Chapter 3
Bernie’s 24-Hour Waffle Hut
“OW!” screamed Ron, sucking on his injured index finger.
How does a man stab himself with his own tie pin? Harry wondered to himself. Five times!
That next morning, instead of reporting to their usual duties of shuffling paperwork and maybe one mission run to somewhere in Britain, Harry and Ron had locked themselves in an empty cupboard while they changed into their Muggle disguises. Well, actually, it was only Ron who was still trying to get dressed. Harry sat off to the side, looking over the file that had already been given so much attention by Mr. Robards just yesterday.
The file was only a copy sent by owl post. The original remained with the American Ministry of Magic. However, even with the plethora of information at his fingertips, Harry spent most of his time looking at the boy’s picture. It was a black and white shot of an unmoving boy that gave the overall effect of a school portrait. Harry was not sure he had actually expected the American government to send him a mug shot of a minor, but at the same time, it was an unnerving idea to investigate this boy with what he had as his first mental picture of him.
“Hermione says she’ll be at your house as soon as she finishes work tonight,” Ron said as he struggled with his tie, growing more and more frustrated as his fingers got caught in the knot. “She says she and Ginny will probably have a girls’ night in.”
“Why does Hermione want to stay over with Ginny?” Harry asked, buttoning the suit he wore as his Muggle disguise. It had taken Harry a lot less time to get his clothes in order than it was taking Ron.
“I asked her to,” Ron gave up and threw the tie to the ground. “She seems to be getting worse these days. Last night for dinner, she made spaghetti with maple syrup in the sauce, and she had three helpings!”
“And what exactly do you think she’s sick with?” Harry asked, fighting to suppress the urge to laugh. This was beginning to sound quite similar to an ‘illness’ Ginny had about two years ago.
“I still don’t know!” Ron shouted, angrier at the world than at Harry. “And every time I bring up the subject of a Healer, she either becomes the ‘I hate you, Ron’ woman, or the ‘What if I’m dying’ woman!”
Shame on Hermione for putting Ron through the loop like this. Harry thought to himself. Harry knew his friend, and even through what she was going through, there might be a little desire behind all this to just watch Ron squirm.
But at the same time, Harry had put a lot of trust in what Mr. Robards and Ginny had told him. That this mission would be one of the shorter ones he had ever experienced. Spend maybe an hour at the British Wizarding Embassy, three hours looking for Nathaniel Rives, an hour of questioning to prove nothing out of the ordinary was going on, and he would be home before it was time to tuck James in.
“How are we getting there?” Ron asked.
“Floo network,” he answered. “If we Apparate and someone mistakes it for a gun, we could have a big problem on our hands.”
“Oh yeah!” Ron agreed.
Walking through the Ministry halls, Harry vaguely thought Ron might be skipping. He was probably convinced that this would be one of the most exciting missions of their career; not just some half-bit upper level favor to a man they both despised. Nevertheless, making a promise to himself that he would not rain on his best friend’s parade, Harry continued to smile and nod right along with Ron.
“Do want to go first, or should I?”
“I’m sorry; what?” said Harry, trying to bring himself back to the present.
“The Floo Network,” Ron repeated. “Do you want to go first, or should I?”
“Um, you go ahead, Ron.” Harry gestured towards the fireplace.
“British Wizarding Embassy, New York City,” Ron shouted, before he became enveloped in the green flames.
Before stepping into the fireplace himself, Harry took a moment to look at his pocket watch. It was two o’clock now, and Ginny normally put James down for bed at eight. This gave him less than six hours to track down their target, question him about his school for a half hour at the most, and then Apparate back home. The whole mission seemed simple enough when he thought about it as he grabbed a handful of Floo powder and ducked into the fireplace.
“Six hours,” he reminded himself quietly.
Feeling a few sifts of powder slipped through his fingers; Harry threw the rest to the grate with a rather unnecessary amount of force.
“British Wizarding Embassy, New York City, “Harry shouted, shutting his eyes against the ash and heat.
“Not a hoax, Lore,” Nate panicked as he paced across his best friend’s bedroom floor, “Not a hoax! VERY, VERY much not a hoax!”
Lorelei traced her fingers through the fragmented piece of burnt parchment, her lips pressing tight together, and her mouth twisting into an odd sort of grimace. She still hadn't changed out of her school uniform or even kicked off the mary janes she vocally despised. In fact, she had yet to say anything about her own opinions or what she intended to do.
Lorelei was what Nate’s mother called a ‘classic beauty’. Nate always assumed that meant she looked like a living, breathing black and white photograph. Lorelei had always had a pale, almost sickly looking completion, even though he had never known her to be ill a day in her life. Her face was unmarked by freckles or childhood scars and held a permanent look of suspicion. She also had dark gray eyes surrounded by tired dark circles and black hair that laid thick and sleek like seal fur.
Nate and Lorelei had known each other since before they could talk. In fact, the reason their parents were friends was because Nate and Lorelei had been adopted from the same agency. And Nate’s parents especially thought it would be so cute if the two of them fell in love, got married, and had a lot of little witches and wizards running around causing random acts of destruction. An idea that Nate and Lorelei actively resisted. They had known each other for so long, they almost felt like brother and sister. Even though Nate’s parents assured them that there was no possible way they were related to each other, the idea of it all still made them cringe.
“So the letter…” she began, as though not sure of her own words “spoke to you?”
“Not spoke, screamed,” Nate corrected, becoming even more frantic. “It knew things about me.”
Lorelei shrugged. “I guess this means they really mean business now.”
“How can you talk like that?” Nate practically screamed. “Some stranger is going to come and haul me out of my own house come September! What do you plan to do about that?”
“Maybe you just haven’t been keeping a low enough profile,” Lorelei offered. “Like this afternoon for instance.”
“Me,” Nate stopped her. “You’re the one who once destroyed a confessional at your school because you didn’t want to tell the priest you said the f-word!”
“Ha,” laughed Lorelei. “If you’re going to call me out, at least make it a challenge. On the first day of fifth grade, you decided to build a jet pack out of a fire extinguisher and planned to fly it around at recess because you thought it would be ‘badass’!”
“Oh, c’mon, that invention didn’t even work,” Nate replied, even though it pained him to admit. “The first time you used magic, you knocked a man to the ground and broke both of his legs!”
“Well you have a criminal record!”
“The fact that you just haven’t been caught yet does not make you any better than me!” Nate shouted at his best friend, who he secretly believed should have been diagnosed as a sociopath by now.
“Your mom and dad are going to flip!”
“I know, I know,” Nate answered, beginning to pace again, “Just give me some time, and maybe I can explain it in a way they’ll understand.”
“You’re really going to have to do a better job of explaining this, because I don’t understand,” his father said a supper the next night. “You told us three years ago if we made you go to the school that accepted you, you were going to chain yourself to the top of a traffic light.”
His mother agreed. “Exactly where is all this coming from?”
Saying Nate’s parents were understanding when it came to matters of magic was probably the understatement of the century. After the birth of their first son, Carter, whom Nate had heard some people call a Muggle-born-whatever that was-Mr. and Mrs. Rivers made it a personal mission to learn everything they could about magic and the world in which their son would have to grow up. They even adopted Nate, knowing from the beginning, he would be a wizard too.
But even they were having trouble understanding why, suddenly, out of the blue, Nate wanted to be shipped off to a wizard boarding school in Scotland, despite all they knew about magic. Especially since Nate had already fought and refused to go to a much closer school exactly like this three years ago.
The only person in the room who seemed to be in the remotest sense of ease was Lorelei, joining the Rivers family for dinner, as she had on many occasions. Tonight, she sat across from Nate, cutting her pork chop into small pieces and biting her cheek as she watched Nate’s ridiculous plan unfold.
“Well, you see, Dad,” Nate tried to spin. “Hogwarts really is one of the best schools for wizardry in the world. They only seek the people who they think have the greatest potential.”
Nate pulled the one Hogwarts letter he had left out of his pocket and passed it to his parents.
“So really, being asked to go to school here is actually quite an honor. And I know you guys are always worrying about my future as a wizard.”
“But what’s all this 'failure to do so business'?” asked Malcolm Rivers, a slightly balding man who dressed far too young for his age, “When a school invites you to attend because they want you, don’t the usually beg instead of threaten?”
“And no offence, Nate,” added his wife, Jillian, who dyed her hair bright red in an attempt to hide the growing amount of gray, “but you don’t really seem to be the type to be invited to a prestigious school. Don’t get me wrong, I think your inventions are something special, it’s just that you yourself are…”
“Lazy, unmotivated,” Lorelei filled in the blank as she cut her green beans. “A wise ass, a C+ student at best-”
“We get it, Lore,” Nate interrupted, a little irked at his friend's contribution to the conversation.
“But, Nate, you can understand our confusion,” his father tried to explain. “I mean, of all the many, many students for them to pick and for them to choose you-it just seems””
“Well, you know what, Dad? Maybe they’re not giving me a choice!” Nate finally erupted.
Lorelei half-choked on her milk.
The boxy dining room fell silent for what seemed like an eternity.
“What are you saying, Nate?” his mother finally asked.
“They’re…” Nate sighed. “They’re giving you guys until the end of August to send me yourselves before they send someone to get me.”
Nate’s parents were still silent, as if they were still trying to wrap their heads around what their son was trying to tell them.
“But…surely you have other options,” his mother argued, “I mean, they’re not making Lorelei go.”
“Because I’m not a criminal,” she reminded them, bluntly.
Mr. Rivers groaned; the family did not like to be reminded that if Nate hadn’t been tried by the Department of Magic, he would be a convicted felon at the age of fourteen in the eyes of Muggles as well.
“I knew that whole business was going to come back to bite us in the ass one day!”
“Oh, Lord,” exclaimed Mrs. Rivers, racing to another subject. “What are Walter and Delia going to say when they find out?”
At the last comment, Lorelei gave a snicker that went unheard by Nate’s parents. Walter and Delia were Lorelei’s adoptive parents, who had divorced when she was ten, just before she had moved out of Riverdale and into the East Village. Walter Macalister lived somewhere in Boston now, and would throw however much alimony it took to pretend his children didn’t exist. And Delia Macalister: Nate wasn’t a hundred percent aware she even noticed what was going on half the time, be it all the ‘unusual’ things that happened around her two daughters, or the electricity being shut off.
“Maybe we can call Carter,” suggested his mother. “Ask him what our options are! I mean, he works right in there with the Department of Magic, and if he can’t pull a few strings for us-”
“Mom, it’s not just the Department of Magic that’s ordering this,” Nate interrupted before his mother could be too swept up in the idea. “It’s also this…System thing that’s helping to make this law reality. They’re the ones packing all the guns in the enforcement part. And between taking on us and taking on the Big Brother of the wizarding world, who do you think the Department’s going to choose?”
At these last words from her son, Mrs. Rivers’ eye began to well, her mascara just on the verge of running, and gasping to hold back the sobs.
“I’m going to go call your brother,” she said tearfully, excusing herself from the table.
As Nate’s mother stood up to leave the table, Lorelei stared wordlessly down at her plate, mixing her food into mush.
“Well, I don’t care what these people are telling you, Nate,” said his father, pushing himself away from the table. “You’re my son; and I’m not just handing you over to a bunch of strangers.”
Soon enough, Nate and Lorelei were left alone with a table full of food and that terrible silence returning. With a sigh of desperation, Nate let his head drop to the hard surface of the table.
“I told you it wouldn’t work,” Lorelei remarked, wiping her mouth with her napkin.
“Shut up!” Nate shouted, forehead still flat against the table.
The first thing that Harry was aware of when he emerged from the fireplace was a sharp pain at the very top of his head. The next thing that drifted into his awareness was the sound of Ron groaning right next to him. Then, for some reason, the pointed end of a shoe prodding him in the back and a distant sounding voice from above speaking to him.
“No one told you they wax the floors in the morning, did they?
Looking up, Harry saw the silhouette of a woman holding a paper bag in one hand, a Styrofoam coffee cup in the other, tapping the foot that had poked him.
“Are we going to be getting up any time soon?” she asked them, pointing her chin towards Ron, who, from the looks of the soot trailing across the floor, had crashed head-first into the marble fountain and now lay sprawled out, groaning and clutching at the top of his head.
Even though he was not quite sure of his balance, Harry pulled himself to his feet and walked over to Ron to give him a hand up. After about three attempts, Ron was finally able to stand on his own, even though one hand still remained rubbing his aching skull.
“Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley.” The woman extended her hand to both of them. “It is very nice to meet you. My name is Vanessa Montoya of the Office of Internal Affairs of the American Department of Magic. Let me just say it is a pleasure to meet both of you.”
“Thank you, Ms. Montoya,” Ron said, shaking her hand and still rubbing his head. “You look lovely this morning.”
“Mr. Weasley,” Vanessa answered shortly, as though Ron had just insulted her. “I had to wake up at four in the morning, drive clear across the Bronx, and come in before the janitors just to play your baby-sitter. You really don’t want to push me today.”
Harry blinked and shook his head. That was certainly unexpected. It was not as though it was a lie. With her long, dark hair, dark eyes, and soft features, she was quite pretty. Even though her personality and attitude were anything but soft. Harry made a quick mental note not to tell any woman in this country that she looked nice.
“I’m in a bit of a hurry today,” she told them curtly, “so if you don’t mind, let’s walk and talk.”
Without waiting for an answer, Vanessa Montoya spun and began to walk at a rapid pace, her heels clicking sharply against the freshly waxed floor. Getting the impression that she was not going to wait up for them, Harry and Ron followed after her, Ron having some difficulties keeping up.
“Ms. Montoya,” Harry began, making sure to keep his words strictly business, “I assume that if you’re here, you already know why we are here.”
“Yes, I have been well briefed on the investigation, and let me assure you, you have the Department’s full cooperation in whatever matters you may need.”
While Vanessa spoke, she didn’t turn around to make eye contact. Her eyes remained directly on the path in front of her. Eventually, they reached a set of black, metal staircase that didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the Embassy’s polished decor.
“How is it no one in the Department thought to investigate this school?” Harry asked hoping to get as much information as he could from Vanessa while they still had time.
Once again, Vanessa sighed as though she herself had been insulted. “You have to understand, the government does try to keep tab on the accreditation status of the schools our nation’s children attend. But most magic schools in the United States operate in the private sector, and if an institution is not supported by tax dollars, we have relatively little say in where a school opens or what it teaches.”
“There are no standards whatsoever?” Harry asked, feeling somewhat shocked after all the influence the Ministry had had over his own education.
“Of course, we have guidelines for a school’s accreditation,” Vanessa answered, quickening her pace up the stairs. “But in reality, all a school needs to be accredited in this country is a facility, a curriculum, and a faculty. I’m sure you’ve been told about the four other major schools for magic in our country?”
“Salem, Bell, Hardscrabble Creek,” Harry recited, “and…Kailani, correct?”
“Yes, those are our four largest schools, but they are not our only ones,” Vanessa told him. “In some areas of the country, smaller day schools for magic are popping up faster than we can keep track of them.
“I suppose that is why the Education Division hasn’t bothered to investigate this Skat-Hatokha school you were talking about,” Vanessa confessed. “We just assumed it was another day school wanting to keep the international government out of its business.”
“You really think so?” Harry asked.
“It’s much simpler to believe that someone out there is actually crazy enough to round up every uneducated juvy in the country and stick them in a room together.”
Finally, they climbed the last flight of stairs to reach a locked, steel door. Through the tiny barred window, Harry could see the streetlights were still on and the sun was just barely peeking over the skyline.
“What time is it here?” Ron asked, making note of how empty the building was.
“Five in the morning,” Vanessa told them, placing her hands on their shoulders. “And that being said, I wish you both the best of luck.”
And with that, she gave Ron and Harry a somewhat violent shove out the door before she slammed it shut.
“Maybe she’s just not a morning person?” Ron suggested as he heard the lock snap back into place.
“Sure,” Harry nodded halfheartedly. “We’ll go with that.”
Right now, Harry was looking at the exterior of the Embassy itself. The fading bricks seemed old as New York, covered with graffiti, and nearly every window on the upper level was broken and yellow with age. Muggle tourists and locals alike could stare and stare at this building, and never know of the magical liaison office operated just a few floors down.
“So,” Ron said, breaking the silence. “No one is bound to be up for hours. What are we supposed to do in the mean time?”
It was at that moment, Harry noticed something in the breast pocket of his jacket. It was a small business card for a restaurant with handwriting on the back that had to belong to Vanessa. She must have slipped it into his pocket when her hand was on his shoulder…just before she pushed him out into the alley.
“There’s a known hub right near here that’s supposed to cater to wizards from out of the country, according to this,” Harry struggled to read the somewhat smudged ink. “They also serve breakfast.”
“Wonderful!” Ron winced, still rubbing his head. That must have been quite a collision. “Which way is it?”
Unbeknownst to them however, hiding behind a trashcan, sat a man in rags, rubbing his eyes and refusing to believe he just saw two British men in fine suits appear out of a condemned building.
“That’s it,” he shouted, tossing an amber bottle over his shoulder and against the brick wall. “I’m officially back on the wagon!”
The known hub of underground magic in New York City, better known to the public as Bernie’s 24-Hour Waffle Hut, hardly seemed to be a hub of any kind. In fact, it was near empty, except for a cook at the counter and a black girl wearing a waitress’ uniform sitting at one of the booths with a steaming plate of waffles in front of her, a dirty coffee cup in her hands, and what appeared to be a chemistry book left off to the side, ignored.
The bells above the door chimed as Ron and Harry walked inside. Other than a second long glance given to them by the cook, they were otherwise nearly ignored. The black girl now set her coffee cup down, watching them intently, as though she expected something to happen. Harry and Ron walked forward: her eyes followed them. They walked off to the left: her eyes followed them there, too.
Feeling somewhat disturbed by the constant stare, he led Ron to the counter so they could sit with their back to her.
“So where do we begin?” asked Ron, turning his spinning stool from side to side.
“This file has everything we need to know on the student who sent Professor McGonagall that letter,” Harry said, pulling the papers out from his coat and flipping them open. “It would do us good to do some reading up before we go looking for him ourselves.”
Legal Name: Nathaniel Jacob Rivers
Nickname/Aliases: Nate, the Wizard of P.S. 144
DOB: March 3, 1991 (Santa Barbara, CA)
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Mixed
Distinguishable Marks: None
Immediate Family: Father: Malcolm Rivers (51); Mother: Jillian Rivers (49);
Brother: Carter Rivers (23)
Blood Status: Unknown
Current Residence: 285 West 252nd St. Riverdale, Bronx County, New York City, NY
Current School and Expected Date of Graduation: P.S. 144, 2010
Criminal Offences:
10/04/04: Grand Theft Auto by use of Magic; Underage Driver, Magic in the presence of a person of Non-Magical Status
Arresting Officer: Agent Carter Rivers
Sentence: Probation
Current Legal Status: On Probation until March 3, 2010
Likelihood to Reoffend: High
Known Associates:
Lorelei Augustine Macalister
Status: Witch
Graham Phineas Schuler
Status: Non-magical
Alaia Bianca Grace
Status: Non-magical
Harry soon became aware of a shadow over the file. Looking up, he saw the cook standing over them, hair oiled down under a paper hat, an apron that looked too clean for someone who worked in a restaurant, and a big toothy smile.
“Um, I’m sorry, sir,” Harry told the man trying to go away. “My friend and I aren’t quite ready to order yet.”
“Welcome to Bernie’s 24-Hour Waffle Hut,” the cook said in a voice that, despite the large smile, was completely devoid of emotion, “For daily specials, please read the white board and our friendly waiting staff will be more than happy to take your order.”
“Excuse me?” Harry asked. The man him seemed to stare right through him.
“We accept all major credit cards, but no out-of-state checks.”
“Sir, are you okay?” Ron asked, sensing too that something was not right.
“Ma’am, we do not have fat free waffles and screaming at me is not going to make them magically appear on the menu.”
“He can’t understand what you’re saying,” a flat voice from behind said. “He can’t even understand what he’s saying.”
Harry and Ron both spun around to see the black waitress who had been staring at them before; hands at her sides and an expression comprised of both annoyance and boredom. In her uniform pocket, Harry noticed a wand poking out: longer and thinner than he was used to seeing, but still unmistakable in shape.
“Ricardo,” the girl ordered, leaning forward on the counter, sliding the wand out of her apron pocket “Ricardo, look at me!”
The cook remained motionless, but turned his head towards the waitress, a blank look in his eyes and that same cheesy smile on his face.
“We have two customers who would each like the number three special,” she said slowly while gliding her wand in front of his eyes.
“We have two customers who would each like the number three special,” Ricardo repeated word for word.
Harry and Ron watched in silence as the girl said the mantra that the cook repeated. It all sounded very much rehearsed and well-practiced. Harry wondered how it was possible for a girl who seemed to be a civilian.
“And Chantal has another hour left on her break,” she continued, still tracing her wand in front of the cook’s face.
“And Chantal has another hour left on her break.”
Ricardo the cook spun around on one foot and marched back to the kitchen. After he was gone, the waitress, Chantal, took a few moments to shake her head and mutter to herself. Her self-imposed rant covered every topic from ‘useless cooks’ to ‘retarded customers’ and even ‘shoddy Chinese uniform’.
“And now you will brew her a fresh cup of coffee because she’s been here since three in the morning, staring at the bums and the hookers,” she suddenly remembered, shouting back into the kitchen
“And now I will brew her a fresh cup of coffee because she’s been here since three in the morning, staring at the bums and the hookers,” Ricardo shouted back, even though he could not be seen.
Finally, the waitress looked up and turned towards Harry and Ron as though she had just noticed they were there.
“Hello,” she told them in a voice that seemed devoid of any real welcome, and gestured back towards her booth. “Have a seat. We should probably talk.”
Without waiting for an answer, Chantal made her way back towards her booth. Unsure of how else to respond to this girl, Harry and Ron followed her across the dingy tile floor.
“Excuse me, miss,” Ron tried to say. “Maybe you could””
“How about some coffee?” she asked, detouring behind the busboy station to grab two extra cups. “I order the bottomless urn, so it’s not like you’d be imposing or anything.”
“Look, miss,” Harry said more firmly. “My friend and I really aren’t here for social reasons. We just need a quiet place to work.”
“This place is not Unplottable,” Chantal hissed, keeping a fake-sugar smile on her face as though she expected them to be interrupted. “No cloaking charms, no nothing to keep anyone without magic from coming in. They can and they do come in here, all the time. And we never know when, so just take the damn coffee cups and shut the hell up!”
And with that, the girl shoved the cups quite viciously into Ron and Harry’s hands. Harry was even sure he heard Ron yelp.
“Now let’s have a seat and chat for a while, shall we?” she spoke in a voice dripping with fake sweetness that matched her smile.
“Um, if you don’t mind me asking, miss,” Ron began as he slid into the booth. “Your cook…”
“Ricardo’s a golem,” Chantal answered reclining back against the vinyl seat and putting her feet up. “Mr. Goldman, the owner, made him to work the graveyard shift. He has clay for a body and an old pastrami sandwich for a brain. So you can imagine what wonderful company he is.”
Once Harry and Ron were both sitting across from her, Chantal took a quick glance at the surrounding windows, pulled her breakfast plate closer to her, and took on a very business-like expression.
“Okay, I suppose first things first,” she said, wiping her fork with a napkin. “My name is Chantal.”
“Well, hello Chantal. My name is Harry Po-”
“Please, no last names,” she stopped him, pointing the fork directly in Harry’s face. “It’s not good in my line of work.”
Harry felt his voice get stuck in his throat. With everything that had happened since he and Ron enter this place, he was not sure whether to trust Chantal or be terrified of her.
“So your name is Harry,” Chantal continued to point with her silverware “And yours is…”
“Ron.”
“Wonderful,” she breathed with what might be construed as a smile. “Now that we all know each other, we can get down to the real conversation. For example, what are you doing here?”
With that question, all the previous politeness that that had lingered on Chantal’s voice dissipated to make way for her true, blade-like tone that she had been masking until now.
“Ron and I are both Aurors, and, not that anyone in your position has the right to ask, we are here on official Ministry-”
“New Zealand.”
Harry stopped and watched Chantal mash her waffles and maple syrup into a soggy mess.
“Excuse me?”
“New Zealand,” Chantal repeated, taking a bite from the section of the waffle she had not yet destroyed. “You two are from New Zealand, right?”
“No, Britain,” Harry corrected.
“Damn, I was sure by now I had these accents memorized.”
“We’ve told you who we are, young lady,” Harry said, trying as hard as he could to keep his calm, business-like demeanor “Now maybe you can tell us why you-”
“Don’t call me ‘young lady’!” Chantal snapped, looking as though she had just been extremely offended. “I’m eighteen years old, and you have, what, five years on me? And I work for the Department of Magic too, so don’t you get all high and mighty with me!”
“The Department of Magic?” Ron question. He had not participated in Chantal’s monologue until now.
“Your country calls it the Ministry of Magic,” Chantal explained, beginning to calm down just a little. “Department of Magic, Secretary of Magic, they’re all basically the same things you have back in England. I personally think they all just come up with different names for things just to annoy everyone.”
Harry was shocked. This girl was so young, and she was already employed as a foreign liaison for her country’s Ministry. It was also easy to see why she had been so offended by their tone with her before.
“So you aren’t a waitress,” Ron reasoned, his voice mixed with apology and surprise “You’re an ambassador to foreign wizards who come through here.”
“Ambassador?” Chantal laughed. “For ten bucks an hour? I’m more like a glorified tour guide. By the way, I don’t give tour, and I’m technically not even required to leave this booth.”
“But essentially,” Harry asked. “You just sit here all day and watch for the witches and wizards that might come in here?”
“No,” she answered, cutting her waffle into smaller pieces. “Just from three in the morning until seven. Then I go to school and Franco comes in and takes a shift.”
While immersed in the conversation, no one at the table even noticed when Ricardo came until he set the plate down with a loud clang, causing everyone to jump. Nevertheless, Ricardo kept the same smile on his face, truly unaware of his surroundings.
“Coffee,” Ricardo said as he held the steaming cup in front of Chantal.
Thanks, Ricardo.” She smiled and breathed the aroma deeply.
“Coffee,” Ricardo repeated, like a tape player that was stuck.
Chantal groaned and took out her wand, yet again, waving it in front of Ricardo’s eyes.
“You will go away now,” she ordered.
“I will go away now,” Ricardo repeated, once again spinning on one foot.
Ricardo might have made it back into the kitchen, if the counter had not been in his way. But instead of moving to the side where the counter was open, he simply back up and walked into the counter once again. Again and again, Ricardo bumped into the counter, backed up and bumped into the counter again. Chantal sighed, but allowed Ricardo to carry on as she stirred cream and sweetener into her coffee.
“He’ll do that for about an hour,” Chantal chuckled. “It’s actually kinda funny.”
Again, Ron and Harry were silent. If this girl’s sense of humour was based on the suffering of others, they could still not be a hundred percent sure of what to make of her.
“But as the Bernie’s 24-Hour Waffle Hut’s sitting person,” she began, once again in a very much rehearsed tone. “One of the things I am required to do is leave you with a few words of what I believe is helpful advice.”
Harry and Ron leaned close so that they would catch every word.
“If you pass someone on the street that’s rambling about witches and dragons, but wear clothes you wouldn’t even use to scrub your bathroom floor, don’t stop and talk to them. They’re not real wizards.”
Harry gave a little laughing snort. This girl was obviously used to dealing with purebloods. However, he looked to his side and saw Ron nodding and taking in every word.
“If you need ‘supplies’ while you’re here, you’ll find a bunch of stores anywhere that say they sell the real thing, but if you go up to the counter and ask, ‘Do you have any items of interest? I’m looking to buy’ they’ll let you in the back where they keep the real stuff. You might have to use Alohomora if the owners are especially paranoid.
“And lastly.” Chantal took a long sip of her fresh coffee. “If you ever find yourselves in trouble or in need, just come back here. I can’t guarantee it will be me, but someone from the Department is always hanging out here.
“Are we good?” she asked the both of them.
Harry and Ron both nodded their heads, more out of wanting to leave than in agreement.
“Good.” Chantal smiled, reaching for her previously ignored chemistry book. “Now get out of here! I have an exam in four hours, and tonight’s the first night I’ve even opened the book.”
Harry could have lectured her about her study habits; he knew Hermione would have. But having seen Chantal’s previous temper, Harry and Ron silently agreed it would be better to just go.
Halfway to the door, Harry turned around and noticed Ricardo still attempting to walk through the very solid counter.
“Shouldn’t we do something about Ricardo?” Harry asked, pointing to the cook.
“Eh, let Chantal do it,” Ron answered as he pushed the door open. “It’s what she’s barely paid for.”
“We’re totally screwed.” Lorelei sighed, sprawled out upside down on Nate’s bed.
“Maybe we can think of some kind of disability that can get me out of going,” suggested Nate, momentarily stopping spinning in his chair.
“And what kind of disability would that be?”
“I really, really hate tea!”
Lorelei snorted and let her arms drop dramatically over the side of the bed.
“We’re totally screwed!” she repeated once again.
Nate swiveled the chair from side to side and wondered where this whole ‘we’ talk was coming from. He was the one being sent halfway around the world. Lorelei would lose him, but everything else would stay exactly the same for her. But he didn’t want to think about leaving his best friend anymore. Thinking about anything that had to do with those letters was just too depressing.
This was exactly how it had been. Days later, Nate and Lorelei were still racking their brains trying to figure out what to do. Nate’s middle school graduation had come and gone yesterday afternoon. Lorelei had been there with his parents, but no one really felt like celebrating. For everyone, it just served as another reminder that very soon, some British stranger would come breaking down the door to drag him off.
Nate’s parents had tried to talk to his older brother, but he wasn’t home, and he wasn’t answering his phone. Besides, everyone knew the System was next to useless in reality. They didn’t even know Nate existed until he was arrested, and he was pretty sure they knew nothing about Lorelei, or her little sister, Rae, who also had magic. There was nothing they could do to you as long as they could prove you existed. It really didn’t take a lot of effort to stay off the grid, so it figured Nate would blow it.
Nate was soon distracted from his own racing thoughts by a tapping sound at the window above his bed. This even got Lorelei’s attention. She pushed herself up, let loose a scream, and fell to the floor. Nate jump out of the chair and over his now cranky friend to see what happened. Outside his window, there was an owl. An owl flying around New York City, with an envelope in its mouth, pecking the glass.
Against what might have been better judgment, Nate lifted the window open, only for the owl to swoop in and land on his dresser, shaking the evening mist from its feathers.
“Go away!” Lorelei ordered, waving her arms at the scruffy-looking bird.
Nate instead approached the bird, in a cautious, but almost casual manner. He reached up, having to wrestle somewhat, and took the letter from the owl.
“What is it?” his friend asked, in a quiet, inquisitive voice.
He turned back to Lorelei and, with a puzzled look on his face, began to read the letter aloud.
Harry Potter and the Skat-Hatokha Reaction by OliveOil_Med
Chapter Notes: Harry and Ron make their first contacts in New York City, while three weeks earlier, Nate and Lorelei contemplate their current situation.
Thanks to Joanna for being the bestest beta ever when it comes to correcting more typos than any writer should be allowed to have!