–You want how much?â€
Eloise glared at Zach as he balked at the ridiculous sum of money she had just asked for. –Your son has no clothes, no toys, and no food for someone his age.†Eloise crossed her arms, as if daring him to negate what she had said. –You’re just lucky I know where to shop so it doesn’t cost twice as much.â€
Zach rubbed his forehead. –He eats, sleeps, and poops. How much could that possibly cost?â€
And then the counting again.
–Babies, Zach.†The exasperation was clear in Eloise’s voice. –Babies do that. Cameron is not a baby. He needs stimulation, something to keep him occupied, and clean clothes to wear every day. He can’t live off of macaroni and cheese forever, either. It’s not healthy.â€
–Fine!†Zach cried as he dug in his desk for his chequebook. He scribbled out Eloise’s name and the amount before thrusting it in her face. –Here. One-hundred Galleons! There had better be a receipt for every damned Knut of that, as well, or all of it will come out of your paycheque!â€
She poked him in the chest. –First off, stop shouting at me, or I’ll put you over my knee like a five-year-old. Second of all, you should be ashamed of yourself that you’ve had your son for almost three days and haven’t given him a bath.â€
–I —†Zach started. However, as Eloise’s eyes narrowed, he thought better of attempting to explain himself. He doubted that ‘it had never crossed my mind’ was on her list of viable excuses. Instead, he frowned and asked, –Um, then does he get a bath once he has clean clothes, or does he get one before you take him out shopping?â€
Eloise blinked at him. –How are you even an adult?†Zach made a sour face, but she shook her head and continued, –No, really. I want to know how you have managed to live on your own this long.†With that, she marched into his room and pulled an old set of his Hogwarts robes out of the closet. She waved her wand, and the robes shrunk to a third of their previous size.
–Now, I’m going to give him a bath, and you’re going to watch.â€
Zach scrunched his nose. –Isn’t that something paedos do?â€
He did not expect a slap on the head, but nonetheless it came. –No, you numpty! It’s something daddies do.â€
Rubbing the tender spot where Eloise had hit him with surprising force, Zach glared at her balefully. He was beginning to see the error of his ways — mainly, the mistake he had made in hiring an imperious shrew to be his son’s nanny. Surely, somewhere in the whole of wizarding England, there had to be someone qualified to take care of Cameron who didn’t have a defective personality.
He felt no need to inflict further assault, so Zach quietly watched as Eloise routinely scrubbed the nooks and crannies while Cameron happily splashed bubbles all over the loo. Neither of them seemed the worse for wear, and he had to admit that he could not have possibly done better on his own. With a resigned huff, Zach admitted to himself that he probably didn’t even wash himself so well. Cameron didn’t seem to mind the process at all, as evidenced by the squeal he let out when Eloise pulled him out of the tub and tickled his sides.
As she was dressing her charge in the shrunken robes, Eloise frowned at the nappy Cameron had been wearing. –Well done to his mum for sending him to you with a Nanny Sitwell’s Vanishing Nappy. I seriously doubt you would’ve thought of buying him one of these.â€
Zach’s face flamed. In truth, he had never once considered that a three-year-old would still wear a nappy, but then he recalled the number of times Cameron had asked him to help him go to the loo. Zero. Instead of incriminating himself further, Zach changed the subject. –So, when are you going to Diagon Alley?â€
With narrowed eyes, Eloise said, –I have half a mind to make you go, but I think after this display today, we need to start with the basics. Like bathing. And cleaning.†She took Cameron’s hand after using her wand to siphon off the water splashes from the bath. –Try tidying up a bit while we’re gone. This place smells like foot.â€
–Does not!†he shouted after her as she strode through the front door with his hundred Galleon cheque. Sniffing the air for good measure, he ignored his own involuntary cringe and muttered, –It’s not that bloody bad.â€
Determined to show that he was not a slob, Zach stood in the living room and decided that Eloise and Madison were wrong. He lifted every piece of furniture and cleaned underneath as the Hoovercraft buzzed about the room. He was glad Eloise hadn’t been there when he’d unearthed the cache of dirty socks from beneath the sofa, nor the old plate lurking behind it. Or the crumpled takeaway wrapper stuffed into the cushions.
Three hours later, Eloise returned to the flat carrying a single shopping bag, and Zach’s jaw dropped. –A hundred Galleons, and that’s all you’ve brought?â€
–It’s an Extension Charm shopping bag, genius,†she sighed. –How many people can actually carry all of that by themselves without one?†She set the bag on the floor and dug into her pocket. Withdrawing a handful of coins and a small stack of receipts, she said, –Eighty-four Galleons, nine Sickles, fourteen Knuts was the total. Fifteen Galleons, seven Sickles, fifteen Knuts is your change.†Paying him no further mind, she whisked Cameron off to his bedroom.
Zach perused the receipts and change and, to his aggravation, found the calculations to be correct. He begrudgingly accepted that he probably would have spent more than a hundred, providing Eloise bought all the things she had said she would. Curious, he bent over to rifle through the shopping bag. –So, what have we got here?â€
Out of the bag, Zach pulled three paper sacks from Harpers Magical Mercantile, full of various foods that looked despicably healthy; a pile of paper-wrapped bundles from a place called Rosie’s Robe Exchange; a large blue wooden box with yellow stripes on it; and a small Honeydukes purchase. He eyed the Honeydukes bag, but a niggling granule of guilt made him put it back where he found it.
He was in the process of loading the packages from Rosie’s on the dining table when Eloise came out. –Inspecting your purchases, I assume.â€
Each one of the wrappers contained a matching set of jumpers and trousers, except for three, which held pants, socks and shoes, and a cloak. There were about six changes of clothes in total, plus a three-pack of Vanishing Nappies balled up inside the cloak. Next, Zach decided to see what was lurking in the box, which upon further inspection he saw was a trunk.
Inside was a plethora of toys, some of which he was sure were used, but they seemed clean and functional. There was even a Quidditch play set with all the figurines still included, and Zach had to fight the urge to mess with that himself. In the bottom, he found a set of bedclothes with grinning little stars on them that winked when he looked at them.
In a word, Zach was impressed. Though he had no idea where Eloise got most of these things, he would’ve been hard-pressed to think about half of these things, let alone spend under a hundred for them. His curiosity satisfied, he packed the toys back into the trunk and carried it into his son’s room.
–Not going to inspect the food, then?†Eloise asked, her arms crossed.
Zach shook his head. –This all looks . . . great, Ellie. Thank you,†he said with surprising veracity.
The unexpected compliment seemed to have thrown Eloise for a loop, as she did not chide Zach for his use of the nickname she hated. Instead, she smiled at him, and it transformed her face. At the moment, Zach could not remember why he had ever found her ugly.
The day had been a long one for Zach, but he was not looking forward to its imminent ending. His first thought was one of frustration because he would have to return to work the next day, but moreover, it meant that Eloise would have to leave him alone with Cameron.
He could not fathom how she had struck such a quick rapport with a child she had met just that day. It had been nearly three days since Cameron had arrived on his doorstep, but Zach had yet to feel connected to him as a person, let alone as a parent. Don’t people just feel that? he wondered. Eloise certainly did, but Zach still looked at his son and saw a slobbering tangle of chubby limbs that was an encroachment on his privacy and his purse.
Sinking onto the sofa with a steaming cup of tea, Zach breathed a sigh of relief. Cameron had been put to bed, so he could finally relax. Eloise was gathering her things to leave for the night, but on an impulse, he called out to her. Poking her head through the door, she asked, –Did you need something?â€
–I, er, just wanted to talk to you a bit about things.†Zach frowned at his own stuttering. –But if you need to get going, it could wait.â€
Eloise shrugged and moved to sit on the other side of the sofa. –I can stay a bit. It’s Mum’s knitting circle tonight, so she won’t be home for a while.â€
–You live with your mum?†Zach was surprised that someone as focused and responsible as Eloise still lived at home. She had to be at least twenty-seven, which was past the age when most children left the nest. Zach himself had left within a month of finishing Hogwarts — though most of that stemmed from wanting to shag girls without taking them to his parents’ house. There were fewer girls than he had planned (namely, one) in that timeframe, but nonetheless, he had treasured his freedom.
Sighing, Eloise said, –Mum gets lonely sometimes, and she likes having me around. But really, with how hard it is to find a job these days, all I’ve been able to find without OWLs or NEWTs are temporary jobs that barely pay minimum wage.â€
His brows shot up. –You don’t have any OWLs or NEWTs?â€
Eloise shook her head. –My mum pulled me out of school in fifth year when my dad got killed, and after the war was over, she just . . . couldn’t bear the thought of me being gone for that long. That, and the idea of being a seventeen-year-old fifth-year was a bit too ridiculous to me.â€
–But won’t your mum miss you when you’re here all the time?†Zach asked, moderately shocked that he actually wanted to know. –I mean, it’s not like you live here, but you’ll end up spending over half the day here.â€
–She’s learning to get on without me around all the time, so I’ll find a place of my own soon.†Eloise wrapped her arms around her middle and looked pointedly at the paisley print on the sofa. –We’re finally to the point where she understands that Dad isn’t coming home, no matter how much she hopes he does.â€
He had no idea how to respond to that. All he remembered was that Eloise had left school and not come back in the time he was there, but he had barely noticed and cared even less at the time. Now, however, he found that he genuinely wanted to know more about her. –What happened to him?â€
–He was an Auror,†she started, still not looking at Zach. –He was patrolling Diagon Alley the day Death Eaters came looking for old Ollivander, and he was the first to respond. One of those lot hexed him into St Mungo’s, and he died a couple months later. Mum couldn’t cope, so she pulled me out of school.â€
–I’m sorry,†Zach said vacantly, acutely aware of how little he had noticed his schoolmates’ fates during and after the war. He recalled that Susan Bones had not gone back to Hogwarts to finish seventh year, and that Justin Finch-Fletchley was a completely different person these days. Little else had caught his attention, though.
It was then that Zach realised that Eloise was looking at him intently. –You really have changed,†she said finally. –At first, I was sure you were just like you used to be, but I think you’ve done a little bit of growing up.â€
Zach wanted to deny her statement — mostly because it wasn’t true, but in part because it seemed to be only her who had brought out this unfamiliar need to know things he previously could not have cared less about. Instead, he opted for, –You’ve changed, too.â€
Eloise coloured. –Well, um, I . . . I couldn’t afford to be a scared little girl anymore. When my dad died, for the first time in my life, you weren’t the worst thing that ever happened to me.â€
Shame trickled its way up Zach’s throat to the point where he thought he might choke on it. –I’m sorry,†he said truthfully. –I was a git. Well, I’m still a git, but I was rotten to you. I’m actually surprised you’re even speaking to me.â€
She looked away from him, staring at a spot on the wall for what seemed like forever before saying, –We’ve all done stupid things to try to fit in. It’s easy to pick on the spotty girl when everyone else is doing it.†Exhaling heavily, Eloise stood. –Well, it’s time for me to go. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.â€
The abrupt change in her demeanour rendered Zach momentarily speechless. –Yeah, tomorrow,†he said to the closed door well after she had already left.