Chapter Text
“I'm not sure this is a good idea.” Only four sentences on a parchment and yet the fireplace looked so tempting. If I reached out, I probably wouldn't even need to get up off the couch. Well placed furniture.
“Oh dear God, don't start again.” Hermione snatched the incriminating letter from my hands and unfolded it on the coffee table, digging a quill from her purse.
If owls could roll their eyes, Pedro would no doubt be rolling his right now, but one of the better biscuits was enough of a bribe for him to stay and wait on the backrest for a while longer. I sighed in relief. The last thing I needed on my morning off was having to soothe ruffled feathers after one of Pedro's hissy fits.
No, scratch that. The last thing I needed was Hermione's help in sending a letter to a dating agency.
“You don't need to-- why are you crossing that out?” She ignored me to dig through her purse again, and that wasn't a good sign. “Why are you getting more parchment?”
“You need to write more. This,” she jabbed the letter with her quill, “is pathetic.”
“Thanks so much,” I said. She responded with a glare, which made me shut my eyes and let my head fall back. Pedro nudged my forehead a few times to make me raise my hand to pet him, and I could still practically hear Hermione's glare. “Fine, I admit, it's pathetic. I just don't know what to write to a bloody dating service.”
“You agreed that you will never find anybody through conventional means.” Her quill started scribbling.
“Still, it's embarrassing.”
“What is so embarrassing about wanting somebody to love?” There was no pause to the writing. “Somebody who shares a life with you, wants same things?”
“Hermione--”
“Somebody to take care of you when you're ill or feeling down?” And crap, she was using her Gentle Voice now. “Somebody to come home to at the end of the day?”
“I don't need a boyfriend.” Looking at her revealed that the letter was now at least three paragraphs. I reached my fingers towards it. “I'm perfectly happy on my own.”
“Fine, then.” Hermione held the parchment out to me and yeah, that was just too easy. I was about to take it when she said, “But you want one, don't you?”
Damn it. She'd always been much too perceptive. With a groan, I relented and sank back into the couch. Hermione took this for enthusiastic agreement and her quill started scratching once more. My fingers tapped unrest, and I summoned another cup of coffee for myself just for something to do. And because, well, coffee.
“Some day that'll kill you,” Hermione said without raising her head from the letter.
“So you keep telling me.”
“And yet you keep drinking ten cups a day.”
“Yesterday I only had time for six.”
“Oh, poor thing.” She held out her cup. “Get me more tea.”
The tea pot came flying from the kitchen. When she accepted it, I confiscated the letter and rolled it up. “That's enough.”
“But the instructions said--”
“--that the first letter is only for the service to match me. Even if they have somebody suitable, none of this information is shared with the other person. Luna knows me already, you don't need to write a novel.”
“But--”
“Lovegood's Good Loving,” I told Pedro, feeling my face heat. He accepted the horrifying letter, spread his black wings and took off with a hoot. “It's not a good day when even your owl is laughing at you. I definitely need more coffee.”
“Oh, chin up,” Hermione said way too cheerfully considering it was only 9 am. Even without caffeine she managed to be much too chipper. “This time tomorrow you could be receiving a letter from Mr. Right.”
“It'll be way longer than that, Luna's got her own system. Very scientific. Ten percent information, thirty percent magic, and sixty percent intuition.” One of the main features of Lovegood's Good Loving was that no match was guaranteed – that's why there was no charge either, the whole business ran on donations from satisfied customers.
“Don't complain, it works,” Hermione said. “Sure, she is picky with who she matches up, but most of the people Luna has found a match for have ended up in loving, happy relationships or becoming friends in the least.”
“Mm-hm.” There was a part of me that was excited by the prospect, stupidly hopeful. Damn it.
Hermione stood up and adjusted her grey robes hastily before pointing at me. “Call me when you get a letter.”
“Don't hold your breath.”
“Fine, I'll just pop in the check on you myself.” She grinned. “Thanks for adding me to your wards after you moved, that was so nice of you.”
“I hate you.”
“Love you too, Harry.” She kissed my forehead before apparating to the Ministry.
Dragging the blanket over myself, I burrowed into the couch and clicked play on the remote. The Return of the King started up from the point where I'd fallen asleep the previous night.
Coffee, a comfy couch, and the Lord of the Rings was pretty much all I needed for a perfect day off, but it might still be nice to have somebody to curl up to. Not that I was planning on mentioning that to Hermione. It was stupid to get my hopes up anyway. For all I knew, it would take months to find me a match, if one could be found at all.
**
To my shock, I was proven wrong the same evening when Luna's tiny brown owl arrived just after I'd finished eating a late supper.
“No fighting with her,” I told Pedro, who had flown to the kitchen and was levelling a yellow-eyed stare at the smaller bird. The brown owl jumped towards Pedro, tilting her head to the side. He responded by stretching his wings. “And no flirting either.” I handed her a biscuit, which she accepted happily and started to crumble it onto my table. Pedro ignored me and bounced closer, making me chuckle. “Mate, she's way out of your league.”
He responded with an offended hoot and stretched his wings again. The brown owl made a shrill sound, no doubt laughing at him, before flying out the window. She apparently liked playing with biscuits much more than eating them. Only after spelling the crumbs away did I look at the letter well enough to notice it wasn't from Luna.
Uh oh.
Dear Mystery Man,
Somehow, I am unsurprised that the dubious honour of writing the first letter fell to me. What is one meant to begin with? There is a ridiculous assumption that a person can be summarised in a handful of facts, as if what they do and the turns that their life has taken so far were enough to reveal something relevant about them. Often it seems to me that the more interesting part is in the details: how they live their life, yes, but also in what they think about it and how they feel about it, what is important to them.
Therefore, I take the liberty to skip the expected introductory list at this point. Those factual things about me will no doubt present themselves, should you wish to respond to my letter and continue correspondence. In any case, I shall tell you about my day, and hope you find something of interest in it.
Unsurprisingly, I was woken at six o'clock in the morning by Nathan – his real name, for as much as I appreciate the anonymity, I refuse to believe that hiding my dog's name would be necessary, unless the dating service has matched me with my next door neighbour. If that is the case, the reputation of Lovegood's Good Loving is highly exaggerated, as my neighbour is a witch forty years my senior who collects houseplants.
Although I only got Nathan once my schedule required no more early mornings, he seems to have other ideas. When he was a puppy I had such visions about training him, but it soon became apparent that for us to cohabitate peacefully, compromises would be necessary. As it stands, in exchange for a morning run at an inhumane hour, he will allow me to have the bed to myself during the night. This is helpful, as so far I have not found a spell that could keep him out of the room for more than a few hours if he's so inclined, and sleeping whilst a Great Dane is sprawled across one's bed results in very sore muscles. For the human, not the dog.
Nathan didn't much mind that it was pouring down, but as the owners of his dog friends – three pugs and a whippet – are muggles, I could not employ charms. However, Ted, Albert, and I did manage to huddle under one of those huge oaks that grow in London parks, and we exchanged less than cheerful grumbles until coffee kicked in. Starbucks cappuccinos are life savers; had I known of them as a youngster, I never would have believed half of what father told me about muggles. Achieving unnecessarily good grades in my NEWTs would not have been half as painful, either.
The other gentlemen departed when all of our dogs were sufficiently muddy, and I wish I had been as smart as Albert and gotten a small dog. A whippet would be much easier to clean. Not that the pugs aren't small, as well, but Ted has three; that is its own brand of insanity. Fortunately, I have magic. It never fails to cheer me up to imagine father's face if he saw that I don't even have a house elf for cleaning a filthy muggle-bred dog. There may be a childish amount of glee, I admit, but when one's youth didn't include enough rebellion apparently even sixty-six is not too old to enjoy it. Perhaps if father hadn't passed away long since I could get it out of my system as my own son did during rather a tumultuous few years, but such an opportunity is unavailable for me. That might be for the best. There are so many things I could have done better as a parent, but I doubt my father would ever have found it in him to admit where he was wrong, as my son pushed me to do. Had I ever found the strength to openly defy his wishes while he was alive, there would likely have been no reconciliation for us.
Having Nathan fed and happy for the morning gave me peace to do the things secondary in importance, such as feeding myself. Afterwards, I spent a few hours writing. Today was a pleasant day, as the exciting part of the book is about to happen – the extent to which there is excitement when one is a writer of children's books, which I would argue is much more than in most adult literature.
My afternoon was spent in a less thankful task of routine correspondence with acquaintances – something I sincerely despise, but which must be done at least once a month unless I wish to give an opening for more personal harassment. This way, cursory greetings are enough if one has the bad luck to run into, say, ex-minister Fudge on a trip to Diagon Alley. When my wife and I divorced, three years ago, I hoped that at least some of the people in the pureblood circles I am unfortunately still a part of would see it as shameful enough to stop inviting me to their deathly boring parties. Alas, no such luck. So far the reasons for my divorce are not public knowledge, but should I ever have a male partner to introduce to them, we shall see if that is enough to scatter the vultures. I doubt it, though. In my experience, the weight of name and money goes a long way for a certain type of people. It is possible that not even flaunting of what most of them consider sexual deviance would be enough to be rid of them altogether.
Then again, that might provide its own source of amusement.
After sending away most of the owls that came to collect mail, I had what was thankfully a less muddy outing with Nathan. And now I am sharing the couch with him while finally writing this letter, something I have been almost embarrassingly eager to do ever since I got the owl informing me that Lovegood's Good Loving has matched somebody to me.
Perhaps there is too much optimism on my part – it is after all merely a dating service – but I have only heard promising things about their magically aided matching process, despite the atrocious name. More traditional means of finding a partner do not serve me well, as my orientation is not public knowledge. As I wish to date a wizard – I find many muggle men attractive, but there would be difficulties with a deeper relationship due to the Statute of Secrecy – my options are limited. And the few occasions I have managed to find somebody discreet and similarly inclined, getting to know them properly has been a problem, for people tend to have inaccurate assumptions about who I am. Anonymity, I find, helps with such issues, and facilitates more openness.
As content as I am with my life, it would be a pleasant change to cuddle with somebody other than Nathan. So, please assuage my curiosity and tell me something about yourself.
Sincerely,
Mr. White
(Not my real name, which probably does not need saying. Not only would using it be somewhat counterproductive to anonymity, I would wish that whomever I am matched with has seen Reservoir Dogs. Otherwise, there is something wrong with the universe.)
Wow. Okay, so, this guy was my match then. Not complaining. Really not complaining.
Except for one thing.
“It would be my luck, wouldn't it, that I'll be writing letters trying to impress a goddamn writer?”
Pedro hooted in response, clearly laughing at me. With something resembling giddiness I carried the dishes to the sink and retired to bed, the letter carefully tucked in my jeans pocket.