leave your home, change your name | harlan

The beginning of May had come quickly, more quickly than she’d been able to blink her eyes three times fast, and sometimes Kate couldn’t tell if the passing of time was a blessing or a curse. Maybe both, for different reasons. On one hand, she was getting older and theoretically wiser, and it had been months since the book’s release without any paper coverage--it almost seemed like she was in the clear, but she still felt too wary of a different outcome to be sure. On the other, more time was passing and so many parts of her felt like they were stagnating--not getting better, not getting worse, just existing and persisting, irritatingly.

Her villa was an oasis and a reprieve, but sometimes it felt like a prison, too. There were so many references to the past in this house; Kate couldn’t deny that the largest part of why she hadn’t sold this home and bought a new one, free from emotional residue, was the sweet, sharp twisting of sentimentality. She was sentimental to a fault, so many parts of her lived and died in her past and in her memories. This had been her first real home away from her parents’--she had moved in with Charlie when she’d moved to England, yes, but that was already his established apartment and it was different than calling someplace new home. With someone.

She didn’t know if it helped or hurt her to remain here, or how it looked to other people, but she mostly didn’t care. Kate was passionate, she was dragged around mercilessly by her heart, people knew this. If they expected anything different, they could go beat down a piece of cardboard’s door and leave her be.

Despite her acute loneliness that didn’t seem to mend or destroy, regardless of environment, it was always nice to have a visitor here and there, like a little life raft. Very few people from Britain had been to this house, but Kate trusted Harlan well enough she’d given him the go-ahead to come here after his conference in New York ended. An owl from him earlier in the day told her he’d be here in the early evening, so the house was clean, Simon was fed, she was showered, and dinner was in the oven.

Kate was expecting him but the knock at the door startled her nonetheless--she had only recently taken down the wards, and had briefly considered putting them back up after her book had been in danger of being leaked, but she’d managed to cinch everything up okay and thus had left them be. She skittered across the floor to answer it, big smile on her face, “Hi.” Kate stepped aside, dragging one foot to bring them back together in her new location. “C’mon in, dinner’s in the oven.”

Harlan glanced around his new, unfamiliar setting.

The air in California seemed to settle differently than it did in London. The looming end of Spring was more palpable, the heat thicker. He adjusted the half-open collar of his white button-down linen shirt as a whirl of breeze whipped the drive leading to Kate's home, ruffling his hair.

Harlan squinted for a moment. Her place was beautiful, secluded, but still in the midst of activity enough to feel the hum of life. It was a change of pace when compared to New York where everything buzzed. He was there for work, but they had managed a few nights out for dinner. The city lived up to its mantra of never having slept.

A few breaths after his knock on the door, Kate appeared. "Hi," Harlan half-held up a bottle of champagne with the neck in his palm. It was courtesy of his sister. She insisted though he wouldn't dream of showing up empty-handed either way. "Audrey wanted to make sure you got it," 

Knowing her, she'd already sent a bottle and flowers immediately following the release of the book.

"Oh, really?" Harlan did little to hide his grin. There was something about a meal cooked by someone else, in their home. An immediate ease washed over him, his shoulders relaxed. "You didn't have to cook," He insisted out of habit as his eyes ventured the interior. "This is beautiful," He said matter-of-factly.

“Oh, wow,” Kate blurted as soon as his arm lifted, showing her the bottle of champagne that looked very expensive in closer proximity. Her cheeks were warm, she could feel it, undoubtedly he could see it.

She felt less weird accepting a gift that nice from another woman, and while her ex had always thought she desired material items and gifts, had thought she preferred a life of luxury to one of simplicity, there was a not-insignificant part of her that desired to cut out all the unnecessary extras, especially now after feeling the loss of something much more important. It was nice, of course, being well-off, being secure, not having to worry about anything in that regard--but one could be worry-free and secure without having so much in excess, right? She felt guilty even thinking about how much her custom ring had cost, and that it sat in her jewelry box, unworn.

The longer Kate spent alone with her cat, the more she wanted shared comfort with another person (a specific person always came to mind), to be able to call down the hall and have him hear her, to end the night tangled up together on cool sheets after a homemade meal. Her face was still pink, but perhaps not from embarrassment now, and she looked at the floor for one last private moment as Harlan walked through the doorway and into the house.

“No, I like to cook,” Kate told him and locked the door behind them--not for any other reason than residual paranoia. She really should look into getting those wards put back up. She was good enough at magic to do them herself but it would take time and a whole lot of energy, and maybe her money would be put to better use if she just paid someone else to come out and do it. “It’s not a problem at all. You must be hungry after all your… stuff,” Her smile was sheepish. She didn’t know much about sports. Music, literature, performing, sure, but nobody was particularly athletically inclined in her immediate circle. Fflur came to mind, but she didn’t seem too keen on offering information about that part of her life.

“Thank you,” Kate smiled in response to his compliment, and felt another twang to her heart strings. “I love it here. It’s my first… well. It was our first real house.”

She swept around to the other side of the kitchen island and gestured toward his hands, still clutching the champagne. “You want to open that and drink some together while we wait? I don’t mind.”

Harlan's eyes narrowed on Kate— was that a blush? He glanced at the bottle in his palm briefly before flicking back up to her with a hint of a smile in his eye. "I don't know if it's any good," The tone of his voice indicated otherwise. "But it's Audrey, so—" It went without saying that her taste was impeccable. Annoyingly so. And Kate knew her well enough.

The smell of something cooking enveloped more than one of his senses. Scent had a funny way of bringing back memories long pushed aside. He followed to where she locked the door, a curious observer of what seemed to be a habit. His own was magically affixed to lock behind him, or else he thought might have been the same

"My stuff, yes," There was a hint of teasing in his voice, teetering the line of what was appropriate behavior around someone who he knew but he didn't know all that well. "I wasn't playing," He corrected, not unkindly. "A bit of press bullshit..." He grinned. More than anything, he was hyper-aware of the trope that he'd very well positioned himself into over the years of his career.

Harlan explored the expanse of the kitchen. It looked more lived-in than his own, when comparing the two. Welcoming. Their house. He wasn't sure if it was the smell of a homecooked meal or if it was because he knew the feeling well but Arya came to mind, as she often had. He grappled with the memory for a moment before—

"Yes, lets," He agreed entirely too easily, casting his wand over the bottle and sending a chill down the glass. Instead of magic, he used his hands to pop the cork. That was far more gratifying. "What are you making?" Harlan nodded to the oven before scanning the cabinets to where he imagined the glasses might be.

Kate frowned softly instead of smiling back when Harlan mentioned press. That was one of her least favorite parts of this lifestyle she’d chosen, having to deal with people snapping pictures of her, her life, her things, her family--all the time; owling for interviews, making assumptions that were so far off base they may as well have been in a different country.

She’d be lying if she said she didn’t automatically flip past the quidditch section when reading the Daily Prophet or any other publication, so she decided not to do that. Wasn’t any good to build a budding friendship based on lies, was it? Kate could imagine he didn’t really enjoy it when people pretended to be his biggest fan to get on his good side, either. “I…” Kate began, grinning back finally, “Press isn’t… my favorite. What sorts of things do they normally ask you?”

Her eyes flew open wider when he took his wand out and she chided herself for having forgotten to explain the situation in her house, but he was far enough away from any electrical appliances that the small charm he cast would probably be fine. Kate grimaced and waited a second, thankful when he switched to his hands to pop the cork out. “Great,” She chirped with a hint of a relieved sigh nothing had shorted out or exploded, “Let me grab some glasses,”

She meandered over to the liquor cabinet in the dining room and leaned down, plucking two champagne flutes off the bottom where they hung with one hand. “Here you go,” Her fingers slid the glass across the last bit of distance between them (rather than handing it to him directly) and she hopped up on the kitchen island to sit down. She was in jeans, so it wasn’t gauche. “Just enchiladas,” Kate answered with a little wave of her hand. “My family’s Mexican, they live kinda close but. Not too close.” She paused. That was another story for another time.

“I can make other stuff too but, it’s kind of my specialty.” She found herself smiling again. Kate normally thought getting to know new people was kind of a hassle, something she wanted to skip right past, but with Harlan it was kind of fun.

“They’ll be ready soon. I have some fresh tortilla chips and salsa if you want some in the meantime? I don’t know if you like spicy, I know a lot of people from… across the pond don’t.” Wimps. (Fondly.) “Oh, by the way--all the stuff in here is like… Muggle. The appliances and things like that. W--I just don’t really use magic in here.”

The chill on the bottle crackled. The sound was strange, foreign. And not just because the walls around him that the sound bounced into were foreign. The frost didn't exactly falter but there was a noticeable difference in the effect of the magic. There was something missing. Harlan was familiar enough with his own magic to be certain. He eyed the bottle in his palm curiously before flicking over Kate as she slid over a pair of glasses then hoisted herself to the kitchen bench.

"I think over the years they've realized I don't entertain the personal ones..." He answered finally, having thought about. "Though that doesn't usually stop them, does it?" He caught her eye briefly. From what he knew of her (mostly as it pertained to her personal life, thanks to the press, and to Audrey), he figured Kate understood the sentiment.

Not a lot of people did, so it was nice to have the commonality, as shitty as it was.

Enchiladas. He hadn't realized he was was hungry until the smell of cooking permeated through the air when he walked in. A certain specialty. He smiled faintly, vaguely nostalgic despite his every effort to forget the feeling of the sentimentality that inevitably came with someone sharing that part of themselves. Food, and music, and books, were the best window into who someone really way. "I like spice," Harlan suddenly piped up, pulling himself from own daydream to hand over the fizzing glass.

The champagne was glowing in the evening sun that drenched her home. "I know I don't look like it," He rolled his eyes. It was something Arya had told him time and time again. And most of the time had proven him sorely wrong. "Ahhh, so that explains it," He followed her gaze around the kitchen, landing on the bottle. He knew it wasn't just his magic. "Interesting," He mused, but didn't pry. 

“No, it doesn’t,” Kate agreed with him. And it didn’t. Personal lives of famous people were theoretically much more interesting than details of their actual talents or contributions to society, but she was confused how anyone had time to care about those things at all. In her case, she only had time to worry about her own life and people’s lives she was close to. Anything else seemed erroneous and a waste of energy.

The oven started its obnoxious beeping after several more moments of them standing there talking, and she flitted over to the other side of the kitchen, potholders in hand, to turn it off and pull the pan of enchiladas off the center rack. As she brought them to the counter and set them on the trivet, Kate’s foot reached back behind her to shut the oven door closed. “You like spice?” She raised her eyebrow, “You’re right, you don’t look like it. Is that learned?”

Kate hadn’t gotten a chance to lay everything out yet so she set about it, starting with the homemade chips and salsa which she dumped into a larger and smaller bowl, respectively, and then plopped them onto the middle part of her island. “Here you go, let me know what you think. That’s red salsa but I have green tomatillo someplace in the fridge too,”

Even though his comment had been offhand and hadn’t really required an answer she chose to respond to it anyway. “Yeah, it’s interesting, I guess. Took some time to get used to but I think I prefer it now, it kind of keeps me grounded.” She shrugged. It took more time and energy to do things with her hand instead of flicking her wrist from a remote point across the room, but it made life seem slower and helped her cherish every minute, when there was cherishing to be done, of course.

“All the rest of the food’s ready, too, you can take as much as you like.” If she was left to her own devices it would probably take her days to eat it, so her offer was genuine. Now was her chance to have a sip of her champagne, which she liked the idea of much better than eating in front of someone else, so she grabbed the stem gently between her fingers and pulled away when she was done. “This is really good.”

Harlan cast a glance at the oven, the look on his face somewhere between disdain and confusion. Surely there was a nicer sound muggles could have chosen to signify that their meal was ready. The incessant beeping was so... grating. Eventually, though, he broke into something of an amused smile. There seemed to be a lot about her home that was foreign to him. And he was curious. "Learned, yeah," He eventually answered regarding his penchant for heat. He stopped short of bringing up the source.

"Not my family," He nearly laughed at the idea. The Bellamy's were more than traditional in their meals, though he and Audrey had departed the most from that mantra. "Audrey's a bit like me," Harlan eyed the dish as she manually pulled it out from the oven. The smell permeated the room. "I'm sure you know that, of course," His sister had taken a liking to Kate, even if she didn't show it.

She and Harlan were similar in more ways than one, it seemed.

While he couldn't understand the sentiment in full, he nodded sagely as she said that the lack of magic in her home kept her grounded. To be frank, he couldn't imagine it. "Thanks for all of this," He said belatedly, gesturing to the salsa, and the meal scattered around them as they stood near the island of the kitchen. "You really didn't have to," It felt like an imposition.

"I'm glad you like it," Harlan glanced to the champagne flute held delicately in her hand, then eventually to her stretched neck as she took a sip. He cleared his throat, dipping a chip into the aforementioned salsa and leaning back against the countertop. "How are you finding things now that the book is out?" The book was out, but she wasn't. "Still anonymous, I presume?" He easily ventured. Audrey would have made it known otherwise.