Another City, Not My Own

"ANOTHER CITY, NOT MY OWN"
Chapter Six
"The City Of Latrece"

Flying over Latrece, unseen in his Invisibility Cloak, Harry stared in wonder at the labyrinth of streets below. The city seemed to have been built inside a giant punch bowl of land. It was encircled on three sides by a series of mountainous hills, and bordered to the south by the azure sea. The sky above the city was a clear blue dome stretching over the basin from one side of the city to the other.

The presence of the warm climate was apparent here. The entire city seemed to have been baked in the sun. The buildings and houses below had an earthenware look about them, as if they had been fired in a kiln. Harry looked down on a montage of wedge-shaped red-tiled roofs, sparkling windows, and russet, tan, beige, white, and flesh-colored walls, stretching out in all directions. In the surrounding neighborhoods, he saw broad, tree-shaded avenues, gatherings of modern multi-story skyscrapers, and city parks with clusters of trees and long stretches of green grass. There were cone-shaped church spires, museums and libraries, shops and restaurants, townhouses, and little squares and courtyards with small fountains in their centers. An express highway--the Auto-Route as it was called in France--threaded its way like an artery through the heart of the city, broken in several places by traffic tunnels that disappeared underneath the streets.

The hills that circled the city were large, craggy rocks over a thousand feet tall, with sheer cliffs and precipices along their sides. They were covered with expensive villas and dotted with landscaped gardens, with steep winding paths moving down the hillsides through cultivated gatherings of trees and shrubs. On some of these hills, Harry saw tiny vineyards and olive groves perched on remote ledges, or planted along near-vertical rock faces hundreds of feet in the air, so that the olive trees and vine stakes seemed to stick out almost perpendicular to the side of the cliff. He was sure that no one but a professional rock climber would be able to reach these plantings in order to bring in the harvest. He stared at the hills surrounding the city, wondering which of these jagged peaks might contain the Chateau Malfoy.

A wide, tree-lined avenue with three lanes of traffic cut its way through the city just below him, moving south towards the sea. The street signs announced that this was the Boulevard de la Soleil. As Harry flew over the street, he saw that it was lined with fashionable clothing stores, jewelry shops, leather boutiques, chocolatiers, art galleries, fine restaurants, and emporiums offering the best silver and glassware. He noticed many famous names on the awnings hanging over the shop entrances: Chanel. Gucci. Cartier. Valentino. Christian D'Or. Louis Vuition. Hermes of Paris.

This looks like the "If-you-have-to-ask,-you-can't-afford-it" section of town, Harry said to himself. You could clean out your Gringotts vault shopping along this street.

Everywhere, he saw signs of the Carnival. There were viewing stands for the Carnival parades set up along the sidewalks on both sides of the street, with wooden benches rising up several levels. Flower bouquets hung from the shop entrances, and streamers and banners had been stretched over the street on long ropes. A team of white-uniformed street cleaners strolled along the boulevard, sweeping up food wrappers, beer cans, popped balloons, confetti, ribbons, feathers, flower stems, beads, plastic horns, and discarded masks left over from the previous night's celebration. They looked, Harry thought, like snow shovelers cleaning up after a snowstorm as they scooped up huge piles of trash with their enormous long-handled brooms.

Harry followed the traffic south through the city, staying well above the street so the pedestrians below would not spot the handle of his broom sticking out from underneath his Invisibility Cloak. It was strangely quiet on the Boulevard de la Soleil this morning. Only a handful of cars ambled down the boulevard, accompanied by occasional mopeds and motorbikes. The traffic seemed unusually light for a street that was obviously the city's main center of commerce and business. Harry wondered if this had something to do with the Carnival. Perhaps many businesses in the city were closed today for the Mardi Gras celebration. Or perhaps, he thought, everyone in Latrece was still sleeping off their hangovers from the night before.

When he reached the end of the boulevard, Harry once again found himself facing the deep blue mantle of the Mediterranean. The morning sun flashed across the water, and the sea flowed, calm and tranquil, all the way to the horizon. To his left, facing east into the sun, Harry saw a crescent-shaped beach, about five miles long, stretching down the length of the coast. It was a long, golden strip of sand, with several large boat landings sticking out into the water.

Running alongside the beach was a long, wide walkway. To call this walkway a "sidewalk" would have been an understatement. It was wide enough that a pair of double-decker buses could have easily driven down it side-by-side with room to spare. It was paved with sandy brown bricks laid out in zigzag patterns. It was quite clearly a "promenade." There was no other word to describe it.

This is the Promenade de la Plage

, Harry thought, looking down the beach. And that long walkway is the "promenade" that gave the street its name.

He had read somewhere that the French Riviera had become a vacation hot spot in the late 19^th century, when celebrities such as England's Queen Victoria had spent their summers there. It was the age of the Belle Epoque, when it was fashionable to "see and be seen"--that is, to stroll around in the latest fashionable clothes and see what everyone else was wearing. The Promenade de la Plage seemed to have been set up specifically for this purpose, as a place to walk, to stroll...or to promenade in the sunshine!

A wide four-lane avenue ran past the promenade, with two lanes of traffic moving in each direction, separated by street islands full of palm trees. The street was lined, as Fleur had said, with massive hotels looking out onto the sea. There were huge 19^th-century Victorian palaces stacked up like wedding cakes, and modern luxury hotels with shining glass walls and enormous swimming pool terraces along their sides. All the hotels were gleaming-white and looked as if they had been carved from pure enamel.

The Vieux Port, or Old Port, was to Harry's right, on the western end of the beach. It was a square-shaped port about the size of a football field, with an E-shaped marina floating in the center. Hundreds of boats were tied up at the marina. There were enormous white pleasure yachts, tall-masted sailboats and schooners, sleek powerful speedboats, classic wood-paneled motorboats, fishing boats loaded with trawling nets, and even small tarp-covered catboats and dinghies. Still more boats were tied up along the square of docks that ran around the inner edges of the port. A group of ancient, red-ochre townhouses stood on the quay at the far side of the wharf.

There were several small ships sailing in and out of the Vieux Port through a narrow entrance channel that opened onto the Mediterranean. The entrance channel was bordered on one side by a man-made jetty of huge boulders, each about the size of a small car. A huge luxury cruise ship was anchored just outside the entrance channel, with four tall sailing masts rising up from its lengths. And...wait a minute! Was that a pirate ship tied to the jetty?

Harry stared at the ship in disbelief. It was definitely a perfect three-masted Spanish Galleon, complete with crow's nest, portholes, webs of rigging, a mermaid figurehead, and a tattered skull-and-crossbones flag hanging from the bowsprit. It resembled the Durmstrang ship, except that it looked almost brand new. Harry half-expected to see Blackbeard or Long John Silver come striding out of the captain's cabin and take command of the helm. But the decks of the pirate ship--if that was what it was--were completely deserted. Not a buccaneer in sight.

Maybe it's some kind of tourist attraction,

Harry thought, and it's closed now. Maybe it opens for business later in the day.

He looked back down the Promenade de la Plage. Fleur had told him to follow the Promenade east from the Vieux Port, until he came to a restaurant called Bertani's, next to the Hotel Bardeaux. Harry turned his broom and flew east down the street, soaring over the palm trees in the center of the boulevard.

A fresh morning breeze came in off the sea as he flew over the street. The beach was deserted of sunbathers--not surprising since it was early March, the "off-season" in the tourist cycle. And while it was very warm this morning, it was still too cold at this time of year for sun worshippers to take to the beaches for a tan. Harry could imagine these beaches during the blazing hot summer months, crowded with bronzed muscle boys and bathing beauties (most of them wearing, he reminded himself with a wry smile, heavy applications of coconut oil and not much else). Only a handful of pedestrians were on the promenade at this hour, mostly strollers and joggers, along with a few street vendors setting up tables full of souvenirs and trinkets, and sidewalk artists setting up large easels to display framed paintings for sale.

Harry looked across the street to his left and found the Hotel Bardeaux, a huge Victorian citadel with white corner turrets, each topped by a peach-colored dome. It looked like a cross between a French monastery and a Moroccan fortress. The name of the hotel, Le Bardeaux, was displayed in marquee letters above the entrance. There was a circular driveway in front, with a number of expensive cars parked on it. A doorman in a red uniform waited by the entrance, and bellhops were hosing down the sidewalk in front of the hotel with long rubber hoses. One of the bellhops pointed the stream of water from his hose into the air, creating a perfect rainbow in the morning light as Harry flew over.

Just past the Bardeaux, on the corner of a street marked Rue du Jean Robie, was a small restaurant with an outdoor patio full of tables and chairs. The marquee over the restaurant's entrance read Bertani's.

Jackpot! Harry thought.

* * *

Harry turned at the corner of Rue du Jean Robie and flew up the street until he found a deserted back alley where he could land and take off his Invisibility Cloak without being seen. He came down slowly into the alley, hopped off his broom, and quickly stepped out of the cloak. Laying his Firebolt against the wall, he took off his backpack and carefully put the folded Invisibility Cloak inside.

He checked his watch, and had to blink a bit to focus his eyes. It was 7:30 AM. He had been flying for almost twelve hours now. Neville's warning had been right--once the effects of Jittercress Tea wore off, you felt extremely tired. Pulling his backpack on once more, Harry picked up his Firebolt and stepped from the alley.

He must have been more exhausted than he thought. A series of right turns through alleys crowded with piles of bagged trash brought him back to the same alley from which he had started. He looked around, completely lost. Then suddenly, he heard something moving nearby. He turned a corner and saw a burly French garbageman throwing large plastic garbage bags into the back of a pickup truck.

Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out the French phrasebook that Hermione had given him. He flipped through the pages until he found a section marked, "How To Ask For Directions."

He walked up to the garbageman and read from the book. "Uh, pardon, Monsieur? Uh, pour aller au, uh, Bertani's Restaurant, s'il vous plait?"

The garbageman looked at Harry, then pointed down the alley. "Oui, ce n'est pas loin d'ici. Continuez tout droit et le restaurant sera sur le gauche."

Harry stared at the man, completely bewildered. He stupidly thumbed through the pages of the phrasebook, searching for a translation, then looked at the garbageman again.

"Merci," he said, feeling like an idiot.

The garbageman nodded and went back to throwing bags of trash into the back of his truck. Harry looked at the French phrasebook, disgustedly. It was great for telling you how to ask questions in French but totally useless when you had to translate the answers.

He decided to follow the alley back down in the direction that the garbageman had pointed. It turned out that he wasn't too far off the mark--he should have turned left instead of right when he'd come out of the alley before. Soon he was back on Rue du Jean Robie, walking down the street towards Bertani's with the sun-blazed Mediterranean spread out before him once again It felt good to be out from under the Invisibility Cloak.

The outdoor café in front of Bertani's was crowded with wrought-iron tables and chairs. It was bordered along the sidewalk by a small cast-iron fence. On the opposite side of the patio was a low brick wall with flowers planted along the top. A gray-haired waiter stood in front of the restaurant entrance, putting champagne bottles into a large tub of ice. Harry looked around at the empty tables, but saw no one tossing a coin in the air. Whoever it was that Fleur wanted him to meet here had evidently not arrived yet. He strolled across the patio to the waiter. "Pardon. Excuse me?"

The waiter must not have seen Harry until that moment. Startled, he accidentally popped the cork on the bottle he was holding! Champagne spurted out of the bottle neck and covered the waiter's hands.

"Oh, pardon, monsieur. Je vous ne vu pas!" said the waiter.

"Uhh, sorry," Harry said. "Er, parlez-vous Anglais?"

The waiter wiped his hands on a white towel. "Oui. You are English?"

"Yes. Er, I'm supposed to meet someone here at the restaurant."

"Ah," said the waiter, nodding. "You rendezvous with a friend, eh? Sit down, s'il vous plais. I get you something? Coffee, perhaps?"

"Uhh, yes. That'll be fine."

The waiter disappeared into the restaurant. Harry looked around the patio, unsure of where to sit down.

A pair of loud voices sounded behind him. Harry turned and looked in through the window, trying to see what was going on past the lace curtains. Some kind of argument seemed to be taking place inside the restaurant! Suddenly, to his utter shock, a egg thrown by someone in the restaurant smacked against the window on the other side of the glass, right next to his face!

Well, that'll teach me to be curious!

Harry thought. He quickly turned away from the window and sat down at a table next to the low brick wall.

He took off his backpack again and placed his Firebolt against the table edge. The only other person at the outdoor café at this hour was a thin, slightly-stooped man in his mid-thirties, sitting at a table next to the cast-iron fence. The man had dark brown hair and tortoise-shell glasses, and was smoking a pipe. He looked over at Harry with a sly smile as he slowly typed on a laptop computer. Harry felt a chill pass through his body. For some unexplainable reason, he felt as if, at that very moment, the man with the tortoise-shell glasses was writing about him!

He quickly turned away, toward the brick wall--and was startled to see small eyes and faces peeking out at him from behind the flowers on top! High-pitched giggles sounded from the other side of the wall. There were children there, Harry realized. There must be a nursery school or a day-care center next door to the restaurant. He heard an adult female voice calling to the children in French.

Sure enough. A minute later, a group of pre-schoolers marched by on the sidewalk in front of the café. They were led by a tall, smiling woman with long golden curly hair. The woman was dressed in an enormous pink ball gown, and was directing the children, to Harry's surprise, with a silver magic wand (obviously fake) topped with a large star. On her head, the woman wore a large silver crown made of tinfoil, like a queen's crown.

The children, Harry saw, were also dressed in formal costumes. The little girls wore colorful ball gowns, and the little boys wore strange-looking topcoats with bow ties. Some of the boys even had small, curly moustaches drawn on their upper lips with eyebrow pencil. Harry didn't understand what was going on until two more women walked past the café, following the children. One was dressed as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, in a blue-checkered dress and ruby slippers, with black pigtails and a basket on her arm. The other was dressed as the Wicked Witch of the West, in a black cloak and pointed hat, with her face painted green.

They must be dressed for the Carnival,

Harry thought. The kids are all dressed up as Munchkins. And the woman in the pink dress is Glinda, the Good Witch of the North.

As the children passed by the café, a little dark-haired girl, who had been among the group peeking over the wall, tugged on Glinda's dress. She pointed to Harry, sitting at the table with his broom, and said, "C'est-il un bon sorciére, ou un méchant sorciére?"

"Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?"

Harry looked up, startled. The waiter was standing next to his table, holding a tray with a cup of coffee, a sugar bowl, and a small pitcher of cream.

"S-sorry?" Harry stammered. "What did you say?"

The waiter pointed to the children. "Zat is what ze little girl asks. She sees your broom. So she asks her maîtresse, 'Is he a good witch, or a bad witch?'"

"Oh, I see," Harry said, chuckling. "Uhh, I'm not a witch at all." To himself, he added, But I know a few good ones--and a few bad ones as well.

He looked at the children. "Are they wearing costumes for the Carnival?"

"Oui," said the waiter. He pointed to the brick wall with the flowers on top. "I believe I heard zeir maîtresse say zat zey were going to a Mardi Gras party today."

Harry nodded. He could imagine adults dressed as the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion waiting for the children at the party, with a refreshment table full of sweets and juice drinks. He watched as the children and their teachers crossed the street and marched away down the promenade that ran alongside the beach.

People come and go in the strangest ways around here.

"Zere zey go--off down ze Yellow-Brick Road!" The waiter set the coffee, cream, and sugar on the table. He looked at Harry's Firebolt. "You do not mind my asking, but why do you have ze broom? Are you a street cleaner?"

"No, no, the broom's just something I travel on," said Harry. "I mean, with! Travel with!"

Fortunately, at that moment, the waiter was distracted by more shouting from inside the restaurant, followed by what sounded like a frying pan being thrown against a wall. The waiter turned back to Harry, rolling his eyes.

"My apologies, Monsieur. The maitre'd is 'aving a little tête-a-tête with 'is wife zis morning. If you require anyzing else, please let me know." He thumbed towards the restaurant windows. "But pay no attention to ze man behind ze curtains."

The waiter turned and walked back into the restaurant again. Harry rubbed his temples with his fingertips, trying to clear his head.

Well,

he thought, I seem to be a little Muggled. One thing's for sure: We're DEFINITELY not at Hogwarts anymore!

This sudden change in climate and color was more than a bit unsettling to him. He came from a world of gray stone walls, medieval towers, oak-paneled rooms, and cold shadowy dungeons lit by fireplaces and candlelight. He was used to damp English winters where it rained for days and the sun hid behind clouds for months at a time, where trees were leafless well into April, and rivers and lakes were dark and colorless.

Now, here he was, suddenly sitting in an outdoor café on the "Cote d'Azur," in a city saturated with blinding sunlight and painted with exotic colors. He was surrounded by sapphire seas, golden beaches, red and yellow pastel houses, and streets lined with trees that were green and leafy even in winter. Harry found it all beautiful, but a little overwhelming. He wondered if this was what people meant when they talked about "Culture Shock." Or maybe this would be called "Climate Shock."

He jumped a bit as a pair of leather-clad bikers on Harley-Davidsons thundered past him on the avenue. Two glamorously-beautiful blonde young women passed by on the sidewalk, wearing jeans and tank tops in early March, both jabbering in French on their cell phones. A fat, balding man with a sinister profile waited at a nearby bus stop with a large cello case. A plump, middle-aged woman with pink hair strolled by, walking six small dogs on leashes, a mixture of pomeranians, chihuahuas, and toy poodles, all barking and yapping at once. Harry watched the thin traffic moving down the Promenade de la Plage. He tried to decipher the French language on the street signs and found that he couldn't focus his eyes well enough to read them.

He was starting to feel very out of place here. A line of poetry from Tennyson came into his mind:

"There where the ocean did meet the dawn
I stood a stranger, lost and alone,
In another city, not my own."

He was just thinking that the chair he was sitting in might be a good place to close his eyes and sleep for a few hours, when a deep voice sounded next to him.

"I would say that you look lost, mon ami. But I cannot imagine a place where someone like you would look at home."

Harry looked up to see a large, burly man in his late-forties standing next to his table. The man had black, wavy hair with small flecks of gray in it, dark eyes, and a bushy black moustache on his round, jovial face. He wore a white silk shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, black khakis, leather shoes, and an expensive-looking gold watch on his wrist. He was strongly built with broad shoulders and thick, hairy arms, and seemed to be just slightly overweight around his middle. He looked down at Harry with a friendly smile and a glint of amusement in his eye.

The man was tossing a coin in the air with his right hand.

"Tails?" Harry asked.

The man slapped the coin down on his hairy wrist, and looked at it. He nodded, and showed it to Harry. The coin was a wizard Galleon.

"You probably won't be able to buy much around here with that," Harry said. "I don't think too many shops in Latrece take wizard money."

"You would be surprised," said the man. He held up the coin. "But this is one Galleon that I will never spend. It 'appens to be the very first Galleon I ever earned. I keep it with me always--for luck."

His accent was French, but his English sounded very refined and practiced. The man pocketed his Galleon and sat down at Harry's table. "So you are the famous 'Arry Potter. I 'ave heard a lot about you. Your appearance is exactly as I imagined."

"How is that?" Harry asked, feeling uncomfortable.

"Well, you are a bit shorter than they say. This, I expected! Most heroes are not as tall as their worshippers make them out to be. But you also look a lot older than sixteen years. You 'ave the look of someone who 'as 'ad to do a lot of growing up in a very short time."

"Yeah, well. As the fellow says--it's not the years; it's the mileage."

The moustached man's face seemed familiar, but Harry could not think where he might have seen it before. "I'm sorry. I feel as if I should know you. But I'd swear that we've never met until now."

"We 'ave never 'ad the pleasure," said the man, still smiling. "But my daughters, they speak very well of you."

"Your daughters?"

"Oui." The man held out his hand to Harry. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Gaston Delacour. Fleur Delacour is my daughter."

"Really?" Harry said, in amazement. "You're Fleur's father?" He looked closely at the man's face and could see the resemblance to Fleur Delacour in the roundness of his cheekbones and in his smile. It reminded Harry of Fleur when she was very happy, or when she was having a good time in the company of Bill Weasley.

"Well--it's a pleasure to meet you," Harry stammered, shaking hands with him. Monsieur Delacour had a very strong grip. "I'm sorry, I didn't know what to expect when I came down here. I mean, Fleur said that she would send somebody to help me, but she didn't say she would send her father. You do look a bit like her, er, in the face, I mean."

Monsieur Delacour chuckled heartily. "I know you are very tired, and that you 'ave been flying all night on your broom. If you come with me, I think I can provide you with a more comfortable place to sleep than this table 'ere."

Harry laughed. "That sounds wonderful. Thank you very much."