Sober

“It’s free pancakes Wednesday.”

Harry looked up and raised a brow at the waitress that approached him.

He had hoped to see a head of brunette hair and brown eyes so deep Harry could drown in them. Instead, he was faced with a middle-aged woman with a crooked smile and spiky pink hair.

“Free pancake Wednesday, huh?” Harry asked drily. “I didn’t see any signs for it.”

The waitress bent down close to Harry and dropped her voice low. “It’s a special promotion,” she whispered. “All you have to do is sign one measly autograph.”

Harry sighed and rubbed his eyes. This was why he usually tried to hide beneath sunglasses and hats. She didn’t look like one of his typical insane fans, but he’d rather just have coffee and be left alone. “Look…”

“Nope.” The waitress smiled and Harry noticed that her eyes were a mischievously sparkling blue, not unlike George’s. “I’ll raise the stakes, alright? My son, Teddy, he loves your band. Aaaand, he’s sick.” She batted her lashes at Harry playfully, “You wouldn’t deny a single autograph for a sick kid, would you?”

Well he’d look like a real dick if he did, wouldn’t he?

“You have a notebook and a pen?” Harry asked wearily.

The waitress absolutely beamed at Harry. “No, but I’ll be right back!”

Harry scrubbed his face with his hands again and then propped his chin up in one hand while he watched the waitress run through the empty diner to the counter. He laughed just a little when he saw her trip just before she ran behind the counter.

She was only out of sight for a moment before she came back, a pot of coffee and a mug on a tray in one hand and a notebook in the other hand with a pen clenched between her teeth. She slowly and carefully sat the tray down on Harry’s table and popped the pen out of her mouth and wiped it off on her apron.

“Tada!” she cried, brandishing the pen and notebook both to Harry. “Can you write ‘Dear Teddy, your mom is the coolest person in the world, love, your idol, Harry Potter’?”

Harry looked up from the notebook to the neurotic waitress. “You really want me to write that?” he asked.

She grinned and then popped a bubble with the gum she’d been chewing. “Nah, just to Teddy from Harry is fine. You are his idol though, you know. He even took one of his posters of your band to the hospital with him.”

“He needs a better idol,” Harry muttered. He twirled the pen in his fingers for a moment. “What’s wrong with him?” he asked the waitress.

The waitresses sparkly eyes dimmed a little and her red lips curled downward. “Leukemia,” she said, her bubbly voice defeated enough to tell Harry that it wasn’t good. “Stage three.”

Harry didn’t know a damn thing about cancer, but he knew that stage three didn’t sound good.

Dear Teddy, kick cancers ass and you can come to all the free concerts you want. Keep fighting, kid. Love, Harry Potter.

It was a standard autograph.

Harry had signed them for sick kids all the time.

He didn’t usually promise free tickets though. There was just something about this woman’s face— she had a nice smile and kind eyes Harry wanted to see her have a reason to smile again.

“Here.” Harry gave her the notebook and pulled his phone out. “What’s your son’s last name?”

“Lupin,” the waitress said absently as she read the autograph.

Harry shot a quick text off to Fred, asking him to add Teddy Lupin and his parents to his list of VIP guests at all future shows.

All of the members of their band had a list like that.

Ron had Luna, his parents, and his other siblings on his list.

George had a few chicks on his list that he liked to fuck when he they were in the same city.

Harry didn’t know who Hermione had on her list, if she even had anyone on it at all.

And Harry’s had exactly two people on his list before Teddy; a meth addict he met at a meeting who liked his music back when he’d been a solo act and a girl he met in Chicago who tried to pickpocket him then told him that he was her hero.

The meth addict was probably dead, he’d had hepatitis before Harry even met him.

The girl was probably gone too. Harry never saw her at a concert, and he’d looked every time he was in Chicago.

“You mean that?” The waitress was smiling at Harry so widely that he could damn near count all her teeth. She waved the notebook eagerly, “Teddy can come see your concert? For free?”

“You and your husband too,” Harry said, spotting the ring on her left hand. “Just call the venue ahead of time and tell them you’re on my list and ask for tickets.”

Harry quickly averted his eyes from the woman as her eyes became suspiciously wet.

“You’re amazing,” she said brightly. She poured Harry a cup of coffee and slid in the seat across from him. “Thank you so much, you really can have all the free pancakes you want.”

“I’m fine with just coffee,” Harry mumbled, ducking his head and trying to get the woman to take the hint.

Harry was beginning to think that the middle of the night was the worst time to visit this diner if he wanted to be left alone.

He wouldn’t have minded if it had been Theo Nott again, but he probably didn’t work here anymore.

“It’s just me and Teddy,” the waitress told Harry in a factual manner. “His dad, my husband, died last year. Liver failure from the booze, you know?”

Harry did know a bit about that, actually, and he shifted uneasily in his seat. He hummed noncommittally though and the woman’s smile turned sly.

“Hmm.” She tapped a bright lime green nail to her lips and looked closely at Harry. “I’m also a psychic, you know.”

“Yeah?” Harry thrummed his fingers on the table and took a sip of his coffee. “A psychic widow with a cancer riddled kid working in a diner?”

The woman didn’t lose her smile even if Harry had been being a dick. “Yup,” she said. She leaned close to Harry across the table and closed her eyes and wiggled her fingers at him. “My psychic senses are telling me…” She peeked one eye open, “Coke?”

Harry twisted his face in a scowl. “Shitty coffee, actually.”

The waitress laughed loudly and Harry’s lips twitched against his will.

“I meant, what’s your poison?” she asked. “You’re not skinny enough to be shooting up, you’re much too pretty to be a full-time alcoholic, and your hand was pretty steady while you were writing, so I’m guessing it’s not pills either. Or, at least, not all the time.”

Harry raised his brows, impressed despite himself. “What are you? An expert in addiction?”

“I used to be a cop,” she grinned. “Was I right?”

“Partially,” Harry admitted. He pulled his blue chip from his jacket pocket and spun it on the table. “Six months sober. Third time I’ve made it this far.”

“That’s amazing!” she cried, truly sounding as if she meant it. “You have no idea how many people die from that shit.”

Harry spun the chip again and glanced up at her cheery face. “So you used to be a cop?” he asked, a blatant subject change. “And what?” He looked around the empty diner and smirked a little. “You gave it all up for the glory of coffee and pancakes?”

“Burgers too,” she laughed. “I got shot and had to be medically separated.” She stuck her left leg out and wriggled it and Harry realized that her knee didn’t bend. “They don’t need a klutz on the force and they didn’t need a rookie on desk duty indefinitely.”

Harry literally laughed when she tripped earlier. He thought she was just clumsy.

God, he was such an asshole.

“Damn,” Harry said. He bit his lip and tapped the table a few times with his chip. “You get a decent severance package at least?”

The waitress laughed again. “As a rookie officer in New York?” She shook her head at Harry and never lost her smile. “Nope. I get a little check every month that sometimes covers the lights and then a glowing letter of recommendation.”

Harry looked around the shitty diner and then back at her. “What the fuck are you so happy about then?” he blurted. “Your son’s dying, your husband’s dead, you’ve got a shit job, and a bum leg! Why…” Harry shook his head and tried to tamper down on the irrational anger welling up in him.

Harry had everything.

He just bought a luxury townhouse without even checking the price.

He had two best friends that went to hell and back for him every time he needed them.

He was a fucking household name and only played at sold-out shows.

Why the fuck was this damn waitress so happy with her shit life if Harry couldn’t be happy with his life?

If Harry had so much and hated himself so fiercely, why didn’t she?

The waitress listened to Harry insult her and raise his voice at her and she just waited with a little smile on her painted lips.

“How are you so fucking happy?” Harry asked her. He felt an urge to just crawl in this woman’s skin and see what it would be like to be her.

To have the whole fucking world against you, and still walk around with sparkling sober eyes and a smile on your lips.

The waitress leaned forward and she reached out to touch Harry’s wrist. She smiled at him, “You want to know my secret?”

Harry just nodded.

The woman patted Harry’s hand kindly. “I don’t think about my mistakes, my failures, my bad days. I focus on the positive. I don’t have a son who might never get to graduate high school, I have a son who wears a blue wig to make me laugh, kicks ass at Call of Duty, and loves to watch old movies with me. I didn’t lose my husband young to a preventable disease, I got to spend years married to my best friend who is no longer in any pain now. My job will never make me rich, but it gives me time off any time I need it to be with my son and I’ve never had my utilities shut off. Get it?”

“No,” Harry admitted. “You’re just reframing your shit life to make it sound like it isn’t shit and it works?” he asked skeptically.

“Try me,” the woman grinned and raised an light brown eyebrow in a challenge. “Let me hear about your shit life and we’ll reframe it.”

“I’m a drug addict,” Harry said bitterly. He spun his coin again as if proving it.

She nodded at the chip. “You’re six months sober, that’s not a small accomplishment.”

Harry’s lips curled up in a mirthless smile. “I’m an orphan,” he told her with his eyes on the spinning chip. “My parents died in a wreck when I was only one, I lived with some shit relatives before bouncing around foster homes until I got sick of it and struck out on my own at seventeen.”

“Hmm…” The waitress hummed and nudged Harry’s mug toward him, a reminder of the cold coffee he’d been nursing. “Alright, your parents never disappointed you and you got an early opportunity to meet a variety of people and the experience probably made you a really good judge of character.”

Harry did laugh then, more from surprise than anything. “You’re fucking crazy,” he said to the woman. “God damn.”

“I made you laugh,” she winked. “Come on, kid, give me a hard one.”

Harry took a sip of the coffee and pulled a face, prompting her to snicker and refill it from the hot pot on the table.

“I think you’re a better life coach than you are waitress,” Harry said with a smirk after he took a drink of the now warm-ish coffee.

“Probably,” she agreed with a shameless sort of cheer. “But we already have a social worker on staff, and there just isn’t room for two pretentious douche bags.”

Harry stopped playing with the chip and grinned. “Is the pretentious douche bag’s name Theo?”

“It is!” she cried. Her eyes lit up and she, somehow, looked even more cheerful. “Do you know him?”

Harry thought about those brown eyes that he’d actually bothered to remember the name of the soul inside them. “He thought I was going to kill myself and then he kissed me,” Harry told her. “He told me to come find him when I liked myself.”

“That sounds like Theo,” she laughed. “Ooh, I have his number, do you want it?”

Harry debated for a moment.

On the one hand, it would be nice to lose himself in someone else for a while.

On the other hand, he really wasn’t supposed to be losing himself at all.

“No.” Harry dropped his eyes down to the table and pulled his wallet out. “I still don’t like myself much, do I? Can I get the check?”

The waitress got to her feet, stretched, and pulled a ticket slip from her pocket. “The coffee’s $2.07, but you signed an autograph for my kid, I think I can look the other way.”

Harry shook his head and handed her his card. “I’d like to pay for it,” he said.

“Suit yourself,” she shrugged.

Harry tapped out a quick text to the guy who manages his financial shit. Harry didn’t have to interact with him much, but usually he shoots him a message before any big purchase just so his card doesn’t get declined. He stuck his phone back in his jacket pocket and put his chip and wallet in his jeans pockets when the waitress came back with his credit slip.

“I’ve got one more for you,” Harry said as he filled out the slip.

“Shoot,” she told him with a grin.

Harry finished filling out the slip and folded it in half before he held it out. She reached for it, but he didn’t let go just yet while he looked in her eyes. “I hate being Harry Potter,” he said quietly with a quaver he tried tamping down on. “How do I reframe that?”

Her fingers were warm as she let go of the slip to wrap Harry’s larger hands in hers. Her blue eyes were soft and earnest as she held his gaze.

“It’s easy,” she said, her voice as soft and warm as a blanket fresh out of the dryer. “Every time you think how much you hate yourself, decide to love yourself. It’s never ‘I hate myself’, always ‘I love who I am’.”

Harry smiled and gave her the credit slip after he got to his feet. She gave him one last pat on the shoulder before he slipped off toward the exit.

Harry paused just outside the door to light a cigarette and he heard a coffee mug get dropped and shatter as she doubtlessly checked the tip line.

Then he hurried away before she could come try and do anything stupid like thank him.

She’d given him a hell of a lot more than he gave her.