Harry wished there was something he could do for Corben, but he didn't seem to want to talk about it or even admit that anything was bothering him. He continued his trainings silently, smiled a little too brightly whenever Harry said hello, and put his entire body and soul into working hard to pass his Auror tests.
He was putting as much effort into his work as a qualified Auror did, and Harry knew it wasn't healthy for him.
Thus one Friday, after he was done with his own work, he said goodbye to Ron, went into the training hall and sat in one corner, waiting for Corben to finish. He was duelling another trainee Auror and colourful sparks flew from their wands. The second person seemed to be relatively new to duelling, for he was positively struggling. He backed away with each spell that Corben shot at him, finally yelling out, "Protego!"
Corben was blasted a few inches backwards and his wand fell from his hand. Despite the clear defeat, he grinned triumphantly and shot his rival a challenging glare, who merely shook his head in response. Audra came into Harry's view and spoke to her two students. Soon after, they were dismissed.
Corben spotted Harry as he slung his bag over his shoulder and jogged over to him, grinning. "Fancy seeing you here, Just Harry."
Harry stood up and smiled. "You seem far too happy for someone who's just lost a duel."
"Lost?" He shook his head. "I didn't lose, Harry, I won. It was a practice for non verbal spells, not duels."
"Oh? Then congrats!"
Corben thanked him and did a little exaggerated bow. Harry led him outside and into a corridor that wasn't packed with people, then faced him. He was more than certain that Corben was putting up the happy façade to not show what he was actually feeling. He was quite broken about all the talks revolving around his mother, and his current demeanor was quite obviously forced.
"How are you feeling?" he asked quietly, holding him lightly by the arms. Corben shrugged him off.
"I'm fine, Harry. Is that what you brought me here for?"
"No, actually," Harry answered and straightened himself. "I wanted to ask you if you wanted to hang out with me over the weekend. I know it's probably late to ask, but it would be great if you do."
Corben looked surprised, but he agreed. "Sure, I would love to. Do you have anything in mind?"
"As a matter of fact, I do," said Harry with a smile.
"Oh, planned everything already, have you?" He waggled his eyebrows, causing heat to rise up his cheeks.
"Uh – sort of." He shifted weight from one foot to another. "Tomorrow then?"
"Yeah, where shall I meet you?"
"Oh I'll pick you up from your home." Harry smiled. "Four is okay?"
"Four is okay."
Harry rang Ron the next morning. He seemed to have just woken up, for his words stumbled over each other and it took him a good five minutes to recognise his best friend. There wasn't a particular reason Harry had called him, but they ended up talking for over half an hour, mainly because he missed talking to him. The topic of Ginny was still a sensitive one between them, but Ron was surprisingly understanding about it. He seemed to have learned his lesson.
After freshening up and having breakfast, Harry decided to do some work from office. Being an Auror was mostly practical work, although he did have loads of documents to keep tabs of the criminals who have been caught in the past, along with wanted ones. It was a tiring job either way, and he was looking forward to spending some time with Corben.
He finished lunch quickly, then dressed up in muggle clothes. He wore warm shirts and pants and finished it off with an emerald green Weasley jumper that he had received from Molly a few months ago. And, just to be safe, he wrapped a soft muffler around his neck.
He apparated to Corben's house. He had shown where he lived when Harry had gone to that restaurant near his home with him and Teddy. Harry was worried that he wouldn't remember which building it was where Corben lived, since they were all nearly identical and packed together. But thankfully, Corben was already on the streets, and they both found each other at the same time.
"Hey!" Corben greeted him cheerfully and sprinted towards him. "I almost didn't recognise you with that Slytherin look."
Harry frowned, confused, before he realised he was talking about the jumper he wore. He laughed. "Ron's Mum made it for me."
"Well, green looks nice on you. Did you ever think of becoming a Slytherin?"
"Yeah, sure," said Harry sarcastically. "I'll just head over to Hogwarts and ask the Sorting Hat to change me to Slytherin."
Corben laughed. "It wouldn't hurt to try. Who knows, maybe the Hat will make an exception for the Boy Who Killed Voldy."
They began to walk down the street. "Hm okay, so if that's the case, then I can surely ask the Minister to let me resign and give me monthly pensions even though I'm only twenty two."
"And free food," Corben pointed out. "Don't forget free food."
"And unlimited access to hair products."
"You use hair products?" Corben gave him a dubious look.
"Of course," Harry said as though it was the most obvious thing ever. "Such fabulous hair as mine doesn't come naturally." And he flipped his hair for extra effects, causing Corben to erupt into a laughing feat.
"Merlin, your hair flip is ridiculous."
"I take offense to that."
When Corben has finally stopped laughing, he asked, "So what have you planned?"
"Plenty, actually. I hope you like shopping. And cooking."
"Hm," said Corben thoughtfully. "Not a fan of shopping, but love cooking."
"Great."
They went into a deserted corner and Harry gripped his arm firmly before disapparating. Once the nauseating phase was over, they were standing in a narrow alley. Corben looked around, blinked, then playfully glared at him. "Are you kidnapping me or what?"
Harry rolled his eyes. "Come on." And he dragged him out of the alley which was riddled with overflowing trashcans. Just outside, there were quite a few people bustling around, and they weaved through the crowd before Harry finally stopped upon reaching his destination.
Corben stared at the supermarket that stood before them. "You've … brought me to … grocery shopping?"
Harry gave him a bright smile. "Yes."
He explained his plan to Corben as he rolled the shopping cart through the aisles. The latter seemed quite uncomfortable, and Harry guessed it was due to the large number of muggles swivelling past. He probably wasn't used to so many muggles together.
"I actually wanted to invite you to dinner first," he spoke to him, though his eyes wandered over the shelves on either side. "But then I thought it would be more fun to shop, cook dinner ourselves, and then eat it. That way, it offers more satisfaction."
Corben smiled, leaping slightly as a woman rushed past him with her trolley, a toddler seated upon the baby seat. "You know, that's not a bad idea."
It took them over an hour and a half to finish shopping, mainly because Corben kept veering off to different places, easily drawn by the various muggle products stashed everywhere, and Harry had to satisfy his curiosities. In the end however, they had bought everything they needed and they were ready to head home.
Harry apparated them to his flat, and while Corben looked around in awe, he unpacked the bags in the kitchen. There were a lot of things that were completely unnecessary, and were simply bought out of impulse or because Corben thought it was cute. He found a packet of gummy bears, a lampshade, a wallet, a framed picture of fruits and vegetables that Corben said he would hang on his wall, and an electric toothbrush. Stifling a smile, he set those aside and sorted the stuff they would need now.
Corben entered the kitchen a while later. "Need help?"
Without waiting for an answer, he crouched, picked up a select few packets and dropped them on the kitchen counter. He pulled out his wand and began to unwrap them, but Harry quickly got to his feet and snatched it away. "Nope. No magic. We do it the traditional way."
"Seriously?" he protested with a groan. "You made me walk through the shop for two hours and now you won't let me use magic. That's cruel."
Harry ignored him. He brought his own wand out and placed both of them at the top of the refrigerator.
"You do realise I'm taller than you, right?"
Once again, he was ignored.
It didn't take them long to demolish the entire kitchen. Harry was completely bemused by how childish Corben could become. Whilst he was a good cook, he frequently got distracted by the muggle equipments, and spent the next few minutes flooding him with questions.
"What's this do?" he asked after having hunted out an equipment from one of the shelves.
Harry covered his face with his hand, partly to show his frustration, partly to hide his smile. "That's a coffee maker."
Corben stared, mystified. "So, if I press this button, it will give me coffee?"
"No. You have to add coffee beans to grind them. Then add milk and sugar, and then it will pour out coffee for you "
"Oh." His amazement flickered away. "That's not very much useful then. I can just do it manually."
"Yes, you can," Harry answered and took the coffee maker from him, putting it back into its shelf. "Now what were you doing?"
"Right." He hurried back to chopping the vegetables.
Harry was initially worried that Corben wouldn't like making the dinner, but he was relieved to find that he wasn't complaining. He didn't seem to be too bothered either, and seemed genuinely eager to experiment with the ingredients. Right now, he was preparing something on a tray, and refused to tell him what it was, saying it would be a surprise.
Harry, who has been instructed to fry an egg, found himself struggling. Soon after, a burning smell rose into the air, and thick, black fumes spiralled upwards from the frying pan. He hastily turned off the flames, scratching his head in confusion.
"Was that ... supposed to happen?" he asked gingerly, trying to lighten the mood as a he saw a horrified look spread over Corben's face.
"What did you do?"
"I did nothing," he said, sounding like a child who was caught doing something wrong.
"You don't know how to fry an egg."
"Well, that's not true," he said defensively and removed the pan from the stove, allowing it to cool. "I do –"
"You're the boy who killed Voldemort. How come you don't know how to fry an egg?"
"I do know how to fry an egg." He took a spoon and prodded the charred pieces that lay morosely on the pan. "Look, if we just remove the black parts, we can still –"
"Who burns eggs?" Corben asked, still staring at the pan disbelievingly. He didn't seem like he was listening to Harry.
"I hate fried eggs, okay? Now stop attacking me. I'll try to fix it."
In the end, he couldn't. The charred remains of the egg were discarded into the bin and Corben took another egg to fry it himself. Over two hours later, their dinner was fully complete and they began to lay down the food on the table.
The dishes laid out were all very random – it would seem like they had simply picked out ingredients blindfolded and improvised the cooking.
Corben's surprise dish turned out to be a toffee pudding he had prepared for dessert. It had taken quite sometime to teach him how to use the oven, along with other electrical equipments, which was partly the reason it had taken so long. The other reason was that he got distracted easily and hopped from one place to another, subsequently having broken three dishes in ten minutes.
Despite the confusing two and a half hours, it was indeed quite satisfactory when they finally sat down to eat. The kitchen was in a mess around them, but they cleared up the table carefully and dug in. As Harry speared one of the pieces of his roast beef with his fork, he glanced over and found Corben sniffing his food. He blushed when he saw Harry staring.
"Sorry," he laughed abashedly. "I just like nice scents."
Harry smiled. "No need to say sorry."
He noticed how Corben couldn't sit still, even while eating. He kept shifting on his seat, as though he was uncomfortable, although Harry knew that wasn't the case. He put his fork down every few minutes, tapped the table with his fingers, danced his legs. Harry decided that maybe it was just his habit, that he had too much energy in his body and he had to move constantly to release them. He thought how undeniably cute the behaviour was.
After dinner was over, Corben served his toffee pudding. As he cut it into slices with a knife, he said conversationally, "You know, it was actually fun. We should do it again."
Harry smiled at him, sliding his glasses up his nose. "I told you. It's better than going to a fancy restaurant to have readymade dinner."
"Did you do this often with –" he stopped abruptly, clearing his throat. "Sorry, I probably shouldn't –"
But Harry didn't mind. Although he did still think of Ginny sometimes, he knew that their splitting was for the best in the long run. "Not really. She was more of an outdoor type of person."
Corben nodded. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, and then, perhaps to make it look less awkward, he took a bite of his pudding. After a while, however, he blurted out. "Why did you break up with her?"
"That is the reason actually. We were too different. It wasn't working out."
"Oh. I'm sorry." He took another bite.
"There's no need to be sorry," Harry said sincerely and stood up to deposit the dishes on the sink. He brought down the wands from top of the refrigerator and gave Corben's one back. He then waved his own. A sponge rose into the air, swiped over a soap and began to clean up the dishes. Corben smirked.
"I thought we weren't supposed to use magic?"
"We are now."
As Corben stood up, Harry crossed his arms over his chest and looked at him. "Now come on, my plans aren't over yet."
"Are we going to clean the house now?" Corben asked playfully, following Harry as he led him into his room. He pulled open the top drawer of his cupboard and rummaged through a pile of multiple things, before finally pulling out a thin rectangular box. He handed it over to Corben, grinned widely, and announced, "Monopoly."
"What's that?"
"It's a board game where you try to get richer than your opponent."
Corben looked at him amusedly. "Sounds fun."
He didn't take long to learn the rules, and as they took turns rolling heir dice, Harry settled down comfortably on the spacious floor while Corben shifted around where he sat. He had played monopoly with Hermione and Ron before. The former was very strategic and somehow always managed to persuade the other two to trade their properties, and would definitely always win, if not for Ron, who usually got bored quickly and muttered under his breath about muggles and their stupid games, before overturning the board.
Corben talked through the entire game. It was mostly random things – his favourite food, that one time in school when he and Theo had poured water over Blaise's bed while he was sleeping to make it look like he had wetted his pants, that other time when they had pranked the Bloody Baron, the house ghost of Slytherin, so bad that he refused to show his face to the students for a month.
Harry remained quiet for the most part. He found that he enjoyed listening to him, and there was something about his bubbly, talkative self that made him forget all the stress about himself; the way he talked was so real that he found himself standing right there, in the Slytherin dorms, with Corben and Theo snickering as Blaise yelled his voice hoarse, the front of his pyjamas wet. The vision was so abrupt that Harry laughed. Out loud.
Corben halted mid speech and gave him a suspicious look, eyebrows creased into a frown. "What's so funny?"
Harry tried to quit his laughter, but it only made him laugh harder. "Well, Blaise. Peeing on his bed. Yelling."
"I told that … ten minutes ago."
Harry waved him off. "Yeah, well. It's still funny." He paused, before looking at him properly. The frown on his face looked cute, he thought. And those long, slender fingers that tapped the floor rhythmically – Harry had the sudden urge to slide his own fingers between them – he wanted to know what it would feel like.
He frowned at himself suddenly, trying to remember how may glasses of wine he had taken after dinner. It was only one, he was sure. Then why was he having such strange thoughts? He drew his eyes away from Corben and focused on the board lying on the floor.
"Do you have any plans for Christmas?" he asked suddenly, drawing his legs closer to hug them.
Corben seemed surprised at the question. "No. We don't really celebrate Christmas. Or any other occasions, for that matter. My mum wasn't a fan of the idea of having special days. Every day was special for her."
"Oh, that sounds nice." He paused, rolled the die. "Then, since you are free, would you like to spend the Christmas with me? At the Weasleys?"
Corben frowned. "Really?"
"Yeah, why not?"
"But –" he said uncertainly. "I don't know anyone –"
"How will you know them if you don't meet them?" Harry waved his hand dismissively. "They're all great, you'll love them. And Mrs Weasley loves having people over."
Corben still looked unsure, but he said, "Well then, I suppose –"
"It will be fun. I promise."
The game didn't end of course, but it was late and Corben stood up to leave. At the door, he hugged Harry, bringing him to freeze at the suddenness.
He smiled as he pulled away. "Thanks, Just Harry. I had a good time."
Harry smiled back, feeling an odd tingling all over his body. "Good to know."
•••
i'm going through terrible writer's block and yet somehow wrote the longest chapter of this book