FOREWORD

So…Restaurant to Another World. I'd heard of this series, and decided to give the light novel a try. It was, admittedly, lightweight, but it was enjoyable, in the same vein as Delicious in Dungeon or Today's Menu for the Emiya Family. But there are few crossovers, and none for the Potterverse. So, here I am, fixing that. The novel doesn't exactly lend itself to a full fic, in my opinion, so this oneshot will have to do.

Anyway, time for the usual disclaimers. First, there will be spoilers.

Finally, the following is a fan-based work. Restaurant to Another World and Harry Potter are the properties of their respective owners. Please support the official release. Otherwise, the Red Queen might decide to have you with her beef stew...

A WIZARD IN NEKOYA

Western Cuisine Nekoya. A restaurant in the basement of a building residing near a Tokyo shopping centre. Rather innocuous, but not a bad place. Many who ate there thought it was quite good. However, on the weekends, it was closed to the public, which was fair enough. Most of its business was from salarymen and students who came for cheap food and free refills on certain items like bread, rice and soup, so weekend business did drop off.

But that wasn't to say they rested on their laurels on the weekends. Unbeknownst to most, on Saturdays, the Nekoya restaurant still did business…albeit business of a somewhat specialised and even strange sort. It opened its doors to a wide variety of clientele…customers whom many on Earth would have trouble believing existing.

Then again, it wasn't like Earth didn't have its own unbelievable people. One of whom was now working for the Nekoya restaurant…

Bustling around the kitchen, assisting Master Yamagata1 with his orders, was a young man with a shock of unruly black hair, emerald eyes peering intently at the dishes behind steamed-up glasses. A scar like a lightning bolt was the only truly noteworthy thing about him. Oddly enough, despite the restaurant being Japanese, he seemed to be European, but considering the clientele they got on Saturdays, it was far from remarkable.

Harry Potter sighed to himself as he continued cooking. He'd been forced to cook for the Dursleys since he was old enough to reach the stove properly. But despite this, he'd actually gained a love for cooking…as long as the recipients thereof were not ungrateful gluttons like the Dursleys.

True, becoming a cook wasn't what he really wanted to do after defeating Voldemort, but after all was said and done, the fame and attention got to him. He decided to wander the world, hoping to find himself, a reason to be, beyond Voldemort. He was sick and tired of Magical Britain and its problems, and how he, as the Boy Who Lived, the Man Who Conquered, and frankly Magical Britain's Favourite Whipping Boy, would be expected to solve them…or be blamed as the cause of them.

It was Luna Lovegood who had suggested he try out Japan, and Western Cuisine Nekoya. There'd been an incident involving a malfunctioning Portkey once, and only by stumbling across a certain doorway with a cat sign on it did they manage to return, just in time for the Hogwarts holidays to end. True, the owner didn't think he'd be acting as a rather unconventional taxi service, but he was mollified both by the payment, and by the fact that they gave him five stars in The Quibbler.

Luna had sent him with a letter, letting Yamagata know that Harry was aware of his…Saturday business. The Japanese Ministry of Magic turned a blind eye to the Nekoya's trade on Saturday, despite Yamagata being apparently a Muggle, simply because he kept the Statute of Secrecy, he kept them apprised of the few incidents that required them to get involved, and frankly, he cooked damned good food anyway. That had a habit of mollifying the wizards.

Harry eventually opted to do so, and turned up at the Nekoya, letter in hand. Yamagata was a little bemused and suspicious, but eventually let Harry come in on a probationary basis. Harry's knowledge of cooking British food helped refine a few recipes here and there, though Harry would say he learned more from Yamagata. And to be frank, he was actually enjoying himself here.

Of course, it didn't hurt that the clientele on Saturdays were…interesting.

"Aletta!" Harry called out as he finished one dish. A blonde girl with a pair of goat-like horns on her head, seemingly in her late teens or early twenties, came in. She was dressed as a waitress. "Here's the fried shrimp for Seeleman."

"Got it, Harry," the blonde-haired demon said with a nod, before leaving. Yes, she was a demon. It was a long story, but she wasn't at all malicious. Quite the opposite.

You see, every Saturday, the Nekoya opened its doors to another world. No, really. In fact, on this world, the Nekoya actually became known as the Restaurant to Another World. It had become a thing of legend ever since it was established by Yamagata's grandfather. Yamagata himself wasn't aware of the full details and circumstances, and Harry didn't intend to pry. All he knew was, the Nekoya had become the hub for some interesting diners and people looking for a takeaway.

Heinrich Seeleman, the one whose order he had just finished, was one of the more mundane ones, being a nobleman, and there was an asthma-suffering princess called Adelheid who loved parfaits. But you had a vegan forest elf called Fardania, a part-elf former princess and current sorceress named Victoria, and an omelette rice-loving lizardman called Gaganpo. Oh, and one of the regulars, the Red Queen, was a shapeshifting millennia-old dragon who loved ordering beef stew in bulk, and whose humanoid form was…well, rather buxom and beautiful. He just had to be careful what he said in Parseltongue around her, even inadvertently. He was lucky the first time, she was flattered.

Now, back to the fact that Aletta was a demon. Since her people's ruler, the Demon God, was vanquished, seventy years ago (and twenty years before her birth: yes, she was actually fifty, despite looking and acting much younger), demons were significantly reduced in power, and Aletta was really little more than a human with horns. However, even if the demons had become less malicious, old scars ran deep, and even the best demons were often subject to xenophobia. Aletta had been living on the streets when she stumbled across a door to the Nekoya. In fact, this had happened shortly after Harry got hired.

Harry had to admit, he liked her, and the feeling was mutual, at least once the distrust on both sides went away. She was enthusiastic and dedicated to her work, and there were few who'd make a better waitress here. She could be more, but unfortunately, opportunities for demons weren't that great in the other world, especially not amongst those who feared or loathed them. Yamagata hiring her was probably the best thing that happened to her in a long time, even if she had eaten some leftovers in her desperation for food when she first arrived.

Still, all these people here made the job interesting. They all enjoyed the food here, the clientele, and Yamagata's abilities were renowned here that all he had to do to break up any potential fights was to threaten to deprive them of his food. Harry found that hilarious.

It was odd, really. He should have been repulsed by cooking after being forced to do it by the Dursleys. And yet…he felt at home here, cooking for the weird and wonderful clientele of the Nekoya. Maybe it was the fact that he was making people happy, that they were grateful for it, and he was doing so not because prophecy said so or because he was pressured to do so…but because he wanted to.

Still, he needed to work hard to do so, but to be frank, he could get behind that…

THE END

ANNOTATIONS:

Not much more needs to be said, really.

1. As the owner of the Nekoya is not named, but his grandfather is, I thought calling him by the last name of Yamagata was not unreasonable.