home.

Her answer involved helping her father sort correspondence, walking on the hill near their house and an envelope containing nothing but sand. She had several possibilities for the sand and no settled explanation. I asked about Ottery St Catchpole, telling her I had just visited the Weasleys nearby.

Luna wanted to know whether Ron had made me remove gnomes. I found the glove I had accidentally left in my jacket pocket and showed her the tooth mark. She inspected it gravely before declaring that it looked like a successful visit.

After a light lunch, we walked through the Leaky Cauldron into London. I had several things planned, but soon discovered that an outing with Luna needed room for whatever happened between them. She knew how traffic worked and had seen buses before; the first thing which stopped her was a window full of mechanical toys.

One bowed every few seconds while another repeatedly failed to climb a staircase. Luna watched it return to the bottom and said that it must be tiring. I explained that it was wound up, which she did not think sounded restful either.

Inside, she asked the shopkeeper how the mechanism worked. He fetched an opened example and showed us the gears, turning a little handle so we could follow the movement. I enjoyed watching her interest shift from the figure to its workings; she was not waiting for me to explain the whole Muggle world.

When she put the toy back, I reached for my money. ‘You don’t have to buy it,’ she said, noticing the movement. I told her I thought she liked it, and she agreed that she did. Seeing how it worked had been enough.

I let my hand fall. At the next shops I began asking whether she wanted something instead of treating curiosity as an order, and by the time we reached the river I was carrying fewer bags than expected. That left my hands free when she pointed out a boat passing beneath a bridge.

We stood at the embankment wall to watch it. Luna rested her forearms on the stone and said I looked different here, where there were no school corridors to listen down. I had not realised how often I still did that until a noise behind us made me look over my shoulder.

It was a bicycle bell. ‘I’m working on it,’ I told her, turning back towards the water. She said she knew, and stayed beside me until the boat had passed out of sight.

We walked until our feet objected, sat for a while, then walked a little more. At a bookstall I found myself examining old notebooks among the second-hand books. One had a cracked brown cover which brought the letters on my desk to mind, and I picked it up before realising I was no longer reading its label.

A photograph among Ken’s papers had given me a place to begin asking about Harry’s parents. Hagrid had answered my questions, and familiar faces had led to other names. I had written to McGonagall and Dumbledore as well; one reply suggested that something more personal than a photograph might still exist.

There was nothing to give Harry yet. I had kept the enquiries to myself, unwilling to make him a promise on the strength of an address. Luna noticed the notebook in my hand and asked whether I had found something.

‘Not this.’ I put it back carefully. ‘I’m trying to find a birthday present for Harry. Something that belonged to his father, if I can.’ She helped straighten the books I had disturbed without asking for details I did not yet have.

Then she took my hand as we moved into the street. I forgot the directions I had been about to give her and had to recover them when she asked where we were going next.

‘Dinner,’ I said, once I remembered how sentences worked. ‘Emma’s meeting us. There’s somewhere I’d like you to see.’ Luna kept hold of my hand, and I managed to lead us the right way without consulting the directions again.