A Perfect Flat
“Why don’t we order a large pot of something, then?” Melina asked. “Would you mind, Min-erva? I know you had rosehip tea, but –”
“That’s fine, as long as it’s not Earl Grey. I don’t mind it, but I think I’d prefer something else today.”
“An’ a fine idea that is, Miss McGonagall,” Quin said, signalling the wait-witch.
After they had ordered their pot of tea, Quin turned to Minerva. “In response to your invitation, I would be pleased t’ come to tea tomorrow afternoon.”
“Good! I’m glad. I must say that I was somewhat surprised when Melina told me you were one of the potential landlords.”
“Technically, they’re not me properties; they’re Alroy’s, inherited from his great-grandfather. I’m just takin’ care o’ them until he’s of age. Though I don’t normally do very much, just peek in on Ferguson’s now and again to see that they’re doin’ right by him. But when I saw the McGonagall name,” Quin said with a smile at Melina, “I couldna’ let Mr Shycross show them, all impersonal. And there’s th’ other property, as well, which I haven’t listed with them yet. No application fees if you like that one, Miss McGonagall.”
Melina frowned slightly. “That doesn’t seem quite fair to Mr Shycross, since I found you through his agency.”
“Ah, don’t worry yourself about Ferguson’s. They will thrive with or without your fees, and I’ll take care o’ Mr Shycross.” Seeing a protest forming on Melina’s lips, Quin said, “Consider it a wedding present, Miss McGonagall, if you must!”
“How did you know what I was going to say?” Melina asked.
“’Tis a business man I am, Miss McGonagall. Anticipatin’ an objection is part o’ me livelihood. And,” Quin added with a quirked smile, “you do that same thing with your brow that your aunt does just before she objects to somethin’ I’ve said.”
Melina laughed and Minerva snorted.
“Now, ’tis important that a couple has a flat they can live in comfortably. Don’t you go and feel you must take one o’ mine just because your aunt and I are friends – and I hope we become friends, too, even if I’m your landlord. If you like one of ’em, we can have your young man come and look at it, too. An’ unlike some, though, either o’ you can sign the lease. I’m not t’ be insistin’ on it bein’ your fiancé. I just think he should see it, and I don’t mind makin’ the time for it.”
“We thought we’d both sign the lease, actually,” Melina answered.
“Well, that’s fine, then. Let me tell you a little bit about them.”
The wait-witch brought their tea, and they interrupted the conversation for a few minutes.
“So, they’re both on the Floo-Network,” Quin continued, “and we’d just need to change the address to one that identifies it with you. Both are also close to Muggle bus lines, as well. I don’t know if Mr O’Donald is in possession of an automobile, but the second property I am after showin’ you has parkin’ in the back. Bein’ as they’re also Muggle properties, they also have telephone, electric, gas, and all that. Kitchens are fully Muggle, too. There’s no cooker in the second place I’m showin’ you, as it belonged t’ the previous tenants, not t’ the property, but we could talk about that.”
“That sounds ideal – the flat Mr Shycross showed us wasn’t on the Floo-Network and it didn’t have a telephone line, either. It also wasn’t particularly attractive.”
Minerva snorted. “That’s an understatement. I don’t know what your flats are like, Quin, but this one was dark, dingy, grimy, and the rooms were tiny.”
Quin took a sip of his tea. “The first place I’ll be showin’ you is a wee bit on the small side, I’ll admit that to you, but the second one is . . . spacious, you might say. But neither of ’em could be described a ‘grimy,’ I’m thinkin’.”
The three finished their tea, Quin insisted on paying the bill, and they set off for the first flat.
“I could Apparate one of you, but not both, and it’s only a mile and a half, so unless you wish t’ brave the Muggle bus system – and I’m not familiar enough with Edinburgh t’ say what bus we should take – I suggest we simply walk.”
Melina said she thought she knew which bus to take, but the two witches agreed the walk would be pleasant, and about twenty-five minutes later, they were standing outside what Minerva thought was termed a “brownstone,” and Quin was taking a ring of keys from an inside jacket pocket. He found the one he was looking for and unlocked the front door.
“It’s a walk-up. The downstairs tenants are sisters. The older one is a Squib and works for the railway doin’ somethin’ or other; the younger one works for the Ministry, local magical accidents office, I think. There are two floors to this flat, but it’s still fairly small. But it may meet your needs.” They followed him up the stairs and stood behind him on the narrow landing as he unlocked the door. “You can feel free to set up wards, but I do expect to be able to enter the flat only using the key. I’d never enter without givin’ you advance notice, though, unless there were an emergency o’ some sort. And I can’t say that I’ve ever entered a flat when a tenant wasn’t home, except for one time when there was a gas leak, unless I was showin’ it to prospective tenants. These tenants moved out at the end of last month, so it’s completely empty, as you can see.”
The first floor of the flat had a small sitting room in the front of the building, a small dining room in the middle with an archway leading to the sitting room, and a kitchen in the back. The stairs to the next floor were off the dining room, and there was a cupboard under the stairs that opened into the sitting room. Upstairs, there was a bathroom combined with a loo in the back, with a frosted glass window that could be cranked open, a small, dark, windowless bedroom next to the bathroom, and a larger, sunny bedroom in front. There was a door between the two bedrooms.
“’Tis small,” Quin admitted. “The previous tenants used the small bedroom for their baby. You would be welcome to create a false magical window, o’ course, as long as it wasn’t anythin’ a visitin’ Muggle could see and wonder about. There’s not much street noise here, but if you found it bothered you, you could use an Imperturbable at night.”
“It’s much better than the previous flat,” Melina said, “but it’s smaller than what we hoped to find.”
“There’s an attic, too. It’s unfinished, but you could use it for storage or your owl.” Quin led them into the small bedroom and waved his wand at the ceiling. A trapdoor opened and a set of stairs – more like a ladder, actually – lowered itself into the room. “It can be opened manually, too, o’ course, though it takes a bit of doin’ not to get knocked off the ladder or chair when the stairs lower. Or you can tie a rope to the handle, but I wouldn’t recommend that if you have any kiddies around. I’ll just step outside and wait for you on the pavement if you and your aunt would like to look around in private.”
“No, that’s fine, Mr MacAirt. Why don’t we move on to the next flat?”
“Y’know, Miss McGonagall, you could be callin’ me Quin, if you’d like.”
Melina laughed. “That would be lovely, and I won’t wonder who you’re speaking to when you say ‘Miss McGonagall.’”
“Ah, that’s right! You’re a Healer! I have been rude . . . apologies, Healer McGonagall,” Quin said with a slight bow.
“No, that’s not what I mean – I just think you might be addressing Aunt Minerva, then I realise you would call her ‘Professor’ or ‘Minerva,’ and you must be speaking to me. Please, call me ‘Melina.’”
The three walked back toward McTavish Street.
“This next property is quite a bit larger, you will find, and it’s only three streets up from Aphrodite’s Apple – you’d be only about a fifteen minute walk from your father’s apothecary, I believe, Miss – Melina. This is the one that hasn’t been listed yet.”
They reached a large building on a corner. It was another stone building, likely mid-Victorian, Minerva thought, and the street, slightly broader than many in the vicinity, was lined with trees. Looking up at the house, Minerva was impressed by the number of windows, including a large bay on each of the three stories. There were also stairs outside leading down to what appeared to be a basement flat, and for half a moment, she was afraid that was the flat Quin was going to show them. Although it appeared there were windows, they were all half-below ground. But Quin walked up the broad stone steps and opened the front door. Minerva took hold of the wrought iron rail and followed the other two up the stairs and into the building.
“Strictly speakin’, ’tain’t a flat, but a house,” Quin said as he opened a second door leading from a small vestibule into a larger foyer. “There’s a small flat below, rented by a watch wizard who works nights. There are three floors and an internal Floo-Network. There’s a loo on each floor and two bathrooms, a large one on the first floor and a smaller one on the second. I know it’s a bit more than you were lookin’ for, but take a peek around. There’s a bit o’ furniture that comes with the place, but it’s been empty since the end of April. Just hadn’t got around to decidin’ whether I wanted to let it or sell it,” Quin said with a shrug.
“Oh, my, it looks . . . lovely,” Melina said as they entered the large, bright front room. “But I don’t know . . . we do have a budget.”
“Look around. See what you think. I’ll just wait for you here. If you have any questions, ask me when you’ve finished. And don’t worry too much about your budget. We can work somethin’ out, I’m sure, if you like it.”
“I don’t –” Melina began.
Minerva tugged on her niece’s elbow. “Let’s look at the place, know what it is you are turning down before you do, hmm?” Minerva, knowing Quin’s nature and something of his financial situation, had the feeling he would prefer to let the house to someone he liked at a bargain price than make a large profit and rent to someone he didn’t care for.
Melina, smiling at the sight of the polished parquet floor in the foyer, didn’t need very much encouragement to look around the house. There was a telephone in the hallway, on a small, built-in cupboard. It was quite old-fashioned, pre-War, but they could get a new one from the telephone office if they wanted.
The two gave themselves a tour of the three-story house. The ground floor held the usual – front parlour, large dining room, kitchen, pantry, loo, and a smallish sitting room that could serve as a little office or study – and the first and second floors had several bright rooms of varying sizes, including a large one on the first floor that appeared to be meant as a library, as the walls on either side of the door contained built-in bookshelves. The back bedroom on the first floor was large, had a door connecting it with the bathroom, and the rear windows looked out onto a courtyard with a small garden and a paved area that was apparently intended for parking. By the time they had finished tramping through the house, opening cupboard doors and admiring the bathrooms, Melina looked near tears.
“Oh, it’s wonderful, but we could never afford it. It’s perfect . . . just perfect,” Melina said in a desperate sort of cry.
“You don’t know you can’t afford it. Quin said he could work things out. Let’s hear what he has to say before you give up,” Minerva replied.
“But I don’t want to be beholden –”
“Listen to what he has to say, Melina. And although I haven’t known him long, I think I know him well enough to say that he would not have you feeling beholden to him.”
“He might not, but I still would . . .”
Melina let Minerva bring her down to talk to Quin about what he had been thinking when he said that they could work something out. It turned out that he would “reduce” the rent if they looked after the downstairs flat and dealt with any problems that cropped up and, if the current tenant moved out, they took responsibility for finding a new tenant and showing the flat. The price he named for the flat was on the upper end of what Melina had told Minerva she could afford, but then she was concerned about the cost of upkeep, and Quin promised to owl her the records of the last year’s electric, gas, and heating oil bills. The Floo-Network and telephone bills would be the same wherever they lived, since the internal Floo-Network didn’t have any fees attached.
“Spells are all well and good, Minerva,” Melina said, putting a hand on the radiator cover, “but Brennan’s a Muggle. I can’t have him relying on my warming charms or my lighting magical lamps and candles. It just wouldn’t be right. I want him to be able to live here as though there was no such thing as magic.”
“Think on it, lass, and I’ll send along the records for you. I’d like t’ have you and your young man livin’ here, though. Speakin’ o’ which . . . I don’t know when the pendin’ nuptials are, but, um, I don’t inquire into the livin’ arrangements o’ me tenants.”
Melina blushed. The Squib landlords had made it clear that until the two had married, they did not expect them both to spend the night under the same roof. It had quite embarrassed Melina that they had brought it up, and it had embarrassed Mr Shycross to have to relay their wishes, but it had convinced her that Minerva had been right about the dangers of living in the same building as your landlord. Melina hadn’t even given that aspect of things very much thought, but it struck her that it was her private business, and it wasn’t as though she was going to have a different man in every night of the week.
“I’d like to show it to Brennan.” Melina paused. “I don’t know if it would be an imposition, but do you suppose you could show it to us both tomorrow morning? Or early afternoon, before Minerva’s tea?”
“O’ course. Tomorrow at, say, two o’clock? And the Floo-Network is still open. We could Floo direct from here. I’ll owl the records to you this evening so you can look at them before you return with Mr O’Donald.”
Melina nodded happily. “I know that Brennan will like this, too; it’s just the cost, to be honest. I’d take it this minute, otherwise. And I have no idea how we’ll furnish a place this big. I always took furnished rooms when I was a student, and Brennan’s just got a small flat above the shop, and he thought he’d leave most of the furniture and try to rent it out.”
“Our attic is full of furniture, Melina. I am sure that Mother and Dad would be pleased to have you go through it and put some of it to use.”
“Yes . . . she actually said something about that, but I’d forgotten. She’d just finished talking to me about, well, you know – it wasn’t dinner table conversation – and my mind was elsewhere.” Melina turned back to Quin. “I suppose I shouldn’t seem so eager to have this place, but it’s more perfect than anything I imagined. We could even stay here after we have children – which is a ways off, but it’s a consideration. And it’s so close to my work and McTavish Street, but it’s not far for Brennan to get to his shop – he could even walk to work in good weather, if he liked. Or cycle. He has been trying to get me on a bicycle for weeks; he can’t believe I don’t know how to ride one. Well . . . let’s look at the expenses involved, and Brennan can look at it, and we’ll see.”
“Good! So . . . it’s getting to that time. I’m peckish. Would you ladies care to have lunch?” Quin asked.
“I’m meeting Brennan back at his shop. In fact, he’s probably wondering where I am, so I will have to decline. But it was good to meet you, Quin,” Melina said, holding out her hand, “and I look forward to seeing you here tomorrow afternoon.”
“It’s me own pleasure, Melina!” Quin said, shaking her hand. “Feel free to pop off right from here, if you like.”
Melina gave her aunt a kiss and then Disapparated with a loud crack.
“Mmm, she’s a loud one,” Quin said, shaking his head dramatically as though to clear his ears. “If she takes this flat, we’ll have to put some charms on the place to muffle that or the Muggles will think there’s been an explosion!”
Minerva laughed. “She’s always Apparated loudly. She’s never Splinched, though, and I can’t say what it is she’s doing that makes it that loud, but it certainly is rather deafening! And don’t ever accept a Side-Along Apparition from her if you are at all prone to nausea. I was quite sick this morning, and we only Apparated a few miles.”
“I will bear that in mind,” Quin said with a grin. “But what about you, love?”
“What about me?” Minerva asked.
“Lunch. Care to join me?”
Minerva hesitated.
“If not, or if you have someplace to be, that’s fine –”
“No, I would like to. I’m just trying to think of where. I would love to have lunch with you, and to talk to you about . . . what we haven’t discussed, but I don’t want it to be someplace public, and Mother and Dad are home –”
“Chez moi, ma Grande Dame de la Metamorphosis?”
“Your place?”
“At my place in London. As I said, the Floo is still hooked up, we can Floo. I’ll go through first and open it for you. It won’t be anything fancy; Mrs Manning doesn’t work on Saturdays if the children aren’t home, but I can do us up a simple lunch and we will have all the privacy that you could ask for.”
Minerva smiled. “I’d like that. And don’t worry about what we eat – as long as you aren’t like your cousin Carson, and apologising for everything as you serve it, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
Quin smiled wistfully. “An’ ’tis a pity Carson ain’t standin’ here in me stead. He would’ve been a good friend to you, I’m sure, and you wouldn’t be needin’ me.”
Minerva nodded soberly. “I was thinking something similar recently, in fact – before I’d met you, though. Not that I wouldn’t want to be friends with you or talk to you, but I thought that I might have been able to tell Carson and he would have understood.”
Quin reached out and gently caressed her cheek. “I’ll try t’ be the friend you need, Minerva. I’ll do me best,” he said softly.
Minerva smiled slightly. “Well, if we’re going to eat, and you’re going to cook, we ought to be going.”
Quin nodded and went over to the fireplace, pulled out his wand, lit a small, blue fire in the grate, and picked up the pot of Floo-Powder.
“Just give me a minute when I get to th’ other side to let me open it for you, then follow on.”
Minerva nodded and took the Floo-Powder pot from Quin and watched him Floo away. She sighed, some apprehension beginning to settle in her stomach at the thought of confiding in him, and wondering at the wisdom of it, but considering Quin already seemed to have half a notion anyway, she thought it might be a relief to finally share her secret with someone.