A Chance Meeting
Harry
By Clell65619
A/N: I do not own Harry Potter. But you knew that.
Harry Potter and The Chance Meeting
Chapter One: Harry
The clicking of her heels echoed off the masonry as she made her way down the misty, almost empty street. Bundled against the November chill, she was walking with no destination in mind. She just couldn’t stay in the house any longer. She could no longer listen to her mother and her ‘advice’. She just couldn’t listen to her father’s schemes and plans any longer. Her sisters annoyed her to the point of screaming with their ribald wedding night ‘humor’. She had had enough of them and their ‘help’. The strawberry blond knew that she had to get away from all of them… Get away from them the night before she left them forever.
A sign hanging over the pavement caught her eye. A white dove with a sprig of some plant or other in its beak with picturesque farm land in the back ground. THE DOVE in white letters on the black border. A small neighborhood pub. Perhaps a drink among the Muggles, perhaps a man would dull the questions in her head. Probably not, but it was worth a try. If nothing else, it would infuriate her father if he found out.
She pulled the door open and entered the pub. A long oak bar ran the length of the room to her right; several booths lined the walls and a scattering of tables filled the room. The saloon bar had a low ceiling with dark oak beams. An open fire took the chill off the November night. A small flight of steps lead to the dining area at the rear and double doors lead out into a small conservatory. She made her way to the bar and ordered a glass of white wine.
Sipping her drink she looked around the room… and almost dropped the glass when she spotted him out of the corner of her eye. He was sitting at one of the tables facing the fire, so all she could make out was his silhouette. She knew that hair anywhere. There couldn’t be another man in the country whose hair looked like such a rats nest. After more than a decade, what were the chances of meeting him here tonight? She walked up to his table ignoring the looks she was getting from the other men in the room.
As she sat the man looked up from his pint, then he went back to staring at his glass. “Please, just leave me alone.”
“You’re as arrogant as ever Potter.” She said with a smile. “No everyone wants to partake of your body. Sometimes a girl just wants a chance to have a few words with a former classmate.”
Potter looked up again, and focused on her face. It was amazing how little he had changed in the last ten years. “Tracey? Tracey Davis? How are you?” That crooked grin of his suddenly appeared on his face.
“Getting married tomorrow. How about you?”
“Married? Congratulations.” Potter took a pull on his pint. “Not much going on for me, getting ready for a trip to Bolivia… Something about a new ‘Dark Lord’.”
“I’d heard you were still trying to kill yourself.”
The man shrugged. “Turned out to be the only thing I’m any good at, besides pissing people off. How about you? Would I know your intended?”
She shook her head. “Not unless you know much about the landed pure blood gentry.” Tracey directed her attention to the fire in the hearth. “Gerald is in his seventies… it’s unlikely you know him.”
“Contract marriage?”
“No. Well yes, but not like that.” She couldn’t meet the man’s startlingly green eyes. “It’s more of a business merger. The Davis line brings the gold; the Llewellyn line brings the status.”
“That’s what the lines bring and what the lines get… What does Tracey bring to the marriage and what does she get out of it?”
“I bring fertility. Gerald has no children, and wants a son badly enough to pay for it.”
“Ah.” The man drained his glass. “Would you like another?” he asked signaling the waitress.
“Please.”
Harry ordered for the both of them and paid when the drinks arrived.
“You were missed at the tenth anniversary of Riddle’s death. McGonagall had a get together at the school. Everyone kept asking where you were.”
“I was very very drunk in a pub in Lisbon that evening.” He shrugged. “No one wanted to see me anyway. They wanted the Gryffindor Golden boy, not the drunken idiot he turned out to be.”
“Feeling sorry for yourself are you?”
Potter smiled. “You bet. It’s one of my two useful skills. Feeling sorry for myself and fighting dark morons.”
The pair sat in silence for a few moments, staring into the flames of the fire. Harry broke first. “So, who was there?”
“Amazingly, pretty much everyone who survived, even Daphne.”
“How was she? I saw her at the Los Angeles International Airport last year. Couldn’t get close enough to talk of course, but she looked amazing.”
“She’s… Well happy would be the best term I guess. She’s all but left the magical world behind and is focusing on her career. You know she only uses her given name?”
“Yeah. The first time I found a magazine with her picture on it, I almost lost it right then and there. Who would have thought the Ice Princess would end up a Super Model?”
“I certainly didn’t. I didn’t even know that there were such things. Daphne’s younger sister married Draco Malfoy three years ago.”
“Really? I don’t know why, but I have problems picturing Malfoy married.”
The woman smiled. “You won’t believe what he did at the Hogwarts party.”
“What? Say something snarky about me? He always said something snarky about me.”
“No Potter, Draco Malfoy stood there in the Great Hall and offered a toast to you. He called you ‘The Man who saved me from myself’ and spoke of the debt we all owed you.”
“So he was drunk?”
“No. Stone cold sober.” The Slytherin Alumnus smirked. “He went on to call you a sanctimonious ass and a judgmental prig who never had an original thought in your life.”
Harry choked on his drink. “Oh stop.” He said wiping his chin with a paper napkin. “You’re getting me all misty.”
“You asked.”
“Yeah I did.” He sighed. “Who else was there?”
“All three of them were Potter. You don’t need to beat around the bush.” Teasing him she took a long sip from her wineglass. “The Weaselette was looking good. She came with some Italian Quidditch player in tow. I think she was looking to rub him in your face. What happened between you two anyway?”
“We wanted different things.” He shrugged. “I wanted to live quietly and hope the world forgot about me. She wanted the parties, the adulation, and the fame. Every time I heard someone cast anything, I was rolling on the ground looking for cover so I could hex back. She left for her parties, and I left to fight anyone but her. What about Ron and Hermione. I know they married…”
“There was a meeting of the old Study Group…”
“Study Group?”
“You didn’t know?” Tracey smiled. “Imagine that. We formed second year. Padma and Lisa from Ravenclaw, Hannah from the ‘Puffs, Hermione from the Gryffs, and Daphne and me from Slytherin. Anyway we got together for a bit at the party. Hermione seems to be happy. She was pregnant with number 5. Her career is on hold until she’s done with having children. She was very disappointed that you weren’t there. She wanted you to meet your namesake. He takes after his mother and starts Hogwarts in three more years.”
“They don’t need me in their lives.”
“This side of you isn’t very attractive Potter. The Weasel is the assistant Keeper Coach for the Canons; he seems to be happy as well. Hermione says he is a loving attentive husband and father. Though after he had a few drinks he started telling everyone how he actually won that final fight with Voldemort. I think he forgot just how many of us were actually there. A Hannah had to keep her husband from attacking him. She’s been good for Neville.”
“Thank you for telling me. I wish I’d had the courage to go.”
The woman shook her head. “I don’t know… It might have been braver to stay away. All night long I had the feeling that it was all boiling down to ‘look what we used to be, weren’t we something?’ By the end of the night I was horribly depressed. I mean 43 of us were sorted on September first 1991. Twenty three of us survived the war. Twenty two of us came to that party, everyone save you. Other than Daphne everyone was obsessed with talking about then, almost no one wanted to talk about now.”
“You’re right” Harry said, running his hand through his hair. “That is depressing. Let’s change the subject.” He signaled the waitress for another round. “Let’s talk about the most fascinating person at this table. You’re getting married tomorrow, yet you’re spending the night before talking to me. Why? Shouldn’t you be at a Hen Party, or having a last fling?”
“My sisters tried to throw me a Hen Party, and I told them no. I couldn’t imagine anything more depressing than going to such a thing with them.” She sipped her drink, looking at him over the rim of her wineglass. “And who says I’m not having a last fling?”
A look of realization appeared on Potter’s face. “Ah, I understand now. You’re meeting hem here then.” He checked his watch. “He’d better hurry up, this place closes at eleven.”
Tracey shook her head. “Where are you staying?”
“I own a flat. Why?”
She stood up, pulling on her jacket. “Let’s go.”
“What? Why?”
“You’re my last fling idiot.”
---===oooOOOooo===---
The pair hadn’t said a word in the taxi from the pub to his first floor flat. Tracey wasn’t the best judge of Muggle things, but the building appeared to be very nice, though she didn’t detect a single ward, which surprised her, but she wasn’t sure why.
He opened the door for her and followed her into his flat. Tracey was surprised. She had seen a few bachelor flats; almost universally they tended to be decorated in early slob. Harry’s was clean, incredibly so.
“I’m impressed Potter, I expected a sty.”
Harry took her jacket and hung it in on a coat rack by the door along with his own while gesturing toward the sofa. “Sorry to disappoint you. Cleanliness was beaten into me at a young age. So… why me?” He asked as he entered the flat’s kitchenette.
“Why not you? Tomorrow I’m entering into a business merger thinly disguised as a marriage. One of the clauses in the contract forbids me from ever taking a lover. That means that tonight will be the last time with a strong young man for at least sixty years. Besides, I wanted to see what was under those Quidditch robes of yours since third year.”
Harry returned to the sitting area with two glasses of wine. He handed her one and sat on the other end of the sofa. “You should have said something.” He grinned. “You probably would have scared me to death.”
“Draco tried to pay Daphne and me to seduce you and shag your brains out the night before your last match against each other.”
“Ah, of all his harebrained plots, THAT’S the one that was never actually attempted.”
“The only reason it wasn’t attempted was because he offered us money Potter. If he had just appealed to our house loyalty, we’d have drained you dry and wrung you out. You wouldn’t have been able to walk the next day much less fly. By offering us money he told us he considered us whores. I broke his nose. Daphne kicked him between the legs.”
Harry started laughing. “That’s why he was limping when he walked out onto the pitch?”
“Daphne and I liked to think that we contributed to your victory.”
The pair laughed for a few moments at their own personal memories of that day more than a decade before. The silence between them grew.
Tracey moved to his end of the sofa and kissed him. After they broke the kiss she said “Take me to bed Potter.” Her large blue eyes sparkling.
“Potter?” He asked.
“Take me to bed Harry.”
---===oooOOOooo===---
Tracey fought against waking up, she was so warm and comfortable. Though there was an odd ‘lub lub’ sound that was distracting her from going back to sleep. Then there was the erection underneath her thigh.
Erection under her thigh? That meant she was waking up with a man. That was nice. There was something tickling at the back of her mind about a wedding. Ah. Yes. She was getting married today.
Damn. That mean she shouldn’t get used to waking up to a nice erection like that. She opened her eyes and looked up to see the man she had slept with. Potter. Potter? Then the prior evening came flooding back, how she had decided to bed him as soon as she confirmed that it was him in that little pub. Their conversation, their love making. Harry was an attentive lover. He paid attention to what she liked, what she didn’t like and changed his technique accordingly.
Why hadn’t they done this back in school. Why had she wasted her time with Zabini and Corner? Wasted time.
“Good morning.”
Tracey looked up into his eyes again, unwilling to untangle herself from him. “Good morning.”
“When do you have to leave?”
“Soon” she cuddled closer.
“Ever been to Bolivia?”
“What? No.” What an odd question.
“I’ve got to be in La Paz by next Monday. I’m flying to New York tonight, to get used to the time zone change, then another flight to La Paz. Wanna come?”
“Harry, I’m getting married today.”
“So don’t do it. Last night you told me all about what the marriage was doing for ‘Gerald’ and what it was doing for your father and your family. You never said what it was doing for you.”
“I’ve got obligations Harry.”
“I know that. I’m suggesting that you ignore them. Think about yourself for a while.”
“And why would ‘myself’ want to go to Bolivia with you?”
“Well, you could come along and point out all the times I’m being stupid when I’m chasing after the South American Dark Moron. That should be a full time job.”
“You’re offering me a job?”
He ran his right hand to the small of her back. “After what you told me you did to Malfoy last night, the very last thing I’m going to do is offer you money while we’re in this position. I’m offering adventure and a whole lot of stupidity. I’m good at that.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I felt like we connected last night. Maybe I’m tired of being alone. Maybe I hate the idea of you wasting yourself on an old man who needs a contract to tie you down until you aren’t you any more. Pick one.”
“You’re serious.”
“Yes. I am.” He smiled.
Tracey was amazed. She was actually considering his offer. Nothing had been signed yet. And…
“Maybe a little negotiation is in order?” Harry asked as he leaned down and kissed her. His hands began to play across her body.
Tracey arched her back to offer him more access. She had forgotten how much she liked morning sex.
---===oooOOOooo===---
“Maybe we should just do what you want to do. I think that you’re going to kill me with these negotiations.” Harry was lying on his stomach while Tracey was astride him nibbling on his neck.
“Wimp. That was fun, we should have gotten together back when you were still young and had energy.”
“Ah lost opportunities.” He moved his head to allow her better access. “I’ll give you three months to stop doing that.”
Tracey giggled from atop him. Some how that amazed him more than anything else… A giggling Slytherin…
“So, have you decided if you’re coming with me?”
“I think I did already three or four times.”
“Funny girl. Are you coming to New York with me today and to Bolivia next week?”
Tracy sat up. She paused for a moment and weighed her options. Then she decided. “Harry…” she said.
---===oooOOOooo===---