"Coffee Shop Girl"

Mystic25

Summary: An outside woman viewing Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. Boasts of H/Hr

Rating: T for some imagery and language

Disclaimer: J.K Rowling and Warner Brother's owns the lot. I take no credit to what isn't mine.

A/N: This took a long time to complete. I got stuck halfway in the middle and didn't know how to complete it. Finally my muse came out and gave me my ending. (Throws chocolate t her for fear she does that again…damn stubborn bastard…)

A/N #2: I am not English, so the use of any English slang was used only with references to what I heard in HP, or what I looked up on Google. So to any Brits who read this, I apologize for any errors, blatant or subtle, made.

xxxxxXxxxx

"Of all the comrades that ever I had
They are sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that ever I had
They would wish me one more day to stay"

-Ed Shereen

"The Parting Glass" (Hidden Track after "Give Me Love")

"But the past cannot be changed, and we carry our choices with us, forward, into the unknown.

We can only move on."

-Libba Bray

The Sweet Far Thing

xxxxXxxx

A cup of coffee and an umbrella.

That's what this city needs.

It's freezing outside, but not freezing enough to snow. Instead we get this bitingly cold rain, that grayed up the sky and hid the sun like it's a kind of game.

A din of forks spearing meat and potatoes, and salads, and the heavy placing of still warm mugs onto wooden tabletops hung in the air- all competing with the sounds of voices talking. About: ''Mum, can we get ice cream after the movie?' 'Yes, darling I'll pick up milk from the market on my way home, yes LOW FAT milk' 'My last presentation was outstanding, my boss is just too much of an ass to realize it!'

Doctors had the sounds of surgery, builders the sounds of their welding and hammering – I'm a waitress, this was the noise of my every day.

I had a steaming pot of coffee in my hand, and I make my rounds with it up and down the crowded booths and stools. Every table I stop at wants a refill; it's damn cold outside. The only exceptions being an infant in a booster seat, one pregnant woman who says she drinks coffee way too much, and her obstetrician will murder her if she continues, and a five-year-old who shrieked that she doesn't want to drink the 'mud water that lady has!'

I smiled at the little girl, and poured her parents their refills. "How about a cup of cocoa instead love, would you like that? All creamy with whipped cream and marshmallows on top?"

The child shook her head so excitedly that she dislodging it from her braid, and a puddle of roan brown hair dropped onto her face. She shouted out a 'yes!' so fast that her parents don't even have time to correct her for not asking them first. Her mother, a woman with her daughter's hair color, and eyes to match, shook her head for a moment in exasperation- but in the end, she relented, and I walk away from that table with the child's eager clapping and shouting making me smile.

I made it back up to the front of the diner. Technically this place is a Coffee Shop, but coffee shops were supposed to be intimate and small, and serve honey buns and small snooty cups of espresso. This place was too loud, and serves too much meat for it to be a coffee shop. But, when the owner bought it out from the previous one, he thought the name: Rita's Coffee Shop sounded 'cozy' so he kept it.

Today it was packed to the walls with way more patrons than workers. Half the city seems to be in here. Not that I can blame them, it's so miserable looking outside that escaping anywhere that wasn't gray and was warm was worth coming into, crowded or not.

I almost ran into one of my friends, a fellow waitress like myself, but we managed to avoid a collision. She was donned in our casual jeans, but we both had black aprons tied around our waists to give some sense of unity among us, or at least that was the pitch.

"Sorry," my friend Sandra apologized, on the way out with a tray laden with so much food I'm surprised as hell it's not crushing her. She's such a little thing, barely 5'3; that tray of food probably weighed more than she does.

"It's only fight worthy if you drop it," I told her as she walks her way and I walk mine.

"Then we should have fought a long time ago Chelsea," Sondra said over her shoulder as she makes her way with her burden held high into the noise filled crowd. Damn, that girl was strong.

"You're not funny!" I called out with a smile, placing my special order for cocoa onto the turn style for the kitchen staff. "Hey, Peter!" I called into the kitchen to the form of one of our waiters coming out of the kitchen with his order. Peter was too good looking to work in a diner, the kind of chiseled good looking that made people love Brad Pitt. A look so casually natural that it pissed you off because he didn't even have to try.

But he liked working in a diner; even when food burned and wafted such a stink that half the servers and short order cooks in the kitchen came out gagging.

"Hey Chels!" Peter was the first one who called me 'Chels' Not everything needed a shortened version. But then everyone else started to pick up on it. But I let it slide, because he always liked to make me laugh. "What's up lovely? We finally setting a date?"

"You know you're too pretty for me Peter," I joked back, and am rewarded with a smile that would probably make me fall over if I wasn't already too good of friends with the guy. "Let me know when that cocoa order comes out okay?"

"You're not seeing someone else are you?" Peter grasped a hand to his chest as though he's been gravely wounded by something invisible.

I met his wounded look with a mock roll of my eyes, and deposited the coffee pot back on its warming burner. I placed my order with the kitchen for the cup of cocoa for the little girl. My section is full and nosily eating, so I leant an elbow up against the steel countertop and wait for my order.

The kitchen smelled different depending on the season. Ice cream and steaks Summer, pies in Fall, cookies and thick gooey chocolate in Winter, and green leafy things in Spring – except today when Spring was 15 degrees lower than it should be and as cold as a witch's teat, or at least according to my grandmother. Though I don't really want to know how she knows how cold a witch's teat was.

So today, the kitchen smelled like hot things: corn bisque, vegetable soups, steaming breads and pastries, all things people tried when warming themselves on the outside seem to fail and they go for the reversal.

"Order's up Chelsea," Tom the cook, poked his head out of the serving window, and slid a steaming mug of chocolate and whipped cream by my elbow. I pick it up and place it on my tray, noting the little curls of dark chocolate all around the top of it. Before Tom came along we had the dry packets, already premixed, with dehydrated marshmallows and would just add water to reconstitute it all. But Tom had studied at the Cordon Bleu in France; and liked to do things like use real chocolate and fresh milk for cocoa and top it with left over chocolate shavings and hand beaten whipped cream. Why he gave up the scores of other offers to work in a high end Parisian restaurant for a tiny little place like this I'll never know. But our customers loved all the perks that came with having a four star chef in a two star diner, so I wasn't going to complain.

I smiled my thanks at him and picked up my tray just as a blast of frigid air signaled the arrival of another patron. I raised my head on instinct, and saw a young woman enter, wrapped in a thick wool coat and looking completely windswept, thick ringlets of blonde hair tangled round her ears. She shook water droplets off a massive umbrella, and folded it down one handed and dusted water droplets off her hair as thin as powdered sugar.

"Peter!" I called out in my professional 'please assist'voice, because my hands were full and I couldn't seat anyone at the moment. I moved past the lanes created in between the booths and the tables, and stopped where she was standing. She looked for a moment that she is a tiny boat lost at sea, which I don't blame her for. The diner was in full swing, and there were only a handful of seats left. It did tend to be disorienting, especially if you weren't used to it.

"Someone will be by to seat you in a second," I told her with a smile. Getting closer up I notice that she is striking, not that I am that way with girls, but I do notice that she is pretty, hair thick like a mane, slender, soft brown eyes. A definite looker, even by a straight girl's standards.

She returned my smile. "Thank you," her voices sounds as windswept as her appearance.

I had been watching her face ever since she arrived. Totally the opposite of Peter – who was really a good guy underneath it all – but wouldn't be watching her face if he were standing there instead of me. So I hadn't noticed the odd sight of a blanket tucked around her body, until said blanket moved. The fabric was some knitted thing, looking too handmade to be mass produced, and it was wrapped around her like the outer fold of a Sarai.

The blanket moved again, and made a grunting whimper of a noise – I don't really take too much time to decipher exactly if it was a grunt or a whimper, because it was a bloody blanket, and it wasn't supposed to make noise.

But all thoughts of mental magical blankets coming to attack me quickly snuffed it, when she pulled the blanket off her shoulder. And I thought my eyes had been wide before, but they went wider still at the little baby swaddled inside the folds of the fabric.

The baby was little, it barely looked two-weeks-old, too young to even tell if it was a boy or a girl. But what it lacked in gender identifiers it made up for in soft delicately closed eyes, tiny curled fingers that made parts of my heart melt, and a spray of hair two shades darker then hers. It was dressed in one of those onesies that came 10 to a pack at the local retail market, but it was nestled in enough in the thick blanket that it looked warm enough.

"Yours?" I wasn't trying to be judgmental, I really wasn't. But I was 21, and she didn't look much older than me and my mates at the University. And our thoughts only tended to run of books and football games, not nappies and nipples.

She shook her head yes, looking almost lost about the idea for a moment; like the teenage mothers I had seen back in high school, still kids themselves now with kids of their own.

The baby whimpered again and she shifted to her shoulder and shushed it, while tiny limbs that couldn't cling yet, folded in on themselves. She held the baby up there, still a little frazzled looking, but the slow circular hand on the tiny back was gentle, loving.

I couldn't help it, I smiled. I was a sucker for things like this, that and puppies. "He's lovely." I took a stab at the gender, using the universal he, not caring if it sounded 'sexist' like my Lit professor droned on about two lectures ago. Some things are just to be taken at face value not analyzed to death, thank you.

The frazzled look seemed to melt for a moment at a smile graces her face. "Thank you." She rubbed a thumb across the head of her tiny burden.

Peter emerged from the chaos of the restaurant, his eyes widened in appreciation upon seeing our customer. Sometimes I know Peter better than he knows himself.

"Hello beautiful." Peter's following smile was warm, a little suggestive, but definably more warm than flirtatious. He wasn't an idiot, he had seen the baby. And I knew for a fact through many tales of his bragged conquest that he knew how that particular fact of nature came to be.

But for some reason his words seemed to trigger a cord with the woman, and she gave him an analyzing look that was beyond casual, like she was making sure he wasn't an evil monster behind his mask of human skin.

But then her baby started to cry a newborn's mewl and her attention was soon redirected as she tried to quiet the tiny thing.

"Can I get you one of the booths in the corner love?" Peter spoke over the din of the baby's cry that had gotten louder, demanding someone to pay attention to it.

"Yes," she said as she bounced the infant a little on her shoulder "That would be –shhh" she shushed the kid, her heard turned close to that tiny ear-"That would be lovely, thank you."

"Right this way then," he held out an arm to direct her over to one of the empty booths in the corner, and as much as I wanted to follow, I was still holding the cup that was starting to become less like hot cocoa and more lukewarm milk.

"Here we are, with extra whipped cream!" I delivered the order to my young patron, and she took it in two hands at the same time trying to squirm around to see the baby whose cry had attracted the attention of some other customers, including the girl's parents.

"Mum, it's so small!" The girl exclaimed as some of her cocoa sloshed out of the mug in her squirming.

"Careful, hot!" her mom gently scolded, wisely taking the mug away from her daughter before she completely drenched herself. Her eyes moved over to where the woman at the booth. "Yes he is," she hands the cocoa back to her daughter with a warning of "little sips" before leaning over to her husband, to speak in low tones: "Can't be a day over 20, and that baby looks brand new."

"Mmm," her husband said over a sip of his coffee. "Wonder where the bloke is, leaving her all alone with a kid that young."

"Poor thing-"

The rest of the conversation died away as I move away from the table, offering refills, handing off bills before I am finally allowed a moment to stop in front of the booth where she sat. She wasn't in my section, so I don't have any menus, or even coffee to offer her. It makes me seem a bit stupid. "You're waitress will be here in a moment."I say, just standing there trying not to be creepy and stalkerish, but I'm probably failing because this definitely looks creepy and stalkerish.

Thankfully I am saved by Miranda, a fellow waitress, who came up behind m and pulled out a pad of from the black apron tied around her waist. "Hello there. Chels here was nice enough to check up on you before I got here." Miranda had a smile as with as much bounce as her dark tightly curled black hair and it saved me from my awkward social moment."I'm gonna be taking care of you today. Names Miranda," her smile brightens more at the sight of the baby. She cocked her head down. "And what's your name?"

"This is Jay," the woman said with a glance at the baby cradled against her shoulder. It was a loving look, but it also looked tired, like a new parent.

"Well Jay," Miranda said, leaning down to address the youngest customer inside the diner. "I'm gonna be taking care of you and mum today, alright handsome?" She pulled back up , her pen poised over her open pad. "'Can I get you?"

"Just a coffee for now please, thank you. We're waiting for someone," as she talked she lowered the baby off her shoulder and rested him back into the swaddle of blankets like it's a homemade Snugli.

The blanket went back up over her shoulder and there was a bit of shifting again underneath it. And I'm not a mum, but I put two and two together and understand what's happening.

So does Miranda, who gives our patron a "You got it," before she backed out with a polite smile, moving just enough in front of the woman to allow her to settle herself and her baby more comfortably without everyone else in the diner gawking at what she's doing.

"He's adorable," Miranda said to me after we're both by the kitchen waiting on our orders. She's got her eyes on the corner booth where she's sitting, sipping on the coffee Miranda had given her a few minutes ago. "Wonder where dad is."

I leant against the tiles on the other side of the order window, and absently watched the woman. A waft of steam that smelled like bacon and eggs blew past me. "Suppose that's who she's waiting for."

The woman spreads her glances between the baby under the blanket and the window, sipping her coffee through all this like an afterthought.

"Hope you're right Chels," Miranda says. "Cause if some bloke just knocked her up and dumped her after he was done-" she broke off with a disgusted look. "Then she'd be well rid of him."

I look at her in silent agreement. But it's a look that doesn't last long on either of our faces because it its replaced by another look from both of us – the ones that sincerely hopes that we are wrong.

The baby apparently was done eating and made a reappearance on her lap. It is blatantly obvious that she is missing a stroller, something so associated with babies that it makes her seem almost off without one. Like she was doing something wrong carrying such a tiny thing in her lap.

I was still watching, so is Miranda. We're not trying to be creepy, we can't leave until we get our orders filled, and Tom was apparently hung up in the kitchen because I heard an awful lot of swearing. And we genuinely had nothing else to do until we get our food.

"Do you think she needs money?" Miranda piped up, whispering it to me in almost a sidebar.

I take note of our subject at Miranda's question. No nappy bag, no stroller. Only a little beaded clutch in her possession. But it looks like a name brand bag, and her coat is chic and warm and she's wearing jeans and a white sweater that don't bare a second hand look and also look like she wore for fashion as well as function. And that blanket around the baby looks warm, and thick, and his simple clothes clean, and new.

So no, she doesn't look like she's hurting for money – she just looked – she looked- "She looks a bit lost." I watched her sip her coffee as she rested her eyes out the window, like she's trying to find a definitive shape in the crowd of people outside that have turned into graying blobs due to the cold pouring rain.

Our orders finally came up, giving us no more excuses for our "people watching" I piled plates laden with sausage gravy and mash and peas onto my tray and Miranda mans hers.

I am five pounds lighter after I delivered my load of orders to their respective clients. Five pounds lighter, but two pounds richer from cash tips left on empty tables. I passed her table on the way to the serving counter back with my now thankfully empty tray.

"Everything alright?" I asked.

"Thank you I'm fine." She said and her smile was polite, warm enough. But it didn't look truly genuine. It's not like she was giving me seedy looks, it's more like she was distracted, waiting for whatever it is that kept her looking out the window.

The bell above the door signaled again.

"Welcome to Rita's Coffee Shop Love," I heard Miranda greet the person who just came in, her voice unusually overly inviting, almost appreciative.

And when I got back to the front of the diner I can see why. Our newest customer was male, around our age, maybe a few years younger. He was dressed casually in jeans and a light gray sweater under a black coat, dark brown mop of hair, glasses that did nothing to cover up a pair of amazingly green eyes.

The boy was fit, even more so when he offered an almost shy smile to Miranda's greeting.

"Can I get you a booth or a table?" Miranda asked, she stood a good few inches taller than him, but she thought nothing of it. She's always been a tall one, and a good looking guy was a good looking guy.

His smile was back, deep, warm. "Actually I'm waiting for someone," As he spoke he scanned his eyes over the bustle inside the dinner. 10 seconds or so passed like this before he spotted who he was looking for.

Our girl in the corner booth.

"Excuse me," he said. He moved past me with a steadying hand on my arm as he accidently brushes against it.

Miranda and I both turned and watched his progression to the booth. At first she was still staring out the window, but when he came about 5 feet from her, she turned, almost instinctually, and saw him there.

"Harry," the mystery of his name is finally divulged as she slid out of the booth and stood beside him.

We both watch as 'Harry' looked down at the baby cradled against her, watching it sleep. He reached for it and I watched her hand him over without protest, guiding Harry's hands where they should go to support the little thing.

"Guess the mystery of Dad is solved," Miranda said in a low voice. With his dark hair and green eyes, there was no question about it. A few other patrons have turned to stare at the new arrival, some bold enough to whisper behind their hands about the sight of him. The mother of the girl I gave the cocoa to is among the onlookers, not even being subtle about it, hand resting on the back of the booth, watching the pair of them like they are a movie.

The baby cooed and grunted as he settled it in the bend of his arm. Her hand that was on his elbow moved to the back of his neck.

I watched them kiss. It is brief, not lustful, not even deep. But there was something so wholly caring and loving about it. Her hand is on the back of his neck, another moment there and gone, but both are smiling.

"Menu," Miranda whispered to me and slapped one of them in my palm making me jump like it was a thunder clap.

"Sorry what?" I turn, still startled like frightened deer and meet Miranda's rolled eye look.

"Go, menu," Miranda tapped the plastic menu with her hand and gave me a nudge with her hand "I'll let you have 'em, but I want a report afterwards."

I cleared my throat, like it could erase what she had just said. Because what we were doing felt – wrong. Not criminally or I-sold-my-soul-to-the-devil wrong. But still -we were spying on two people's (three if you count the baby) lives. I'm pretty sure that not spying was a subsection covered in the employee handbook. We were just supposed to wait tables, bring food, engage in occasional small talk, be polite, get tips, do it again times twelve.

What I was doing walking towards them like this was categorized under the 'none of my business' section. Yet I found myself walking towards them anyway. I watched him as he slid into the booth next to her, holding onto the baby as carefully as if he were holding Waterford Crystal.

He looked completely terrified, like he might break the baby if he breathed wrong. I tried not to let it affect me, tried not to let a stupid goey smile come over my face, because it would be admitting that I had been watching them the entire time.

"Relax Harry," I heard her say as I finally get close enough to make out their conversation. "You've done this now for almost two weeks."

"Thanks Hermione, I feel loads better." Harry says, calling her by her name.

Hermione huh? Not a name that you heard every day – I think it's Shakespeare, kinda suits her.

"I mean it-"

The rest of her words died out when she saw me approach. I offered them both my best professional smile. Harry settled the baby more against his chest so that the little guy is almost in a sitting position.

"So what can I get you?" I ask of Harry.

"Oh um, I'm fine thank you," Harry's response was polite, not wanting to put me out.

Which is bloody stupid because it's my job. "Come on Dad," at my use of the word 'dad' his attention focused on me. I pointed to his –wife, girlfriend, baby mama- I pointed to Hermione "She's only had coffee, and you've only had nothing. You can't take care of that little guy if you're starving to death."

A smile ghosted his lips, almost like he's heard this explanation before, maybe in a different context, but with the same underlying meaning, probably from his own mom or dad.

He briefly studied the menu that I had placed on the table. "How's the hash plate here?"

"Crispy," I told him with a smile. "Goes great with a side order of coffee."

"Fantastic," he returned. "Well I'll have that then." He turned and looked pointedly at Hermione, the silent 'well?' coming out of his eyes. "You can't just have coffee."As he spoke he played with one of the baby's tiny curled fists. Again I tried not to melt.

"I'm not hungry," she protested and swallowed her coffee as if for emphasis.

"You need to eat Hermione," Harry argued. "You just had him two weeks ago," He stared down at the baby in his lap who has now opened his eyes, the same color green as Harry's. "You can't go without food."

There was something of a glower in Hermione's eyes, like she had been used to having these types of little rows with him, and that she was also used to giving on. "I'll share yours if you'll let it go."

"Brilliant," he returned offering her something of a smile.

"I'll get that out to you," I said and took the menu from Harry. "And if it helps," I told Hermione "You look fantastic for just having a kid, you don't need to be dieting."

A dry wisp of a laugh escaped her, some of the tension left her body. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," I smiled at her. "I'll be back you three." I left them to go fill the order.

"So, what happened?" Miranda said while I leant back at the kitchen's window and waited for my order.

"Don't act like you weren't eavesdropping Miranda," I said.

"It's hard to hear conversations when you're waiting tables Chels," Miranda argued. She placed one of her order papers on the turntable in the window and rotated it until the bell chimed. She glanced back to the booth. "Now that I see'em together, he looks like him, especially those eyes."

"He seems a bit off," I said honestly.

"You make him sound like an escaped psyche patient," Miranda returned.

"That's not what I mean," I argue quietly.

"He's a new dad Chels, of course he's a bit off," Miranda said, taking my order when it came from the kitchen and handed it to me as she glanced back at them.

In all the times we've watched them, they seemed not to notice at all. Not even a little bit. Most people tend to have some sort of feeling when people are watching them. But neither Harry nor Hermione gave any indication of such.

"He's young like us," Miranda said after a moment. "He just looks scared."

She took my tray from me.

"Hey!-"

"I'll be taking my section back mate, you traumatized them enough," Miranda flashed me a grin and was out of range for me being able to throw anything at her so I just grab a fresh pot of coffee and follow her to make my rounds.

I get bombarded by questions about the little family at the table with the girl I had given the cocoa too.

"Honestly," the mother whispered to her husband using me as a shield to blot out her voice to the crowd. "Did they even think about using a condom?"

"Amanda don't be self righteous," her husband whispered back to her. He seemed to take back his earlier remark about Harry being a deadbeat teenage dad, now that he saw him come in, and make an effort. He looking pointedly at their daughter. "We didn't."

'Amanda' blushed a shade of crimson and gave her husband a look.

I bit my lip as I pour him some more coffee.

"Mummy what's a condom?" the girl asked with all the innocent curiosity of a five-year-old.

This time her husband cut his wife a look. "Finish your bread darling, mummy will tell you all about it later."

I walked away with Amanda looking cowed.

I stopped at their table to hear Miranda talking with them both. She was always more of a conversation starter than me. There are even hints of smiles on their faces about what she's saying. I catch snatches of: "His hair isn't an attribute Hermione," from Harry.

"He looks like a little Beatle Mate," Miranda corrected him. "I always was a sucker for a mop top." She rubbed a tuft of hair on the baby's head, and oddly neither Harry nor Hermione seemed uncomfortable about it.

"Sorry, need a bit of a break," I rubbed at my feet and took a seat, in the booth next to me that was empty. It was near my lunch break anyway. So I no longer needed to pretend that I was just passing by. I doubt that they were buying that I was just walking by them anyway. Nobody drinks that much coffee, I pretty much forced it on that last couple just to have an excuse to walk by their table.

"Too much for you in your old age Chels?" Miranda teased me, while she still played with the baby's head. Miranda's known these people for about twenty minutes and she looks like she's about to be on their Christmas Card. She had that effect on everyone, like some kind of magic that makes people instantly like her.

There was a television mounted to the front of the diner above the kitchen. Most days its shut off, because no one really can hear it above all the cacophony of the diner itself. Lately though it's been turned on the BBC News to follow a set of stories about a string of mysterious deaths and disappearances that have occurred throughout London in the last few weeks.

Today the BBC News gave us a female news anchor with her regulation feathered haircut covering the story. She talked about it in the way that someone does who hasn't actually lived through such events and could speak about it; with a detachment that bordered on neurotic excitement.

"We are now getting unconfirmed reports that SOCA agents have found the bodies of a group hunters that have been missing for almost a month. The remains of the five men were found floating in the Severn River which borders the Forest of Dean. The bodies are said to have no outward signs of defensive wounds which could indicate a cause of death, authorities are saying it was almost like the men were struck down by an invisible force-"

"Hey!"

Miranda's voice turned me away from the television. My eyes widened when I saw Harry. He was watching the news too, but his breathing was a little harder than it was a moment ago, and he almost looks like he's shaking-

"Turn it off," Miranda said, her demand to Peter who is standing by the television.

"It's news Miranda," Peter argued.

"Depressing is what it is," Miranda shot back in her no nonsense voice "Turn. it off."

The television doesn't have a remote, so Peter has to reach a long arm to silence the newswoman mid story.

"Hey Miranda!" Tom called from the kitchen, poking his head out the little window. "Orders up!"

"I'm on my break Tom!" Miranda called back, her no nonsense voice still there.

She has worked here for 5 years, so Tom knows better than to argue with her. His head disappears back behind the kitchen with only a little grumbling.

I watched Miranda lean over Harry, placing a hand on his shoulder. "You alright mate?"

"I'm fine-" Harry's answer is quick, like he was trying to cover something up.

Hermione's hand was on his arm, fingers closed around his elbow, her eyebrows knit down in concern. It looks like a look she has worn before, something sad, concerned, worried. "Harry-"

"I said I'm fine Hermione." His words were a bit snappish.

She answered with a silent hurt in her eyes.

And he responded with guilt. "Sorry."

"Did you know them?" I can't help the question from escaping my mouth. I half expect any future looks from Harry to be murderous. Because I was a total stranger and I was going way beyond diner waitress and driving right into stalker territory.

But when he turned back to me, he doesn't look angry at all. He simply looked lost. "No," the lost look is brief and gone in seconds, but I still saw it. The baby wiggles in his arms and he stares down at it like he had forgotten it was there. "It just seems a pathetic place to buy it." There is no humor in his words, at first they are bitter, but then they seemed to dissolve into sadness.

It was the kind of sadness I heard come from my granddad who had fought in the Royal Academy Air Force back in World War 2 and had seen so much death during it.

Harry wasn't a day over 20, what had happened to him to make him sound like that?

"It's not such a pathetic place Harry," Hermione says this like a secret.

One that I'm not privy too. I watched her glance at the baby and a thought struck me, of her giving birth to this kid in the middle of the woods. But that's complete rubbish. What woman in her bloody right mind would risk something like that? Especially with all those damn disappearances and deaths?

Harry picked up the fork lying beside the plate. But instead of picking up some of the hash that Tom had perfectly made with crisp brown burnt edges, he held the fork out to Hermione, using the food as a distraction from the story that ended on the television, but didn't end in his eyes.

She took it from him and scooped up some of the hash. She chewed slowly like she wasn't hungry, but was eating to make him happy. She did this two more times before she finally sat the fork down.

Harry looked down to the face of a black banded sports watch. "It's almost 2:30."

"He said three," Hermione answered back.

"Reckon he just decided to avoid this whole mess." Harry said, a finger nudging the tiny palm of the baby, the tiny fingers closed on it.

There was a look that passed between them that answered all the questions I wanted to ask about what this exchange meant.

Hermione took his free hand "He'll be here Harry." She motioned for him to let her out of the booth. He slid out and allowed her to pass him. There was a brief squeeze from her hand on his shoulder. "I'll be right back kay?"

He nodded and I watched him watch her go before he sat down with the baby. He shifted it to the bend of his arm, because the little guy had fell asleep.

"How long you two been together?" Miranda asked the question before I did.

Harry seemed to pause on this question. Not like he had forgotten the answer like many a dense boyfriend or husband, but like he honestly didn't know what to say. He finally seemed to settle on something, and answered back: "Not long. Before-" he broke off and looked down briefly at the baby. "She's my best friend."

I have heard many explanations as to why a guy loved a girl. From sappy poetic waxing of strangers who read their limerick lines to me, to superficial: "well she was hot and good in the sack." explanations from school mates.

But what Harry had just said: It was like he was confused, sad, and happy all at once. One of his hands played with the baby's wisp of hair. His knuckles looked calloused, and they were zigzagged with old scars and a few that looked more recent, brighter.

Harry seemed to sense me looking at him. Up until now, he hadn't before, which made me realize he was more observant than I first had considered. He glanced down at the state of his hand: "You should see the other bloke." He gave no other explanation, but the air felt heavy anyway.

"Hey!" Tom called out, poking his head out from the window in the kitchen. "Orders are piling up here!"

"Sorry," Miranda apologized to Harry, gesturing towards the kitchen. "We need to get back, the waitress thing-"

"Oh no, of course, go ahead." Harry returned. The bell above the doorway rang again, and Harry's attention was drawn up at the same time mine was, to a bright flash of red under a lot of wool.

He started at what he saw for a long time. "Actually-" he turned towards me with brilliant green eyes. "Would you mind doing me a favor first?"

xxxxXxxxx

The ladies room wasn't very big. Three stalls two white porcelain sinks mounted against the left wall, a mirror with a frame spray painted copper. One woman was leaving as I came in.

Hermione was at one of the sinks with a regulatory 'Employees must wash hands before returning to work' sign tacked on the wall above it. There was no one else in there but us.

"Sorry," I started with this even though it was a public bathroom and people came and went all the time. But I did it because it was kinda rude for me to pop in on a girl in the bathroom unannounced.

I watched her turn towards me: "Harry told me to tell you that they're here."

She looked at me for a moment, because we weren't friends, but I also wasn't her maidservant, which made this announcement kind of weird.

"Thank you," She said finally. Her sweater sleeves were pulled up to keep them from getting wet in the spray of water from the faucet. She reached for a handful of brown paper towels stacked on top of the non working dispenser on her right.

She started drying her hands, and when she lifted up her left arm to wipe away water dripping down the side of it, I saw another flash of red.

There were scabbed over cuts on the underside of her arm, jagged looking. It almost looked like the word: blood was spelt on with the cuts. Back in high school I had a lot of friends who were cutters, so deadened by their own pain that they self harmed because it was they wanted to feel something besides numbness.

She caught me looking at her like Harry had. They were both more acutely perceptive then I first thought. Like they had endured a lifetime of being observed.

"I'm sorry," I said. I felt mortified, not for the scars themselves. But for staring at them like some overzealous church goer about to call my local parish to 'fix' her. "I'm staring, I'm sorry-"

"No it's okay," Hermione rolled down her sleeves, hiding the scar from view again. "I don't like them either-" she said it like a secret long hidden.

With those few words she let me into her thoughts, just enough that I knew those cuts weren't self inflicted. We stared at each other with the realization that hurt both her and me.

I found myself unable to swallow. I watched her check herself in the mirror, her eyes not in the same room as her body for long moments, somewhere where those scars had bled.

She turned to me with a smile that was genuine, but sad at the same time. I followed her out of the ladies room and back into the blasting noise of the dinner that had been muffled behind the door.

A tall young man with ginger hair and wrapped in a flannel coat and jeans stood next to the serving counter. Beside him was a very beautiful looking girl wrapped in a white pea coat with hair as every bit as red as his.

And as Hermione she drew closer, he turned.

Hermione stopped walking, and stood halfway back to the booth observing the man.

"Hermione." the other man said her name like something he hadn't used in a long time. He had a face full of freckles, and a smile half wanting to come to his face, but kept pulling back, not knowing how its presence would be taken.

She observed him for a bit longer. Something flittered between them, a whisper of something that had come and gone and hurt. This observation went on for a full 15 seconds before I watched as she stomped towards the other man with the determination of any angry bull.

She looked like she was going to give him a bollicking, but as soon as she got close enough her arms went around his neck into a hug.

The man seemed at a loss, his arms up, but then they settled around her, and he hugged her back. Like in the bathroom I felt like I was breaking into something private, but I watched anyway. I felt like I was reading a story that they had lent to me and needed to know the end of.

"Missed me ay?" the ginger said after the hug ended, an almost cautionary tone to his words.

"Did you miss me?" Her words were almost bossy, but they were also as hesitant as his. Like she was unsure of what to say to him.

"Yeah I did," Ginger (I still didn't know his name) replied, a sheepish that seemed to suit his face, spreading across it. "Things weren't the same without you two you know?" Ginger turned to Female Ginger, who nodded her head slightly in agreement.

Hermione turned to the other woman. "Ginny," she said, revealing her name.

"Hi Hermione," 'Ginny' said quietly. Her eyes were vividly green, and her mouth below it was set in a line, like frequency waiting to be altered. The corners of her lips finally pulled into a gentle upward sloping smile.

Hermione hugged the other woman. It wasn't a crushing, or squeezing embrace, but both of them looked like they hadn't done so in a long time.

After a minute they released each other, and I saw Ginny's eyes travel to something behind Hermione.

"Harry-"

"Sit down," Miranda whispered to me, pushing me into an empty booth. "You're blocking my view."

"Shut it," I whispered back, but neither one of us made a move to leave. We were invested Peeping Tom's now.

"Hello Ginny," Harry responded to the redheaded woman. He offered he a smile like an awkward teenage boy, but it seemed a bit too fractured to be truly awkward. Like it had been a long time since he smiled at her.

The small tugging smile on Ginny's face took longer to come up with Harry than it did Hermione, but eventually it did, like the warm rays of the sun melting a hard snow. She walked slowly over to him, and Miranda and I watched as she looked down at the baby bundled in his arms. "He's beautiful." she said it like an admittance, but allowed her smile to grow a bit wider.

"Thanks," Harry returned, and what sounded like an awkward movement to me, ended into a sweetness when Ginny leant over and kissed the side of Harry's face.

"He's a looker alright," 'Ron' agreed with who I guessed was presumably his sister. "Got your hair and everything."

Another one of those 'looks' passed between the two young men. I watched Hermione lean over and take the baby from Harry, resting him against her shoulder.

"What's his name?" Ron asked.

"James," Harry answered, and it came as a bit of a surprise to me because I thought his name was simply Jay not something it stood for. "James Fredrick Potter," I saw as Ron's eyes flashed something just a bit deeper at the mention of the name 'Frederick'

"We call him Jay," Hermione said, as she rubbed a hand across the baby's back.

"Suits him," Ron said staring at the baby. He let a few seconds of silence go by before he spoke again to Harry. "How you been Harry?"

"Alright," Harry answered. "You?"

"Best I can be I suppose," Ron answered back. "It's next week you know. Fred's-" Ron broke off with a pained look, one that traveled from him to Ginny. "Mum wanted to ask if you were coming. She hasn't seen you both in a long time," Ron's word seemed to get smaller and sadder, like something blowing away in the wind behind the callings of 'come back, that's mine!' "Reckon she misses you-"

"I miss her too," Harry said. I heard him swallow, like what he was going to say next was stuck there. "I uh – I miss you too as well-"

Ron and Harry both look at each other in this revelation. They looked to be the same age, they very well might have been school friends that fought and now finally decided to mend it. But it seemed deeper than that, like they were brothers, brothers who had cared about each other before the rift that had separated them on the opposite sides they were standing on now had opened up.

"Reckon I do too," Harry said.

It wasn't a grand apology in my book, or Miranda's who was whispering that very sidebar to me in my ear. But we both admitted that it was one of the most honest ones that she and I had heard in a long time.

Ron found his smile again, it looked to still be buried by the pain of something that they all had undergone together. But it came like a flower through permafrost to find the light. "Yeah? That's good."

Harry dry laughed at this and the next thing I knew they were embracing in the hug of brothers finally coming back after so long to just be brothers again.

At least that's what Miranda and I thought happened. Between my eyes misting over, and turning to her and seeing her eyes misting over there was only half a watery picture between us. We both chose it as our cue to leave, lest we make bigger prats of ourselves then we had already.

My last look of them before I went back to my other customers was that of Hermione placing the baby in Ron's stiff looking arms, but became loosened with her gentle coaxing of "Relax Ronald, you're doing fine…"

"Never been an uncle before.." Ron's last words before I reached the kitchen floated to me like the fluff of a dandelion.

Miranda and I go back to salvage our jobs before Tom fires us, we serve coffee and overly fatty foods that raise your cholesterol but also lift your spirits.

It's still raining and damn freezing outside.

It's not metaphorically 'warm and wonderful' inside.

It's loud and my feet hurt, and some tips are really good, and some are really, really bad (a tuppence pal? ever heard of Euro's or Visa?) But I'll finish my shift, and go home and go out to the local pub with Peter and Miranda, and drink too much and laugh because we are all alive.

And that's a bloody marvelous thing.

xxxxXxxxx

End

R/R Please.

Mystic