Chapter Text
# Chapter One: A Quiet Day in Little Whinging
The grass snake was roughly eight inches long, pleasantly cool around Harry’s wrist, and entirely uninterested in working for a living.
Harry held his arm steady above the patch of dandelions beside the shed, keeping his voice down to a low, dry hiss. *“The blue gate. Not the green one. The blue one with the loose latch.”*
The snake flicked its tongue against his thumb, tasted the morning air, and didn't move.
*“It is two houses down,”* Harry whispered patiently. *“Under the hydrangea bushes. You drop the paper by the milk bottle and come back. That is the entire arrangement.”*
*“Cold,”* the snake hissed back. *“Grass is wet.”*
*“The sun is already on the pavement. If you go along the top of the brick wall, it is warm all the way to the blue gate.”*
The snake turned its small, dark head, seemed to consider the proposition, and slowly slid from Harry’s knuckles down onto the treated timber of the garden bench. It looped twice around a terracotta flowerpot before pausing to look up at him.
*“Snails?”* it asked.
*“Near the compost heap when you get back,”* Harry promised. *“Three fat ones.”*
*“Acceptable.”*
With a faint rustle that barely stirred the clover, the snake slipped off the bench, navigated the short grass with fluid precision, and disappeared beneath the lower lattice of the fence. Around its middle, secured with a loop of light kitchen twine that would pull loose with a single tug against a twig, was a tightly rolled strip of paper containing Mrs. Albright’s Tuesday reminder for the library van.
Harry straightened up, brushing a dry leaf from the knee of his jeans, and turned toward the lawn.
Remus was sitting in a faded green canvas lounge chair with his legs stretched out into the morning sun. He had an earthenware mug of tea balanced on his knee, an open copy of a Muggle mechanical journal in his lap, and an expression of profound, long-suffering forbearance on his face.
He had not moved since Harry had started speaking, except to pull his cardigan slightly closer around his shoulders.
“I am trying very hard,” Remus said, without looking up from the page, “to enjoy my morning tea.”
Harry smiled. “You’re doing very well.”
“I can hear you making that noise from fifteen feet away.”
“It’s not a noise. It’s grammar.”
“It sounds like a punctured bicycle tyre giving instructions to a garden hose.” Remus finally lifted his gaze, narrowing his eyes against the sunlight. “And I am fairly certain the neighbours do not employ reptiles for their post.”
“Postmen have to walk on the pavement,” Harry pointed out reasonably, walking over to lean against the arm of the lounge chair. “The snake can take the boundary wall. It avoids Mrs. Number Six’s terrier entirely, it cuts through the alley behind the garages, and nobody asks why an eleven-year-old is dropping letters through a gate at nine in the morning.”
“Twelve in July,” Remus corrected mildly.
“Which makes me even less likely to be mistaken for a professional courier.”
Remus sighed, though the corner of his mouth twitched upward. He had known about the Parseltongue since Harry was eight years old—ever since a startled adder in the Surrey woods had politely informed Harry that he was standing on its breakfast. Remus had sat Harry down at the kitchen table that very evening, made two mugs of hot chocolate, and explained in clear, measured tones precisely why wizarding society viewed the gift with unvarnished terror. Harry had listened, understood, and tucked the language away like a sharp pocketknife: something to be kept oiled, quiet, and out of sight until there was a practical reason to use it.
During his first year at Hogwarts, Harry had not hissed once within earshot of another student. There had been no need. In Little Whinging, however, where the gardens were interconnected by ancient brickwork and overgrown hedges, it was simply efficient logistics.
“You are terrifying,” Remus murmured, taking a sip of his tea. “Your father used to sneak out of Gryffindor Tower to visit the kitchens by turning three different suits of armour backwards so the portraits would argue with each other. You, on the other hand, are running an underground postal service with garden wildlife.”
“Dad didn't have a timetable to keep,” Harry said.
“No. He had detentions to avoid.” Remus looked at him over the rim of his mug, his amber-tinged eyes crinkling at the edges with a quiet, lingering warmth that Harry knew better than to comment on. “Have you checked the kettle?”
“Checked it. Water’s hot.”
Harry turned and looked back at the shed.
Over the ten months he had been away at school, the old wooden outbuilding behind Number Four had ceased to be an ordinary garden shed in everything except its exterior timber. Remus had spent the autumn and spring working on it with quiet, meticulous care. The outside still looked like a weathered, slightly neglected outhouse painted a dull forest green, completely beneath the notice of Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia. But inside, behind a heavily reinforced and discreetly charmed door, it had become a proper home.
The drafty single room Harry had grown up with now featured polished pine floorboards over thick insulating foam. Along the far wall sat a compact kitchenette with a scrubbed laminate worktop, a small stainless steel sink connected to the mains, an electric kettle, a twin-burner electric hotplate, and a waist-high refrigerator that hummed with a quiet, steady purr. Beside it, a newly framed partition led into a tiny, immaculate bathroom with a working shower cubicle, a porcelain basin, and a flush toilet that Remus had plumbed into the drainage line with a combination of Muggle pipe-wrenches and very careful silencing charms.
In the corner near Harry’s bed—which now had a proper spring mattress and crisp cotton sheets—sat a small, square portable colour television on a sturdy wooden shelf, its aerial cable running neatly through the eaves.
It was warm, private, and entirely his own.
“It looks brilliant, Remus,” Harry said, not for the first time since returning from London.
“It meets building regulations,” Remus replied, deadpan. “Mostly. The local council would have questions about the drainage, but the local council does not possess a wand.”
“Aunt Petunia looked at the roof yesterday when she was hanging out the washing.”
“And?”
“She frowned at the new lead flashing, decided it meant Uncle Vernon wouldn't have to hire a roofer, and went back inside without saying a word.”
“A triumph of domestic diplomacy,” Remus said, turning a page of his journal. “Now, do you have your list for the morning?”
“Bookstore first. Then the dry cleaner’s invoice for Mr. Finch, the library returns, and whatever the boys have left at the underpass.”
Remus paused, his thumb resting against the paper. He didn't look up, but his tone shifted slightly, becoming lighter in the way it always did when he was paying very close attention. “The Staines Road boys?”
“Just a drop-off,” Harry said easily. “I’m asking the questions this time.”
Remus’s eyes lifted, meeting Harry’s with a faint, knowing glimmer. “Ah. The Granger Doctrine.”
Harry felt his ears grow warm. “She made some very sensible points about chain of custody.”
“She always makes sensible points.” Remus smiled into his tea. “Off you go, then. Don't be late for Mr. Finch. He gets nervous when the morning deliveries aren't sorted before the ten o'clock rush.”
Harry picked up his canvas satchel from the garden bench, slung the strap over his shoulder, and gave Remus a quick nod before heading down the side passage toward the street.
---
The morning air in Little Whinging smelled of freshly cut lawns, tarmac warming under the summer sun, and the faint, sweet scent of privet hedges in bloom.
Harry walked at a brisk, steady pace, his hands in his pockets and his new trainers—bought in London with Hermione’s very firm approval—silent against the pavement. He had spent four years before Hogwarts establishing a quiet, reliable network among the shopkeepers and residents of the high street. To the Dursleys, he was a nuisance best kept out of sight; to the people who ran the local businesses, he was the quiet, remarkably punctual boy who could be trusted to carry three fragile parcels across town without dropping them, remember complex grocery orders without writing them down, and never lose a single penny of change.
His first stop was the public library on the corner of Elm Grove.
The brass bell above the door gave a soft chime as he pushed it open. The familiar, comforting scent of old paper, wax polish, and quiet air conditioning washed over him immediately.
Behind the front desk, Mrs. Henderson looked up over her half-moon spectacles. Her face broke into an immediate, crinkled smile.
“Well, look who’s returned to civilization,” she said, lowering her stamp. “I was wondering when you’d show up. Mr. Finch said he saw you at the station last week.”
“Had to unpack first,” Harry said, unbuckling his satchel and lifting out three thick paperbacks. “Two on local flora, one on nineteenth-century canal systems.”
Mrs. Henderson took them, sliding the check-out cards from the back covers with practiced ease. “And did your fancy school in Scotland have a library to keep you occupied, or did you spend all your time running around in the mud?”
“It had a library,” Harry said, thinking of the vast, towering shelves of the Hogwarts stacks and Madam Pince’s terrifying glare. “A fairly large one, actually. The rules were stricter.”
“Good. Children shouldn't be allowed to eat crisps near reference books.” She tapped the desk with her pencil. “I’ve put aside two new journals on agricultural engineering for you behind the counter. Mr. Lupin said you might want them for the summer.”
“Brilliant. I’ll collect them on the way back.”
“Mind you do. And tell that uncle of yours that if he doesn't return the Surrey historical map by Friday, I’m sending the council after him.”
“I’ll tell him,” Harry laughed. “He’s terrified of the council.”
Leaving the library, Harry turned down the high street toward *Page & Turn*, the second-hand bookstore tucked between a chemist and a small bakery. The shop’s display window was crowded with stacks of yellowing paperbacks, leather-bound classics, and a cardboard stand advertising the latest summer bestsellers.
When Harry pushed the door open, the bell clattered loudly against the wood, and Mr. Finch emerged from behind a mountain of cardboard boxes near the back. He was a small, round man with ink stains permanently ingrained in the creases of his fingers and a pencil tucked behind his left ear.
“Right on time, Harry,” Finch said, wiping his hands on a grey apron. “Two boxes from the wholesaler arrived ten minutes ago. History and biography in the larger carton, detective fiction in the smaller one. They need stamping, pricing according to the red ledger, and shelving in the front alcove.”
“I can have them done before noon,” Harry said, slipping off his satchel and hanging it on the hook behind the counter.
“Good lad.” Finch picked up a clipboard. “Your uncle came by on Monday to sign the youth employment agreement for the council. All above board, three days a week, four pounds fifty an hour. Cash at the end of every week, properly accounted for.”
“Thank you, Mr. Finch.”
Harry set to work immediately. He opened the first box with a dull penknife, checking each title against the invoice before stamping the inner flyleaf with the shop’s circular seal.
It was methodical, quiet work, and Harry enjoyed every minute of it.
Remus had explained to him, during the long discussions they had shared before Harry had even received his Hogwarts letter, that magical gold could be converted into British sterling through the goblin tellers at Gringotts. Harry knew he had a vault in London filled with mounds of Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts—enough to live comfortably for years without lifting a finger. But Harry had no intention of touching that gold for everyday life in Surrey.
Wizarding money belonged to the wizarding world. It bought wands, brass scales, potion ingredients, and the heavy leather-bound tomes he kept locked in his school trunk. Muggle money, earned with his own hands through honest labor in Little Whinging, was something else entirely. It paid for his clothes, his cinema tickets, his fish and chips, and the small electrical appliances in his shed. It was clean, ordinary, and drew no questions from tax collectors, nosy neighbours, or the Ministry of Magic.
By eleven o'clock, the biography shelves were neatly straightened, the crime novels were sorted alphabetically by author, and Harry had swept the floor between the aisles. Mr. Finch handed him a cold bottle of lemonade from the back fridge and a five-pound note for the morning’s extra hauling.
“Go on, then,” Finch said, waving a hand toward the door. “Go get some air before the afternoon heat sets in. I’ll see you Thursday morning.”
“Thanks, Mr. Finch.”
Harry tucked the five-pound note into his front pocket, grabbed his satchel, and headed out into the high street.
---
The pedestrian underpass near Staines Road was cool, damp, and smelled reliably of wet concrete, spray paint, and old exhaust fumes.
Three boys were sitting on the low concrete barrier near the western exit when Harry walked down the ramp. They were all fourteen or fifteen, dressed in oversized tracksuits, scuffed trainers, and denim jackets with the collars turned up against the draft.
The tallest of them, Marcus, had a cigarette tucked behind his ear and was idly bouncing a tennis ball against the graffiti-covered wall. When he saw Harry approaching, he caught the ball with a sharp slap of his palm and grinned.
“Look who’s back from his posh academy,” Marcus called out, his voice echoing under the low ceiling. “We thought they’d locked you in a tower, Potter.”
The other two boys—Danny, who was short and stocky with a chipped front tooth, and Terry, who never took his hands out of his pockets—straightened up from the wall.
“Hogwarts doesn't have locks on the towers,” Harry said mildly, stopping three paces away. “Just a lot of stairs.”
“Aye, and you’re looking taller, aren't you?” Danny said, looking Harry up and down with genuine curiosity. “Must be feeding you something decent up there. No more oversized hand-me-downs, eh? Look at those trainers. Proper leather.”
“They’re comfortable,” Harry said.
Marcus reached into his denim jacket and pulled out a small, flat parcel wrapped in thick brown paper and secured with heavy black electrical tape. It was no larger than a paperback book, but it had a distinct, solid weight to it as he balanced it on his fingers.
“Standard run,” Marcus said, tossing it lightly toward Harry. “Take it down to the lockup behind the car wash on Victoria Road. Guy with the blue Ford Cortina will be waiting by the side door. He gives you twenty quid, you bring fifteen back here, keep a fiver for yourself.”
Harry caught the parcel cleanly with one hand. He didn't put it in his satchel. Instead, he held it in his palm, feeling the edges, and looked directly at Marcus.
“Where did this come from?” Harry asked.
Marcus blinked, his grin freezing slightly. “What?”
“Where did you get it?”
Danny let out a short, sharp bark of laughter. “Since when do you care where it comes from, Harry? You take the box, you drop the box, you get your cut.”
“Who gave it to you?” Harry repeated, his voice calm and completely level. “What’s inside it? And why isn't the bloke in the Cortina picking it up himself?”
Marcus stared at him for a long moment, then slowly lowered the tennis ball into his pocket. “What’s got into you, Potter? You sound like a bloody copper.”
Harry felt the heat rising in his cheeks, spreading quickly up to the tips of his ears. He looked down at the brown paper parcel, then back up at the three older boys, who were all watching him with widening, suspicious grins.
“My... my person had some concerns,” Harry muttered, looking slightly to the left of Marcus’s head.
The silence that followed lasted for three full seconds before Danny’s eyes went wide.
“Your *what*?” Danny gasped.
“My person,” Harry said, trying very hard to sound professional and failing completely. “She pointed out that taking unvetted parcels without knowing the contents creates an unacceptable legal liability. If it’s grey goods, that’s one thing. If it’s controlled substances or stolen auto parts, the courier carries the primary risk while the distribution point remains insulated. She wrote down four questions I’m supposed to ask before accepting carriage.”
Terry pulled his hands out of his pockets and clapped them over his face, shaking with silent laughter.
Marcus leaned forward, his mouth falling open into an enormous, delighted grin. “Potter’s got a bird!”
“She’s not a bird,” Harry said immediately, his face now entirely red. “She’s a classmate.”
“She’s his *person*!” Danny howled, slapping his thigh. “Listen to him! ‘Unacceptable legal liability!’ She’s got him doing health and safety inspections for twenty-quid drops!”
“She’s very thorough,” Harry insisted, though he knew the battle was completely lost.
“Is she posh?” Marcus asked, stepping down from the barrier and throwing a heavy arm around Harry’s shoulders, nearly knocking his satchel off. “She sounds posh. Scottish? No, you went up north—she’s some high-and-mighty private school girl with ribbons in her hair, isn't she?”
“She lives in London,” Harry muttered, staring fixedly at the ground. “And she doesn't wear ribbons.”
“He’s in love!” Danny cheered, dancing a small jig on the damp concrete. “Little Harry Potter’s got a London bird telling him how to run his business!”
“It’s not love,” Harry said, though his voice lacked any real conviction. “It’s risk management.”
“Right, risk management,” Marcus laughed, squeezing Harry’s shoulder affectionately. “Come on, then. The parcel’s just carburetors from the breaker’s yard in Hayes. Untaxed, nothing dodgy. Clean as a whistle. You want to inspect the tape, Inspector Potter, or can we go get a pint?”
“I’m eleven,” Harry pointed out.
“You’re twelve in July, you said so yourself. We’re going to the *Black Dog*.”
Five minutes later, they were sitting in the low-ceilinged back corner of the *Black Dog*, a faded red-brick pub near the railway crossing that smelled of stale ale, floor wax, and tobacco smoke. The landlord, a burly man named Jack who had known Marcus’s older brothers for twenty years, didn't even blink when the four of them walked in. He slid four glasses of dark, fizzy shandy across the scarred counter, collected two pound coins from Marcus, and nodded them toward the back booths.
Harry sat with his back to the wood-panelled wall, his glass between his hands, completely at ease among the quiet chatter and the clinking of glasses.
Near the bar, two older men in tweed caps were leaning over their pints of bitter, watching the corner booth with low, furrowed brows.
“That’s the Dursley boy, isn't it?” one muttered, his voice carrying faintly over the hum of the jukebox. “From Number Four?”
“Aye,” the other replied, shaking his head. “Sent away last autumn. Some special institution up in the Scottish Highlands. St. Something-or-other’s. For troubled youths.”
“Can’t say I’m surprised. Running around with the Staines Road crowd since he was nine. Vernon Dursley always said the boy had bad blood in him. Criminal tendencies.”
“Look at him sitting there with them. Cool as you like. They never change, those types.”
Harry didn't look at them. He took a slow sip of his shandy, watching the foam settle against the glass, while Danny explained with great enthusiasm and many violent hand gestures how he intended to buy a secondhand motorbike by October.
The rumors in Little Whinging had never bothered Harry. The Dursleys had spent a decade telling the neighbourhood that Harry was lazy, unpredictable, and slightly dangerous; when he had failed to attend the local comprehensive and vanished for nine months of the year, the neighbourhood had simply filled in the blanks with what they already believed. It was convenient. A boy marked as a delinquent was a boy people crossed the street to avoid, which meant fewer people asking why he spent his afternoons talking to grass snakes or reading sixteenth-century Latin manuscripts behind the garden shed.
Marcus slid the fifteen-pound balance across the table after Harry handed over the car wash receipt.
“Good work, Inspector,” Marcus said, grinning. “Tell your London bird we passed the inspection.”
“I’m not telling her anything,” Harry said, pocketing his five-pound fee. “She’d make me file a written report.”
---
When Harry pushed open the gate to the back garden of Number Four, the late afternoon sun was casting long, amber shadows across the grass.
The lounge chair was empty, but the shed door was propped open with an old red brick. Inside, Remus was sitting at the small laminate kitchen table with a brass-bound tin box, a ledger, and a blue ballpoint pen.
Harry stepped inside, the door swinging shut behind him on its well-oiled hinges, and unbuckled his satchel. He pulled out the day’s earnings: the five pounds from Mr. Finch, the five pounds from the car wash drop, and three pound coins he’d received for carrying groceries for elderly Mrs. Gable on the way home.
He laid the cash on the table between them. Thirteen pounds in total.
Remus picked up the notes, smoothed them flat with his thumb, and began stacking the coins with the calm efficiency of a bank clerk.
“Thirteen pounds,” Remus noted, writing the figure neatly in the ledger. “Ten pounds goes into the building society account tomorrow morning. Three pounds for your pocket.”
Harry slumped onto the wooden stool opposite him, letting out a theatrical, exaggerated groan. “Seventy-five percent? Remus, that’s highway robbery. The goblins don't even charge that much for vault maintenance.”
“The goblins do not have to explain to the Inland Revenue why an eleven-year-old has forty pounds of loose sterling hidden in a biscuit tin under his bed,” Remus replied without looking up from his ledger.
“It’s not in a biscuit tin. It’s in my sock drawer.”
Remus lifted his pen and pointed it directly through the shed window toward the large, square brick house forty feet away.
“Your aunt and uncle are still your legal guardians under Muggle law, Harry,” Remus said, his voice dropping into that quiet, patient tone Harry knew better than to argue with. “If Vernon Dursley decides to search this shed while you are running errands and finds a hundred pounds in cash sitting in your drawer, he has the legal right to confiscate it as ‘household expenses.’ If it is safely deposited in a child savings account under my co-signature at the Surrey Building Society, he cannot touch a single penny without a court order.”
Harry stared at him, held his gaze for two long seconds, and then stuck his tongue out.
Remus looked up, saw the expression, and broke into a broad, sudden grin. “Very mature. Truly, the hero of the wizarding world.”
“I need new solder for my radio,” Harry muttered, crossing his arms.
“You have three pounds. Solder costs eighty pence at the ironmonger’s.” Remus closed the ledger, capped his pen, and reached across to slide three crisp one-pound notes into Harry’s wallet.
Then Remus’s eyes stopped.
His gaze dropped to Harry’s right hand, which was resting against the edge of the table. Across the middle two knuckles, the skin was distinctly grazed, red, and lightly swollen, with a thin crescent of dried blood along the edge of the index finger.
Remus didn't say anything immediately. He simply sat back in his chair, set his hands flat on the table, and lifted one eyebrow in a silent, perfectly measured invitation.
Harry sighed, looked down at his knuckles, and reached his left hand into his back jeans pocket.
He pulled out a crumpled, slightly grimy ten-pound note and smoothed it out on the table beside the tin box.
“Nigel,” Harry said reluctantly.
Remus waited.
“He owed me five pounds from last August,” Harry continued, his voice dropping slightly. “For the lawnmower parts I brought him from the breaker’s yard. He decided last week that because I went away to boarding school, the debt had expired.”
“And you explained to him that debts do not expire?”
“I explained that interest applies after six months.” Harry shrugged, keeping his eyes on the ten-pound note. “He was reluctant to accept the revised terms. We reached an understanding behind the Scout hut.”
Remus looked at the ten-pound note, then at Harry’s bruised knuckles, and finally let out a long, slow breath that sounded suspiciously like a smothered laugh.
“One of these days,” Remus muttered, reaching across the table and ruffling Harry’s messy black hair with enough force to knock his fringe into his eyes, “I am going to have to stand in front of the local magistrates and explain why my ward is conducting debt collection operations behind the municipal recreation grounds.”
“It’s not collection,” Harry huffed, ducking away from Remus’s hand and trying unsuccessfully to flatten his hair. “It’s financial reconciliation.”
“You’re a menace,” Remus rolled his eyes, took the ten-pound note, and dropped it straight into the bank tin with a metallic clink. “Seven-fifty to the building society. Two-fifty to your wallet. And go put some antiseptic cream on those knuckles before you get an infection.”
He tossed Harry’s leather wallet across the table. Harry caught it, shoved his cut inside, and grinned.
---
It was only when Remus stood up from the table and stepped toward the full-length mirror behind the door that Harry actually looked at what he was wearing.
Harry stopped halfway to the sink, the tube of Savlon cream in his hand.
Remus was not wearing his usual faded, patched tweed jacket or his comfortable, moth-eaten brown cardigan. Instead, he was dressed in a crisp, dark blue button-down shirt that had clearly been ironed within the last hour, a pair of charcoal-grey trousers that had no fraying around the cuffs, and dark brown leather boots that had been polished until they caught the late-afternoon light from the window.
His hair, usually unruly and slightly overgrown around the ears, was neatly combed back, and his jaw was clean-shaven, smelling faintly of sandalwood soap.
Harry stared at him.
Remus adjusted his collar in the mirror, checked the alignment of his cuffs, and cleared his throat.
“What?” Remus asked, catching Harry’s reflection in the glass.
“What is that?” Harry said, pointing the tube of antiseptic at him.
“A shirt.”
“That is not a normal shirt. That shirt has buttons that match.”
“Most shirts have buttons that match.”
“Yours don't,” Harry said, stepping closer and circling him slowly, exactly the way he had circled the Impala at the station. “Yours usually have two white ones, one brown one, and a safety pin at the bottom.”
Remus turned around, crossing his arms defensively. “I am entirely capable of dressing like a respectable adult when the occasion calls for it.”
Harry’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses. His mind raced through the possibilities, eliminating them one by one. No full moon for three weeks. No Order meetings. No visits to Gringotts.
Then Harry remembered the small bottle of aftershave he had spotted on the bathroom shelf that morning.
His jaw dropped.
“You have a date,” Harry whispered.
Remus’s ears went instantly, brilliantly pink. “I have a dinner engagement.”
“A *date*!” Harry shouted, pointing an accusing finger at him. “You’re going on a date!”
“Keep your voice down, the Dursleys are having their supper—”
“Who is she? Where are you going? Is she a witch? Is she a Muggle? Did you practice what you were going to say in the rear-view mirror of the Impala?”
“I absolutely did not,” Remus said, his voice rising an octave.
“You did!” Harry laughed, delighted beyond measure to finally have the upper hand. “You practiced saying ‘Good evening, would you care for some wine?’ in the mirror just like you practiced the car!”
“Harry James Potter, if you do not cease this interrogation immediately, I will increase the building society deposit rate to eighty-five percent.”
“You won't,” Harry grinned, leaning back against the sink with his arms crossed. “Because you’re too happy. Look at you. You’re blushing.”
“I am warm,” Remus said with immense dignity, checking his wristwatch. “It is summer. People get warm in summer.”
“Of course, Uncle Remus. Very respectable.”
Remus grabbed his light summer jacket from the hook by the door, shook his head with an expression of profound, affectionate exasperation, and unlocked the latch. “There is steak in the fridge. Real butcher’s steak, not the thin supermarket rubbish. Potatoes in the basket under the counter. Do not set fire to the hotplate, do not leave the television on all night, and do not train any more reptiles while I am out.”
“No promises on the reptiles,” Harry said.
Remus paused in the doorway, looking back at him with a soft, quiet smile that reached all the way to his tired eyes. “I’ll be back by eleven. Lock the door behind me.”
“Have fun,” Harry said, softening. “Really.”
“Thank you, Harry.”
Remus slipped out into the gathering twilight, pulling the door shut behind him. A second later, the soft *snick* of the deadbolt sliding into place echoed through the room.
---
The shed was quiet.
Harry stood in the middle of the room for a moment, listening to the faint, distant hum of traffic from the main road and the soft, steady ticking of the clock on the shelf. Above him, on her perch near the high window, Hedwig gave a low, musical hoot, shifting her weight from one taloned foot to the other and watching him with wide, intelligent amber eyes.
“Just you and me tonight, girl,” Harry said.
Hedwig clicked her beak once, which Harry took as approval.
He washed his hands thoroughly at the small sink, applied a dab of antiseptic cream to his scraped knuckles, and set to work on dinner.
From the small fridge, he pulled out two thick, beautifully marbled rump steaks that Remus had bought from the butcher near the station. He seasoned them simply with salt and coarse black pepper from the spice rack, letting them come to room temperature on a clean white plate.
From the basket under the counter, he selected three large Maris Piper potatoes. Using a small paring knife, he cut them into thick, even wedges, tossed them in a bowl with a splash of sunflower oil and a pinch of dried rosemary, and arranged them neatly in a heavy, shallow cast-iron skillet on the electric hotplate.
While the chips began to sizzle and brown with a steady, satisfying hiss, Harry prepared the salad. A crisp head of Romaine lettuce from the vegetable crisper went into a wooden bowl, chopped into bite-sized pieces, followed by a handful of crunchy garlic croutons, a generous shower of shaved parmesan cheese, and a creamy Caesar dressing he whisked together in a teacup with mayonnaise, lemon juice, black pepper, and a tiny dab of mustard.
The smells filling the small shed were incredible: searing beef, rosemary, toasted potatoes, and garlic.
When the chips were nearly done—golden-brown, crisp on the edges, and steaming—Harry pushed them to the side of the skillet and laid the two steaks directly onto the smoking iron. The roar of the sear filled the room instantly. Two minutes on the first side, a flip that revealed a deep, mahogany crust, two minutes on the second side, and he pulled the pan off the heat to let the meat rest in its own juices.
He poured a large tumbler of cold apple juice from the fridge, set his plate on the small wooden tray beside his bed, and gave Hedwig a small, perfectly trimmed sliver of cooked steak fat. The owl caught it neatly in her beak, swallowed it with evident satisfaction, and tucked her head into her feathers for a nap.
Harry sat back against the pillows, pulling his quilt up over his legs, and picked up the remote control for the small television.
Beside the screen sat the black plastic VCR Remus had found for him at a secondhand shop in Guildford, along with three bulky black cassette cases. Harry reached out, pressed the power button, and slid the first tape into the slot.
The machine gave a heavy, mechanical clunk, swallowed the tape with a low whir of gears, and the screen flickered to life with glowing blue static before settling into the familiar, star-filled opening text of *A New Hope*.
The grand, brassy fanfare of the theme music filled the cozy room at a comfortable, low volume.
Harry cut a thick piece of steak, popped a hot, salted chip into his mouth, and leaned back into the cushions with a quiet, contented sigh.
Outside, the summer night settled over Little Whinging, cool and dark and completely ordinary. But inside the shed, the light from the television danced across the polished wood, the food was hot, the bed was soft, and everything was exactly where it belonged.