Chapter 3: The American Visitor
Seated at his desk in the Aurors' Office at the Ministry of Magic, Harry spread out the Muggle newspaper and began perusing the morning's stories, partly for relaxation, but also to pick up on any bits of news that might be applicable to the wizarding world. His eye was caught by a story that gave him an idea.
"Hey, Susan," he called to Susan Bones, the only other Auror in the office at that moment. "What would you say was the worst thing that could happen personally to an Auror in the course of his or her professional duties? Not counting death, of course, which is obviously the worst. But, short of death, what's the worst?"
Susan lifted her head from the paperwork she was studying and asked in a slightly annoyed tone, "What are you talking about, Harry?" Susan had a no-nonsense approach to her career, and she did not spare much time in her work day for apparently pointless riddles.
"Come on," Harry bantered. "What do you think?"
Susan sighed, assuming that the fastest way to end this conversation would be to play along. "I guess that it would be to make some serious mistake that caused death or injury to another person or several people. Is that what you mean, Harry?"
"Well, that would certainly be bad for the person or people who got killed, but not so much for the Auror himself," Harry objected.
"Then I guess I don't know. What's your point, Harry? You obviously have something in mind."
"I do," Harry answered. "What do you think about being infected by a werewolf? That's pretty bad, isn't it?"
Susan was silent for a minute. Harry was right. Being bitten by a werewolf was an occupational hazard that always nagged, however subtly, at the back of an Auror's mind. To spend the rest of one's life as a werewolf would be a catastrophe, personally and for one's career and family life. "Yes, that would be pretty bad. What makes you mention it?"
"And what would be the Ministry's reaction if it happened?" Harry persisted. "And historically it has happened. Blame the Aurors. Not enough advance planning. Not enough manpower."
"What else should they be doing?"
"Look what we do now. Good intelligence, advance planning, sufficient manpower, wands and spells. But none of these addresses the basic mechanism of infection, which is the simple bite, a purely mechanical process. That's the key step in infection."
"Well, yes, that's how people get infected," Susan said impatiently. "Are we supposed to make werewolves not want to bite us?"
"I don't think we can do that," Harry laughed. "We can't make them not want to bite us. But maybe we can make them be unsuccessful."
"How?" asked Susan in tones of surprise and bewilderment.
"I'm reading something in the newspaper here about new bullet-proof fabrics being developed that would be used by the Muggle military and police. Fabrics that are fairly thin and lightweight, but if they are able to stop a bullet, maybe they could stop the force of a bite, could keep the fangs from breaking the skin."
"Muggle bullet-proof fabric?" echoed Susan incredulously. She shook her head slowly.
"It's plain that wands and spells alone aren't the complete answer. If they were, we wouldn't have this problem. But if it could be proven that the fabric was strong enough to withstand the force of a bite..."
"We could make it into long underwear, drawers and shirts," Susan interrupted, grinning, and Harry couldn't tell if it was glee in understanding what he was getting at, or if she was making fun of him.
"Something like that," Harry agreed. "It could provide an extra margin of protection. I don't know why someone hasn't thought of it before."
"Well..." Susan said, and Harry instantly knew that she was applying her famously analytical mind to his last rhetorical remark. "Maybe they haven't thought about it because adequately functional fabrics are still fairly new, or because they're stuck in the mindset of 'we've always done it this way', or because they see the problem as the weakness of the victim rather than the weakness of the system."
"What do you think about it?" Harry asked.
"Go for it, Harry," Susan replied. "But don't be too optimistic about getting a green light from the Aurors' Office."
"Why not?" Harry asked.
"Just one word, or rather, two words: Muggle technology. If Ron and George invented it, they'd be all over it. But anything invented by Muggles is automatically beneath their notice. You know that."
"And meanwhile, our Aurors remain at risk," Harry sighed.
"Maybe it wouldn't work in the long run. The werewolves would be able to tell that something was different. They can tell if they break flesh or not. They would probably just shift their focus to the face and hands, the unprotected parts."
"Maybe," said Harry absently. He was not really paying attention to Susan's last remark. He was absorbed in his own idea. "You know, I'm betting that in the future, before we die, in our own lifetimes, Muggle engineers will develop a cloak of invisibility, not by magic, but purely by their technology. Oh sure, there are things we can do, purely by magic, that they will never be able to do, but we would be fools not to take advantage of their technology."
"Looks like you've got yourself a project. Try to get Ron and George involved. That might make the bitter pill go down a little more easily," concluded Susan with a tone of finality that meant she was ready to get back to her own work. Harry folded up the newspaper and addressed himself to his.
At eleven-thirty a.m. Harry gathered his parchments into neat stacks on his desk, pushed back his chair, and stood up. "I'm going out to lunch now," he called to Susan. Because it was August, some Aurors were on holiday and the remaining personnel had to schedule their lunch times so that the office was always covered. When Harry first became an Auror, he usually ate lunch with Ron or Neville, and they always tried to get Hermione to come with them. But after the last of the Battle of Hogwarts fugitives were apprehended, both Ron and Neville had left the Auror office to follow their hearts into different careers. Ron was not a total stranger to the Ministry of Magic offices, however; he periodically visited in connection with his product contracts, but their lunches together were infrequent. And at present Ron and Hermione were on holiday in Italy. Harry was saving his holiday time to use later, when the baby came.
"Okay," Susan called back. "You'll be back in an hour?"
"You can count on it."
Harry headed for a little deli restaurant a couple of blocks away. It seemed odd that the streets were full of tourists while the Auror office was so empty and quiet because of the holidays and he was going to be eating lunch alone. As he strode along the sidewalk at a brisk pace, he reflected on his friends' choices. In the immediate aftermath of the Second War, there had been overwhelming passion on the part of many of his schoolmates to become Aurors. The number of applicants for Auror training had been much higher than normal, and Harry had wondered about their various motivations. For some it may have been a compulsion to right the many and chronic wrongs of society which they had not been aware of during their early childhood. For others it may have been a shorter-term goal, simply to clean up the mess left behind. He sincerely hoped that no one's motivation had been a desire for revenge.
Some of the new Aurors, such as Susan Bones, were obviously perfectly suited to their profession and would probably continue in it for years. But not everyone who had joined the ranks of the Aurors had been completely satisfied with their new life. Neville Longbottom was conscientious, serious, careful, thorough, a good Auror, but his heart wasn't in the work. He was drawn by the academic life, scientific inquiry, and a desire to share his love of Herbology with the next generation. He continued his self-study of herbs even as he completed his Auror training, and after two years in the Auror office Neville had resigned his position and had gone to Prague for further study of Herbology under the tutelage of a renowned Herbology master.
Ron Weasley had also been a good Auror, but he had been bored by the minutiae of paperwork and unfulfilled by the sometimes ambiguous outcomes of the Aurors' work. He liked to see quick, concrete, tangible results, and so he partnered with his brother George in their business, Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, which had expanded from a simple joke shop to a small research and development company. George's creative gift was the invention of unique mechanisms for magical functions, while Ron was creative in a down-to-earth way. He could see the application of these functions to real-life problems, and he could market them in persuasive ways. While he was growing up, Ron had been overshadowed by Fred and George's flamboyant personalities, but now his very practical talents were becoming plain.
Hermione, on the other hand, had never been attracted to becoming an Auror, even as so many other people had flooded the offices of the Ministry of Magic with their applications. She had always had a firm grip on who she was and what she wanted.
Harry wondered if he understood himself as well as the others seemed to understand themselves. Did he know who he really was? Did he remain an Auror because he was really suited to the occupation, or out of a feeling of obligation, or simply out of inertia? If Tom Riddle had never existed, would he, Harry, have wanted to become an Auror anyway? If Tom Riddle had never existed, everything would have been different. Harry would have grown up in Godric's Hollow with his parents and would never have known the Dursleys. He would have developed in different ways, maybe would have been a better wizard, but with much less exposure to the Muggle world than he had actually had. What would I have turned out to be like? he wondered.
He quickly arrived at the little cafe where he often ate lunch. In the summer the proprietor placed small tables on the edge of the sidewalk in front of the cafe to allow for al fresco dining and to increase the seating capacity during the tourist season. By coming early Harry hoped that he could get quick service and the seat he wanted. But the cafe was already well-patronized when he arrived, and by the time he had picked up his tray of food the only empty seats were out on the sidewalk. He went out and sat down at the only unoccupied little table and began to address himself to his sandwich. He had eaten only a few bites when another diner appeared, tray in hand, looking for a seat. She was an older woman with short gray hair, and when she spotted the empty chair at Harry's table, she set down her tray and asked, smiling, "Do you mind if I sit here, or is this place already occupied?" Her face was friendly and open, with laugh lines around her eyes and mouth.
"Oh no, go right ahead," Harry answered hastily, moving his tray a little to make more space on the tiny tabletop, and the woman sat down. She took the plastic lid off her cup of lemonade and drizzled the little container of dressing over her salad. Then, her lunch ready to eat, she turned to Harry and said cheerfully "You look as if you're in the middle of a long work day, judging by your clothes." She did not sound English, Harry thought, maybe American or Canadian.
"Yes, I am," he said, trying to match her good humor, "and you look as if you're on holiday, judging by your accent."
"You're right," the woman said, smiling again. "I came here to England about three weeks ago with two other leaders and a patrol of American Girl Scouts to attend a Girl Guide jamboree in Kent. The others have gone back to the states now, but I have stayed a little longer to do some sightseeing, and tomorrow I'm going to visit my cousins in Guernsey for a few days."
A cheerful chat with a foreign tourist was not how Harry had expected to spend his lunch hour, but suddenly it seemed like more fun than mulling over his Auror work or revisiting unhappy scenes from his childhood, so he asked, in between bites of his sandwich, "What have you been seeing and how have you liked it?"
"Oh, you'll find this is funny," the woman said. "I was taking a stroll through the neighborhood around the Girl Guides office, and I noticed two things. First, what they say about English gardens is true; all the houses had lovely gardens. And second, all the buildings looked old and were made of brick, and I thought 'Oh no, they'll all fall down in the next earthquake!' and then I realized that I was in England and you don't have earthquakes here."
Harry swallowed his bite of food and asked, "Are there earthquakes where you come from?"
"Oh yes," the woman said. "I'm from California, and we have them all the time, so we have special building codes to keep our buildings safe in an earthquake." She held out her hand and said, "My name is Pamela, by the way."
Harry set down his sandwich and grasped her hand; her handshake was firm and confident. "My name is Harry."
"It's nice to meet you, Harry," Pamela said. "What kind of work do you do?"
Harry had taken another bite of his sandwich, so he took advantage of the next few seconds of chewing to consider how he was going to answer this question.
"I'm in police work, but it's mostly undercover stuff. I and my mates investigate what you might call hate crimes or organized crime." That seemed to be a good way to describe dealing with Death Eaters.
"That sounds important," Pamela observed. "I used to be a teacher, but I'm retired now, so I have time to take the Girl Scouts on foreign trips. That's so special for them. They worked for several years to earn the money so that the troop could take this trip. But it is a lot of work, riding herd on eight teenage girls, so I'm just as glad to have some time to myself." It occurred to Harry that Pamela would never be truly "by herself" as long as there were any other people around.
"I really wanted to see the Roman ruins up around Hadrian's Wall," Pamela continued, "so I took a train to York and on the train I fell into conversation with a young man from Guisborough, which is south of the Scottish border, but his speech sounded Scots. We talked about the places we had traveled, and I said that I had heard that the difference between England and America is that in England people think a hundred miles is a long distance, and his face fell because he thought I was disrespecting his country, but in America people think that a hundred years is a long time, and his face brightened up and he said 'Yes! When I was in America they showed me their ancient schoohouse, and it was built in 1839!' "
Harry continued eating, smiling and nodding at appropriate points. He was happy to let Pamela tell her stories. They were interesting, and they took his mind off his own concerns and spared him the necessity of explaining about his work.
"The young man on the train told me that if I saw buskers on the streets in York, I should give them some money. I wondered if he had done some busking during his teenage years, but I didn't ask. So when I got to York, I did see some buskers, and I put money in their guitar cases, as my young friend from Guisborough instructed me." Harry noticed that Pamela referred to the man on the train as a friend, and he reflected that she probably didn't know the meaning of the word "stranger".
Pamela stopped chatting long enough to eat a little of her lunch, so Harry felt it was time for him to hold up his end of the conversation.
"I went to school in Scotland during my teenage years," he said.
"But you're not from there," Pamela observed. "I can tell it in your speech."
"No," Harry answered, "I spent my childhood in Surrey."
There was a minute or two of silence as they both ate, and it seemed to Harry that he was not holding up his end of the conversation very well. But the discussion of Scotland had made him think of his years at Hogwarts, especially the momentous later years, and he said offhandedly, as if thinking aloud, "I did a little bit of teaching, myself, once."
"What did you teach?" asked Pamela, glancing up from her lunch with a bright look of interest.
Harry was momentarily taken aback, because he had not meant to open this line of dialogue. "Uh, self-defense," he said, knowing that those plain words could never convey the richness of the experience of creating Dumbledore's Army, the tension and the peril of the times, or the feelings of empowerment and achievement that he had known, through his success in his desperate efforts.
"But you must love children," he continued hastily, "since you spent your career as a teacher, and now you take Girl Scouts on trips. What exactly are Girl Scouts? Are they like Boy Scouts?" Harry had at least heard of Boy Scouts through occasional stories on the local television news at the Dursleys' house, although he didn't know what they did.
"Yes, they're like Boy Scouts, but in England they're called Girl Guides. You may have heard of Girl Guides if you have sisters or girl cousins."
"No, I was an only child," Harry explained.
Pamela gave a deep sigh. "I have two children myself," she said wistfully, "but they are grown and they both live pretty far away from me. I don't get to see them nearly as often as I would like." Harry felt a little pang in his heart, and he looked down at what was left of his meal. He wished he had a mother who wanted to see him more often. He felt sure that his closest blood relatives, the Dursleys, would be perfectly happy never to see him again.
But Pamela could not be wistful for long. She brightened up and said,"You look to be rather young for such important work, or do you just retain your boyish charm?"
"Just lucky, I guess," Harry replied. "When I applied, there happened to be a fair number of openings, so it was easy to be accepted and to win promotion. Just a few years earlier there were hardly any opportunities."
"Oh my, I hope that doesn't mean that a lot of your fellow policemen got killed," Pamela said.
Whoa, Harry thought. That was a pretty shrewd guess on her part. He avoided responding directly to her remark by recounting the thoughts that he had had on his way to the cafe, how some people moved on to other careers. Pamela listened closely; she seemed interested by his analysis. When he was finished she remarked, "But you plan to stay in this line of work. Do you have a family?"
"Yes, I'm married," Harry confessed. "My wife and I don't have any children yet, but we are expecting our first one in October."
"How wonderful!" Pamela exclaimed gleefully, clasping her hands together. "This will be such a happy time for you. I remember the time when my children were babies with great affection."
Her remarks about unalloyed joy struck a chord with Harry, and impetuously he asked, "Pamela, when you were pregnant with your babies, I mean, before they were born, did you ever have, well, odd dreams about them, like, strange things that happened after they were born?" His question felt awkward and disjointed to him, but Pamela seemed to understand.
"Well. let me see," she answered slowly. "That was a long time ago." She thought a moment and then said, "I remember one dream. I dreamt that after the baby was born it could talk just like an adult, and we had long conversations, but I don't remember what about. Is that what you mean?"
Harry nodded. "That sounds like a nice dream. Did you ever have bad dreams?"
Pamela looked at him keenly. "No," she said, still speaking slowly, "not that I remember. But you do, don't you." It was a statement, not a question. "Or your wife does. And you worry about what it means, or if it is normal."
Harry nodded mutely. Merlin's beard, he thought. Am I as transparent as that? Why even bother trying to be subtle or cagey? I might as well take Pamela back to the Ministry of Magic, show her around, introduce her to my mates. She sees right through me. But at the same time he felt a tiny sense of relief at not having to keep things in, not having to try to hold everything together by himself.
Pamela sighed. "I think it is normal to have those dreams, such as the baby being dead or injured or lost. It's probably a reflection of the person's fear, or trepidation you might say, about taking on the unknown tasks of parenthood, and a realization of how important this new role is. I don't suppose that anything in your police training has the remotest bearing on your new responsibilities."
Harry shook his head.
"But why are you telling me all this?" Pamela asked, looking at him narrowly. Harry hesitated. Not for any logical reason, he thought. And he had only told her a little, but she had guessed much.
"I suppose because you seem kind, and wise, and..." he said, trailing off.
"And because I am a stranger from a foreign country, whom you will never see again," Pamela finished, "so it is safe to talk to me."
"Yes," Harry said. "That's true."
Pamela put her hand over his, where it rested on the table. "Just remember, Harry, it is safe to talk to other people too."
Harry could not think of anything to say. He glanced at his wristwatch. It was time to be heading back to work so that Susan could go to lunch as planned. He stood up and picked up his tray. "I have to go now," he told Pamela. "Back to work. But it has been a pleasure talking with you."
"And for me too," Pamela replied. "Good luck, Harry."
"Thanks," he said, and he turned to carry his tray to the bussing area.
On his way back to the Ministry, Pamela's words echoed in his mind. It is safe to talk to other people too. He stopped on the edge of the sidewalk, took out his mobile phone and his little spiral notebook, and dialed the number that he had copied off the poster.