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Quidditch matches, Harry mused, were always strange to watch. As someone who used to play the game himself, the Seekers stood out like a sore thumb. Spotting the mistakes made was easy, and he always had to fight the urge to jump on a broom and join the fray. That was why he only attended a few games each year, most prominently the annual charity match between the Holyhead Harpies and the Heidelberg Harriers to commemorate their seven day slugging fest in 1953. The last fixture before the Winter Break was also worth a trip to Wales, with mulled wine as a counter to the cold gale that swept across the Irish Sea.
The match itself was not particularly exciting, Appleby put forth a valiant defence, but they were down by 200 and unlikely to make a comeback. Yet no other stadium managed to create the same atmosphere as Holyhead's home field. So by the time Davis put the Arrows out of their misery for a final score of 560:310, Harry was past his seventh cup and incredibly cosy. Which was why it took three attempts to get his attention.
He turned around and expected to be face to face with a fangirl, or maybe someone from the DA. Indeed, the blonde ticked a few boxes for the former, but at the same time, her robes were not revealing enough for the kind of clumsy seduction attempt he was used to; they looked somewhat similar to those of Appleby. In fact, they looked remarkably like the ones worn by the Arrows' coaching staff. Which still did not explain why that witch was on a first name basis with him.
Taking a second glance, the woman looked like a cross between Luna and Fleur, albeit taller than them. She might even have an inch above him, but that could also be down to her boots. Her blonde hair bordered on white, but was mostly hidden by a woolly hat that matched the turquoise of her robes. Her eyes were icy blue, yet warm at the same time and her accent sounded odd, similar to the one of the Channel Islands, but not quite.
"I'm sorry Miss, but do I know you?" Harry asked and raked his brain about who this stranger was. She was pretty enough, even if her long arms and legs together with her lean build made her look slightly lanky. At the same time, she held herself with the kind of effortless grace he had rarely seen. She did not have the same otherworldly beauty Fleur seemed to radiate, but Harry was sure that he would have remembered if he had seen her before.
"Come on, you fished me out of a lake once."
Even with the rather obvious hint, it took him more than a moment to connect the dots. If asked, he would have blamed the mulled wine that kept him warm. "Shit, Gabrielle, is that you?"
"So you have not made a habit out of it."
"No, I tend to stay away from lakes, so you were the only one whom I fished out. Although Ron pulled me from a frozen pond once –"
"You truly know how to make a girl swoon," Gabrielle laughed.
He thought back to the last time he had spent any time with her, and had to go back to Bill and Fleur's wedding. "No way you are the little girl I remember. It has been, what, six years?"
"Seven, and eight since the last time we talked more than three words."
"You've grown – quite a bit to be honest, you have two inches on me," Harry guessed as he still struggled to reconcile the image of the little girl clinging to Fleur's skirts with the tall blonde in front of him. Gabrielle meanwhile giggled, and her expression of joy was one he recognised as she gave his shoulder a dismissive swat. She might not be a mirror image of her sister, but they had the same laugh.
"Now imagine if I was wearing heels. I could see your bald spots, old man."
"I don't have bald spots – yet."
"How do you know from down there?"
Harry could not stop the grin on his face. This sort of banter was far too rare when everyone saw him as their saviour. "There's a device called mirror, I'm not sure if you have heard of it –"
"A mirror you say? Pure witchcraft!"
"But you are a witch," Harry pointed out with a laugh she mirrored.
"Listen, I would love to catch up with you, but I have to be there when the coach rips into the players. Would you like to come over for a cup of coffee sometime?"
"Sure, how's your Friday looking?"
"We have practice until 2, so how about 4 pm? I live in Dufton, a mile north from our stadium in Appleby. There is only one road, and it has no name or numbers."
"One of those places. I'll find it."
"I hope you do," Gabrielle laughed again and drew Harry into a brief hug. Before his inhibited mind had processed that much, she kissed his cheek and seemingly danced away, leaving him slightly befuddled but smiling. With a shrug, he went looking for the restroom, and then the wizard selling mulled wine.
"Have you seen this?"
"Good morning Hermione! I am well, thank you for asking. Yes, breakfast was excellent, I'm glad you want a cuppa –"
"Prat!" she replied, but had a wide grin when she took the tea he offered and plopped down into her favourite chair.
"So what has that rag written this time? Dark Lord or harem master?" Harry wanted to know as he unfolded the Daily Prophet that Hermione had thrown onto his breakfast table. Looking up from the front page was a magical photograph of himself as he was a bit unsteady on his feet. Gabrielle had an arm across his shoulder before she leaned closer, kissed his cheek and turned away before the sequence repeated itself. Above the unflattering picture, three words were written in bold font.
The Norman Conquest
"I thought the Delacours were from Brittany."
"That's what you have to say about this? So you are actually seeing Gabby?"
"No, I just met her at the game. I had no idea that she was even in England, never mind working for the Arrows," Harry replied with a shrug.
"So that line about future dates is just the Prophet being its usual self?"
"Well, I agreed to meet Gabby to catch up over a coffee. She gave me her address – You don't think?"
"If she is anything like her sister, she will open the door naked and demand that you will make another baby with her."
"You still haven't forgotten that?" Harry laughed as he remembered the time Hermione had visited him, left for Shell Cottage and reappeared two minutes later, blushing worse than Ginny when she had put her elbow in the butter dish.
"How was I supposed to know that Bill had taken the afternoon off because they were trying for a second child?" Hermione asked, although that misadventure had long since become a running joke. "I just wanted to pick Fleur's brain about a rune cluster I found on an enchanted silver fork."
"Yes, I too visit hot blondes to talk about enchanted cutlery," he drawled and nodded towards the newspaper. "And speaking of her, have you talked to Fleur?"
"Yes, she only shrugged and said that if her sister wanted to ride you like a broomstick, that was between her and you. And that Gaby is too young for children."
"She did not say broomstick, did she?" Harry asked with a wiggle of his eyebrows.
"It's Fleur, of course she was crass."
Dufton turned out to be just as sleepy as Gabrielle had promised it. The Knight Bus had dropped him off in front of the village hall, and thus Harry walked. He followed the road east through the village, past old brick and stone houses. The few paths that branched off were more akin to long driveways, and there was nowhere but the road to walk. However, the settlement was less than a quarter of mile across, so walking down the main road and checking the names on the post boxes did not take too long. A nice change of pace, if nothing else.
The village was surrounded by green grass at the foothills of the North Pennines. Once Harry was past the small church that couldn't possibly seat more than forty, he saw a handful of sheep and chicken grazing down by the small creek. The place did not look poor, the houses were in good repair and the cars parked in the driveways were not rusting away. However, the whole place made even Ottery St. Catchpole seem metropolitan, so finding Delacour written in bronze letters did not take long.
Much to Harry's relief (or disappointment), Gabrielle was not naked when she opened the door. Instead, she wore a white apron over a burgundy Christmas jumper and dark blue sweatpants. It was a fetching, if homely look. The moment she recognized her guest, her eyes went wide.
"Oh – Hello Harry, you are – wait, it is 4 already?"
"Am I interrupting something?" he asked once he took in her dishevelled appearance. Her face and the hair she had tied back in a ponytail were dusted with flour. Her sleeves had the same white covering.
"No, come in! I just lost track of time in the kitchen."
"Were you cooking?"
"Baking. I made a cake to go with the coffee, and I thought that I could get a few Christmas cookies done before you came over."
"Christmas Cookies? I didn't know that they had those in France."
"They don't, but it's sort of a family tradition. Well, I'm trying to make it one, at the very least," Gabrielle explained and reached to tug a loose strand of her hair away, but stopped when she realized that her hand was covered in flour. So with her hand awkwardly raised, she stepped aside to let Harry in.
"And you have made a cake?" he asked as he took in the hallway. It looked remarkably mundane, missing any magical features such as moving pictures or a fireplace large enough to floo through.
"Nothing difficult, just some pineapple sponge cake."
"Do you want a hand with those cookies?" Harry offered. Since Kreacher took care of the Kitchen at Grimmauld, it had been some time since he got to bake something.
"Yes, thank you. It's not a complicated recipe, so it shouldn't take too long. Especially with four hands."
Harry followed her through the small house that, other than a cabinet full of potion vials, could have passed for a Muggle home. The kitchen was modern, but looked like a smoke bomb had gone off recently. Almost every surface was covered in white dust while a phalanx of bags and bowls covered the counter. He watched in silence for a moment as Gabrielle worked the kettle, a silence that grew more awkward with each moment that passed. Whatever battle she had waged with the cookies, she had clearly lost.
"So, you work for the Arrows?"
"Yes, as an apprentice for the medical staff," she replied, unfazed by the long silence.
"So you are a healer?"
"In theory. In practice, it is less about mending injuries, and more about watching the form of the players and making sure that they exercise properly. And since there is a ban on potions and elixirs for anything other than healing, this means a surprising amount of muggle concepts. We have to document everything, down to the last pepper-up potion when someone catches a cold," Gabrielle explained and held out a steaming cup of tea. "Milk or sugar?"
"Just milk, thank you," Harry replied and took the cup she held out. Gabrielle returned to the sheet of paper that apparently held the handwritten recipe she was trying to follow.
"Alright, so let's see about those cookies and then we can sit down in the living room. Shouldn't take long. Where was I… 300 grams of butter, 180 sugar, 3 eggs, mix them together – I got that here. You want to take a second bowl and mix 250 grams of oat flakes with 200 grams of flour and the same amount of ground almonds, that's the whole bag," Gabrielle read out over the sound of her kitchen tool. "Add two teaspoons of baking powder."
"What's with the mixer?"
Gabrielle's cheeks blushed in an adorable pink, sharply contrasted by the flour still clinging to her face. "Let's just say that I don't have enough control with the animation charm. Completely unrelated, have you noticed that everything here is covered in flour? Crazy coincidence, right?"
"That bad?" Harry chuckled as he went to work with the kitchen scale. Animation was one of the more challenging fields of charms, but the mess in the kitchen was worse than any mishap he remembered from Professor Flitwick's classes, too many years ago. Well, at least worse than this side of Seamus.
"The charm works well enough to swirl a cauldron or a pot of soup, but it isn't the best idea for baking."
"So do I have to wait for you to be done with the mixer?"
"You can use a spoon, all of that is just mixed a bit before going into the dough. A few swirls should be enough, a mixer, or even worse, the animation charm, can be – disastrous," Gabrielle explained and gestured at the state of her kitchen.
"So, how long have you been here?" Harry asked as he tugged on a bag of oat flakes.
"In Dufton, three months, in England five years."
"That long? Wait, does that mean you went to Hogwarts?" he wanted to know after doing the maths.
"Yes, I transferred after my second year at Beauxbaton because I couldn't stand being in Fleur's shadow any more. In Beauxbaton, she was the champion, the hero, the best student they had had in decades."
"Fleur is a hero in Beauxbaton?" Harry asked, more than a little surprised by this revelation.
Gabrielle took a deep breath. "Not just there. Fleur was the only daughter of France to fight against the Dark Lord since Minister Aguillard advocated strict neutrality in what she called 'L'affair d'anglais'. Although she missed the last battle because she was giving birth to little Victorie, Fleur did more than anyone else back home. It did not save Aguillard's government, but the honours stuck with my sister. And I had to get away from all of that."
"I never noticed that you were here."
"It's not like I lived with my sister, I usually only stayed a night after each term and the last few days of the holidays with Fleur, other than that I went back home. Névez isn't that far from Shell Cottage, so she or Maman could just apparate me between there in the blink of an eye," Gabrielle explained and added a pinch of sugar to the batter. "Where do you live? I haven't seen you at Fleur's at all."
"London. I inherited a house from my godfather, and honestly, it is far larger than I would ever need, so I offered a floor to Andromeda –"
"Your girlfriend?"
"No, she was the cousin of my godfather and is the grandmother of my godson," Harry explained and laughed at her expression. "It's quite the mess, I know."
"Was he that adorable little metamorphmagus whose name makes no sense?"
Harry's eyebrows shot up at that description. "What's wrong with Teddy?"
"His name was Edward, not Theodore."
"That's just how it is," Harry shrugged. He had never really thought about the nickname, Andromeda had used it and therefore so did he.
"Sometimes, you English make no sense. Just like calling Richard Dick. Can you imagine my confusion when Professor Sprout started calling a boy in the year above me that?" Gabrielle huffed and Harry chuckled at the thought.
"I see your point. Your English is quite good, much better than your sister's."
Now it was her turn to shrug. "I was younger when I came to England, and I knew a lot more due to Bill and his family. The accent will stick with me I think, but I hope it is not too bad."
"You sound like someone from Jersey trying to speak without an accent."
"Jersey?"
"The Black Estate included a beach house there. Andromeda likes to take Teddy there for the weekends in summer, and sometimes I tag along. Lovely place, even if it's a bit hard to understand the neighbours."
"Well, I'll take that," Gabrielle said with a smile and put the mixer into its lowest setting. "Now slowly add the ingredients from your bowl into the batter."
Harry did just that and listened as she talked about the mediocre performance of the Arrows this season, and the valiant but futile attempts of the coaching team to whip them into shape.
"You know, that's the reason I never got into professional Quidditch. I love to play, but I don't want to turn a fun hobby into work."
"I remember your record from Hogwarts. Only two defeats, and both of them were due to outside circumstances."
"People were still talking about my Quidditch record?"
"Defeating a dark wizard is impressive, but Quidditch is what makes the world go round."
"Some things never change, I guess," Harry chuckled. "You have met Ron, right?"
"Bill's youngest brother? The Keeper?"
"Yes. He was always a Quidditch maniac."
"That answers the question of what kind of person would sign with the Cannons."
"He has been their biggest fan for as long as I can remember. He could do much better than Chudleigh, but his ambition was always to play for them."
"There must be something in the water at the Burrow. His brother is the reserve seeker for Romania after he turned down the offer to play for Britain, and his sister was offered a contract extension with Holyhead but went to Badajoz instead."
"Maybe you should bottle some and give it to your players. Since none of the Weasleys got busted for forbidden substances yet, it can't be considered doping."
"I would hope that I can do a better job than some magical tapwater," Gabrielle joked and gestured at the bowl in her hand. "Now you only need to add a pinch of salt, and a healthy amount of cinnamon and we are done with the batter."
"It does not look done," he pointed out with a nod at the viscous mass inside the bowl even after Gabrielle had worked it over with a mixer for a few minutes as they talked.
"That's supposed to be like this. It makes shaping the cookies messy, but the taste is worth the mess."
"The mess?" Harry asked and received a wide grin in return.
"They look the best if you roll the batter into small balls. You can use two spoons to do it, but that is very – fiddly. Using your hands is easier, especially since I placed a cooling charm on the bowl."
Gabrielle had been right, the batter was a sticky mess, but it was not too difficult to make small balls and place them on the baking trays. Their hands however, looked like they had worked with wood glue and sawdust. Harry knew that he could have done all of that with the wave of his wand, but not using magic was oddly satisfying. They made quick work of the task, but soon found themselves in need of conjuring more sheets.
"Are these just for you?" Harry asked once he eyed the fruits of their work. "Those are 5, 6 – 30 per sheet, and we have 3 of them already."
"There is not much batter left, I don't think we will get more than a fourth sheet. Can you set the oven to 180 degrees and the timer to fifteen minutes?"
"What's with all the Muggle things? I understand the mixer, but not even Hermione uses that much technology in her flat."
"That's – a long story."
"I have time. If you don't mind telling me, that is," Harry offered. He found this kitchen chat quite refreshing, and Gabrielle intriguing. He really ought to go out more, he resolved.
"Well, you rescued me out of the lake, so I guess you deserve a story."
"I thought that's what the tea and the sponge cake are for."
"That was just me being a proper host," Gabrielle replied and swatted Harry's arm, her hand still wet from the kitchen sink. "It comes down to the fact that I am tired of magic. Not spells or such, but magic on a basic level. As you know, I am not human but a magical creature –"
"You are not a creature."
"That is sweet of you to say, but does not change that I have certain abilities neither a Muggle nor a witch have. Veela breed true. I would change into an avian shape if I let go of my emotions, I could seduce almost anyone if I really set my mind to it, I could summon fire with my bare hands – And I have asked for none of that."
"Have you always felt that way?" Harry wanted to know. He had not talked much with Fleur about her heritage, but he never got the impression that she resented being a Veela like her sister had just described. And a few years ago when Viktor did him a solid and introduced him to the Bulgarian mascots – well, they had been very happy about their abilities.
"Not as a child, but the older I grew, the more I hated my heritage. Whatever I did, it was rarely measured in comparison to my friends or peers. If I was not compared to my sister, it was always 'for a Veela'," she almost spat the last word.
"That sounds unpleasant," Harry offered. He had his share of high expectations to meet, and it only got worse after he defeated Voldemort for good.
"I don't think that it was done out of malice, nor were they that far off the mark if I am honest. Magic always reacted differently to me because of what I was. I could feel it, right under my skin."
"You make it sound as if you are a werewolf."
"Hmm, not quite. I don't have an inner Veela in me or however werewolves would describe that, no curse that commands me to act a certain way. It is a lot more - subconscious. When I'm angry, I can feel my magic responding to it far easier than any of my friends, judging by what they told me about it. For me, the magic is just waiting to be unleashed, but it is still reacting to my thoughts and emotions," Gabrielle said, but despite the topic, she still sounded chirpy. Harry found that her voice put him at ease, despite the oddness of her accent. Or maybe because of it, since it sounded quite soft. "I use magic where it is useful, but a magical oven or fridge will not work better. Household chores are a different story, these spells save you a lot of time. With cooking it depends, just for myself I like to prepare the ingredients by hand, but if I have to make food for a party or a family gathering - "
"So why are we doing this by hand? I mean, we will easily get past a hundred cookies, and that's a bit much just for you."
"Well, I think we will be down to eighty by the time you leave. Some of them will be a Christmas present for my grandmother, they are better after a few weeks in a box. You can have some for little Edward if you like."
"I would love to."
"And just like that, I am left with only forty of these small cookies, which isn't a lot for twelve days of Christmas, especially when Fleur comes over and brings Victoire with her. I will have to bake some more for the little terror."
"So is this a Delacour family tradition?"
"I got the recipe from a muggle bakery in Strasbourg when I was 8. They were different from the cookies I knew from home, so I kept pouting until the old man wrote the recipe down. They were not even meant as Christmas treats, but that's when I tried them," Gabrielle explained with a fond smile. "These were the first foods I could prepare for myself. Since I was ten, I insisted on making the cookies each year, so they have become a family tradition."
The baking kept them busy for another half an hour, their cold tea was left abandoned in favour of a fresh pot of Earl Grey to go with the promised cake. Gabrielle began to open cupboards, first in search of her best china, and then a better blend of tea. He watched her retrieve a box with her delicate finger, carefully moving other objects that were in her way. Harry would lie if he said that he didn't feel a sense of awe overcome him at the display of benign elegance and the sliver of pale skin that peeked out between her jumper and the jeans. If not for the fact that he could shake off even Voldemort's imperius, he would have suspected some form of Veela allure. Caught in the moment, he almost failed to catch her question.
"Hm?" He voiced as if he hadn't heard her correctly, playing the part of polite fool perfectly. She returned a look of her own and shrugged knowingly, choosing a sly smile over a verbal confirmation.
"I asked, what do you do for a living?" She repeated without losing a beat, seemingly unbothered by his previous stupor. "Fleur said that you sit in the Wizengamot, but that is only in session every other month."
"I write for the Quibbler. I'm Luna's inside man on the Wizengamot, and I have a gardening column."
"Gardening?"
"It's peaceful," Harry said defensively. "Look, I'm not really a journalist, I just do it on the side as a favour for a friend. Luna inherited the paper from her father and she was understandably in a bad place. She had helped me when I was going through the same, so I tried to be there for her, and then one thing led to another."
"How is the Wizengamot? I went out with a boy from my year once, and he went on and on about the changes he would make once he was old enough to take his seat."
Harry could not have stopped his laugh even if he had wanted to. "That bloke was full of shit. The Wizengamot doesn't change anything. There's also not much he could do on his own unless he took the whip."
"The whip?"
"It's an idiom, and a Muggle one at that. They don't use it in the Wizengamot, but it's the best description I can give you. Basically, he would have to join a party for the lack of a better term, vote like their leader wants him to and hope that eventually one of his suggestions would be taken seriously enough to be put forth in a bill."
"Your politics make no sense."
"You tell me, it's like they deliberately picked the worst of 17th century Muggle politics and then added some of the worst ideas that were invented afterwards. I mostly just go there to vote against whatever self-enrichment scheme someone had come up with this time and leave."
"That's kinda depressing."
"That's how it is. I had hoped that things would change after the war, but half of the seats are hereditary, so it's almost impossible to push for changes, even with the worst of the lot rotting in Azkaban. More often than not, the cousin or child who took over the seat was just as bad."
"So you just gave up?" Gabrielle asked. While she didn't know Harry well, this went against everything she had heard about him.
"You can only run against a wall so many times before you give up," he replied and had to resist the urge to run his hand through his hair lest he wanted sticky dough in it. "I tried at first, but despite all the grand speeches made after the Wizengamot, they were very reluctant to vote in favour of reform. Hermione got her house elf law through because most members treat theirs well enough, but she lost her taste for politics along the way. I – I never wanted that seat in the first place, but it came with the Order of Merlin we got from Kingsley. And I wouldn't even know where to start making changes."
"Well, the unfair laws for example."
"That's the thing, the laws are not that bad, all things considered. Dumbledore sorted that out in '81, and that had to be the only decent thing he did that decade. There are a few loopholes, but for the most part the issue is the people enforcing the laws. You'd probably have to replace half of the Ministry in order to whip them into shape, but there's no one who could replace them. Snape really sabotaged the Ministry recruitment by ensuring only the right people would get into NEWT potions, which means most possible replacements are from the sort of family that thinks the wrong side won," Harry said, although his attempt at sarcasm turned bitter.
"I never paid much attention to politics. My father is a senior worker at the French Ministry, but he is a civil servant, so he is just doing what the politicians decide needs to be done," Gabrielle admitted and moved to the kitchen sink to wash her hands, her eyes locked on Harry. "And here - well at first I was just a guest, a student who came here to escape a shadow. The English politics didn't matter since I was French." She paused and looked away. "It was only in the summer after my graduation that I realised that I don't really see myself as French any more."
"Did that realisation hurt?" Harry asked, remembering that time Hermione had got really pissed and lamented the moment she started thinking of herself as a witch.
"No, it was just a surprise, perhaps a bit confusing," Gabrielle replied evenly. "But that's when I started paying attention to what happens outside of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. And – well, some players in the League have family in the Wizengamot, but none at Appleby."
"It is nothing but a waste of time. Or at least that's how it seems to me. I would much rather spend that time with Teddy or tending to the greenhouses Andromeda set up than host galas and fundraisers."
"So you went from a warrior to a gardener?"
"It's peaceful, Sirius left me enough gold for three lifetimes and Teddy is a delight," Harry said. The conversation had moved to the living room, and he sipped the tea Gabrielle had handed him. "Luna goes onto expeditions every few months, and I tag along. She can look for some creatures, and I'm looking for interesting plants to take home. So far, I have turned one greenhouse into a taiga, and I am working on one that will be a proper rainforest."
"So where is your next journey going?"
As the last cookies finished baking and Harry explained his upcoming expedition into the Darién Gap, he began to wonder what exactly this meeting had been. Neither Gabrielle nor he had called it a date, even if the press had announced it as such. The afternoon had not been particularly romantic, but as the talk turned towards holiday plans and the blonde first leaned against his shoulder and then, a few minutes later, nestled into his side, Harry was more than content to enjoy the evening for what it was.
A Christmas CD set the mood, and when a bottle of mulled wine replaced the tea, they started to sing along. As pleasant as Gabrielle's voice was, they shared the absence of talent when it came to actual singing. Harry had learned carols back in primary school, and was quite surprised how many he still remembered, and that Gabrielle knew the words by heart. Silent Night might have been a good rendition, but Hark! The Herald Angels Sing and I saw three Ships became a vocal butchery. In the Bleak Midwinter was hardly better, but Harry was struck by the thought that the whole evening had been very domestic, despite the off-key vocals. A glimpse into what a future with Gabrielle would be like, because given how she clung to him, it was pretty clear where she wanted to take this.
As it turned out, their next stop was not the bedroom, but a country pub called The Stag Inn. Gabrielle had insisted that he should stay a little longer, which raised the question of dinner. The short walk through the rain was enough to soak them, so Harry subtly cast a drying charm on them as they stepped into the pub and received a grateful smile. Behind the bar, a balding old man with a short beard stood at the taps and his eyes lit up when he looked up. "Ella! And who's your friend?"
"That's Harry. He once competed against my sister back when she was an exchange student in the Highlands," Gabrielle introduced him, and Harry laughed at that summary of his fourth year. "I ran into him recently, and invited him to come over."
"Hello."
"Will it be the usual?" the landlord asked, only acknowledging Harry with a nod. He was surprised that Gabrielle already was a regular in the pub, given that she had only moved to the village a few months ago.
"Yes Dan, but we came for dinner."
"So you also want the roast chicken. And for you?"
"I'll take a bitter, and the shepherd's pie."
"I'll let the Missus know," Dan said and wrote down their order on a scrap of paper before he gave Harry a long look. "You're a long way from London."
"Gabrielle is worth it," Harry replied, and the gruff man nodded before Harry's attention was drawn to Gabrielle, who pressed a quick kiss to his cheek.
They were not the only patrons, but the other guests could be counted on one hand. A middle-aged couple was sitting at a corner table, while three farmers sat at the bar. The pub itself looked a bit dated, the tables worn, the chairs creaky, but that was part of the charm.
They talked about Christmas past, Gabrielle regaling stories about her large extended family coming together at her grandmother's home. As it turned out, Veela were even more chaotic than the Weasley get-togethers, with everything from cousins trying to steal each other's date to snowball fights that ended in a duel with ceremonial rapiers. Harry in turn told stories about holidays with Andromeda, Hermione, Luna and him doting on Teddy, and even a few funny anecdotes about Dudley. Like the time he ate not one but two scented candles because he was hungry. As the evening went on, Gabrielle trounced his ass at darts, yet all Harry could do was stare because she looked far too graceful doing so.
"Stop woman, I am already dead," he admitted after the fifth loss in a row, although he could not stop the smile on his lips. "My ego can only take so much."
"Awww, do you want me to kiss it better?" Gabrielle asked, her voice suddenly husky.
"Quick doctor, we are losing him."
He had expected another peck on the cheek, but she just grabbed his face and then crashed her lips onto his. Stunned by this turn of events, Harry's mind took a moment to catch up, during which he noticed she tasted of Cider, and, for the first time, he had to tilt his head up during a kiss. Gabrielle snaked one hand behind his neck, pulled herself flush against him, and then he kissed her back. The pent-up anticipation of the evening finally found its outlet.
Not that Harry was a sore looser, but never before had he enjoyed a crushing defeat that much. However, they had forgotten that they were not in a private place, and the hollering of Dan the landlord reminded them of that. "If you keep this up, I will charge you for a room!"