Potter Professions

Cho leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. She moved her shoulders upward, backward, and forward, stretching muscles that had hardened during her work at the laptop computer. She repeated the little exercise; then, feeling herself finally relax, she opened her eyes again.

After a moment of motionless laziness, she reached in her bag for the phony. She pressed the topmost shortcut button and settled back in expectation of the well-known voice.

The voice didn't come.

This took her by surprise, very much so. The shortkey meant Harry's phony, but only at home in Carron Lough. Not getting an answer left two possibilities, either Harry wasn't at home, or he'd ordered his phony to play deaf.

She pondered calling him wherever he was, but then dropped the idea. If she got through, it would look as though she was controlling his activities even across this long distance. And if she was rejected again, she wasn't any wiser than before.

The large number of options how to respond to a call - or refuse an answer - was the most significant difference between a normal mobile phone and a phony, its magical equivalent as manufactured by Groucho Communications. If Harry had ordered his phony to play deaf, then Cho could think of three variations: deaf to anyone, deaf to anyone but his children, or deaf only to herself.

All phonies had the same rank and power in magical terms, meaning there was no way of overruling one phony by another, something Cho desperately wished for from time to time. So far, she had resisted the temptation to ask her engineers for a prototype with special powers. Right now, for instance, such a prototype could have told her exactly why Harry wasn't answering.

She couldn't really imagine an order to play deaf only to her own calls. The problems between her and Harry weren't that bad. Just a kind of low exchange frequency. Not really unusual for a couple after twenty years together. A temporary phase, probably.

Privately, Cho blamed Harry more than herself for their problems. She thought he was stuck in a moment of which he couldn't get out, as an Irish band somewhat more famous than Gabriel's had once phrased. At least she had the wisdom not to tell anyone her opinion.

Not in words, that was. Otherwise ...

One particular aspect was not her own decision, no matter how involuntary. It was mostly Harry's way to correlate a low exchange of words with something similar in terms of bodily fluids. Whether on purpose or not, it put some pressure on her - lack of sex made her testy, quite a handicap for someone whose patience wasn't world class even at the best of times.

For the last two hours, she had worked with her laptop computer, preparing for the seminar that would start here day after tomorrow, as well as for future seminars in other places. She had used one of the seminar rooms. Her suite with bedroom and living room would have offered equally good working accomodations, but she preferred the plain atmosphere in this workroom. And what was more, sitting here gave her a chance to meet a moderator, in case one of them came through these rooms.

Nobody had opened the door to look in.

It struck her as unlikely yet not impossible - very much like Harry not being at home in Carron Lough.

---

She stood up to have a drink at the bar. As she opened the door, another thought crossed her mind. Reuben Timball, the Resort Manager, might have told the newcomers not to disturb her. Of course she hadn't asked for that, but she had closed the door - he could have misinterpreted it that way.

He might have done so in particular if he knew a bit more about her position in the MABEL project. Well, by the time this first seminar in the new resort was over, he would know better than to read between lines she hadn't said.

Reaching the bar, climbing one of the stools which so nicely made up for her shortness, she realized that the bartender was the same Reuben Timball who just had crossed her mind - obviously a true multi-talent.

"A gin and tonic, please," she said.

Watching the man's quick movements, giving proof that he was a professional in this job, she couldn't stop herself asking, "Are you moonlighting in your own resort? As a bartender?"

"No, madam - "

The desired drink appeared in front of her.

"- what you see here is still the manager - same person, same job as a while ago. I took over Kenny's duty for a while, so he can have a few bites. He's doing double shift while the number of guests is still small."

Cho became aware that her question and what it implied had been quite insulting to a Resort Manager; in MABEL terms, this position ranked at the lower end of the top management. She was about to prepare for an apology when she saw the man's face change from the professional mask to an amused grin.

"But otherwise your observation was correct. I did moonlight as a bartender in the past, in the literal sense, and I liked it a lot."

She raised her glass like in a salute, apologized with her smile and her eyes, also with her voice when she asked, "In this case, wouldn't it have been most natural to open your own bar? Reuben's Retreat, or something like that?"

"Well, maybe so. Only I had more ambitions than just running my own version of Harry's Bar ..."

For a short moment, Cho wondered whether this man had used the first name of her own husband in a complex game of simultaneously hinting - I know who you are - and teasing - And I won't play Harry's role - then she relaxed. Apparently, the manager had simply referred to the most common name in the short list of famous bars.

"... my own version of a luxury hotel, except that this is no longer possible today, not outside a chain. And then there was this offer - it came closer to my dream than I could have dreamed of, so to speak."

"How's that?"

Reuben Timball made a gesture toward the visible interior. "This resort and the purpose it serves - that's like the best luxury hotel you can imagine, only with a clientele better than any luxury hotel can expect."

"Really?" Cho, herself a frequent guest in luxury hotels around the world, wasn't sure if she wanted to agree. "What's so much better in our own guest list, a few days from now?"

"In a normal hotel ..." Before Cho found the time and the energy to look disapproving because of this taboo term, Reuben showed a quick grin and corrected himself, "... in a real hotel, I mean, you always find a - well, let's call it a sediment layer: the unavoidable con man, the unavoidable whore - "

Cho laughed. "A MABEL seminar isn't exactly known as a chastity congress."

"No, certainly not, but they do it for fun and for free." The manager smiled. "Besides, these types of professionals I just mentioned are not the worst. Sometimes it's the rich young heir with his or her entourage - stupid, bad manners, and money buys everything."

---

Cho suppressed another flinch. Quite involuntarily, this man had quoted her own husband, with a remark that stung inside her still today.

"There's nothing wrong with being rich, and most of our guests have to be, but I want to see it combined with a bit of style, that's all."

"And you think our guests have it? Style?"

Reuben nodded. "Definitely. I don't expect a particular type - I mean, you can play even the rich stupid heir with a charming attitude - but if someone is ready to go through a four-week seminar for such a purpose as here, for me that's a sign of style. These boundaries are still wide enough for a variety of characters, but there's a lower limit. At least that's what I was told - concerning MABEL seminars, I'm a rookie."

Cho nodded affirmatively. If a seminar guest tried to just sit around and watch - something that would occur only among paying guests, as an attempt of ultimate snobbism - the moderators made a quick end to that, either by convincing the guest that it was worth a try, or by kicking him or her out. The contracts entitled them to that.

Reuben calling himself a rookie was a good sign. She had known it already, but she hadn't necessarily expected him to reveal his inexperienced state. In the course of this seminar, he would be informed about the true source of all magic that would be found in the seminar members, a task Cho liked to do herself.

Holding up her emptied glass, she said, "Would it violate your professional ethics to have a glass with me?"

"Actually, yes ..." Reuben pointedly glanced at his wristwatch, looked up, and smiled at her. "... but only as a bartender. In a few minutes Kenny'll be back, and then I might take you up on that offer."

"That's good," replied Cho. "In this case, we should use the time for a few business details - even if it seems a contradiction to discuss them with the bartender instead of the Resort Manager."

The man who held all these titles acknowledged the joke with a smile, and the hidden order with a nod.

"Say, did you see any of the moderators arrive? I wondered why nobody passed by in that seminar room I used as an office."

The manager shook his head. "No, madam, nobody."

With satisfaction, Cho noticed that the man didn't even try to express polite speculations about something he couldn't know - the habits of moderators at the eve of a seminar. Keeping her voice neutral, she asked, "Which connections do you have?"

"One with Vancouver Linkport, the other with Seattle Linkport. Both ways for both of them, which makes four cubicles altogether."

In the past years, linkports in many cities had started to offer portkey gates to temporary or small-scale customers. The Vancouver Resort here was a good example, renting two cubicles each in the two linkports, one for either direction of portkey jumps, then giving them back at the end of the seminar, after the last guest had left. Depending on the schedule for the next seminars, it might be more sensible to sign a permanent leasing contract, but the resort would remain a single-target contractor, in contrast to Magical Tours and other companies that offered travelling networks around the world.

Cho herself had apparated to this place. She had been here before, during the time when the resort was built.

"The cubicles are operative," said Reuben. "I check them every morning."

"Well, the official part doesn't start until tomorrow," admitted Cho, as a black man dressed in a white shirt with black bow tie and black trousers identifying him as the regular bartender came toward the bar. "So if they arrive late in the evening or even tomorrow morning, it's early enough." Cho nodded toward the newcomer. "Since this is obviously Kenny, may I extend my invitation to dinner?"

"That won't do," replied Reuben, "inviting me in my own realm. But I can turn it around, or so I hope, in particular since I can offer something that's not part of the official schedule."

"And what would that be?"

"A candle." The man grinned. "Which makes it a candlelight dinner, right? And I'm the only one who can do that, because nobody else knows where the candles are."

Again this boyish element. In a moment in which someone else might have talked about romantic music and them being alone in the dining room, this man simply knew where to look for a box of candles.

Very efficient, Cho thought. Aloud, she said, "I feel privileged. Please call me Cho."

* * *

For a few moments, Harry pondered the question Ron had asked. Then he took the letter again and read it for a second time. Looking up, he said, "The Delacroix family seem simple people, judging from the style of this letter. I can still imagine many reasons for a suicide, in particular if there's a lot of superstition in the corner of France where this Jean-Jacques came from."

"Not more than anywhere else," replied Ron. "The Delacroix are farmers from the Cotentin, which isn't exactly Wales" - he smiled - "or some other spooky corner of our homely island l'Angleterre. This is France, after all."

Yes indeed; Harry was fully aware of this fact and wondered for an instant why his friend told him something as obvious as that. But maybe one had to live here for twenty years before registering a fine difference in superstition, while for a Brit, moving to Ireland meant escaping the frying pan by jumping into the fire.

"I can still see other reasons," Harry said after a moment. "Being bullied by other students - your reports wouldn't show that, would they?"

"Usually not," admitted Ron.

"At any rate, the boy is dead and gone, and whatever it was, I wouldn't know how to find the true reason. I mean, if someone started an investigation, it would be someone in authority, right? So what could I do? Join them to sniff out the oddities?"

"I didn't ask you to do anything!" protested Ron. "I made a remark, that's all. And besides, such an investigation would be a waste of time. You wouldn't believe how tightly closed a school can become if some administration authority comes along to have a look! The day before, they wouldn't risk turning their backs to each other, but the moment they saw a Ministry official - "

"Which means it would have to be an undercover agent, right?"

"If we really wanted some results, yes."

Harry could remember some undercover agents. Snape had been one for years, his godfather Sirius only for months.

"What would be an undercover agent at a school?"

Ron gave him a look as if this had been a very stupid question. "A teacher, what else? Or a student," Ron chuckled, "except that your student days are over, my dear Harry Potter."

A teacher ... Harry wasn't a teacher, wouldn't know what to do, how to behave. The thought alone seemed ridiculous. Even so, almost against his own will, he heard himself ask, "What's required to be a teacher at this school?"

Rather than responding, his friend gave him another look, this time an expressionless one.

Harry paid back in Ron's own coin, except that it was more pretence than anything else. He knew, Ron would read the expressionless stare as a silent challenge, while in fact Harry felt rather uncertain about how to proceed, and whether to proceed at all.

Only after another moment of wordless glances meeting each other, it crossed his mind that Ron, his friend for a quarter century, might know him well enough to guess even his true motivation.

Eventually, Ron said, "It would be possible. Like every other school in Europe, they're screaming for more teachers. I could smuggle you in easily - under a different name of course, but that'd be the smallest - "

"Would you please answer my question?" growled Harry.

"Bit testy, aren't you?" Ron grinned. "That indicates a recent shortage of - " He stopped himself - the topic of sexual activity, or the lack of it, had been discussed some minutes ago, and a look at Harry's face told him that this was no time for wisecracks.

"Okay, okay - are you aware of the standard requirements for teachers in the European Community?"

"Hmm ..." Harry calmed down quickly, being aware of little more than his ignorance. "I have four children in school," he said, "but these systems are so different, maybe you should just give me an introduction. The short version, please."

---

Ron grinned, maliciously for an instant, as if this had been Harry's final mistake, asking a politician for a speech. But then he looked friendlier.

"The short version, then. A teacher must offer two courses, and these courses must belong to two different sets. A set is a collection of related courses ..." As Ron explained, all schools had to cover the mandatory nucleus of the European education program, while local enhancements were a matter of the respective school, city, county, region, or country. This nucleus consisted of six sets, and at least one course from each set had to be found in the schedule of every student, from the first to the last year. Any school, any student was free to consolidate a certain set as long as the basic requirements were met.

Language and Literature formed the first set, called LangLit for short. It contained all language courses, with the native language normally in first place.

"If the school is worth a sickle, they extend it by requiring one foreign language as the minimum," explained Ron. "That's true also for this school in Brest, which is just fine because English would be your most natural first course, right?"

Yes, probably. Harry felt a weird constriction in his stomach, a feeling he hadn't encountered for quite a while. It came suspiciously close to - well, anxiousness might be the most accurate term.

The second set contained two courses, Math and Computer Sciences. Here again, an ambitious school with a technical orientation would demand both of them from their students, while the school in Brest went for the standard only. It didn't matter, though; Harry couldn't teach either of them.

His skill was equally limited in the third set, Social Sciences, which included everything that could be called social in the widest sense. "History and Social Studies are the main courses here," explained Ron, "but stuff like Cooking, Sewing, or Do-It-Yourself courses also fall into this set." His expression made clear that it was here where hunters of the small efforts would find their luck.

Next came Environmental Sciences, which included the traditional sciences like Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. "There's a constant fight to establish Ecology as another one," reported Ron, "but the problem is - "

He stopped again, reminded by Harry's face that this had to be the short version, and continued with the last of the traditional sets, seen from a Muggle perspective. It was called Recreational Sciences and contained courses like Music or Arts, also Sports.

"This could be your second leg there," said Ron. "You did your weaponless combat arts long enough to meet the qualification for a Sports teacher. It might be a good idea to train a bit while - "

"Hey - wait a second!" Harry felt alarmed. "What about magic? Wouldn't this be my second - er, leg?"

"Normally, yes." Ron's face showed little pity - one of the reasons, as Harry darkly remembered, why he had selected this friend to call for help. "Magic is the sixth and last set, with Charms, Potions, Herbology, and Care of Magical Creatures as the four elementary courses. But for this school in Brest, magic is a mandatory course for every teacher. They don't ask for the top-level skill, which means any normal wizard or witch is sufficiently qualified, but you can't come along and say your second course is magic." Ron made a face. "If we could demand such a qualification from every teacher, we would have solved our most urgent problems, only ... well, not your problem," he added after another look in Harry's face.

"So, for me, English and Sports would be the combination, huh?"

"Right. And a different name, and" - Ron looked pointedly at Harry's forehead, where the double-lightning scar appeared as prominently as ever - "maybe something to hide this mark a bit."

Harry issued a short laugh. It sounded hollow in his own ears. "That's a crazy idea, Ron. I think we should forget it right away."

"Well ..." Ron shrugged. "You asked me, and you got an answer to your question. I didn't ask you to do it, to play teacher at the Ecole des Etudiants Magiques Gênés. But" - he inhaled deeply, to give a theatrical snort - "you could do it, there isn't the slightest doubt for me."

"No?"

Ron grinned. "If this was about regular spy work, Harry, I would call for the guys in the white coats right away. But this is about getting in touch with students - with children, in other words. Freaks without an exception, and that's your talent for sure."

Harry saw no reason to feel offended by Ron's remark. It was simply an accurate description of himself.

* * *

The hunt was on. The foxes were the hunters, or so they saw themselves, probably, charging after two bunnies. Only these bunnies weren't on the run, rested quietly on two bast mats, nonetheless being fully aware of the game.

Sandra lay on her stomach. Because Héloise, at her side, had turned onto her back a while ago, they were basically looking in opposite directions. For rabbits on the run, this would have been the only suitable position, while for the beach bunnies they represented here, the effect was a bit awkward - the poor boys around them never knew on which side to perform.

Consequently, they went from one side to the other, with the two girls in the center spot of this circle, and the overall effect was that of some teenagers playing a chasing game.

It matched Sandra's opinion fairly well. "Brain dysfunction from hormonal stress," she murmured while watching discreetly.

Héloise chuckled without opening her eyes. "I wouldn't say that. For what this is all about, they look clever enough. If I wanted a discussion about the complexity of all beings, I wouldn't be here."

This remark, in turn, gave Sandra a fit of laughter. "When was the last time you wanted such a discussion?" she asked after calming down.

"Ah, that's not the point," replied Héloise, who would, or would not, take offence from such a needling only by her own mysterious rules. "But listen, you make it too difficult for them. Why can't you roll over and close your eyes like I do? These are such shy animals, you must - "

"Don't you worry," Sandra said, interrupting her friend. "One of them just took all his courage in his hands. I guess in an hour or so, he will have made it to our place."

"Be nice," said Héloise. "Otherwise it takes them another day, and I don't need this merry-go-round any more than you do."

For once, Sandra agreed with her friend. Having watched the moment when the careful approach started, she got the impression that her heartfelt laughter had been the launching event.

While the figure in her view came closer, she wondered if she could - and should - play the capricious girl she wasn't, if only for practising. With Frédéric, it was neither necessary nor possible, while these boys might serve as involuntary training partners - as Héloise had said, they'd be lost and forgotten some weeks from now. Provided she could find the courage, and her decision how to behave.

Too late - here he came.

---

"Hello."

"Hello," replied Sandra, completely failing to create the lascivious look and the almost imperceptible hesitation that belonged to the role she just had pondered.

"Mind if I sit down?"

"No, why should I?"

Dammit! Why hadn't she replied something like, It's a public beach, isn't it? But the boy's question had baffled her completely, as if this was a cafeteria, empty tables everywhere, and -

"Well," said the newcomer at this moment, "you might have, and I didn't mean to be impolite." He sat down, crossed his legs. "But the way you laughed a moment ago - I thought, give it a try, even if I couldn't help but feeling it was our childish game that made you laugh."

"Well ..." Sandra couldn't avoid a giggle, with Héloise's words still ringing in her ears.

"Yeah, I know." The boy grinned. "Although, believe me, we could be even more infantile if there are no girls around."

Héloise chose this moment to open her eyes and roll over. "That's all right," she said, "as long as you can muster a bit more seriousness in our presence. By the way, I'm Héloise."

Sandra felt as if some grown-up had just arrived to take control.

"Hi, Eloise, nice to meet you." The boy shifted his glance again to Sandra, a reaction that struck her as a remarkable proof of composure. "Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself - I'm Zack, from Cleveland, Ohio."

"Hi, Zack, I'm Sandra. We both come from Paris, France."

"Really? Then how come I can hear California in your voice?"

Feeling pleased by such an attentive listener, Sandra revealed that she had indeed spent her first eight years in California and that her true home could be found in Ireland, while Paris was only correct in terms of school location.

Héloise, who hadn't spent days at this beach to play second fiddle to Sandra, started her own offensive. "Hey, Zack, are you the only one in your group who's courageous enough to talk with us?"

The visitor laughed. "It looks that way, doesn't it? But it's really simple why they're reluctant; I was sent to invite you, and now they're afraid to interrupt the negotiations at the worst time."

"Negotiations?" echoed Héloise. "That complicated? You didn't come to invite us for hide'n'seek, did you?"

"Nope." Zack showed the seriousness Héloise had requested a minute ago. "My ladies, I have the honour and the pleasure to invite you for a disco evening. This evening, actually, in the Starlight Palace - coolest place in town, hottest sound around, maybe you know it already."

They didn't, but they had heard about it. A former movie theatre, renovated and rebuilt as a disco. The owner had kept the old name, fitting badly to a modern disco but well known in this part of the island. According to Mrs Benedict, the Starlight Palace had a very bad reputation. The question was how to judge this judgement from a voodoo witch who considered a graveyard at midnight as having a good reputation.

Héloise had other concerns. "Before answering this invitation, I'd like to know who else is in on this party? How many boys, how many girls besides us?" Her glance flicked between Zack and Sandra, came to rest on the boy. "To make it short and clear - what's in for me? Do I have to buy a pig in a poke? Because from what I can see, you've made your choice already."

"Well ..." Zack smiled at Sandra before turning to Héloise. "My friend Neil is a presentable guy for sure - it's him I had in mind as your partner this evening, only I didn't want to make it look as if you had no choice."

"Any colour, as long as it's black, huh?"

"You know him?" Zack looked totally baffled.

"No, what I said was a - " Héloise stopped herself and smiled back. "Never mind, black is beautiful, the darker the better."

"You won't be disappointed," assured Zack, "Neil's as dark as the night, and if I'm not much mistaken, I can take this answer as an agreement - "

"Yes, you can," confirmed Héloise.

Sandra slowly recovered from her surprise about this unexpected switching of roles. Normally her friend was the primary target of any invitation, and she had to make do with what was left. It had been that way from the very first day at Beauxbatons, when they met Benoît and Frédéric. Not that she saw any reason to complain, not at all, more than once the leftovers seemed the better choice. It was just an unfamiliar experience, to be the first.

In contrast, Héloise responding without even asking Sandra was the common pattern. Here again, Sandra felt quite content to keep it that way because this was nothing other than playing to their strengths.

Zack still looked questioningly at her, and only now Sandra realized that he had not silently extended Héloise's "Yes" to herself.

"Yes, sure, me too," she hurried to say, feeling clumsy and not cool at all, in particular since she could feel her cheeks colouring.

"Great," said Zack. "Then - where should we come to fetch you?"

Sandra had her mouth already open to give him Mrs Benedict's address when her friend said, "Right here - and let's see how the evening develops before we're going to tell you our address."

"Gee, what a suspicious mind!" Zack grinned. "I just wanted to save you the inconvenience, that's all."

"That's kind of you. But it's no problem for us, none at all, actually." Héloise grinned back, not showing any intention to reveal their mode of travelling, which was apparating for Sandra and being summoned for Héloise.

"Okay, then, right here. Half past eight okay? See you, then." Having received a confirming nod, Zack rose and left.

Sandra wondered what Mrs Benedict would say. The kids should be no problem, not at that time of the day. But Sandra didn't expect great enthusiasm about this idea from Almyra's mother. Maybe Almyra's comment would have been more interesting. Only she wasn't here and couldn't put her veto against this invitation.

About one thing, however, Sandra felt sure: Héloise would send her home to Paris, to fetch some dress or other. Playing to their strengths, and one of her own strengths was apparating.

* * *

Fifty miles south of Tarragona, Beverly had said. The town closest to the campsite was Llamat del Mar, and the campsite itself was named after the beach, Playa de la Cantera. As Gabriel would find out later, this name simply meant 'quarry beach,' and the campsite was indeed located in an abandoned quarry.

But first he had to reach that place. His first apparition jump took him to Paris Linkport, a place he knew well. Checking the world map and the tables there, he found out that Barcelona was the right top-level target to reach Tarragona.

The next connection to Barcelona was due fifteen minutes from now. Taking the closest desk, he just barely got a ticket for this gate; apparently, lots of tourists were on their way to sunny Spain. He paid by showing his Global Network Card for the worldwide network of Magical Tours, the company which offered these portkey gates.

While not even this expensive card would have exceeded the family budget of the Groucho owner, not six of them for two adults and four children either, Gabriel knew that the Potter family didn't pay a single penny for their cards. It had to do with things his father had done in the times of the Death Eaters, when some of them had used Magical Tours as a source of income.

Still more it had to do with the help Magical Tours had received from Harry and Ray Purcell in the project which finally provided a portkey gate Muggles could use. It was the invention which catapulted Magical Tours skywards in terms of economical success. The company responded in several ways, one of them being lifetime network cards for Harry and his family. There weren't many of these cards around, and Gabriel had the distinct feeling that for him as a normal paying tourist the gate would have been booked out.

Arriving in Barcelona, he checked the timetables for connections to Tarragona. Ten minutes to the next one, and again he couldn't help but think it was the card that took him through. In contrast to seats in a train or aircraft, the number of passengers in a portkey gate wasn't really fixed. The portkey would carry fifty or five hundred people; the bottleneck was the time required by these people to step forward, enter a cubicle, and disappear from view. The portkey carrier - here Magical Tours - established time frames, defined official limits for the number of passengers per time frame, and instructed its employees to give or take a bit toward very important customers.

Like those with the lifetime network cards. Not a gold card, not a platinum card, no - just black and white. Noblesse in travelling.

Except that Gabriel couldn't warm up too much for this tourist industry. Being used to his individual style of personal apparition, he felt annoyed from the need for a public portkey. But apparition required knowing the destination, to remember it from the last time. So, for unknown destinations, he had to use other techniques the first time.

Coming out in Tarragona, he checked the timetables again. No Llamat del Mar.

Well, that was pretty much as expected - from what Beverly had told him, this town offered three shops, two cafeterias, and one gas station. Not a likely target for a profit-oriented portkey company, while the transport authorities still used vehicles as conventional as trains or buses.

Sitting in a bus for the lesser half of an eternity? No thanks.

His father would have used a broomstick in this situation. Gabriel preferred another technique - that of the sight limit jumps. It consisted of a series of apparition jumps, each of them toward something visible from the current position, aiming toward the direction in which the destination was expected - very much the same technique a scout with a compass would use.

He went into the book shop in the Tarragona Linkport and bought a map of the area, with a scale that showed even the smallest settlements. Armed with this information, he left the linkport.

He had no compass. The position of the sun would give him a first bearing quicker than anyone could cast the Four-Point Spell. Once outside the city, the coastline would be a better guide than any direction finder.

As it turned out, leaving the city was the most difficult part of his jump journey. After having reached the outskirts, he could settle to a jump ratio that was equivalent to a driving speed of about two hundred miles per hour. He knew because it took him twenty minutes to reach the town where the sign at the entrance said 'Llamat del Mar.'

The campsite was located directly at the beach, Beverly had said. Gabriel hadn't seen a campsite since the last town, so this Playa de la Cantera had to be past the town.

---

And so it was. He saw the former quarry first; from a distance it looked like a missing tooth in this landscape. Coming closer, he saw tents, mobile homes, and huts. Mostly tents - anyone who could afford more would find a better place than this ugly spot. Stones, smaller stones, and pebble - this site had nothing to do with the common image of beach holidays where fifty yards of finest white sand seemed the minimum.

He reached the main building in which the site administration would reside. Stepping inside, however, Gabriel found himself in a large bar that didn't leave much space for other rooms on the ground floor. Maybe there wasn't much administration here.

Not his problem. He had stepped in mostly to search for Beverly but now, seeing all these bottles, he became aware that he had spent the last hour in dry rooms first and full sunlight then. He ordered a soda, a can rather than a glass, so he could take it with him when looking around outside.

Not quite true. He emptied the first can where he stood, then ordered another one, feeling grateful for the fact that, since the last extension of the European community, even the Muggle currency was the same from Bulgaria to Spain.

Well, with the notable exception of England. Bloody Brits.

The barmaid, a young woman, examined him with open curiosity. She probably knew all the faces in this small campsite and, not having seen him before, wondered who he was.

He had ordered using Spanish - what he'd learned from Carlos and Esmeralda was sufficient to order a drink, especially in a bar where you could point with your fingers and say, "Esto." It wasn't enough to ask more difficult questions, so he met the barmaid's eyes and said, "Excuse me, do you speak English?"

Her face split into a wide grin. "Yes indeed, and much better than Spanish for sure." Seeing his wondering expression, she explained, "I'm a student from New Zealand on tour in Europe. This job is my way of financing the holidays. Actually, most of the staff here are students from other countries, and the Commonwealth is well represented, except what they have in common isn't exactly wealth."

She laughed joyfully about her own joke, making clear that this wasn't the time to worry about money. "I'm Susan," she added. "And you?"

"I'm Gabriel. Hello, Susan, nice to meet you."

"You sound very British, Gabriel. Say, did you walk all the way?"

With some bafflement, Gabriel realized that he had emptied the second can. "No," he said, "I wasn't exactly walking ..."

Susan smiled. For her - most likely a Muggle - his words probably sounded like a good imitation of her own joke.

"... but yes, I'd like another soda."

While serving his third can, Susan asked, "And what brought you to this wonderful place, Gabriel?"

"I'm supposed to meet a girl here. Her name is Beverly." He paid, then took his can.

"Beverly?" The young woman examined him again. "Yes, I know a Beverly, only she's a bit old for you. And besides - "

"There's Cameron at her side," completed Gabriel the sentence.

The young woman, apparently raised by New Zealand standards of ladylike behaviour, broke into another trumpeting laughter. Then she said, "You might find them outside at the beach; nobody's in the tents at this time of the day."

Checking the large clock at the wall above the entrance, Gabriel realized that he had won two hours while travelling - one from Bulgaria to Paris, another one from Paris to Barcelona.

Susan pointed. "Through the building, then just follow the path. If she's there, you won't miss her - this isn't Ibiza."

"Yes, that crossed my mind too," replied Gabriel.

The barmaid chuckled. "If she's not there, just come back, will you? You have a funny way of talking. And that accent - I could listen for hours."

Gabriel gave her a sharper stare - he wasn't entirely sure whether she was making fun of him, because what he'd just heard sounded very much like making a move. A ridiculous thought, after all.

Susan held his stare. "It's true," she said simply. "No joking."

"Ah, okay. Sorry ..." Gabriel blushed, suddenly feeling embarrassment. "Well, then ... I think I'll have a look." He almost moved backward while speaking.

"You do that," was the answer that dismissed him sufficiently so he could turn and walk forward.

* * *

When Alain called that it was time to return home, Esmeralda only had to jerk her head a bit while meeting Bolo's watchful glance. The German shepherd understood at once. He came up and trotted closer; after six years of living together, dog and mistress understood each other without words.

It had been another beach where she and Bolo met for the first time. Some weeks before that, she had lost her second parents. And some days before that afternoon at the beach of Carron Lough, the young German shepherd, at that time still answering to another name, had lost his previous owner. Two lost souls meeting, feeling this inaudible Click in which their hearts had connected.

In the evening then, the dog had received his new name - Bolo, which was Spanish for ball and referred to the dog's favourite game, chasing after a tennis ball.

The dog's former owner had been the person responsible for the death of Esmeralda's second parents. Esmeralda knew it from the very first moment. She wouldn't forget this fact, but it didn't matter. Just one of those coincidences life had in store for little Mexican girls. The dog was the last to blame.

Three-year-old Felix toddled in the dog's direction. Bolo sat down, patiently awaiting his clumsy caresses. When the boy reached the dog, leaning in to hug him and to bury his face in the fur, Bolo waited until the face came up again. At this moment, a large pink tongue quickly washed over Felix' face, raising a happy giggle in response.

Watching the scene, Esmeralda felt like cuddling the boy on and on. She had done the same often enough - burying her face in the fine-haired fur of this German shepherd. Only she hadn't giggled, at these times.

Warming up to her new family and opening her heart to the people in Carron Lough had been a long and painful process. Not because they made it difficult for her. Not because she didn't want to, oh no.

But for all little five-year-old Esmeralda knew, she only had to start loving someone to seal his death. It had been that way with her first parents. It had been that way with her next parents, Ramon and Marie-Christine. By some inattentiveness of a bad fate, Carlos stayed alive - the topic of many a nightmare that made her come awake with a jolt, panting and drenched in sweat.

And then the new people. Gabriel with his pan pipe, this pipe that found its way to her inner core so easily, a soft arrow, slow but obstinate. She could sit for hours next to him, silent, not moving a muscle. She would die before confessing aloud what she felt, before exposing him to her bad fate - until one day, he put down his flute, grabbed her and slung his arms around her to whisper, "I know why you don't dare to tell me. But that's okay, I know anyway."

Since then, she could come to Gabriel and take his arms to put them around herself. A kind of pretense-not-to expression of her feelings for him. But she still had to say the words for the first time.

Or the one who arrived at her bed often enough, only moments after she had come awake from one of her nightmares, offering a fresh pair of pyjamas just before the cold sweat would start feeling chill. He also had appeared out of nowhere in this linkport, at the evening of her last parents death, to fetch her and Carlos, to take them home - what had been their home until this evening that changed everything.

Calling him dad or daddy - or pap, the Spanish form - had taken years, and it had happened involuntarily the first time, a slip of the tongue that caused her almost a panic attack because for sure her bad fate had listened right at this moment. Harry had offered to hide on the other side of the globe - for a week or so, until her fate would forget about this little accident. With this and similar remarks, he had made her superstition a public fact, the first step in the process of overcoming them.

---

With Sandra and Cho it had been simpler. Esmeralda looked up to Sandra with a feeling of awe - totally free of anxiety but awe nonetheless. Sandra, in return, treated her as a little sister who came as a present of fate. They both agreed that fate was nothing to joke about, nothing to be careless with, and Sandra taught her how to fight fate in her thoughts and feelings - another milestone in this long process.

Cho was the simplest, in a way. It had taken Esmeralda only weeks to realize that Cho suffered from her own fate - being forever torn apart between her love for her family and her ambition as a businesswoman. This kind of permanent punishment looked severe enough - fate would not spoil it by killing Cho prematurely - so Esmeralda felt it safe to express her emotions toward Cho earlier than toward anyone else in the Potter family.

Alain called, "C'mon, folks, get moving - I'm so hungry, I could bite pieces off this prettyprat here ..." He grabbed a giggling Elaine. "She isn't the smallest but I'm sure her flesh is more tender than Felix's."

His smallest sister took it as the greatest compliment ever.

Alain looked at the group of Esmeralda, dog, and boy. "Aside from the fact that I know someone who'd rip pieces out of my flesh if I even made a try at Felix."

Esmeralda heard one of the twins say to Carlos, "I wonder if he really meant Bolo," and took it as her own version of the greatest compliment ever. She reached for her porty and knelt in front of Bolo and Felix. "All right, you two, hold tight."

Felix knew the drill; his right hand grabbed some of Bolo's fur while his left hand came to rest in Esmeralda's outstretched right one. The dog simply looked attentive.

Esmeralda put her left arm - the one with the porty in hand - around the dog. "Five ... four ... three ... two ... one ... go!" She pressed the button for the Weasley bungalow.

A short moment of a feeling words could not describe, except that the three of them together remained a discernible facet in this whirling caleidoscope. Then the world stabilized, revealing itself as the garden of the Weasley residence.

Soft pops around indicated the arrival of the other portkey travellers - Bernard, the twins, Carlos, and Alain with Elaine as the last. When programming the porties, Harry had put safety distances of twenty feet and more between the destination spots. Not because he felt the need for them, just for Janine's - and maybe Cho's - ease of mind.

Esmeralda had made a few steps, small ones with Felix at her side, when Bolo sniffed something on the ground just in front of her. He started getting excited, followed a track perceptible only for dogs, and ran toward the house, nose tightly over ground.

Esmeralda had a kind of premonition. Losing patience with the slow-pacing Felix, she heaved him into her arms. "Come on, sweetie, we've got a visitor."

The boy, about to protest because he preferred walking on his own unsteady legs, became infected by the expectation, and craned his neck to watch the dog's and their own approach toward the house.

Esmeralda opened the door for a whimpering and scratching dog, and followed as quickly as she could with the boy on her arm. She went into the living room, where a panting dog attempted to lick the visitor's face.

"Daddy! ... What's wrong? Why are you here?"

Esmeralda put down Felix, reached her father, was hugged, and only when she heard that no, nothing was wrong, he just hadn't known what to do alone at home, could she return the embrace.

Janine knew about her ravenous adolescent son who invested all this food into height rather than fat, so she was nearly ready with the supper. By the time everybody had welcomed Harry, they could sit down at the large table in the dining room.

The Weasley children took Harry for granted, or if not, they were too polite to ask. Esmeralda wasn't. "Are you staying longer?" she asked her father.

"No, I don't think so," came his reply after a moment's thought. "Ron has something that looks like a job for me - it's not decided yet, but if I take this job, the days will be too short to get prepared for it."

---

"What is it?"

Esmeralda was used to watch the glances between adults, most notably parents, when they tried to run a wordless discussion about how much they should reveal to their children. Funny how, at some point between the age of twelve and that of parents, the knowledge was lost that they might as well spit it out at once, simply because these glances alone had betrayed them. But Harry went farther than any parent she knew, and usually revealed everything.

"There's a school where strange things happen, and nobody knows why. If I agree, I'm going to work as a teacher there. Of course under another name, and with a bit of disguise."

Hearing this keyword, one of the twins called, "You're a teacher in disguise then!"

Apparently this was a reference to the term devil in disguise, which had to be quite familiar to the twins. Even so, Esmeralda couldn't help but think that the one year between herself and the twin girls meant a lot, sometimes - she wouldn't utter such stupid remarks, or did no longer if she ever had, which she doubted.

Just then her brother asked, "Can we come with you?"

"What?"

Many eyes were staring at Carlos, who held his glance fixed on his father. "We've been talking about Hogwarts, and about these houses. Carole told me that there were even real twins who got separated into different houses."

"Yes," confirmed Harry, "Padma and Parvati. So?"

"We don't want to be separated into different houses."

Harry laughed. "So tell the Sorting Hat what you want. I always had the impression it's a reasonable hat, and listens to preferences. He did so in my case."

True, thought Esmeralda, who knew this story as well as anyone else in this room. But Harry was Harry, while other students might find it harder to talk that hat into a different opinion.

"And besides," said Carlos, "if strange things happen in this school, and you want to find out, you need help from the student side. And if you have us ... We would have to be disguised too, of course ..."

After a quick glance to Esmeralda, Harry looked at his son again. "Say, is this a gene in the Garcia line? This criminalistic impulse?"

Carlos' eyes lit up in pride. His real father, Ramon Garcia, had been a lieutenant in the Los Angeles Police Department before being hired by Cho as the head of Groucho Biochemicals.

"Although I wouldn't know how to manage the disguise in your cases," said Harry, "because this is a school for magically handicapped children. If you two are magically handicapped, then I'm a squib."

Most of the Weasleys laughed. Carlos didn't, nor did Esmeralda, who was fully aware that their father tried what he could to joke his way out of a corner he could smell miles ahead - the corner of a promise to his children.

Totally unaware of her own mercilessness, she decided to nail him. "But we can't be separated into different houses," she said into the fading laughter.

Her father's eyes signaled her that the two of them understood each other. "The Sorting in Hogwarts is one thing," he said, "and me playing teacher is another. I don't want to mix them up unnecessarily." Having failed his escape with jokes, he tried with rationalizing.

Esmeralda closed the corner shut. "If this stupid hat separates us into different houses, will you help us?"

Total silence around the table. Quickly as ever, the Weasleys had caught on to what was going on between father and daughter.

Years ago, in the first month after her arrival in Carron Lough, Esmeralda had received a promise from Harry. That he would be there for her, should she be in trouble. He hadn't promised anything unrealistic, had said he had to be alive for that, which meant it was deadly serious. In response, she had promised never to misuse this promise. Then he had declared this their "mutual obligation," after explaining to her what it meant.

Feeling his eyes, which had darkened, in her own, she held his hard stare. She knew what she did, she knew what it would mean to Carlos and herself. She hadn't misused his oath.

"Yes," said Harry eventually. "If you are separated into different houses, which isn't acceptable, I'll come to help."

Author's Notes: The Irish band Cho didn't bother to call by its name is 'U2', and the quoted song title is 'Stuck in a moment you can't get out of'.