a/n: Happy Single’s Awareness Day! Not much lovey dovey stuff in here for the occasion, sorry…enjoy! And please review!
Chapter 5 “ How Could I Trust You?
“Oh my dear,
When I was dreaming,
I wish you would take your lies elsewhere
Don't give them to me.”
- “Reconcile Our Differences” by the Dave Matthews Band
----
One of the few perks of working with muggles was that he always ended up getting an office to himself, no matter how short the stay. But even here in America, it seemed they hadn’t given up all protocol and Harry found himself lounging comfortably in his oversized chair, eyes searching a few meaningless reports that had been sent to him earlier.
He glanced at the clock on his wall and a flicker off annoyance crossed his face. His 11 o’clock appointment was late by almost a half hour now. He had contemplated skiving off and going to lunch early, but this was one meeting he knew he couldn’t skip.
The American Liaison was scheduled to meet with him almost thirty minutes ago and they still hadn’t shown up. Harry knew how carefully the International Wizarding Relations had been in getting together to work on this case, but he thought the situation was pretty clean cut and it was obvious that both England and America had their own reasons for participating in this particular case.
The muggle phone in Harry’s office rang shrilly and, annoyed, he contemplated not picking up. It was either one of the muggles wanting to bring him more paperwork, or the American Liaison calling to finally give an excuse as to why he couldn’t come. He stared at it, letting the ringing go off three more times before he finally picked it up.
“Potter.”
“Mr. Potter? This is Emily Jaron, CIA. I was scheduled to meet you at 11 this afternoon?”
Harry frowned, glancing back over at his papers, fumbling to find the note from the CIA director, Jonathan Brinkley.
Jaron? Harry read it over quickly. Is there a reason that he never even suspected that it might be a women? Oh well. At least he wouldn’t have to deal with some tough, macho American who liked to watch too many movies.
“Yes, Miss Jaron,” he recovered quickly.
“I’m terribly sorry for the lateness on my part. My meeting with the Chief of Staff went over and I only now just got away.”
Her voice was perky, but had underlying roughness about the edges.
“Well, I break for lunch in about ten minutes. Perhaps we could reschedule for this afternoon?”
“I’m afraid my schedule is awfully busy this afternoon. I was hoping perhaps we could meet for lunch somewhere. I’m not usually this forward, but I think we all want this case to move forward as quickly as possible and I have some interesting details to show you about the attack last night.”
Harry sat up straighter and leaned forward. “Last night? Where the bloody hell was this?”
“The statement never got to you?” She sounded upset and, if not, a little bit ticked at someone. Harry hoped it wasn’t him.
Harry fumbled through the numerous reports, but knew that it wasn’t there. “All I received this morning was the backup files for the ten latest cases that happened over in Virginia.”
She sighed a bit, sounding exhausted. “Welcome to the CIA Mr. Potter. I’m actually surprised you received that many. We have a dozen new interns who started just a week ago and they’re not exactly the most reliable errand boys.” Her voice was apologetic, but not enough to get rid of Harry’s annoyance at being left out of the loop, even though he knew it wasn’t her fault.
“Well, I guess that’s a perfectly good reason to meet for lunch then, Miss Jaron.” He paused, thinking. “Do you have any suggestions? I’ve only been in town for a day or so and don’t quite know the best places to eat around here.”
“There’s a small wizarding mall over past the Lincoln Memorial. Just go around the back and knock twice on the door. It’s got muggle protection charms on it, so no one will notice you. Get the map to point you towards Jody’s: best Italian you’ve ever tasted in you life.”
Harry scribbled down a few names so he wouldn’t forget and smiled, even though he couldn’t see her. “Perfect. I’ll see you in about 15 minutes then?”
“I’ll be waiting, Mr. Potter.”
----
“So what is it that brings you to England after all these years?” Harry asked to his companion, giving a quick smile to Rosmerta as she delivered their meal, leaving as quickly as she came, the Three Broomsticks brimming with customers. He turned back to his dining companion, wondering why he had come.
Emily accepted the small note from the owl that was perched on the nearby window and it flew away quickly. Harry thought it looked an awfully lot like one of Ron and Hermione’s owls. He watched as she scanned the letter quickly, a jot of disappointment marring her face before it was quickly replaced by a smile and she shoved the note in her purse, looking back up at Harry sweetly. “Business, as a matter of fact, with your friend, Ronald Weasley.”
She shot him a winning grin which he saw right through, but stayed silent, vowing to himself to check up on Ron as soon as they parted company. The idea that was Ron’s owl was not so ridiculous now.
“What about you, Harry?” She picked up her fork and looked at him sweetly. “What is it that brings you here tonight?”
“I came because you asked me to,” he answered shortly, taking a bite out of his sandwich. If he had been truthful, the best reason for why he had come was probably to get some good food.
“You were curious, weren’t you?” Emily seemed rather smitten with her deviousness and giggled a bit.
“I suppose,” Harry shrugged. It was half true. Aside from the food, he had been very keen on figuring out why Emily would have approached him again after all this time. “Why did you ask me?”
“To see if you would come of course!” She took a sip of water. “And you did!” She talked as if this was the most wonderful fact in the world.
Harry glanced at her over the rim of his mug of butterbeer.
“I see you haven’t changed one bit, though I can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Disappointed?” She gave him a very fake puppy dog pout.
Harry couldn’t hold back his disgusted look. “For years.”
“I see you haven’t forgiven me yet.”
“You haven’t given me much of a reason to.”
She twiddled with her salad, looking sad, but Harry felt no spark of sympathy for her. Taking a small bit, she chewed it quickly and swallowed. “Do you have a certain request that would give you a reason?”
Harry did a slight double take, but recovered quickly. He knew she had been trying to catch him off guard, no matter how innocent the act seemed. He cursed himself inwardly for showing a sign of weakness, however short it lasted.
“I doubt you would fulfill any of the requirements,” he said dryly, taking another bite of his sandwich. Merlin, it tasted good.
“I used to, don’t you remember?”
Harry chose not to respond.
“And to think, I was so nearly Emily Potter…” She giggled. “It does have a certain ring to it, doesn’t it?”
The rest of the sandwich in front of him suddenly seemed nauseating and he wanted to throw up. Emily Potter? Dear Merlin, where was this woman coming from? The mere thought of it sent a ton of unwanted images into his head. He brushed them aside quickly and got a hold of himself before she could relish in her triumph anymore.
“Having daydreams still, Emily?”
She smiled slyly. “Why don’t you call me Emmy again?”
He shrugged. “I don’t care for the name.”
“Well, you used to adore it.”
He stopped his drink right in front of his mouth and looked at her, annoyed. “Yes…that’s why.” He downed the rest of his drink. “Well, as enlightening as this conversation has been, I’ve really got to go.” He stood, throwing a few galleons on the table and starting to turn before he felt her hand reach out and grab his.
He paused, turning toward her with carefully concealed anger masked by a blank face.
“I’m sorry, Harry.”
If he hadn’t known her so well, he could have sworn he saw sincerity in her eyes.
“You think that makes a difference?” he raised a curious eyebrow.
“Well, I was hoping it would.”
He pulled out of her grasp. “I’m sorry too, Emily, but not towards you, towards myself. I imagine my life if I had never met you…and I wish every day that I hadn’t answered that phone call.”
He grabbed his cloak off the back of his chair and quickly left the pub, not looking back.
As he apparated back to his flat, he still wondered why he had gone.
----
Ron hesitated, his hand frozen in the act of knocking on the door in front of him. He could hear the sounds of the muggle neighborhood: birds chirping, children playing, lawn mowers running, and various other muggle contraptions.
Before he could finally make up his mind, the door swung open, an annoyed-looking Harry standing there.
Ron blinked once, startled, and in that second, Harry’s expression changed instantly to relief and he smiled at his friend.
“Ron?…hey. What are you doing here?”
Dropping his arm, Ron shoved his hands in his pockets and followed Harry gesture to step into the house. “Expecting someone else?” Ron asked wirily, trying to lighten the mood.
Harry had the gall to look embarrassed as he shut the door and waved the comment away. “I just thought…never mind.” He shook his head, leading Ron into the family room.
Ron allowed himself to smirk. Every time anyone was able to catch Harry Potter off guard was quite a personal victory. The smile disappeared, however, when he remembered what he had come here for.
“Harry...I gotta talk to you, mate.”
“Well, obviously,” Harry said with a smirk, sitting down in an armchair and tossing Ron a chocolate frog out of a nearby bowl. Ron caught it easily and took a seat across from his friend. “So what is it? You and Hermione get in a fight?”
“Err…not yet,” Ron said truthfully, fiddling with the candy, not really hungry.
Harry leaned forward, interested now. “Not yet? You must be getting pretty good if you can predict everything that she’s gonna get mad about.”
Ron shifted uncomfortably in his seat, saying nothing.
Being the best friend that he was, Harry’s face dropped, and the conversation suddenly became serious. “Ron?”
He couldn’t seem to find the words. His head fell into his hands. “Merlin, Harry…how am I going to get out of this?”
“It’s Emily, isn’t it?”
Ron’s head shot up quickly in surprise. “What?”
“Miss Lennon.” The name dripped with disgust and Harry’s face showed it. “What did she do?”
He just decided to come out and say it. “Blackmail.”
Harry, though, seemed surprised. “On you? With what?” Little did Harry know, his supposedly kind words were just making it harder for Ron It was true. Who would suspect the famous Ron Weasley of having anything in his life that would be enough leverage to blackmail him?
“The game in ’98.”
“But that was your first game as a starter…” the truth dawned on Harry’s face halfway through his thought. His expression showed amazement (the bad kind), disbelief and a slight amount of hurt. “Oh, Ron….you git. Tell me you didn’t.”
“They were going to make me sit on the bench another year, Harry! A year!” He stood up, running a hand through his hair and starting to pace, unable to look at his friend’s face anymore. “What would you have done?”
“I would have kept my arse on the bench!” Harry stood, his fuming gaze directed over to Ron who wouldn’t look at him. “What did you do? Knock off Daughterly and make it look like an accident?”
“He wasn’t hurt bad, just enough so that he couldn’t play! Besides, I just wanted a chance to show them that I could do it!”
“You told me that Daughterly splinched himself…” Harry’s accusing voice was cutting right through Ron.
“He did!”
“…on accident!” Harry finished. “You’re telling me you messed with apparition? Do you even have the spells and channels to do that?”
“No,” Ron huffed. “Lennon did.”
He could just see Harry’s eyes bulging. “What!?”
“He was our American investor! And the one giving us the most money! He tried to talk to Fallow to get me in to play, but Fallow insisted I needed more bench time.”
“You’d been on the team for three months, Ron,” Harry spat. “No one gets out of reserves that quickly.”
“Lennon needed us to win,” Ron continued, gritting his teeth. “Daughterly wasn’t good enough to go up against the Tornados-“
“And you were?” Harry interjected.
“Well, obviously!” Ron said instantly. “We won, didn’t we?”
Ron finally looked over at Harry who was staring at him with disgust. He finally sank back down into his chair, blowing out a sigh and running a hand through his messy hair.
“What does she have?” Harry finally said after Ron had gone back to his chair as well.
“What?”
Harry looked even more annoyed that he had to repat himself. “Emily. What does she have that proves you were in on this?”
Ron hesitated a moment. “A letter.”
“And what does she want you to do?”
“Loose Saturday’s game.”
Harry took a violent bite out of a chocolate frog and let out another heavy sigh as he chewed, closing his eyes and leaning back in his chair.
“You’re a bloody idiot, you know that?”
“Yeah…”
They were both silent and Ron, though relieved that Harry wasn’t yelling at him anymore, wondered what his friend was thinking.
“Well….no more than I am for getting involved with her in the first place…” he heard Harry mumbled before he spoke aloud to Ron. “You wrote her a note this morning?”
He didn’t ask how Harry knew about that. “Yeah…I told her I wouldn’t lose.” Ron felt the blood drain from his face as that reality slipped over him once more. “She said she’d give the letter to the press.” He suddenly turned pleading. “You’ve got to help me, Mate. I have to break this to Hermione before she finds out from someone else or worse, from the press.”
“Nah, Emily’s too sneaky for that,” Harry said quickly, leaning forward and looking at Ron again. “She won’t go to the press right away. She might even try to get you to reconsider. After all, Saturday is a long way away and she liked to see people squirm when they’re under her power...Believe me, I know.”
Ron wanted to ask why he knew, but reckoned that was a conversation for another time.
“We’ll get through this.” They locked eyes and Ron reminded himself how lucky he was to have Harry Potter as a friend, especially at times like this when he seriously looked like he could kick some arse. “She already messed up my life. I’m not letting her do that to you and Hermione.”
----
Ginny Weasley paced up and down her room, her mind muddled more than it was this morning when she was hung over, trying desperately to figure out why she was so interested in Harry Potter’s “lunch meeting” and wondering for the hundredth time why Harry wasn’t the one who was trying to give her a ring.
----
Nymphadora Lupin smiled to herself as she corked up two bottles full of love potion, being sure to keep them hidden from her husband as she snuck them away for two unsuspecting individuals. A third bottle had less desirable ingredients in it and was carefully disguised as an Evening Prophet and sent directly to the awful woman who seemed to bring to much grief into Harry Potter’s life.
----
Emily Lennon scratched angrily at the boils that weld up on her skin as she disposed of the Evening Prophet that had no doubt been tampered with by yet another person she had gotten the better of. She hastily rubbed on some soothing lotion that would get rid of the boils by morning and smiled as she fell asleep, thinking of her ingenious plans for the next day.
----
Ron Weasley held his wife close in the middle of the night, praying to all the gods that were that Fate would stop being so cruel to him and that Harry would be able to figure out something soon before everything Ron loved was threatened to be taken away from him.
----
Harry Potter couldn’t seem to concentrate very well that next morning and missed two appointments before he apparated home and started writing down ideas that he had to get that pestering woman out of his and his friend’s lives for good.
----
Remus Lupin would normally have been amused to see his best friend’s son looking so out of it during their meetings, but knowing that Emily Lennon was in town and was no doubt doing something to Harry again, Remus made it a point to talk to Tonks that evening and figure out what exactly she had put in that newspaper and how they could make the effects ten times worse.
----
Hermione Weasley wasn’t expecting visitors, especially since Ron was already gone for practice, but being the gracious host that she was, calmly smoothed out her shirt as she went for the door and put a smile on her face as she opened it. She did not, however, continue smiling as she saw Emily Lennon on her doorstep, grinning sweetly and inviting herself into the Weasley house before Hermione could even attempt to ask her to leave.
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A/N: If those ending passages didn’t make much sense, they will in the next chapter ;) Please review!