Chapter 51
"Oh, this is wonderful," I murmured, sinking back in quiet, thoroughly relaxed contentment into what could only generously be called a bathtub — in practice it more closely resembled a large cauldron with a small fire burning beneath it. I was playing the role of the soup ingredients, stewing in a broth of various magical components and reagents.
All of it courtesy of Lady Greengrass, who was desperately determined to prepare me as thoroughly as possible for my future marriage to her daughter and my nominal — if somewhat ceremonial — headship of her House. The woman, as it turned out, was more than serious in her intentions toward me. Serious in the way a hungry lioness might be toward the still-living rabbit she'd personally brought home for her cub to practice on.
A genuinely unsettling feeling, if I was being honest with myself. And the slightly obsessive look in Agatha Greengrass's eyes did put me on edge, just a little. But in spite of everything, my future mother-in-law left an overwhelmingly positive impression. She was beautiful, strong, sincerely passionate about magic, and completely devoted to her daughters — all while somehow combining an extraordinary strength of spirit with a tenderness of character that was unmistakably maternal.
A dazzling woman in every sense. One I might very easily have fallen for in other circumstances, without any pretense or strategy at all. My body had reached exactly that age where the hormones raging through my blood made even me occasionally lose my composure — suppressing and controlling those impulses constantly wasn't particularly healthy for the mind or for general wellbeing. And my mental maturity meant I found myself looking toward Agatha far more often than toward her daughter.
Though when I looked at Daphna, it was increasingly in the context of observing how thoroughly she took after her mother — which suggested I had every reason to expect a genuinely captivating wife somewhere down the line.
That was still a long way off, however. For now, all I could do was entertain certain thoughts and quietly regret that Agatha and I were at such different stages of life — and that marriage contracts in the wizarding world were more or less ironclad guarantors of magical unions. Under other circumstances, I would absolutely have at least tried my luck with such a remarkable woman.
But that wasn't what mattered here. What mattered was that my brief rest at Grimmauld Place in my godfather's company had already come to an end, and I'd been a guest at my fiancée's home for just over a week now. Getting better acquainted with her parents. Building a thorough understanding of House Greengrass's history and particular character. Training under an actual master of Charms and a virtuoso of illusion magic in its many forms. And soaking in these special magical preparations nearly every evening.
The baths, beyond their extraordinary relaxation and the accelerated recovery they provided for both magic and body, also acted on the body itself in ways that went considerably deeper. Jacques Greengrass had not belonged to a lineage of first-class potion-brewers and elixir-makers for nothing.
His formulations were doing my health and general condition a remarkable amount of good. I'd felt excellent before any of this, naturally — a trained adolescent body enhanced by magic was already something well above average. But right now…
God, it felt good.
After these soaks, even breathing was noticeably easier. The lightness in the body, the alertness, the magic that seemed to simmer and hum just beneath the surface — those went without saying. After one of these sessions and a couple of hours of solid sleep, I was always ready for new endeavors. Sometimes extraordinary ones, even by my own standards.
"You seem to be enjoying yourself here, Harry," a familiar feminine voice suddenly pulled me from a light half-doze, instantly bringing me to attention and sharpening my awareness of my surroundings.
"Lady Agatha…" I smiled, a little stiffly, at my probable future mother-in-law, wrestling with a wave of embarrassment and awkwardness at the same time. Missing the moment someone opened the door to the Greengrass family potions room was slightly shameful, even by my own estimation.
I had specifically worked to cultivate the habit of always monitoring my surroundings. And now this. A rapid review of recent memory confirmed what I already suspected — Agatha hadn't tried to hide her arrival. She simply hadn't announced it. She'd made no particular effort to conceal herself from my attention.
"Nothing to worry about — I didn't want to disturb you unnecessarily," the woman said with a warm smile. "After intensive magical training, this bathing regimen is particularly effective. And particularly pleasant."
She paid absolutely no attention to the fact that I was unclothed.
I was in a cauldron, granted, and the herbal infusion was murky enough. But it didn't cover everything. Which produced in me a certain degree of embarrassment on one hand, and on the other — well, I wasn't a sniveling adolescent to be genuinely ashamed of a body I'd worked fairly hard on in this life.
"These baths really are something extraordinary," I said, shaking my head with a touch of genuine regret. "It's a shame sessions like this can only be done once a year."
"I wouldn't say it's something entirely unique," Lady Greengrass replied. "There are simpler formulations for recovery after training and relaxation after a hard day. But even so — I'm genuinely surprised at how easily you're handling your first immersion. You have remarkable physical resilience, Harry." She paused, smoothly steering the subject. "And it seems you've already had some exposure to magical acceleration techniques."
"I wouldn't call my health ideal — I still haven't resolved my vision," I answered honestly, immediately understanding what she was getting at without it being stated directly. "And those techniques you mentioned are still very much a work in progress for me. I only started making any real headway in the last few days before I arrived."
The spells that allowed a wizard to accelerate not only the mind but the body itself during combat had indeed only recently begun to yield to me. Sirius, who'd recovered his fighting form considerably over the past year, had helped me take the final step toward even a minimal command of magic at that level.
Full combat acceleration wasn't a skill every qualified Auror possessed. The spellwork was simply too demanding — and the physical prerequisites were considerable, at least in the early stages of mastery. The body needed a substantial period of adjustment before it could tolerate magical acceleration, which meant my usual physical training had given me an advantage. More precisely, it had given me at least a genuine chance at learning such charms at all.
"Is that so?" the blonde witch said, exhaling slowly. "Still — it's impressive." She gave me a particularly thoughtful look. "Although, after getting to know you personally, I can't say I'm surprised."
A contemplative silence settled between us. I waited a moment, then decided to address what had been quietly bothering me.
"Lady Greengrass… may I ask why you chose to speak with me right now?" I said carefully, keeping my tone measured. Soaking in a cauldron while such a striking woman stood beside it was — even for me — a moderately flustering experience.
"Hmm?" She blinked, with a trace of surprise. "Oh, nothing in particular. I simply wanted to time it for a moment when my girls couldn't come to your rescue." The corner of her mouth curved. "And I confess I was a little curious to see how you'd react to this kind of situation. Boys your age really shouldn't be composed and serious every waking moment. I was hoping to catch you off guard with some genuine emotion. But alas — my little prank has failed again."
"My apologies for the disappointment," I said, with deliberate gravity, to this — well. There was simply no other word for it. Devil of a woman. It was hard to believe she was well into her thirties. She looked far too young — not unusual for witches, but still — and treated everything around her with a kind of breezy ease that sat oddly on a mother of two teenage girls.
Though ease wasn't quite the right word. There was nothing careless about this woman. It was more a lightness of spirit — a quickness of mind and an open playfulness that one would expect from a girl barely out of school, not from someone in her position.
I couldn't dwell on it for long. The thoughtful but not uncomfortable silence between us began to stretch again, and I redirected my attention to her face — not quite meeting her eyes, but watching closely, trying to read what was happening behind them. No mental magic. I wasn't deluded enough to believe my skills were sufficient for undetected scanning of a witch this capable, and the head of her own House besides.
"Tell me, Harry…" she said at last, catching me entirely off guard with a question I'd fully expected and somehow still wasn't ready for. "Are you serious in your intentions toward my daughter? Don't misunderstand me — I can see perfectly well that you're a young man of integrity and that you're unlikely to break the terms of your betrothal. But I haven't had the impression that you look at Daphna the way a boy looks at a girl he cares for."
*And the way you look at me,* went unsaid — but the implication was unmistakable, and I understood it perfectly. A sharp spike of embarrassment moved through me, and I quashed it immediately with a careful application of my own magic.
I hadn't expected my looks to go unnoticed — especially those from the first few days, before I'd managed to pull myself together and settle down. But the topic Lady Greengrass had raised, and the way she'd raised it, were still somehow unexpected. Difficult to answer simply.
And so I arrived very quickly at the only reasonable solution: plain, complete honesty.
"I…" I paused. "I do see Daphna as my girlfriend. As my future wife. I see it — just not yet. I don't know how to explain it, but girls my own age don't quite… appeal to me in that way. If we were at least in our final year at Hogwarts…"
I let the thought trail off deliberately, with no intention of making that line of conversation any more explicit than it had already become.
This was difficult enough without narrating it. Discussing such things with my future mother-in-law was not a pleasure I would have sought out. And it didn't help that the fire under the cauldron seemed to have climbed considerably in the last few minutes. There had to be some other explanation for why I suddenly felt so warm.
"I see," Agatha said. And she accepted the answer with a lightness that surprised me — with what seemed, if I was reading the emotions directed at me correctly, like a measure of actual approval. "In that case… Harry, how would you feel about becoming my official apprentice?"
*She really does love to change the subject without warning and send me off balance,* I thought, with a kind of distant detachment, even as I stared at this woman — this thoroughly appealing, entirely disarming woman — who had just leveled the most unexpected offer I'd received in quite some time.
And I could feel clearly that she was completely serious. Not a trace of hesitation. She'd almost certainly been considering making this offer for some time, though I couldn't be entirely certain of that. Personal apprenticeship was not a simple thing.
Formal study under a true master typically came at a significant price. And not always one that could be paid in Galleons or any other material form. Masters of magic took on students most often in exchange for something of equivalent value — access to a family library's restricted knowledge, for instance. So the offer being extended to me right now was extraordinary by any measure.
And I genuinely didn't know how to respond.
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