Title: (Somewhere) Beyond the Sea
Authors: Lemony Eggnog, 221bagel, and DuskWater
Rating: T
Warnings/Tags: Pureblood Culture (Harry Potter), Aristocracy, Systemic Prejudice, Cross-Class Romance, OMC/OFC
Summary: Argo Robinson isn’t a pervert. He just wants a decent cup of tea.
Notes: This is a prequel to “(Somewhere) Only We Know.” Lemony couldn’t resist using the title for this piece, which comes from “Beyond the Sea” as popularized in by Bobby Darin. A good portion of the Pureblood Culture world-building comes from Ellory, and as far as we’re concerned, they can keep it.

Manhattan, 1958

Argo Robinson wasn’t a pervert. He just wanted a decent cup of tea.

It wasn’t his fault that the only place to get one within five blocks of the Woolworth Building was a Muggle-run café. He’d been given the tip by the previous British attaché to MACUSA’s Office of Magic Relations and Education, who had shared his view that the American take on the International Statute of Secrecy was frankly insane. As far as Argo was concerned, there was no harm in going among Muggles now and then as long as you had the sense to swallow your pride and dress like them while doing so. It was the very definition of his house motto, Modus omnibus in rebus: moderation in all things.

The trouble was, after his first few visits, it had stopped being about the tea.

Nora was her name. She was working there in the evenings to help pay for her higher education, both things that were still relatively uncommon for Muggle women nearly fifteen years after the end of the Second World War. Argo admired her dedication to the pursuit of knowledge, and her wit, and her fire when she spoke of making the world a better place, a place where people of all kinds could live together in peace.

He also admired the way her uniform’s skirt stopped just below her knees, showing off her long, shapely calves. And her apron, always starched and tied in a precise bow at the small of her back, pulled taut across generous hips. And her hair—oh, Merlin—it was styled in the most fetching caramel-hued waves, pinned only just enough to keep that adorable little white cap on her head. Argo wasn’t a pervert to go panting after any lowborn piece of tail to cross his path, he wasn’t, but Mother help him, he dreamed at night about burying his face in Nora’s hair and seeing if it smelled as sweet as it looked.

It was wrong of him. He was properly Lord Argo Robinson, Heir Penruddock of the Temperate and Most Ancient House of Penruddock, and he had been brought up correctly in the Olde Ways of Avalon. As the next in line to become the head of House Penruddock, he knew he was meant to wait for his soulmate, who would be a pure-blooded witch Mother Magic picked out for him personally, just as she had given her first and most beloved begotten daughter Morgana to Merlin in the Golden Age of Camelot.

Argo had wondered who his soulmate might be for a long time. Unlike some Magicals who were particularly high in Mother Magic’s favor, he wasn’t lucky enough to have been born with a soul-mark that would lead him to his true love. That hadn’t stopped him from looking for other signs—someone with a Patronus that matched his, or simply a Spark that would ignite in his soul at first contact. To his anguish, despite having attended formal engagements to meet likely girls (and even a few boys) and having done all the right things from the moment he had turned seventeen, he’d never felt his magic swell with the rush of love-at-first-sight that was supposed to come upon meeting one’s other half.

He was twenty-four now. Just about all of his pure-blooded mates from Hogwarts were happily Bonded already, blissfully in love and doting upon their first- or even second-born children. How he envied them! He had hoped taking this diplomatic posting in America would be the break he needed. Since he’d already met virtually every eligible witch and wizard in Britain, his soulmate must hail from some other shore. Maybe he’d find her here.

Instead, he’d found Nora. She made him feel things he didn’t have words for. His magic bucked almost painfully at the thought of her, tying his insides in knots he could only undo with an unforgiving application of cold water. It was humiliating, but he couldn’t stop wanting to be near her, seeing her smile when he walked into the café, hearing her laugh at the bad japes he made with his queer foreign words, knowing in his heart that she lingered by his stool at the counter because she felt something for him, too.

In the end, it didn’t matter that she wasn’t Magical. He courted her, and then he took a chance and broke every rule in the book by revealing his world to her. She was not afraid; she embraced it, and him, and Argo realized that was all he needed. He didn’t need to draw magical power from her hair; he drew strength of an entirely different sort from her courage. He didn’t need a magical Bond; he had a love that came not because Mother Magic willed it so, but because two people had chosen each other.

They couldn’t stay in America, of course, not with Rappaport’s Law still in effect. Argo resigned from his post and took Nora back to his cottage on the Eden River in Cumbria. His uncle Lord Penruddock was kind enough not to cast him out entirely, but Argo was obliged to give up his heirship and accept the censure of his peers.

None of that mattered anymore. He and Nora had each other.

And as it happened, Mother Magic couldn’t have been too displeased. She saw fit to give him a daughter.

And for a time, Argo Robinson was the happiest man in the world.

Lemony’s A/N: Apologies to my dear readers; I know this isn’t my usual fare, but trust me, there will be plenty of delicious UST in other works in this series. I also know this is only connected to the PPC by a thread, but there is a thread! A good undercover mission needs a good cover, right? Please indulge my need to take the premise of this crapsack universe, which is anathema to everything I stand for, and wreck it with realism and progressive values. :D