If the Fates Allow

Chapter 6

Falaf Alley

"It is a suicide to be abroad."

(Samuel Beckett)

"You know I've never been abroad, except for that one occasion when my family visited Bill in Egypt," Ginny said, resting her eyes on the thousands of little orange lights dancing on the dark surface of the river Danube. She and Harry had travelled on Buckbeak's back till sundown and decided to stop for the night so that the Hippogriff could gather its strength for the rest of the journey. Now Buckbeak was crouching under Harry and Ginny's table on the Fisherman's Bastion - Harry had shrunken him to a minuscule size so that they could carry him into the town without waking the Muggles' suspicion. The Hippogriff certainly had been Disillusioned.

"Then a bit of travelling was really overdue," Harry replied, taking a sip of the famous Tokay wine.

"Yes," she smiled. "And Budapest is really lovely... for example that bridge over there... it looks like as thought it had been constructed of little whitish pearls..."

"You mean the Chain Bridge? Yes, it's lovely."

"How do you know Budapest so well, Harry?" she asked curiously.

"I don't know it well, just been here once, trying to round up a member of the Ukrainian Wizarding Maffia. The bloke wanted to smuggle Ukranian Ironbellies into the country."

"And did you catch him?"

"No. Phaedra did."

"Oh... Phaedra," she said, looking slightly dispirited. "By the way, what will become of her now?"

"She'll follow us, I presume," he shrugged.

"Follow us?" Ginny blinked.

"Of course... Told you she wasn't the type to give upon me easily."

"But... but how can she follow you?"

"The Tracking Charm that still connects me to her," Harry replied. "But since it's getting weaker and weaker every day, I think she'll need a bit of time to find me."

"But... what if she still finds us? Will she prevent us from... you know what?"

"... from ending the effect of The Fates Charm? No idea. But don't worry, she'll always be some days behind us. By the time she gets to Hungary we'll already be in Greece. By the time she could catch up with us, we'll have set you free, Ginny," he gave her an encouraging smile.

However, she didn't really seem encouraged.

"And what about my husband?"

"You said he had left for weeks," he pointed out. "By the time he gets back to Malfoy Manor, you'll be free from him... hopefully."

"I'd like to be an optimist like you, Harry," she sighed.

"I'm no optimist at all," he answered. "I don't have much of a reason to look at life with optimism, but I do believe that your case can be solved."

At this moment a dark-skinned man dressed in red waistcoat, holding a violin stepped up to them.

"Akarja-e naccsád hogy elhúzzam a nótáját?" he asked.

"What?" Ginny looked at Harry.

"He's asking whether you'd like him to play something for you."

"Oh, tell him no, thanks."

Harry politely sent the gypsy musician away, then turned back to Ginny. "This reminds me that you need the all-language charm." He furtively glanced around to check that no one was looking at them (now he realised that they must have been sitting there so long that all the other guests had departed without them noticing, so now they were the only ones left on the terrace-restaurant of the Fisherman's Bastion).

He pointed his wand at Ginny: "Pange Lingua! Done. Now you'll understand all human languages and whatever you say in English, everyone will understand it in their own language."

With that Harry reached out for his spoon and carried on ladling his goulash soup. "So delicious! Much better than the one I ate at the Yule ball when Dumbledore started talking about himself finding a magnificent collection of chamberpots..." he looked up from his soup to see her eyeing him in a rather peculiar fashion. "What?"

"I was just thinking," she replied softly. "At the Yule ball I was dancing with Neville nearby when I heard the fake Moody tell you that you had nice socks and you said you had got them from Dobby... and it occurred to me: if Moody could see through your robes, could he see through the female students' clothes as well? And now... you have this special sight... can you see through clothes?"

Some sort of embarrassed grimace appeared on Harry's face. "Well... I could, I if wanted to. I just have to concentrate on wanting to do so. So don't worry, I'm not looking under your clothes all the time."

"Not all the time?" she gasped. "Well that's a relief!"

Harry held up his hands. "Hey, hey, that's not what I meant! I mean... let's rephrase it: I'm not doing it unless I feel like... er, wrong again, eh?" he pursed his lips. "Okay, Ginny, I haven't done it yet. Honest. I admit that at first when this charm on my glasses was new, I did occasionally check out some girls... but which bloke wouldn't?"

Seeing Ginny's sour expression, he put down his spoon. "Waiter, please! I'd like to settle the bill!"

Half an hour later Ginny was sitting in the hall of a two-star hotel, idly fondling the Disillusioned and shrunken Buckbeak on her lap.

"At last," she rose to her feet as she saw Harry return from the Reception. "I can barely keep my eyes open. Beaky's dozy, too, aren't you, Beaky?"

But the Hippogriff didn't answer - he had fallen asleep in her arms.

Harry guided Ginny upstairs.

"You know, after that luxurious dinner I thought you'd find us a better place for the night," she remarked sharply, still miffed by the thought of him being able to see through her clothes.

"Sorry, ran out of Muggle money. Don't think I wouldn't have been happier in the Hilton or the Intercontinental, but be happy that we got this room at all."

"We? In the plural?" she stopped in her stride. "This room? In singular?"

"Well," Harry tried to look apologetic, "they didn't have two vacant rooms, just one."

He opened the door of room number 114 and motioned her inside. "You can have the bed, I'll bunk down on the sofa."

After a nice warm shower Ginny nestled herself under the covers of the bed wearing only her camisole. She hadn't had time to pack clothes for the journey - after vanishing the éclair-cream off themselves she and Harry had immediately jumped on Buckbeak and left Britain to be able to escape before Phaedra decided to come back down from the room she had chosen at 12 Grimmauld Place.

She was listening to Harry's even breathing coming from the direction of the couch.

Controversial feeling were building in her - she was upset that she had had to leave London so quickly and without being able to say good-bye to her parents, but she was elated by the thought that this journey might end her misery and set her free. She was angry with Harry for his cockiness, vague answers and secretiveness concerning certain topics, but she couldn't help but feel sorry for him - he had obviously gone through much more and much worse things than she had. She wanted to be as far from Harry as possible instead of having to share a room with him, but something deep down also made her wish Harry hadn't been sleeping on the sofa, but in the bed, next to her.

* * * * *

Draco was sleeping in another bed, next to another woman in far-off Great Britain. It was already three in the morning when he got woken up by an owl tapping at the window.

"Wha...?" he blinked, rubbing his eyes.

The woman next to him groaned in her sleep as he climbed out of the bed and padded to the window, still half-asleep. "What the heck do you want?" he murmured at the owl and let it in. As soon as the owl had dropped its message on Draco's head, it took off and soared out of sight.

"What is it, Draco?" came a sleepy voice from under the blanket.

"Dunno," he growled, cursing the unknown person who had sent him a message at such an unholy time. "Go back to sleep, Pansy."

With a yawn he dropped himself on the bed and groped for his wand to get some light.

Dear Mr Malfoy, he read with bleary eyes.

I consider it my duty to warn you that your wife has just eloped with my husband.

Suddenly Draco felt wide awake, his eyes almost popping out at the last sentence:

If you wish to find her, contact me at the Leaky Cauldron,

Phaedra Potter

"P...Potter?" Draco breathed.

"What's that about Potter?" said Pansy. "Isn't the bloke long dead?"

"Obviously not," he grunted. "But he'll soon wish he were."

* * * * *

"Could you at least explain to me why we couldn't go by Floo or a Portkey?" Ginny asked irritably, clutching at Harry's midsection as they were crossing the air above Macedonia on Buckbeak's back. She was angry with him for not having secured her a separate bedroom, and even angrier for having treated her like thin air once they were sharing a room. Not that she would have expected him to hurl himself at her at once, given that he had recently lost a daughter and with the loss and grief filling his heart surely flirting couldn't be the first thing on his mind, but... she couldn't help feeling annoyed - he wouldn't even look at her in the morning when she was wearing nothing but a camisole... She had given him quite a look in the morning... she had never seen him in nothing but a pair of boxers, and had to admit that she felt a weird back flip in her stomach at his sight. He wasn't particularly muscular, never had been, but he no longer was as skinny as she remembered him being - perhaps Phaedra had been a good enough cook to fatten him up a bit, Ginny thought bitterly. Also she couldn't help noticing what a nice tan he had - he must have acquired it in Greece. She wondered whether she'd also look like that after their journey ends, or would her sensitive skin rather become red and sore?

"We couldn't have gone by Floo," Harry replied, "because Greek wizards don't use it at all. You know, pretty hot place, Greece. They don't really need fireplaces and those few who have one, don't have it connected to others'. Also the Greeks aren't too fond of Portkeys. Once, when they were besieging Troy, the Trojan wizards got this funny idea of sending them Portkeys disguised as treasure - they made the Greeks believe that they were trying to smuggle a cart full of treasure out of Troy to save it from the besiegers, the Greeks caught the cart, and were already happily dividing the booty among themselves when the Portkeys activated and they found themselves somewhere in the Antarctic. Ever since, Greek wizards have lost their liking for Portkeys and arranged a charm, which has never been revoked, to prevent Portkeys operating into or out of Greece. But at least the remainder of the Greek army found a way to get back at the Trojans and built that wooden horse of theirs."

After half a day of flying they reached Athens. It was already sundown when Harry made the Disillusioned Buckbeak start to descend near the Acropolis.

At this time there were few stragglers around, most of the Muggle tourist groups had already left, only some couples were sitting on the stone steps that lead up to the Parthenon.

"Best place for dates around," Harry whispered to Ginny, pointing at the couples cuddling beneath them, gazing at the glorious sunset.

With a thud their Hippogriff touched down on the ground, behind the temple. Harry lifted the Disillusionment Charm from Ginny and himself, but not from Buckbeak.

"Beautiful," the young witch said admiringly, looking up at the huge ancient building. "The Greeks were really great architects, weren't they?"

"Yeah, you have to give it to them - they were."

"Were all their buildings so white?"

"No," he shook his head, approaching some bushes behind the temple. "Actually their temples were brightly coloured, this one here, too. You know, covered with all sorts of paintings, but the colours have faded over the centuries. Well, here we are."

"Where?" she blinked, looking at the bushes in front of them.

Instead of answering, Harry squinted around to make sure that no one was watching and entered the shrubbery, followed by the bewildered Ginny. Camouflaged by the bushes there was a single piece of stone that looked like a statue of a pretty woman.

"Muggles can't see it, otherwise they would long ago have put her into their museum," Harry told Ginny over his shoulder and tapped the statue with his wand twice. Suddenly the stone statue sprang aside to reveal a cobblestone street that hadn't been there before. As though the street had opened from thin air, it seemed to be surreal to Ginny, much more surreal than Diagon Alley, yet it was there.

"Hello, Dite," Harry smiled at the pretty statue.

"Hi, Dean," the statue beamed at him in a coquettish sort of way. "Have a nice stay."

"Thanks, Dite," he replied and ushered Ginny and Buckbeak into the street ahead.

As soon as her feet touched the first cobblestone, Ginny looked back to see no statue or bushes anywhere, but a huge board with Greek letters that strangely she could interpret:

Welcome to Falaf Alley, built in 578 B.C. by Nikias the greatest Greek wizard cook ever! Best gyros restaurants at the end of the street, mousakas, kalamares and mbifteki everywhere else. Buy your wands at Agisitos', your brooms at Kalidermos', all sorts of potions and poisons at Aesculapius' (open 24 hours), everything else in the supermarket!

Harry looked back at Ginny reading the board with her mouth agape. "It's weird at first to be able to read and understand all languages, I know the feeling."

"It's... it's amazing, Harry!" she breathed. "I understood that statue, too... Dite, or who."

"It's short for Aphrodite," he replied. "Nice lady, very friendly."

"A bit too friendly, isn't she?" Ginny grimaced. "By the way, why did she call you Dean?"

"Told you that sometimes I needed to use pseudonyms," he shrugged and jerked Ginny out of the way of a wizard on a moped.

"What the...?" Ginny gaped at the receding figure of the wizard. "A moped???"

"Yeah, everyone's using mopeds in Greece, even eighty-year-old grannies. Wizards, too. You know, using Muggle vehicles is trendy around here. Really, really groovy."

"But... aren't they ashamed of using Muggle things?" enquired the young witch, who knew well enough what most wizards in Great Britain thought of her father because of his Muggle mania. Most of them thought Arthur was nutty and they would rather have died than to resort to using Muggle stuff. Such things were simply beneath their dignity.

"No. This is Southern Europe, Ginny, here people are much friendlier, much more outgoing and open than in the far north. You couldn't find a racist witch or wizard among the Greeks. Well... that's because you couldn't even find a pureblood witch or wizard here, they're so mixed. Did you know for instance that the first Greeks were mostly fair-haired and blue eyed? Now look around and show me a Greek with such looks. Bet you won't find one. They've mixed with other nations, mostly with Arabs so much that their average looks are black hair and dark eyes now. The same stands for the magical folks."

"I wish it could be like this in England... no racism," she sighed, but her sigh got suppressed by the rumble of her stomach.

"I presume a nice dinner is in order," Harry remarked. "Come, let's got to Nikias', the best around here."

"The gyros specialist?" asked Ginny, remembering what the legend on the board said.

"The descendant of the gyros specialist," Harry corrected her. "Nikias the first lived 2600 years ago... but ever since he won the first Greek cookery contest, all his descendants have been naming their firstborn sons after him. The current owner of the restaurant is Nikias the seventy first."

Harry led Ginny through Falaf Alley that she found really friendly with the little cafeterias and taverns on both sides of it, typical Greek music filtering out of them. Ginny jumped as she heard a mighty crash coming out of a tavern they passed by.

"Oh, just someone dancing syrtaki," Harry told her, and seeing her confused expression, he explained: "they tend to smash their glasses when dancing the syrtaki. 'Course the wizard restaurant owners are happier with the syrtaki dancers than the Muggles - they can say Reparo."

At the end of the street Harry paused before a building, cast the shrinking charm on Buckbeak (who was still Disillusioned) and entered Nikias' Gyros Tavern with Ginny.

The place was very cosy, smelled strongly of garlic and everything in it was blindingly white, except for the tablecloths that were white-blue checked. From a friendly little fountain in one corner, water came splashing into a small white pool.

Since it was past dinnertime, the restaurant was empty.

"Lucky it's open till midnight," said Harry. "Hello, Nik."

"Hi, Colin," replied Nikias who was a portly little man with a wide grin. "Nice to see you again. And who's this charming lady, eh?" he bowed slightly in Ginny's direction, then leant over to Harry to half-whisper to him: "Much prettier than the last one you brought here."

Nikias handed them the menu and left with a jovial smile.

Ginny sat down with an eyebrow arched at Harry. "So, Colin, what sort of women have you brought here before?"

Harry waved. "No one of any importance. Let's have a look at the menu, shall we?"

She nodded, somewhat miffed that he hadn't satisfied her curiosity. "Mousakas..." she read out, "what's mousakas?"

"Some stuff made of aubergine and ground meat baked into pasta."

"And kalamares?"

"Squid filled with rice and ewe-cheese."

"Ew," she commented.

"I suggest you try the gyros, that's what Nik's famous of, after all."

"And what's Aristotle's Favourite?" she asked, looking at the menu.

"I wouldn't want to try it if I were you," he replied.

"Why?" she pressed. "What's that?"

"Camel."

"Camel?" she gasped. "You must be kidding."

"Am not. The great Aristotle's favourite meal was camel." Seeing Ginny's disgusted face he had to chuckle. "That's still loads better than what people used to eat in ancient Sparta..."

"How very true," chimed in Nikias who had returned to take the order. "Those blokes used to mix pig's blood with salt and vinegar and call it 'soup'."

At Ginny's grimace the restaurateur continued enthusiastically: "The people of Athens had quite a low opinion of the Spartan cuisine. They used to say 'the Spartans are bragging about being the bravest nation in the world. Well, they must be right, if they dare eat what they cook.' Also, my ancestor Nikias the first always said that 'it's not surprising that the Spartans are so willing to die on the battlefield, death can only be better than eating their horrible dishes.' Well, have you chosen, Colin?"

"Er, yeah," Harry said. "Two gyroses, please, Nik."

"Best choice, Colin, best choice," the owner said and left for the kitchen.

"Now perhaps we could talk about my... case," Ginny said as Nikias was out of earshot. "I take it you haven't brought me to Greece just to entertain me with horror stories of the Spartans, have you? You said here we'd find a way to free me."

"Well, yeah," he said heavily. "At least I was hoping to find something here that might help."

"And may I know where we are going to start our search?"

But Harry didn't reply. He stiffened for a second, then rolled his eyes with an expression 'not this again' on his face.

Ginny had no idea what had happened - all she saw was a thin, slightly loony-looking chap walk into the tavern. Harry's back was turned on the door, but he might have seen it with his special, 360 degree vision.

"Aha! Dudley Dursley!" the chap yelled.

"Spiro," Harry turned around. "How did you recognise me from behind?"

"That untidy mess you have for hair is unmistakable," replied the bloke through gritted teeth and quickly dug his hand into his waistcoat, jerking out his wand.

Ginny gaped at Harry who was sitting on his chair lazily, seemingly not shaken by having a wand pointed at him.

"Ah, Ginny, let me introduce you Spiridion Papafotiu who's here to kill me."