Fic: The Way You Look Tonight

[jbeaners48]

Title: The Way You Look Tonight
Author: Jmaria
Rating: FR-15
Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing. JKR owns the characters I’m merely playing with them.
Summary: Everybody wears a disguise.
A/N: My contribution to teawithvoldy’s Crimson Green challenge.


The Way You Look Tonight

If you had asked him to pin-point the moment he had fallen madly in love with her, he probably would laugh at you and say that there was no moment he could pick out - just the moment that all of it clicked. She was most certainly not the woman he would have figured he’d end up with. He was glad that he’d matured in that fashion. But the moment when it clicked for Harry Potter had happened shortly after the war with Voldemort had ended.

The war had been over for about a week. He’d been getting more and more sloshed by the second, nursing his wounds and guilt that still carried over from the war. He’d been coming to the Lucky Horseshoe pub for the last year and a half. He only stopped in for an hour a night, praying each time that his glamour spell would hold and give him an hour of peace. He was a regular - but very few recognized him as the Boy-Who-Lived.

One of the barmaids had taken to calling him Hank for some reason, and Harry never corrected her. She was a dark haired woman, roughly the same age as he was. She wasn’t skinny, but her body seemed fit. Half of her hair hung in her face most nights he was in there.

He noticed her gradually. Some nights she talked to him, others she said nothing save hello and good-bye. There were nights they spoke for the entire hour. He learned that her name - or at least the one she liked to go by was Cent, or Cennie. She had dark brown eyes that seemed to twinkle when she smiled. She never pressured him into talking about how his life was going, what he was feeling, what he wished for. She merely asked him what he wanted to drink and waited for him to be ready to talk.

He remembered the night he learned her true identity. He’d been completely, stumbling drunk, trying to block out the image of finding Molly Weasley dead in the Order headquarters. Harry had picked a fight with a surly wizard over in the corner booth. The blonde serving girl had shrieked out a name that was vaguely familiar to him. Just as he was about to take a swing at the man, he saw Cennie step in the middle of them and shove him back.

“Stop it, you great big idiot.” She hissed before latching onto his arm and forcibly dragging him out of the pub. She was muttering a low string of curses under her breath as she shoved him into the men’s loo. “What the bloody hell are you doing? You haven’t even got your glamour on!” She hissed, checking each stall before she shoved him into one of them. The door opened, and the owner called out to her.

“He all right, Bulstrode? Should I contact - ?”

“Nah, I’ll handle him.” She sighed.

He slumped against the toilet, his mind reeling. She was Millicent Bulstrode? One of the former Inquisitorial Squad goons, a Slytherin, and who had most likely been working for Voldemort had him trapped in a toilet cubicle and was going to handle him. He tried to reach for his wand, but she beat him to it.

“Get over it, Potter, I ‘m not about to let you hex me.” She sighed.

“What do you want?” He spat. “To take me to the Death Eaters so they can kill me?”

“What?” She sounded genuinely perplexed.

“Don’t act as if you don’t know what I’m talking about, Bulstrode. I know you can’t be that thick.”

“Apparently I am, because I haven’t the foggiest idea of what you’re talking about, Potter. “

“We all know what side you’re on in this war.” Harry spat.

“Really? And here I am not even choosing a side.” She leaned towards him as close as she could get. “Do you really think that if I had chosen a side I would have let you come in here for a year and not tell any DE’s? If I had, you’d have been dead long before now, Potter.”

“What?”

“Sober up and go home. Or would you rather have Deacon send for Lupin to take you home?” She asked, her voice sounding very tired.

Harry looked at her for a second, trying to figure out her motives. Why had she pulled him away from the fight? Why had she purposely called him by the wrong name when she obviously had known who he was all along?

“Well? What’ll it be?”

“I’ll go alone.” Harry sighed. “I always do.”

Millicent went back to the bar to get his cloak and hat and walked back to the lavatory to give him his things. Harry had been staring blankly at the toilet, angry tears rolling over his cheeks. Millicent paused in the doorway, watching him as she often had for the last year. Her throat constricted as he angrily brushed them away. She lowered her head and let the door shut loudly as she strode over to him.

“Here, I brought your cloak. It’s a bit cold outside. Wouldn’t want to come down with something.” She said.

“Who’d care?” Harry said bitterly.

“Well, me for one.” It slipped from her lips before she could stop herself. She blushed as she continued. “You’re a damn fine tipper. It’d be a shame to loose such a good tipper.”

“How long have you been working here?” He asked as he pushed himself shakily off the floor. Millicent gave him her hand. He grinned as he took it.

“About two years. My uncle Deacon owns the pub, and he took me in after my parents - died.” Millicent said quietly. “I’ve been helping out here since then, mostly on holidays and then full time after I finished Hogwarts.”

“You’ve known who I was the entire time?” Harry asked.

“Yup. Uncle Deacon knew Lupin when they were younger. Lupin said you were looking for a safe place to relax, and Deacon told him you’d be safe here.”

“How’d he know -”

“He didn’t. Just seemed like you took well to the suggestion.” Millicent said, tucking a strand of black hair behind her ear.

“So you’re uncle is on our side. Are you?”

“I’m on no one’s side but my own.” Millicent said quietly. “I could have cared less who won the war. It’s called indifference.”

“Why? After all the horrible things he did -”

“Because I didn’t have a choice, and I made it.” Millicent snapped. “My parents were loyal DE’s before I was born. Sixth year, I refused to join. As punishment, He had them killed in front of me. I ran as fast as I could to Hogsmeade to find Snape, or Dumbledore or anyone who could help me. I found Lupin, who found my uncle. If I had surfaced somewhere else, I’d have been dead.”

“Then why didn’t you join our side?”

“Because I didn’t want someone else’s death on my hands, Potter.” Tears welled in her eyes. “It was bad enough going back to Hogwarts in the fall, and had I been anyone else than scary Millicent Bulstrode, they would have tried to make my life a living hell. He made me watch - he told me that if I changed my mind, he would spare them. My father begged me to join. My mother - she looked at me with pride in her eyes. She didn’t want me to join, she’d rather have died than let me sign away my life.”

Harry stared at her with something akin to awe in his eyes. Millicent furiously brushed the tears from her eyes. She didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to remember.

“I didn’t want to endanger my uncle the same way that I had my parents. So I stayed neutral, let the whole thing go right on by. Until you walked into the pub with that half-assed glamour you had on.” Millicent smiled.

“Half-assed?”

“Your scar looked like a bruise - a very transparent bruise, I might add.” She blinked. “You better go home now, Harry.” Her voice sounded tight.

“What?”

“GO!” She said, forcing his hat into his hands.

Harry felt a familiar tug behind his navel and found himself in the house he was staying at with Tonks and Remus. He promptly passed out the minute his feet touched ground again. When he woke up some time later, Tonks was biting her nails and pacing nervously while Remus was just stood watching her. Tonks noticed he was awake first.

“Harry!” Tonks cried, pulling him into a big hug. “We thought you were trapped in the pub!”

“What?” He asked groggily.

“Tonks.” Remus said warningly.

“What happened in the pub?” He remembered Millicent shoving his cap in his hand and telling him to go. “Where’s Millicent?”

“There was an attack. Millicent activated a port-key to send you here.” Remus said slowly.

“What? Is she all right?” Harry tried to push himself out of the bed, but Remus held him down.

“She’s safe, Deacon is safe. Only one person was . . . killed, and only half a dozen injured.”

“Where is she?” Harry demanded. “I have to see her myself.”

“Harry, you should rest.”

“No!” He shouted. “I have to know.”

“We’ll floo Deacon.”

“No.”

“Professor Lupin?” A voice said from the doorway. Harry peered around Remus. A slightly bruised but otherwise looking safe and sound Millicent stood in the doorway.

“Miss Bulstrode, do come in. Nymphandora and I will leave you with him.”

Remus tugged Tonks out of the room, leaving Millicent standing stiffly just inside the room. Harry felt like a heel with her standing there hurt and here he was lying about in bed nursing a hangover.

“You can sit down, you know.”

“Oh, thanks.” Millicent said.

“Who died?” He tried to be as blunt as could be.

“Heather, one of the waitresses. She was stunned and hit her head on the fireplace stones.”

“How’s your uncle?”

“He broke his wrist. Other than that, he’s fine.”

“And you?”

“Got hit in the head with debris from when the ceiling of the loo caved in.” Millicent rubbed at the bruise. “And you?”

“Just a hangover.”

“That’s good.”

“Millicent, why did you get me out of there? I could have fought them -”

“And could have possibly gotten yourself killed at the same time? Yeah, like I was going to let you stay and fight and get yourself killed after all you’ve done for the Wizarding world.” Millicent snapped. “Not after all the effort it took for me to keep you out of trouble for the last year and a half.”

“I thought you were indifferent, that you had no side. So what would it matter if I did get myself killed?”

“Because, you idiot, I did have a side! Your side!” She cried. “I wanted to kill Voldemort with my own hands, but knew that if anyone could, it would be you. Because for the last six months I found myself actually starting to care about you as a person and not some figurehead of the ‘good’ side. Because, in all of our talks, I found in you what I never thought I would. I found a friend.”

Millicent rose from the chair. She had just wanted to see that he was all right, that all of her work had not been in vain. She hadn’t come here to blurt out that she cared for him. That had been the least of her intentions. She felt the hand on her wrist, the fingers clasp tightly around her bare flesh. Felt the tug for her to stop. She turned around to face Harry.

“Thank you.”

“What for?” She stared down at her hand.

“For being on my side.”

*****

That was when it had all clicked into place for Harry. But it would take a handful of months for it to make perfect sense. And here they were today, before the whole of the Wizarding world. He watched her walking down the aisle in her white dress robes, her black hair done up and make-up charms clinging to her skin. The world would see an average looking girl marrying the handsome hero of the Wizarding world, but all Harry saw was the waitress who’d called him Hank when she knew who he really was, he saw the woman who’d shoved a port-key in his hands to make sure nothing happened to him. He saw the woman he loved.