Chapter eight [Cheight]…in which I, with no knowledge of bar lingo, attempt to make random ones up.

Disclaimer: refer to previous.

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“Bartender! Scotch, on the rocks. Make it fast,” Natalie called, perched atop a tall, creaking barstool. The inside of the Flying Dutchman was built to resemble the interior of an old ship with fake masts and nets and barrels positioned in the corners. Everything was covered with a musty, rotting sort of smell, and Natalie swore the sea chests housed rats. It was also advised that one didn’t lean on the walls; barnacles stuck to the salty old wood and lived to scrape your skin to ribbons.

She’d come to London with an envelope of cash, three pairs of shoes, her favorite black jacket, and two pairs of Diesel jeans. With a room at the cheapest motel possible and in very much danger of being eaten alive by giant cockroaches that lived in the pipes, Natalie was near desperate to set up some kind of business that would at least enable her to move into some place with smaller cockroaches.

The grizzled bartender with a moldy bird perched precariously on his shoulder shoved a glass of suspicious looking liquid to Natalie, who downed it without a second thought. She swallowed, grimaced, and immediately tried to dispel the drink by means of extreme coughing. The old bartender leered at her and laughed wheezingly, and Natalie seriously considered braining him with the glass.

“Don’t you have anything better-tasting?” she snapped, sliding the glass away with a disgusted grimace.

“Sure,” the old man wheezed. “We got lots of stuff…if you know how to ask for it.”

At that moment, a rough, burly looking sailor guy sat down beside Natalie and barked out,

“Oi! Whiz-on-key-with-a-base-of-moo.”

Natalie stared. What kind of lingo was that?

“Right-o. Beer it is,” the bartender said, and reached under the counter to get a perfectly clean glass full of cold, amber beer. He eyed a goggling Natalie and smiled smugly. Catching his look, the girl rolled her eyes and swung around the chair.

“I give up,” she muttered, giving the bartender a dark look before sliding off the stool. “Ridiculous, stupid bar, can’t even find a decent drink-‘whiz-on-key’? What the bloody hell is that supposed to be?!”

She slammed a closed fist into the door of the Flying Dutchman, and was rewarded with a loud SMACK and an even louder “OWW!”

Startled, Natalie quickly pulled open the swinging door and stared at where someone lay sprawled across the doormat, looking dazed.

“Oh, my immortal Lord,” she groaned before rushing out to help him up.

“Are you okay? Dammit, speak to me, you twit! Speak!” she cried, patting his face not-so-gently.

“Ow-ow-ow!” the person winced as Natalie pulled him upright, touching his forehead gingerly. “What’d you do that for, Malfoy?”

“Sweety, you want to come inside? Are you with someone?” Natalie asked, worried now and quite terrified by the wrong identification that she might have damaged him permanently.

“You always were one for low-blows!” the man continued mournfully. “How dare you hit me with a door. But no matter- I’ll find a job before you do!”

“Sir, how many fingers do you see?” Natalie waved a palm frantically in front of his face. The man’s eyes crossed and he promptly answered,

“Seven. By God, you have two extra aberrations on your hand!”

“Bartender! This mate needs a stiff one! And no funny business!” Natalie yelled and the bartender grumbled, but poured a brandy anyways. She grabbed the glass, wrenched the dark head back, pinched his nostrils, and dumped the entire contents of the glass down his throat.

Despite Natalie’s firm grip on the guy’s schnoz, a trickle of liquor still managed to burn down his nose, and he came up roaring and spluttering with anger and pain.

“For Heaven’s SAKE Malfoy, is that really necessary?!” he cried, then suddenly blinked at Natalie. “…where’s Malfoy?”

“Darling, what the hell are you talking about?” Natalie replied gently.

“But-Draco- slammed door-broke my bloody nose-”

“Ah, actually, that was me.”

He blinked up at her behind thick [cracked] glasses.

“…You tried to break my nose?”

“Not on purpose, and I hardly think your nose is broken, but yes.”

“Oh. Ok. Was it also you who tried to drown me?”

“Um. Ye-es, but it was all for your benefit. Believe me,” Natalie added hastily. He blinked at her again.

“…Are you sure it was you and not some silver-headed freak with an uncanny resemblance to an albino ferret?”

“Pretty sure about that,” Natalie said sarcastically.

“Okay…Then he must have escaped. Damn you Malfoy! I’ll get you back! Sorry, Macdonald. I’ll have to go.” He got up from the floor and made like to leave the bar. Natalie gawped at him. How did he know her?

“W-wait a minute there. Do I know you?” she demanded, holding him back with a grip on his shoulder. He turned and stared at her with bemused green eyes.

“Don’t you remember me? We used to be in Gryffindor together.”

“Hogwarts? Who are you? How come I don’t remember you?” she asked, wary and puzzled. His eyes widened, and he turned to face her fully, gripping her shoulders hard.

“You don’t…know me?” he asked in a low voice. Natalie, totally unprepared for his reaction, only shook her head, sort of scared. “You really, really don’t know me?”

“A-Am I supposed to?” she asked nervously. Instead of replying, the man suddenly gave her a bone-crushing hug.

“Oh my Gawd! You must be my bloody soulmate!!”

“Who you calling soulmate?! Let go!” Natalie cried, trying to peel his arms off. “Who the bloody hell are you?!”

“It’s me! Harry Potter! I was four years ahead of you!” he said joyfully, finally letting go his octopus holds on her. She stared at him.

“…Nah-ah!” she scoffed, laughing and slapping his arm away. “Harry Potter died fighting against Volde-who and got his intestines and gall bladder fed to Lucius Malfoy on a silver platter formerly owned by the fourth king of the Aztecs. You aren’t dead and you aren’t eaten and you certainly aren’t lacking vital body parts. At least I don’t think so,” Natalie frowned and poked him.

“Oh, that,” Harry waved his hand dismissively. “That was something I conjured up to tell the public, you know. Not an ounce of truth.”

Natalie goggled and shook her head.

“You’re daft.”

“No, I’m Harry. See?” he pointed to a faint, pink line above his eyebrow.

“Well, that doesn’t prove it. My cousin ran into a door the other day, and her scar looks rather like that, except not so…bent at such extreme angles.”

“Are you saying my scar is ugly?”

“No! I mean….yyeeeeeees? Oh, it’s a scar, I know that, but…”

“Is it repulsive?”

“We-ll….sooooort…of…”

“You honestly don’t like it?”

“I’ve always thought you looked rather stupid with it.” Natalie stated flatly. Harry, if possible, looked only happier.

“Macdonald, you are the-the- I think I might love you! Platonically, of course,” he added hastily as she prepared to drop to the floor in shock.

“Oh-platonically, of course,” Natalie echoed, smoothing back a strand of hair and trying to make it go through her head that Harry Potter, total stranger had just made a declaration of love to her. Platonic, of course, but it was-shocking! Worthy of Witch Weekly. Maybe she should call up Rita Skeeter. This story would sell like hotcakes, and she’d surely be part of the profits!

“An-anyways, what uh, are you doing here?” she asked, sidling into a moldy booth.

“Looking for a job,” he answered, suddenly glum again. “I just passed culinary school and I’m trying to find a job before Malfoy does.”

“What’s getting a job got to do with Malfoy?” Natalie asked. Harry stared at her as if her nose had suddenly screamed German at him.

“Got to do with Malfoy?! Everything! My-entire- life is dedicated to one single PURPOSE. To-”

“Rid the world of destruction and evil brought on by the former hottie of Hogwarts, Tom Marvolo Riddle, a.k.a. Lord Voldemort and his gang of insufferably pompous bad dressers?”

“Oh. Yes, I suppose. Well, my second purpose is to beat Malfoy at anything. At everything. And at all…costs…” Harry looked positively on fire, as he loomed fire-ey-ly over the table, making Natalie wince and flap a napkin at him.

“Stop that, Harry. You’re lighting up the room, destroying the atmosphere,” she told him reproachfully. He nodded and sat down slowly.

“Anyways, I thought Malfoy was in jail?”

“Lucius is. Draco is not. He was sent to culinary school in Paris by his mother, so I followed him,” Harry explained cheerfully.

“Dr-Draco?” Natalie gasped. Harry nodded solemnly.

“Yes. The Draco Malfoy. He, who was acquitted after the Great War. Yes. HIM.”

“Oh, MY!” Natalie said faintly, looking pale. Then she turned back to Harry.

“Well, anyways, where is he now?”

Harry shrugged, looking frustrated.

“He told me he never wanted to see me again, and if I ever followed him again, he’d tear out my pancreas and make stew out of it.”

“And what did you say?!”

“Told him I can make a better pancreas stew than he could. Although, where is my pancreas anyways?” He poked himself curiously.

Natalie frowned, her eyes suddenly distracted by a flash of light from outside the grimy window. While Harry continued trying to locate his hidden body part, Natalie wiped a hole in the dust and peered out into the street. Speak of the devil…!

There was Draco Malfoy, in all his haughty glory, and he’d just walked into an empty café with two other people, looking curiously familiar. Her eyes trailed to the notice in the café window, proclaiming the place rented out. She blinked inwardly as a spark of interest began taking hold of her.

A plan was forming in Natalie’s head, and she hid a smile as she continued staring seriously at Harry.

“Well, he’s probably finding a job, right as we’re speaking,” she told him conversationally, and then automatically reached out and blocked Harry’s way as he yelped and jumped up determinedly. “But…” Natalie let the smile spread slowly across her face.

“I have a business proposition…”

She explained the details of the extemporaneous inspiration of a café, located in a local area, in which he could be the chef, and she would be everything else…

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Cho stared slack jawed at Natalie as she finished her story and smugly lit up a cigg.

“You…you…you opened a café here… two streets off of Café Tombe de Cheval… out of ennui?!”

“Of course!” Natalie said brightly. “I mean, these two are bound to provide me with some amusement, aren’t they?”

“Oh, God,” Cho groaned, holding a hand to her forehead. “I think I have a major headache…”

“Have some water, dear,” Nat smirked, pouring her a glass of ice water.

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wah….major headache after that chapter. Feels so complicated when you’re actually writing it, and not at all when you read it... yikes.

I repeat I have absolutely no knowledge of bar lingo. I made up whatever it was so yes, it is complete and total nonsense, if you’re wondering.

Anyhoo….

Feel free to review and comment!