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~ November 3, 1981
Yael Kowalski wakes up at half-past midnight on November 3, 1981 with a pounding headache and a series of loud raps on her door. She lifts herself from the couch with a bone-dry mouth, the taste of stale rum and coke mixed in the back of her throat, and tramples on top of mismatched empty cups and her discarded Princess Leia Halloween costume as she stumbles. She keeps her eyes screwed shut to block out the light of the candles burning down to the wick on her coffee table, and moans as the knocks grow louder and increasingly more frantic.“Hold your kneazles,” she mutters, “I’m coming.” Rather than hold on, though, a loud thud replies, indicating that either the dick who woke her up dropped something, or kicked the door.When she gets to the door, she nearly wrenches her arm out of its socket with the amount of force she uses. The angry tirade brewing in her pain-filled brain, however, dies at the sight that greets her behind the door. She freezes mid-motion, hand outstretched in the air, her mouth half-open, and her stomach clenches.“Jaime?” she says in a whisper. A cold burst of New York wind blows stray wisps of her hair off her face and threatens to bury her question. Her cousin looks like death warmed over. His leather jacket is torn at the left shoulder, one pad missing and the sleeve threatening to come off all together. There's bits of dark red on his torn black button-down, which looks like it once was pressed. His hair is a mess, messier than its usual state, and he’s shuffling back and forth, a dark, broken look on his face and his normally olive skin an almost stark pale. His hazel-eyes are red-rimmed, glassy and unfocused, and in his arms is a baby with fluffy, wild black curls all about his head. The small boy has an odd-shaped cut on his forehead, still angry and smarting, and he's wrapped in a deep red blanket designed with tiny snitches. Lastly, half angled out of her view, one final person, her cousin’s best friend, Sirius Black, leans. She’s known him for almost ten years now, and not once has she seen his grey eyes so grief-stricken, or so angry. His weight rests against the doorframe as if the second he moves is the second he falls apart. She swallows past the lump in her throat and steps forward, both arms outstretched in offering. Her cousin quickly moves, and she pulls his head down to her shoulder as they embrace, careful not to squish the baby. “What happened?” she asks. She feels him shake against her. James is silent, and tears drop against her shoulder. The baby sniffles as well. She looks towards Sirius instead and takes in that missing person with them. No, she thinks, not after David and Mom and Dead. After Uncle Monty and Aunt Effie. Not Lily, too.Though he does, in a voice that lacks emotion in only the ways that those truly grieving can achieve, Sirius doesn’t need to confirm it for her to know the truth. She pulls the three inside, with a look up and down her street to make sure none of her nosy neighbours have been spying. She lives in a no-maj neighbourhood to facilitate her college course-learning, and the sudden appearance of two young, shaking men and a baby would no doubt cause some questions. She shuts the door and locks it with a spell to keep them from being disturbed, then she places her wand back into her long, curly hair, using the tool as a stick to hold together her bun.She leaves the two men in the living room to make coffee, her hands trembling as she removes chipped mugs decorated with nifflers and kneazles from the cabinets that lean precariously over her vintage, gas stove and pours a generous amount of Aunty Vera's Rum in each portion. She lingers in the doorway of the kitchen for a moment as she levitates the cups, her heart squeezing at the scene. On the couch, her cousin sits with his shoulders slumped, while his hands flick up and down in constant motion, seemingly at a loss of where to stay. They drift to his face, as if he wants to cradle his head in his hands, then back to his son, who curls up on his lap with his head against James' stomach. She’s keenly aware that James most likely fears to let the boy out of his sight.Next to him, Sirius sits, more than close enough for support, his side plastered against James’. He’s got one hand on James’ left thigh, and the other rubs up and down his back, but his eyes are circled by dark bruises, so Yael figures he’s not slept for days. His normally immaculate hair, long and dark, is pulled back into a half-hazard ponytail that brushes his shoulders, goose pimples from the cold slowly subsiding over his bare arms and exposed collarbones. His lips are chapped, and there's a dark bruise across his nose that spreads towards his high cheekbones, marring his handsome face. His own black shirt looks threadbare, and not warm enough, while his slacks are torn at the knee, the left one widening in its gap towards his upper thigh. Silently, she crosses the room to hand them the mugs, and sits on the edge of the coffee table. Her discarded spiral notebooks dig into her ass through the thin material of her cotton sleep pants. Later on, after a couple of painstakingly long hours, James falls asleep with his head on Sirius’ lap, passed out from the sheer weight of emotion. Harry, too, curls up against his father’s right shoulder, cradled protectively in his arms, lost in the world of dreams where his mother still bounces him on her hip and greets him with kisses. Not Sirius though. Instead, he keeps a vigil over the two, and he looks at them with an unreadable look in his grey eyes, one that puts Yael on edge.Not of him, though, but for him. Sirius, while cold at times, is usually so bright and vivid around her cousin. To see him like this unsettles her.“Why are you guys here?” she asks finally. Not that she minds. But James' rarely left Britain since he joined the Order. At least, not to drop by for a casual visit. Sirius doesn’t even look in her direction, his hand carding through James' curls and his gaze fixed on the peeling Star Wars: A New Hope poster plastered on the wall next to her overstuffed bookcase. Blearily, she remembers that weeklong period James and Sirius snuck out of Hogwarts and charmed an extremely complex and highly illegal international portkey to take them to New York, and all four of them, the boys plus her and David, had ridden into Manhattan from Brooklyn on her weekend break from Illvermorny to see the premiere of the new movie. For five hours, the four of them had run around the apartment with transfigured rolling pins-to-lightsabers, before her mom and a worried Aunt Effie found them, a stern, severe looking Minerva McGonagall that Yael vaguely remembered from James' bar mitzvah in tow. The boys had been relegated to detentions for the rest of the semester, and James would've almost lost his Quidditch captainship if not for the "sheer skill you have, Potter, otherwise I'd have a mind to kick you off the team all-together for this tomfoolery. Why, I never!" Two months later, she'd found out that the real reason they'd been let off so lightly was the news of Sirius' Uncle Alphard's death, suspected to be at the hands of a vindictive Walburga Black, though no one would ever be able to pin anything on her. She shakes herself from the memory as finally, after a long, long pause, Sirius says, “He even killed the cat.”Yael’s eyebrows scrunch together in confusion. She’s used to Sirius Black being evasive, often changing the subject when she asks questions he'd rather avoid answering, but she hardly thinks this situation warrants it, and even still, his choice of statement is rather too morbid, even for him.“What?”The left corner of his mouth lifts up in a small, bitter smile. “The cat,” Sirius repeats. He brushes messy strands of hair away from James' forehead, then leans over to do the same to Harry's. Sirius seems afraid to let go of the two Potters. “Voldemort. D’Artagnan was a vicious bastard, probably tried to claw him up. We found his corpse near the door and that—that’s when we knew.” She pictures the large, orange cat that always used to hiss at her every time she saw him. Vividly, she imagines him with his guts torn up by a slashing spell, claws tinged red, more red on the ground spilled across the floorboards and glassy yellow eyes. She does hope the creature got a few licks in.“Dumbledore—” Sirius stops, and his face tightens, but she’s not sure why. He looks angry, but that doesn’t seem right. Yael has only heard good things about Albus Dumbledore, mostly. Aunt Effie hadn't seemed too fond, but Bubbe had only told her that the tension led back to an incident in 1935 and not to worry about such matters. “He told us at the funeral that Lily left some sort of protection. Blood magic.” A bitter laugh escapes him, and he seems far, far away. Yael feels a chill go down her spine. “Started nattering on about how Harry had to go live with Lily’s muggle sister. That he’d be safe there. As if James couldn’t take care of him!”He looks at her finally. His eyes are cold; cold and determined. “I’ll be damned if they take Harry away from James.” Then, he shrugs. “There was nowhere else for us to go. Thankfully, those passports Lily made us get weren't destroyed with the house. On the way out of the cemetery, Remus apparated us just outside Stansted with some tickets he'd held all day. Always said it made him uncomfortable that James insisted he'd pay for Remus' rent, so apparently the idiot's been bloody squirrelling it!" Sirius sighs heavily. "He reckons Dumbledore won't think to track us the muggle way." Yael nods. Britain and America have been at odds ever since the escape of Gellert Grindelwald before World War II, and though American wizards have been integrating more and more no-maj things into their daily lives with the downfall of Rappaport's Law, their British counterparts are slow to change and stuck to tradition. Even the most no-maj friendly among them hardly think to use their means of travel, as boats are no longer the primary form of transportation amongst the non-magical community, and planes are too new. Even further, the extradition of a Brit seeking asylum in the United States from the magical government in the United Kingdom is extremely tangled. It takes years for the proper paperwork to even go through with the tension and backlog of both governments, especially after the isolationist stance that the American magical government had taken ever since Voldemort became a true threat in Europe. She imagines the backlog now is worse due to the fallout from Voldemort's war and resources stretched thin. No, the magical government will be too busy attempting to route out his followers and try them. Too busy untangling all the webs. Her cousin could hide away here for years without being forced back to magical Britain.Plus, she thinks wryly, her cousin isn’t even a criminal. “We’ll start looking for a place for you three next week,” she says, already prepared to floo her grandmother. Her Great Aunt Tina’s ties to the MACUSA should still come in handy for them. “Once sitting shiva is done.”She leans over and pats Sirius' shoulder. As she rises from the coffee table, she smiles sadly at her cousin and his son, and rubs a gentle hand on the baby’s soft cheek. “At least here he can grow up a normal kid.” As she says the words, she knows deep inside that nothing will ever be normal for this sleeping little boy named Harry Potter.In a few seconds, she swishes her wand and sends over blankets and pillows to Sirius. Numbly, he arranges everything around the three bodies squished on her couch, and she walks back to her room, her heart heavy with the weight of all the dead lingering in her small, Manhattan apartment. As she drifts to sleep, she sees a flash of green light, and imagines that she can hear a loud, high-pitched scream.
~ June 1991
Ten-year-old Harry groans with dramatic delight and throws his Spiderman backpack onto the floor next to the dragon shaped umbrella stand as soon as he steps into Kowalski's Magical Treats & Delights, the second Kowalski run bakery in magical New York. Harry had never met his Great-Great-Uncle Jacob, but he liked to imagine the first bakery smelled much the same as this one. The deep, yeasty smell of baked challah, bagels, and scones wafts through the open door and out into the busy street of Flushing's magical neighbourhood. In the glass bakery display cases are elaborately designed desserts: almond flavoured kneazles, apple and cinnamon dragons, gryphon shaped rolls with a glaze of lemon and chocolate, alongside batches of traditional rugelach, black-and-white cookies, various flavours of cupcakes and cookies, and tiny little tarts with ripe fruit. Behind the case, in wooden baskets lined with chequered cloth, lay golden donuts with jam fillings, and next to the register is a round jar full to the brim with biscotti.His Aunt Yael’s bakery is small, but popular with most of the magical Northeast, and successful even after the fire that burned down the last Kowalski-owned bakery in Manhattan over thirty years ago.Eyes wide with mischievous intent, Harry skirts around Mrs. Goldblum, a white-haired and stooped back regular of the bakery, and quickly reaches up to open the biscotti jar. Mindful of his Aunt Yael, whose back is turned as she wraps up a couple of loaves of challah, he silently moves. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees a smirk on the Chava’s, the part-time shop girl, face as she watches him while restocking the coffee pots.“Touch that, and you won’t be getting biscotti for a month,” Harry hears from behind him. He groans at the sound and turns around with a sheepish smile. The sleeves of his father’s beige henley are rolled up to his elbows, flour coats his arms and streaks through his messy black hair, and his apron is stained, but he somehow still looks intimidating. “But Dad,” Harry begins to say. His stomach rumbles. He’s not had anything to eat in four hours, not since lunch when he’d scarfed down the red bean bun Sirius picks up daily from a Chinese bakery a few streets away, as well as his packed lunch of carrot sticks and a lox-and-cream cheese whole wheat bagel. “Just one! It won’t spoil dinner!”Aunt Yael scoffs as she begins to ring up Mrs. Goldblum, the click-clack of the cash register seeming almost like vindication. His aunt's a pretty woman, with thick curly hair that’s tied back with a red scarf dotted with butterflies to keep it away from her forehead, and warm brown eyes. “That’s what you say about flourless chocolate cake during seder. And hamentashen every Purim. You’re a glutton, boychick.”“It’s amazing he’s so skinny!” Mrs. Goldblum says with a laugh. It's true. Harry's inherited his father's lean frame; though he's knobby where James has muscles, and he's short, though Sirius claims that his father was short and knobby too, as a child. Harry finds that hard to believe. “Jaime always was, too,” Yael teases. James rolls his eyes, and comes over to ruffle his son’s curls, his own hair, which is now longer than Sirius' and pulled into a messy bun out of reach for retaliation. Harry scowls and tries to smooth the unruly locks of his hair back down. He shoots a quick glance to Chava, and then self-consciously fixes his rectangular glasses on his nose. She’s not looking, her back turned as she tongs donuts into a bag for another customer, but the ends of her blonde braid brush against her pink shirt. “Skinny as a twig. Still is, under those muscles. Genetics.”Playfully, James smirks. “Dad's side.” He ducks as Yael throws a used rag towards his head, laughing, then scoops up Harry’s backpack off the floor. He gestures for Harry to follow him, the fabric slinging like a pendulum, and the two of them duck back into the kitchen. It’s half-past four, and the bakery’s about to close, so the last batches in the ovens are for them to take home tonight.The kitchen has stacks of dirty bowls and rolling pins. Help comes to clean up every morning, but his father’s not known for being fastidious, so now there’s a dozen different mixtures clinging to the sides of metal implements that clutter up the medium-sized room. Shoved into a small catty-corner, next to a spelled KitchenAid mixer, is an equally spelled beat-up black radio, the low sounds of the Eagles still filtering through the room. Resting on one bench is a finished tart filled with raspberries and chocolate, while next to it, there’s a half-drunk glass of water and an empty container from some restaurant. James’ brown jacket is thrown over the top of the freezer, and it hits his father in the face as he opens the appliance. "Don't know why we can't just use freezing charms on the cabinets, and food preserving ones, I keep telling Yael," his father mutters. Then he asks, “Did you get your maths test back?” He rummages through the fridge, before he pulls out some crackers and hummus. He opens the dip, pushes away some bowls, then places it on a counter. Harry quickly goes to scoop up some of the disappointingly healthier snack.“Yeah,” Harry says. He glares at his backpack where the offending piece of paper lay, mocking him with red ink. “Eighty.”James nods and snags a cracker as well. Blotches of paint and food colouring litter his hands between his fingers and across his palms; reds and greens and blues, and on the table there’s a half-finished piece of charmed art with eerie, moving willow trees, and a waning blood-red moon that, with the proper incantation, will drift across the canvas to form a full forest with wolves, stags, and giant dogs. Two years before, James had some of his work displayed in New York's Magical Art Gallery in Manhattan, a place that gave space to pieces from famous artists all over the world. He was offered a further commission by a country club run out of the Hamptons for some original pieces. That entire night, people'd kept coming over to talk to Harry, important seeming ones who kept trying to shake his hand or, oddly, bow. Sirius had been quick to shoo them away from him, while his father was accosted by politicians, socialites, and besotted fans. It had been a rather awkward night for all three of them. “That’s not so bad.” “It’s horrible,” Harry says miserably. No matter how hard he tries, pre-algebra is not easy for him. He’s good at every other class, he even came top of his science fair last spring, but numbers are evil.“You sound like your mum,” James tells him, and he runs a hand through his already messy hair. Sometimes, on certain dates but especially around Halloween, his father gets sad, and doesn’t mention Lily Potter. Other times, he tells Harry all the things he’ll never get to know about her, such as her skills at school. She'd apparently been brilliant at Arithmancy. And Potions. And Charms. Harry's convinced his mother had been brilliant at everything, the way his father tells it. In those brief moments, Harry pictures this woman he’s never met, and only sees in photos. “Just as much of a perfectionist.”Suddenly, a voice pipes up, “Because you’re not? Bull.”Harry doesn’t jump back in shock at the sound of the disembodied voice. This one is cool and calm, arrogant in a way, but familiar. He reaches over and grabs the mirror that’s buried under a pile of unwashed bowls and sees his godfather’s smirking face in the glass. “Harry, don’t let him fool you. He used to proofread all his letters to your mother five times before he’d send them out.”James glares and says, “Aren’t you still at work for another hour? Get back to it, Pads.”Sirius leans back in his swivel chair, hands behind his head, and dragonhide issue boots up on his desk. His hair is short, though for most of Harry’s life it was long enough to put back into a low ponytail, but he’s chopped it now so that it falls elegantly just below his ears. "For the respectability," he'd claimed the night he came home and James, horrified with his spoon of cheerios raised halfway to his mouth, had asked him why. He’s still young-looking, though he’s already thirty-one. Harry’s father is too, he figures, since he’s not going grey, or bald, and there’s only really faint laugh lines around his hazel eyes.“I sent Scuttlebum out to decharm Finkel’s teapot from singing ‘Safety Dance’ for the twelfth time. I need a break,” Sirius replies. “Not a job for the Misuse of No-Maj-Magical Relations, that. How is a teapot dangerous?”Sometimes, Harry thinks Sirius makes this stuff up in order that he doesn’t worry him. He knows on occasion some spells can go very awry when it comes to making no-maj things work in the magical world, especially for the ill-prepared. Once, he'd picked up the paper to see 'Video Game Console blows up apartment in Whitestone, family deceased', and it turned out to be a botched enhancing charm to up the video quality. So, Sirius tends not to talk about his work. Uncle John doesn’t talk about his work in serious terms to him either, but Harry knows doctor's see some things. “I think she just likes to see you,” James says with a smirk. He rests one shoulder against the silver fridge, and his right foot’s up on the stool, with his chin placed in his hand. “Or your arse.”“Dad!” Harry says in protest. “I’m ten! My innocent mind doesn’t need that image.”“In a few years you'll wish to have an arse as pinchable as this, Bambi,” Sirius jokes. Distantly, a voice says something, and Harry sees his godfather roll his eyes before he yells, “What?” A mishmash reply, and then Sirius turns back to them. “Alas, duty calls. See you at home, deer!” “You two are so lame,” Harry tells him in lieu of a goodbye, then dips another cracker into his hummus.James raises an eyebrow. “If we’re so lame I guess you don’t want to see your aunt?” he asks in a slow, considering kind of voice. “I’ll just tell your aunt that she’s wasting a trip. She can stay home and knit or something. Last time we spoke, I think she'd mentioned she'd taken that up to pass the time. She might even knit you a scarf that says 'Lame's son' on it, if I ask, since she'll be disappointed.”He starts to rise as if to inform his aunt that very minute.“No!” Harry protests, eyes wide. He pictures showing up to his first year at Ilvermorny bundled in mittens, a hat, and a scarf with that embroidered around the collar for the brisk New England September air. He'd be the laughingstock of the entire year! His friend Jesse would pretend he didn't know him so that he'd not be lumped in with Lame's son! Harry flings his arms out, elbows on the edge of the table, and says, “You’re the most awesome dad in the world!”“Of course I am,” James says with a finger on his chin as he nods with agreement. His curls bounce with every movement. “Now come on, Bambi, let’s go. I can practically hear Yael telepathically screaming at me to close the doors before more customers show up.”“You’re not the one with legilimency skills, cousin!” The disgruntled reply comes from the front of the shop as Yael tries to nudge the dawdlers out the door. Forty minutes later, the three of them open the gate to the Queens’ apartment that the Potters-plus-Black have lived in since 1984, after they’d moved out of a small and, frankly, 'piece-of-shit-according-to-Sirius' Manhattan apartment. Deceptively small, the inside is bigger than the outside, expanded magically to three bedrooms and two baths. There’s an additional expanded side room that acts as an art studio cluttered with canvases and easels, and the pantry door which leads to an expanded fourth bedroom if you pull down an ancient box of empty stone wheat thins for guests, which usually means Uncle Remus during the summer months when he’s not teaching at Ilvermorny, and a larger kitchen than possible without charms. Three days a month, Sirius and James and Uncle Remus will go out to the Adirondacks to spend the full moon away from people, and Harry and his Aunt Yael and Uncle John will eat their weight in pizza. There’s a fireplace in the living room hooked up to the floo which took ages to configure. Above it, a portrait of his mother hangs over the mantle, along with Harry's various school awards, Sirius' random knick knacks, and James' old school medals. A few streets away, Sirius’ motorcycle sits, with a permanent parking permit sticker tied around the right handle. Harry remembers, or thinks he does but James insists that it only seems like it because Sirius tells these stories so often, when his godfather would take him when it was hard for him to sleep, spending hours flying over England and New York to soothe him. James balances a box of donuts in one arm as he pushes his right knee against the door and struggles with his keys. Next to him, Aunt Yael rolls her eyes, a bag of challah in her right hand, and complains about his pack rat tendencies in a loud voice, while Harry bounces back and forth on the balls of his feet. He can smell soup bubbling inside, and his stomach rumbles again.Suddenly, James lets out an oomph, and crashes into the small square of tile that acts as a barrier between the outside of the apartment to the front room as the door swings open. His great aunt, Queenie, stands there with his tiny cousin Mischa resting against her thin shoulder, and her shock of white-wire curls curled in his tiny fist. “You’re ten minutes late,” Queenie says. She smoothly steps around a cursing James as he rubs at his knee, the box of donuts thankfully not smushed. “Mischa wants his feeding.”Harried, Aunt Yael first says, "Ma?" Then, she sighs and drops the bag of challah on the table where the keys and stacks of paper live. Quickly, she takes her son and disappears to go do feeding things that Harry does not want to walk in on again, and Harry gives Queenie a hug.Their front room is made with dark wooden walls, and on every available space there is either a portrait, often of seemingly random animals such as stags, or lilies, or moving pictures of Harry as he grows. Hanging at the top of the walls, dipping down every so often, are string lights of fake willow-o-wisps, the lights bouncing magically from one end to the other as they twinkle.“I smell soup. Is it chicken?” he asks. On his feet now, James gags at the comment, and drops his keys in the rose-shaped bowl on the small end table next to the door. Cluttered around the key bowl are several open letters, a bunch of empty candy wrappers, and a soccer ball. Underneath it are several cat toys, and a bed that the white ball of fluff, Galadriel, hasn’t slept in once in seven years.Queenie laughs. “And risk your father starving until the kugel?” she says. “No, honey.” A conspiratorial smirk slits across her face. “I made a baked chicken for the rest of us though.”Every other day, Queenie uses magic to make meals, but during holidays and on Fridays, she’ll spend a few hours doing things the no-maj way. Harry thinks her food tastes wonderful either way, much better than dad’s attempts at cooking savoury foods, which often end up burnt, or Sirius’ boiled vegetables. Uncle Remus, when he bothers, can make tea, but most of the time they order in or subsist on leftovers and dishes sent from Queenie. “Awesome!”James mock gags again, then begins to rifle through the mail. Queenie freezes, her body stiff, and she moves her wrist smoothly under his to pull out an envelope from the large pile of letters. His father often gets random bits of mail from strangers, usually about art-related matters or the couple of articles he's written for Transfiguration Weekly on experimental crop transfiguration, so the size of the pile isn't a surprise, though Harry notes that the envelope in Queenie's hand is made of a smooth material. Harry watches, confusion building, as his father’s back tenses, shoulders straight, and his left hand moves slowly to grasp the paper. Harry can’t pick up any writing, only the triangle folding that seals the envelope, and he bites his lip.“This came around noon,” Queenie says. “The owl’s waiting in the kitchen. Persistent little dear.”“Is it my Ilvermorny letter?” Harry asks. He’s sent a few letters to Uncle Remus over the last three months, wanting to know when they’d be sent out, to which his uncle had only replied that he'd have to wait like every other student. “Is it?”“Merlin’s beard!” Harry hears at the same time that the fireplace in the living room makes the tell-tale swooshing sound of an incoming floo. “You couldn’t do that in the bathroom, Yael?”“Please, as if you care,” Harry hears his aunt retort. He tunes out their bickering and focuses on his father, who doesn’t answer him. James is oddly silent. Harry waits, three seconds, then five, then another twenty, before he asks again.“Dad, is it for me?”James turns around with a fake smile on his face. Harry knows it’s false because there’s no twinkle in his eyes, and no crinkles. There’s not even any teeth. “You’ll get it after dinner. Go get the grape juice from the cabinet, will you? And make sure the table’s set before John gets here.”Voice small, Harry says, “Dad?”James’ face falls for a moment into something tight and sad. It sends an uneasy pang through Harry’s entire body, and for the first time, he wonders if the letter bodes ill news. His father puts a hand on his shoulder, grip firm but not tight.“Nothing bad, Bambi,” he says in a reassuring tone. “We’ll talk about it later.”Slowly, Harry nods, then moves over to the dining table where candles are set and dishes stacked, to go over to the cabinet and pull out the grape juice. In a bundle of purloined blankets and fur, the cat opens one eye and lets out a tiny meow, before she falls back asleep. Harry sets down the grape juice, opens the bag of challah, and begins to put everything in its place. As he works, his mind runs through a million possibilities concerning the contents of the mysterious envelope, ranging from Aunt Andromeda's untimely and horrible death to new restrictions on broomsticks for first years, all with the growing feeling that whatever it is, it’s going to change his life. After dinner, his cousin and her husband go back to their own place in Bayside while Aunt Queenie floos to her Manhattan flat. James breathes through the tight sensation in his chest as he leans against the doorway to the dining room and rests his pounding head. He rubs at his temple with his thumb. A couple of feet away, Sirius quickly swipes the used dishes from the table, stacking them high in a pile, then swishes his wand and sends them into the kitchen. James' right hand drifts to his jean pocket, where the weight of the envelope he’d unceremoniously shoved in there earlier feels like an anchor around his ankle.In the living room, the television blasts an episode of Dinosaurs and James hopes that ear-splitting sounds of “not the mama!” drowns out the sound of Sirius asking, “Are you going to give it to him?” before his best friend quickly remembers to cast a silencing charm. James’ lips twist into a mockery of a smirk. “Not like I can keep it from him. Hooty McDelivery Wings hasn’t left the kitchen windowsill. Probably got ten more on standby.”It’s not that he doesn’t want to. Every part of him wants to. The thought of it—of sending Harry there —no. It doesn’t matter if the school is the best, or that he met Lily and Sirius and Remus and him there. It doesn’t matter if those were some of the best years of his life.Old fears wash through him like a wave, choking him until he feels like he can’t speak past the rampant onslaught of panic. Lily, red hair fanned out behind her, body stiff and still, eyes glassy, and his baby boy screaming in the crib. Next to her, black robes a grim reaper shroud cover another body, one that he can’t unsee, even in his nightmares, face flat and harsh and terrifying.James grits his teeth as Sirius replies, “Could always set the cat on them. She left two pigeons in my bed the other day. Big as subway rats!” He shudders as he remembers the incident, and James recalls the sheer amount of screaming and kvetching which followed. James doesn’t reply. After a moment, he hears Sirius sigh. Then, his best friend stands in front of him and he places his hand on James’ shoulder. “You don’t have to send him there, Prongs. Remus said he’s a guarantee for Illvermorny.”There’s a hint of trepidation in Sirius' voice, too. It’s a note that James hasn’t heard in a long time, not since the months when Dumbledore warned them to run and hide. He’s seen Sirius chase Death Eaters and come back with a smirk on his face during their days in the Order, but now there’s worry in his eyes.A heavy sigh, then James moves and rests his entire weight against his friend. “What am I supposed to do?” he asks, voice muffled. “He’s already seen it. I can’t exactly say ‘oh, sorry Bambi, wrong address, this letter’s actually for Henry Porter.’ He’s not stupid.”Sirius’ arms come up and rest around his waist loosely in comfort. “You sure about that?” Sirius says in a teasing voice, tinged with concern. “He’s half-you, after all.”James laughs, though most of him doesn’t feel the mirth. As if sensing the usual cheering up methods fail, Sirius’ grip tightens. “It’s going to be fine, Prongs. Nothing’s going to take him from you.” His friend’s voice goes low. “Nothing.”James remembers the day they left Britain, just after the funeral, and the incident at the cemetery when Sirius Orion Black, disowned son of the Ancient and Noble House of Black, threatened Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, Supreme Mugwump and Leader of the Order of the Phoenix, over Dumbledore's insistence that James needed to give up custody of his son to Lily's sister. Though he hasn’t seen Sirius’ eyes look so dark since that day, he'd seen it a few times before: when they found out about Peter's betrayal, reading the Daily Prophet that rainy morning in December to see news of Regulus Black's defection from the Death Eaters and subsequent murder, and the night he'd stumbled, whole body shaking and covered in bruises and blood, to the Potters' home on December 26, 1975 and asked if he could stay. After a while, Sirius pulls back and smiles. “Go on, go out there. You’re useless in here anyway.”“I can put away a dish!”“Yes,” Sirius agrees with a smile. “But will you? I think not.”James retreats to the sound of the radio in the adjoining kitchen as it switches on, the dulcet tones of Freddie Mercury almost like a lilting march song, as if the long-dead singer’s encouraging him. What he’s encouraging, James doesn’t know. The letter continues to burn a hole in his pocket, and he almost looks down to see if it’s physically done so. Common sense prevails, but his mind still sticks to the idea of binning the letter entirely. He wonders, surely if I wrote to Minnie she’d stop the tram car of parchment that inevitably follows?The episode Harry’s on the edge of the couch watching with wide green eyes is nearly over, the animated puppet characters doing whatever humanlike dinosaurs do on children’s television shows. The living room is a bit of a mess, evidence Sirius hasn’t been home much in a few days. There’s a stack of X-Men comics on the coffee table, alongside empty mugs and a pile of uneaten cat treats. A few magazines, a Quidditch Weekly open to the middle, and a half-eaten plate of biscuits. An afghan’s thrown onto the floor next to it, and on it rests a large fluff cleaning her delicate paws, while in the corner there’s a pile of coats: three raincoats, all red, and a light beige spring jacket of Harry’s. Cat toys litter various spots on the wooden floor, and James’ wand lays next to the large, stuffed bookcase.Next to Harry, there’s a pile of textbooks, and a notebook scrawled with illegible notes. His son’s handwriting is like watching a thestral try to place pen to paper, all hooves and no fingers. James is amazed anyone can read it, let alone Harry’s teachers.“Scoot over, kid,” he tells him, and grabs the remote from the arm of the burgundy couch. He flings himself onto the cushions, long legs coming up to rest on the comic book stack. His right sock has a hole in it, and his big toe is sticking through. As soon as the show ends, he changes the channel, settling on Back to the Future, unmindful of his son’s protests.With one arm, he pulls him closer and ruffles his hair. Harry scowls. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for bed?” James asks.Harry pats down one section of his curls, while the other side looks like an angry porcupine. “It’s Shabbat!” he says. “I never go to bed at nine on Shabbat.”James pretends to look at his watch. Well, his bare wrist where a watch normally would be, if he ever wore one. “Is it?” he says. “And here I thought it was ten.” He shakes his head, with a smile of false contrition. “Silly me.”A lump of weight jumps onto the couch, then settles into his lap with a content meow. Harry frowns, then shakes his head, undoing his efforts of hair neatness, and says, “You just want me gone so that you can watch something dirty.”James raises an eyebrow. “You’re like four-years-old,” he tells his very much not four-year-old child. “Why are you thinking such things?” He frowns. “Where did you learn that from? Was it that Timothy boy?”He doesn’t know if there’s actually a Timothy, but the name seems like a child who'll infect innocent others with his behaviour. “I’m ten, Dad. Who’s Timothy? Do you mean Simon?”With a smirk, James begins to say, “Simon, right. Well, if you boys want—”“No! No! Stop!”In the dining room, Queen turns into R.E.M, and, in the living room, Marty McFly’s “don’t call me chicken” makes for an interesting sound mix. Harry’s not paying any attention, however. His green eyes focus on James with a steely look in his eyes that’s one hundred percent his mother, and James inwardly prepares for the question he knows he’s about to hear.The death knell words. “You said I’d get my letter after dinner.”James’ stomach twists into a tangled knot. “Yeah,” he says, seemingly with agreement. He shoves his hands into both his pockets, and deliberately avoids brushing against the envelope so that no tell-tale crinkles sing like a canary. The sudden movement displaces Galadriel with an angry hiss, and then, he frowns. “Where is it?”He shoves his right hand deeper into his right pocket, and shifts, careful to avoid shoving deeper into his left. Thankful, not for the first time, for extension charms, too, so that he can at least mimic movement with both hands. “I can’t find it.” He raises his eyebrows. “I think I might have binned it.”He smiles apologetically as his son lets out a long whine and throws both hands up into the air towards the ceiling. “Dad! I don’t believe you! What if it was important? Ugh, why don’t you look at things before you toss them?”Harry throws his hands up in the air again, and then leaves the living room in a childish huff. James hears his feet thud dramatically down the corridor and then a door opens and closes with one last, “I don’t believe this.”Sirius walks in with a bowl of matzah ball soup, a spoon raised halfway to his lips, and his left eyebrow near his hairline. “Well,” he says with a bite of soup. “That was classy. Should put him in the pictures.”His friend sits down in the vacated spot and puts his feet up right on top of James’.James throws his head back over the couch cushions, neck extended unpleasantly, and groans. “Why couldn’t Dumbledore have just minded his own business? Does he even have jurisdiction in the States?”Sirius shrugs and spears a matzah ball in half. He’s added leftover chicken bits to the broth, which have dispersed into broken pieces that resemble dust swimming. “It’s Dumbledore, mate. He’s probably got jurisdiction on the moon.”The messy-haired brunette tosses the other man an angry glare, then with a harumph, crosses his arm and watches Marty McFly fail at avoiding the incestuous attentions of his teenage mother, but nonetheless his mind is full of images of the Scottish Highlands. Harry throws the covers off of his body, his stuffed raccoon pillow flopping off his bed and onto the carpet with the sudden movement and slips as silently as one can manage in padded dog print socks into the hallway. He leaves the door open, since the room is dark anyway, and the door closed would be suspicious if James or Sirius got up in the middle of the night like they were in the habit of doing. Quickly as he can manage, he shuffles down the steps, avoiding a mouse-shaped cat toy that squeaks unpleasantly, and goes to the kitchen. The dishes are still in the dish drain next to the sink, but they’re at least clean, and there are bits of challah torn apart into chunks on a plate in the corner, wrapped with plastic wrap. Shoved next to it, behind a tin of cereal and a container of sugar, is the mail from earlier.“Yes,” Harry whispers and moves towards the stack as speedily as he can manage. He grabs the pile and starts to rifle through it. Bill, bill, bill, he reads, magazine subscription, a strange fan mail letter from California asking Dad to marry Rebecca Riversdale (who?) with a note from Sirius scribbled on the side 'these people need to give this up, mate', postcard from Uncle Newt in Korea, bill. Harry frowns, and flips through the stack again. “What? Please, please don’t have burned it.”Maybe he really did toss it, Harry thinks, a second before it happens.Click.The kitchen, which upon entrance had been dark except for the snitch-shaped faerie light above the table, suddenly floods with brightness. Harry blinks as his eyes sting, and he curses, a word he’s heard his father repeat whenever he stubs his toe, the low merde out before he has time to think, and then hears, “Looking for this?”Harry groans and, as slowly as he can manage, he puts the mail back onto the counter, and turns on his heels with his hands raised in the eternal signal for surrender. At the table, leaning backwards into the chair balanced on two legs, Sirius sits with a smirk on his face and the envelope between his middle and index finger. On the table, his wand lays next to an ashtray with several cigarette butts, an empty carton of milk, and a half-drunk bottle of Ogden's Old.Harry’s face burns with a familiar sensation, and he slouches against the counter, scooting down an inch or three. “No! I mean—not really—not unless you want to give it to me?” He says the words slowly, carefully, as he wrings his hands behind his back.Sirius’ smirk widens in that way of his, when one corner of his mouth, the left corner, uplifts just a crook, and then he says, “And why would I do that?” The chair pops back against the linoleum with a snap. “I know your father wouldn’t be too happy with this, Pup.”Harry scowls harder than the time Sebastian Anastas beat him in the fourth-grade spelling bee. “He also said he threw out my letter.”A barking laugh is his response. “And when you’re an adult then you can be as sour as a lemon over it, yeah? For now, trust that he has his reasons.” The smirk falls from his godfather’s face as he rises and makes his way over, the edges of his snoopy pyjama pants flapping over his bare toes. Then, he kneels and balances on the balls of his feet in front of Harry. Eye level now, Sirius says, “Your dad loves you. More than anyone. He just wants what’s best for you.”It’s past midnight, and Harry’s running on adrenaline, but he still feels a sharp stab of guilt. His father’s never truly tried to dictate what he can and can’t do before. When Harry wanted to ride the teacup ride at Disney fifteen times, to the chagrin of his aunt, his father went with him until they were both green in the face and bent over foul-smelling trash cans filled with Mickey Mouse wrappers and cotton candy. At nine, when he decided he wanted to try karate, James enrolled him, and then, two months later, when he gave it up, his father didn’t even complain about the waste of money.James even managed to start a Queen’s Junior Quidditch team and arrange matches with other wizarding teams for children in the area. All because Harry wanted to do it (not that it was exactly hard to convince his father to sponsor a Quidditch team. Harry’s half-sure his father would leave him, Sirius, and Galadriel for a quaffle if pressed).Harry sighs heavily and feels like the weight of the world is on his shoulders. He droops further, the tips of his toes sliding across the floor. He just wants to know what’s in the letter, and he’s not quite sure what his father is so afraid of.Sirius smiles, and it seems a bit sad. Harry thinks his grey eyes appear a bit less bright, almost as if he, too, feels fear. It’s gone as quickly as it comes, but Harry can’t shake the memory of it even as he falls asleep that night. James feels beads of sweat trail from his hairline, messy as ever, down his right cheek, and into the corners of his mouth. The ends of his curls brush against his damp neck as he stretches one arm towards the sky to work out tense muscles. He grimaces at the salty taste and brings his free hand up to wipe away the moisture. There are spots on his spectacles, dirt and the remnants of a dead bug that smashed into them during high-speed velocity, and it's times like this James wishes that contacts didn’t make him look like he’s auditioning for a seasonal allergy commercial.Next to him, Harry pants with leftover bouts of exertion, his knee pads and child-style Quidditch robes, colourfully decked in orange and blue, unceremoniously left on the ground next to his boot-clad feet. His face is red, and his hands look raw, probably from the force of his grip on his broom, but he’s smiling widely.James grins as six other laughing, sweaty faces gather around him. “Alright, listen up my talented little dragonspawn! We did good out there! We beat those Manhattan buggers one-hundred-ten to twenty! I want you all to scream your victory!” He gestures towards the downtrodden team on the other side of the glamoured Quidditch pitch in Central Park. A part of him, the part that sounds a bit like Remus, thinks he should feel bad, but the pointy faced one had been such a little git at the beginning of the match, he can’t help but desire to rub salt in the wound.To the side, a few parents shake their heads with embarrassment and shame, as the kids boo wildly towards their competitors. Others, like him, clap and grin.Harry’s friend Tasha, a small girl with large curls, calls out, “Take that you lily-pad hotdog eaters!”James shoots the girl an odd look, but the rest of the kids quickly take up the mantra, and so he goes to greet the parents with small talk, downing a water bottle as he does so. When the other coach comes over, to demand a rematch the following Sunday afternoon, their hands linger in a too forceful grip, but they nod amicably enough to one another.As people begin to file out, James picks up the large bag of Quidditch equipment, charmed to be feather-light, and frowns, before his son begins to race across the grass.The wind ruffles Harry’s hair even messier than the flying, and James has to push his own too long strands away from obstructing his eyesight once they are out of the park and in search of food truck fare. With no hint of embarrassment, though Harry scowls at him, he draws out two brown hair bands and pulls his son’s hair back, though the hair’s barely past the ends of his ears, then does the same to his own.“Dad!” Harry protests. The hairstyle makes the odd, lightning shaped scar his son’s carried for years stand out prominently.“What?” James says and pretends not to have a clue as to the source of his son’s irritation. Harry frowns, throws his hands up into the air with defeat, before he spots an ice cream truck and, in the way that only children truly can, quickly forgets everything in favour of racing to the back of the extensive line.They find an empty bench and listen to the sounds of pedestrians and traffic, as well as small dogs and birds with cones of chocolate and raspberry in their hands. James straddles the bench, while Harry sits with his legs crossed under him, and attacks the treat with vigour.“So,” James says, licking a long stripe of chocolate ice cream. “Do you know the interesting thing Sirius told me last night? About Friday, I mean. It concerns you, so I’m sure you’re well aware of it already.”Harry’s eyes go wide as coins behind his lenses. “Non lo so,” he says, which is the only Italian phrase Harry really remembers. James chuckles, as a flash of memory strikes. He’s always said the same to his mother every time she asked why something was missing, blow-up, scribbled on, or deconstructed during his childhood. “Quit it, kid,” James says playfully. “You lost the cherub look at age seven. You’re all limbs and ankles, it’s not meshing with the doe-eyes.”Harry’s teeth come out like a bunny to scrap at his bottom lip. “If you’re going to ground me, does that mean I can miss Sebastian’s birthday party?”If James isn’t wrong, and he’s never wrong, there’s a hint of hope in his son’s voice. But he’s not here for that. As he looks at the bag, his good mood fades. He wants to toss the bag away from them and into the street and watch as a taxi runs it over into a pancake, but he knows with vivid clarity that it will do no good. The letters will just keep coming.And Padfoot’s right, he tells himself, I have to let Harry make his own choices. It’s what Lily would have done. The thought of it, though, of his baby boy being so far from him, and not just far, but there, well, it leaves him feeling sick to his stomach. Sirius doesn’t think Harry’ll jump at the chance to go to a land that lauds fish-and-chips as gourmet cuisine–which is rich coming from him considering he'd dragged them often enough to a chippy every time they'd gotten pissed–but James isn’t too sure. He knows his son's preference for smoked fish, after all. “No one’s going to make you play his Nintendo if you don’t want to,” he tells his kid. Harry smiles, and takes another happy bite of his ice cream, before his look turns to one of concern at the lack of smile on his father’s face.“Dad?”James doesn’t answer. He stares, unblinkingly, at the bag by his feet. His stomach twists, and chocolate cream runs a line of sticky goop over his wrist.“Dad?” Harry tries again. Still, James doesn’t answer. It’s like a snitch has launched itself down his throat and its tiny wings are beating a staccato gag against his windpipe. “Papa?”James takes in his haggard appearance in the shine of a buckle on the bag. Dark circles from no sleep, three-day stubble, and red veins shoot through the white of his eyes.Harry pokes him in the ribcage. “Should I call Sirius? Are you having a stroke?” his son asks in a voice filled with worry.It allows him the ability to work past the terror. “I’m fine,” James says, and he lets a small, trembling sort of smile form.It doesn’t retreat, not even when he hands the letter to his son.Not even when Harry drops it onto the ground and it blows away, his eyes as round as quarters, and full of unadulterated shock.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It’s actually rather simple: he’d survived because they’d run out of diapers. At 8:37 on October 31, 1981, Lily Potter called down the stairs to her husband, “Jaime, we’re out of nappies. Can you run to the shop and get more? The transfigured ones leave a rash.” Upstairs, their son was giggling, and he heard, “Harry, no! Not in Mummy’s hair!” With a chuckle, he’d finished putting away the leftover curry, changed out of his pyjama bottoms into some trousers that D’Artagnan had been using as a blanket on the living room floor, rubbed the cat’s head, and left the cottage at 8:50. It took him about two minutes to get down to the corner shop, which was out of nappies, another seven minutes to go down the opposite end of the street to a shop that was about to close and refused to let him in “for just one item” and so had to walk another twenty to the Tesco. Though he could have apparated, the streets were so full of muggles it didn’t feel worth the risk. The line had taken thirty minutes, full of people laden with beer and candy and assorted appetisers. He left the store a minute after ten, and then walked the twenty-five-minute trek back to his house the way he came. By the time he’d arrived home at 10:45, the roof of the first floor right above Harry’s bedroom that he spent three days painting with stags and dogs and does, threatened to collapse in on itself. There was a billow of black smoke. He’d broken into a run at the end of the street with one shoelace untied after the loud, booming bang. He’d met Sirius at the gate of the cottage who, frantic and muttering and teary-eyed, had grabbed his shoulder and clung to him as they made their way inside, both of them screaming, “Lily! Lily!” Even before he’d gotten to the bedroom, he’d known his wife was gone when they received no answer. By the front door, his cat lay with glassy eyes and red claws. Their wands out, both men were tense, waiting for Voldemort to come round the corner. James, filled with rage, was prepared to die trying to kill him. But there was nothing. By the time they reached the room, they stepped over the pile of robes, and James Potter broke. His son had been silent, blood running down his forehead, still without a nappy, his quaffle patterned orange blanket wrapped around his bottom half. Lily was stiff in death in front of the crib, eyes open towards the ceiling as she fell, body angled to guard it. Her hair was a red fan of flame against the white carpet. James would never forget that night; the guilt of taking too long would eat away at him for years. Those who knew about it shook their heads at his sheer dumb luck. In another life, James Potter dies four minutes before his wife at 10:39. In this life, Lily Potter dies at 10:42, since no one is there to attempt to stop Voldemort at the door except one determined cat. In another life, he makes it home at 10:26. In that life, he shucks back on his pyjama bottoms as soon as he’s through the door, changes his son’s nappy on the couch, then grabs his wand and charms it to blow coloured bits of smoke to make Harry laugh, while Lily does the washing up. In that life, the trek home took him exactly twenty-five minutes. In this one, he survives simply because he stopped two streets away to talk to someone.
~ June 1991
Despite common misconceptions, international magical travel is complicated and strictly regulated. Far too many missing limbs and organs have gone astray in volcanos or, memorably and oddly more than ninety times, in the Marianas Trench by people attempting to bypass the limits of apparition. Robes and shoes with feet still inside have been left behind on random city streets in front of muggles, or, more seriously and terrifyingly, hearts simply stop, and the bodies drop where they will. Given this, the magical community can’t allow just anyone to attempt long-distance apparition without an additional licence. It’s hard to even arrange a portkey (let alone create one, which James remembers vividly after the kerfuffle in ‘77 that led to his father paying a rather large donation to the Ministry of Magical Transportation so that James and Sirius were let off with a warning. They’d still been made to ‘intern’ on their weekends, however, for an entire summer as comeuppance). Theirs was a rare occurrence. Most can simply never put enough power behind the portkey spell for it to work properly despite regulations even at a domestic level, so it usually has to be arranged via the department. While flying is the easiest, and safest, not all broomsticks are equipped for such long distances, and really, neither are people, either solely or, especially, as a family with small children. Along with all this, due to borders and other laws, international travel requires visas and allowances just like its non-magical counterpart. On a domestic scale, the floo, which connects homes hooked up to the network (of which an annual fee is required, as well as a proper hearth fireplace, none of that popping out of modern grates which is both uncomfortable and left grill marks on the emerging figure’s skin for days) is extremely complicated when connected over large bodies of water, so the ocean or even rather large seas is rarely attempted. The English Channel is the largest known body of water between floo connections ever attempted. Therefore, while people can, and do, pop over to parties and friends and family on the same continent, the floo powder for distance travel is both more expensive, being harder to enchant and regulated by multiple regional magical laws, as well as in shorter supply, making the travel a luxury most can’t afford. Magical travel, in general, is more of a hassle than desired. Especially in the event one has far too many fines from accidentally apparating in muggle populated areas without a licence. Or with one. This is why James Potter is at Ellis Island the morning of June 24, 1991, with a large venti latte from Starbucks in his right hand, sunglasses over his eyes, and a bouncing child next to him as he waits for Remus Lupin to emerge from the Domestic Portkey Travel gate so that they can then walk their way over to the Domestic Connecting (Dis)Apparition Point for Legal Travel (this is ignored on an almost daily basis) for the Northeast, arrive back in Central Park where a charmed portion of it has been in magical use since its inception, and then make their way to the subway to arrive back at his flat in Queens. Not for the first time, James wonders why his aunt and uncle had never bothered to put a floo appropriate fireplace in the bakery so that they could just pop over from there, and chalks it up to their legitimate desire to avoid random customers popping in by floo to demand three-hundred floating pignoli with dancing pine nuts at five in the morning. “Don’t understand why he didn’t just drive,” Sirius mutters from his right side. Never a morning person on the best of days, Sirius’ head threatens to drop onto James’ shoulder, and he’s been shifting from monosyllabic to complaining ever since they left the house to wait at 6:37 in the morning in the blistering heat. “He bought that car for a reason, didn’t he? He’s coming from Massachusetts, not Alaska.” The letter from Remus the night before about the change of plans came after Sirius had crawled into bed, so James sighs and repeats, for the second time that morning, the reason. “He’s got some unpaid speeding tickets from travelling to the cabin on the full. You know he’s not the best at not splinching himself too close to the turn, so he doesn’t want to risk the apparition. Well, he got pulled over again last month cause he’s a shite driver who speeds and the cop noticed all the other tickets, so now they’ve suspended his licence. Thus, we’re here. Waiting. Drinking crappy coffee.” Harry tugs at his right hand impatiently and tries to run off to go bother a group of boys playing with a quaffle about fifty feet away. Undeterred, James keeps hold of his bouncing, pouting son. If he has to suffer the line, they all have to suffer the line, that’s his motto. Sirius groans. “Your choice to stop at Starbucks and not literally anywhere else, mate. You’re the one still suffering.” He’s already drunk and discarded his own black coffee, consumed fast enough that he didn’t taste anything. “Dad!” Harry complains with a whine. James can’t help but wonder if he was so whiny at age ten. The hot, humid air threatens to choke them as they wait, as the sun’s risen high in the sky and it’s near thirty-three degrees celsius as it beats down on top of them. Harry’s curls glisten with sweat on his forehead, not that he pays any heed. He stares longingly towards the group. Normally, James would let him play, but ever since the letter–well, he’s not wanted to let Harry out of his sight for as long as he’s still able to see him. “They’re not even far! They’re fully visible!” He throws the one arm he has full function of up into the air with a dramatic pout, which reminds James with a twinge of amusement of Lily. “He’s right, Prongs,” Sirius points out. About thirty feet from them, a disgruntled family in voluminous robes performs hydrating charms to try to combat the heat. Close by, a family leans against the wall of the old, abandoned muggle port, and a child tries to sneak away from them. Every so often, a wizard in polka dot shorts and an open fuchsia robe with a white ruffled tank top underneath calls out “Ice pops, ice cream, shaved ice!” and desperate parents and others who stand in wait on their end of the gate pay for the overpriced treats. In the mid-1960s, after the non-magical government had shut down Ellis Island’s immigration for good, the department liaisons between the non-magical governments and magical ones had struck a deal that gave the magical government full rights to use the island as long as “they stayed out of sight, we don’t want to cause an incident!” It had taken five years of complex hiding charms to hide the travel hub under an illusion that shifts the perception of no-majs to a type of hazy veil in which the viewers only see what they expect to see. This allows the magical community to adapt the island as they see fit and open up international ports. If James concentrates hard enough, he can see the outline of the non-magical tourists visiting the island to see the Statue of Liberty, the national museum or the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital. Since then, because of all the traffic between both the domestic and the international travel, which is respectively split between portkeys and the rare boat, or the various apparition and disapparition points and gates, as well as the Emergency Medical Ward for magical travel injuries, the custom lines, the restaurants, the bathrooms, and finally one large casino, there is no space for several of the gates to remain fully inside even if the government attempt more extension charms. Space has limits, after all. Though charms have been set up to repel rain and other inclement weather, the heat still manages to penetrate, which leads to a number of unhappy people. What’s worse, unlike muggle travel, there’s no board announcing delays or departures in advance, so times follow one simple rule: Just show up and hope you’re not waiting long or you’ve missed it. James sighs, about to give in to defeat and let Harry join the group of boys when the side of the building lights up in large, technicolour letters that rapidly flash. Within seconds, an announcer whose voice is enhanced with an amplifying charm, shouts out, “Going through, Illvermorny contingent!” Just as abruptly as they appear, the letters disappear, while all around them a flurry of activity picks up, as families gather round for the onslaught of children arriving back from school. Over by the opening in the veil that serves as a final gate, an officer waits for the no-maj born children to arrive and go through and meet their families on the other side.It takes a while before all the children come through. The de Sousa family, who James hadn’t noticed waiting for their eldest daughter, stop to greet them on their way off the island to go to the train platform at Grand Central Station and head back to New Jersey. Sirius and Chaim de Sousa strike up a conversation about computers, since Chaim works as a charmer for non-magical technology, while James and Rivka discuss the intricacies of buying school supplies. They’re both about fifteen or so years older than James and used to follow him around and ask if he needed help with anything once he started taking Harry regularly to Hebrew School. Harry and Jesse talk a mile a minute and attempt to wheedle their respective parents to allow them to go to a Quodpot match, which earns them nothing but muttered maybes. As James begins to feel impatient and looks over the heads of the crowd in an attempt to spot Remus, Rivka asks Harry, “Are you looking forward to starting Illvermorny?” Sirius coughs. James' head swivels around. Harry bites his lip and shuffles on the balls of his feet, while Jesse looks to him expectantly. “Ummm, well, I’m going to at–” Harry starts to say, before they hear a loud, “James! Sirius! Harry!” from behind them. Everyone turns to watch as a tall man dressed in patterned plaid with sandy, fluffy hair that's just beginning to grey at the temples fights his way through the crowd of children to get to them. “Uncle Remus!” Harry shouts back with a grin. He jumps up and down, and then begins to skirt his way around the crowd to launch himself at Remus. The other man catches him but loses his luggage to the ground in the process. Sirius quickly summons it before it can be trampled by people in their haste to leave. James shrugs and gives apologies to the de Sousas, who say their farewells, and the two men make their way over to the hugging pair. “–And Aunt ‘Dromeda is gonna meet me at Heathrow, which Sirius says is a horrible airport, but a step up from Stansted or Luton, and Uncle Ted said he’d take me round the underground!” Remus nods along with Harry’s words, but he shoots both men a wide-eyed, suspicious look of alarm as they approach. James winces, and he remembers that in all the hustle of the last few weeks since the letter’s unwelcome intrusion and Harry’s decision, he’d forgotten to tell Moony. Sirius leans over, his breath a scant inch from James’ ear, and whispers, “Bad luck finding out that way. We’re going to hear about it later.” The look Remus shoots them both indicates that not only had he heard, but they would be hearing about it later. James grimaces, then greets Remus with a hug and a pat on the back, as Remus furiously whispers, “What the fuck are you thinking? Are you thinking at all? Is this you losing your mind?” “Act like nothing’s wrong,” he whispers back as he pulls away. The look of angry tension on Remus’ face causes the old scars around his cheeks to tighten and gives him a rather formidable look. Slightly, James jerks his head towards the excited Harry, who natters on oblivious to the tension. Sirius shoots forward for his own hug, quicker than the one between James and Remus, then tugs at them all so that they can “go find some breakfast that doesn’t taste like ash.” Later that night, at a bar on a magical street accessed via a bagel shop bathroom on Bell Blvd., Remus puts down his beer and asks, once again, “What the fuck are you thinking?” Across from him, James rubs a hand over his tired face, and groans, while Sirius throws his head back to stare at the ceiling, a dying cigarette with a faint red glow in his right hand. They’re in a corner booth, with Sirius in the middle, so it must be uncomfortable when the top of his head scraps the back of the wall, but he's got a determined set to his shoulders as he avoids Remus’ eyes. Remus decides to stare at James, instead, who squirms as his fingers tap against the table and the side of his glass of rum. There’s a long, silent pause. Around them, various wizards attempt a game of Exploding Snap, while a couple of witches are drawing up flyers for some protest of sorts. The bartender floats and mixes drinks as they’re ordered, with an occasional bang or explosion of different ingredients, but since nothing’s accidentally on fire the sounds are meant to occur. It’s not the quietest place for a discussion of this sort, but James and Sirius had rushed him out of the flat as soon as dinner was done and Yael had arrived, so that prying ears wouldn’t overhear their conversation. “How are you even going to go shopping with him?” Though strange and outdated, British magical law requires that British students obtain their supplies from British shops, even if other wand shops are perfectly suitable. Remus suspects it has something to do with the Trace, though there’s no way to prove it. “Did you forget about the warrant?” Remus says, to Sirius, then to James, neither of whom have stepped foot in the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland since 1981. He levels James with an accusatory look and continues, “Jaime, didn’t you tell me last week that Minister Fudge apparently extended yours to cover countries with extradition agreements, as well? Isn’t that what Andromeda told you?” As usual, they both can’t look at him whenever they’re trying, and failing, to come up with good excuses. It hadn’t worked in school, when they had been considerably more prone to evasive tactics where they knew he’d have to formally disapprove of their pranks during his years as prefect, and it didn’t work now, after years of semi-maturity and considerably less pranks. Sirius shrugs and leans forward to snuff out the cigarette in an overflowing ashtray. “Well, that is why he had to cancel that trip to France. It’s balls, though. How the hell can anyone believe that James had anything to do with Voldemort?” Darkly, Sirius continues, eyes fixed on a sticky beer stain left on the dark wood of the table, and his fingernails dig at the wood to pick at it. “If I ever find out who started that rumour, I’ll–” Abruptly, an alarming thought occurs to Remus, and he cuts Sirius off mid-threat to blurt out, “You better not be planning on trying to polyjuice yourselves!” James laughs, but it sounds reluctant. “We thought about it, but we’d need an awful lot of your hair, Remy, and I doubt you’d want half your head shaved for a trip across the pond. Plus, three Remus Lupin’s are a tad suspicious.” He bites his bottom lip, and his knee bounces the table in a gentle up-and-down motion. He looks more tired than Remus has seen him since the war; there are dark circles under his eyes like pressed bruises, his cheeks thin, like he’s not had much of an appetite lately and lives off a cheese sarnie or apple slices at lunch, and his dark stubble threatens to turn into a short growth of beard. Sirius doesn’t look much better. He’s paler than usual, and his lips are chapped and bitten as if he’s spent a long time gnawing on them from stress. Despite their wan appearances, Remus still notices that a couple of the witches in the bar shoot their table flirty looks. Sirius doesn’t notice, he never does, and he’s now caught up in a debate about the merits of “three of Moony” with James, but Remus can’t help but observe as one woman stares fixedly at Padfoot’s exposed collarbones where a tattoo of a stag on his right clavicle and a wolf on the left appear to be set to run and meet up at the hollow of his throat. It’s a relatively old one, designed by James at some point six or seven years before, but it’s been touched up recently, and thus appears bright underneath the overhead candles on the ceiling charmed to act like strobe lights in the dark bar. Remus rolls his eyes and looks away. He turns back to his best friends and, more seriously, asks, “Do you really want to send him into that mess?” He reminds himself that they hadn’t been there in the height of the ‘Boy-Who-Lived’ fever. Even before they left, they’d been hiding out in Sirius’ apartment grief stricken. They hadn’t seen, though they’d heard, of the celebrations for Voldemort’s defeat. Remus, thankful for his werewolf strength for once in his life, had to hold Sirius back as he attempted to set off a couple of jinxes at the crowd of people who’d surrounded the small Godric’s Hollow funeral parlour during the ceremony who wanted to see baby Harry.Thousands of people were so overjoyed to finally feel some relief that in their jubilation barely a thought had been spared for the trauma of the remaining Potters or their friends. There’d been banners, and bowing, and pushing, and lots of screaming from Sirius, which had done little to endear him to the public. Throughout it all, James had been numb, just trying to get through the procession into the venue, while Harry asked for “Mama?” Remus, eyes sore from three days of crying, held three tickets in his pocket he’d purchased that morning without any real conscious intent to give them to his friends until the final blow up. Within two years, rumours about James’ disappearance had circulated all over Britain, ranging from raising the Boy-Who-Lived in a temple dedicated to Chosen Ones somewhere in the Greek mountains to a torrid affair between him and Sirius Black that he didn’t want to make public so soon after his wife’s murder. If Lily and Harry Potter are heroes in magical Britain, then James is a source of morbid fascination, given his reputation in the Order of the Phoenix and his mysterious absence that night. British public opinion swings back and forth among those who have no personal knowledge of him and the few who do, which lead to a rather fractious environment and a lot of speculative articles in the Prophet from reporters who hope to make their mark. As for Harry, children now grow up hearing his name. There’s an unauthorised children’s comic series dedicated to ‘the Boy Who Lived’s Adventures’, as well as several books, which get away with using his name by referring to him as ‘Henry Potter’. If the magical community ever learns to produce movies, there’d no doubt be a film franchise. As it is, right before Remus had officially left Britain, he’d heard from Madam Rosmerta of a play set to premiere in London the following year. And this is what his unprepared ten-year-old nephew is about to walk into. James shoots him a flat look, breaking him away from his panicked thoughts. “Of course I don’t want to,” he replies. “But he wants to. And I promised him that it could be his choice.” Remus’ eyebrows shoot up near to the top of his hairline and he gestures with his bottle of beer. Bits of liquid slosh onto his shirt and the table. “That was when it was going to be a choice between the smaller local school in New York or Ilvermorny with me. Not Hogwarts.”Sometimes, it still feels like a betrayal to say it. He’d loved Hogwarts. Sirius sighs heavily and rests his elbows on the table. “Let’s just admit that there was no way Dumbledore was ever going to just let us live our lives in bloody peace. Not after everything. We knew he’d send a letter. Even if we didn’t want to think about it.” “Well, I was hoping,” both Remus and James say firmly at exactly the same time. Around them, the bar’s atmosphere abruptly changes as the wireless set up turns from details of the latest Quodpot match to blast the newest Celestina Warbeck single. As it plays, the witches finally tear their eyes away from the Marauders’ table, and stand up, presumably to look for dance partners. Remus notices them approaching their table, and sighs inwardly. As soon as Sirius leans over to kiss the top of James’ curls comfortingly while the man bemoans his son’s wish to attend Hogwarts, one of the women’s pale eyebrows shoot up, and then her mouth rounds out in an ‘oh’, eyes wide. She hurriedly shoos her friend towards the nearby table of men losing at Exploding Snap. Once again, Remus points out the obvious. “You really don’t have to send him there.” Abruptly, James’ groans stop. Instead, his shoulders shake, and his head turns until he buries his face in Sirius’ neck, and gentle, steady sobs begin to emerge. If not for his enhanced hearing, Remus isn’t sure he’d be able to hear the muffled sound. Sirius swallows, then he wraps his arms around James as he shoots Remus a sad, helpless look. Remus quickly finishes the last of his beer, then moves from his space so that Sirius shuffles and he can crowd around James’ other side to cradle him as well.Through the snot and the sniffles and the shakes, Remus manages to hear “contract” “sent off” and “binding” and gathers that Harry'd already sent off his reply long before Remus had gotten home. The trick to magical school contracts is that they can only be broken by the mutual agreement of all parties involved. “Well, fuck, Prongs,” he sighs, waves to the bartender for another round, and then buries his face in his friend’s hair. Harry James Potter is going to Hogwarts. “So, you’re really going to go to England?” Jesse de Sousa asks as he throws the old baseball against the wire fence. It had been bought for a dollar at a bodega in Brooklyn when Harry had been younger. He’d grabbed it from the bin and asked Sirius, gap-toothed, if he could have the toy. Sirius, utterly charmed whenever Harry gave him the bambi eyes and the adorable charisma of a five-year-old, caved despite swearing to James that “I’m not going to spoil him anymore!” just that very morning after he’d come home from another eighteen-hour shift. Harry had long lost track of how often he heard those words come out of his godfather’s mouth.Harry corrects his friend. “It’s Scotland,” he says. “And, yeah, I am.” The two boys are on the sidewalk close to the apartment, tossing the ball back and forth, nearby where Remus and Sirius have been lucky enough to find parking spots for their respective vehicles. Uncle Remus’ car, a bland Toyota, sits fallow in the spot across the street for the last two weeks ever since his colleague, Miss. Gamble, dropped it off on her way home to Long Island. Just visible over the seat of the back window, if Harry squints, there are stacks and piles of books Remus has been slowly taking into the apartment every couple of days. A few spots down from him, on the same side of the street, Sirius’ motorcycle’s covered by a tarp to keep the sun from turning it to burning metal, and there are a couple of discarded stained wooden sticks from their purloined popsicles on the gravel next to the back tire. “But what about our plans?!” Harry shrugs apologetically. “We can do them over the summer?” Jesse groans, and glares at him with wide, dark brown eyes. His hair’s short, though just as messy as Harry’s, a little bit lighter, more waves than curls, and he looks a bit like an oversized shaved puppy when he flops onto the ground with his knees crooked and his arms in a half circle on top of them. “These are plans for Ilvermorny! I’m gonna have to find–new friends!” “There’s Tasha,” he points out a bit uselessly.Jesse flops back and his head thumps on the concrete with a protest. “She’s a year older!” Harry’s tried not to think about friends ever since he sent off the mail owl. Oh, he’s never been truly bad at making friends. At school, he has Abigail, who’s been his best no-maj friend ever since the Great Juice Box Incident of 1986, and Simon, who moved there with his family from Portland two years before and shared his ramen packets with them at lunch. Despite that, the other kids know there’s something odd about him, the boy who competes with Sebastian Anastas to stay top of the class with the odd scar on his forehead but sometimes can’t remember that people need to take the bus to get to places that are far away. The boy whose dad picks him up from school and says things like, “I bet I could make these light switches brighter with magic,” in a joking tone but Harry knows he’s fully serious. Most of his magical friends are from Hebrew school and the Quidditch team, and not everyone there is his own age or even going to Illvermorny, but at least he knows them.What if Hogwarts students think I’m some weird American kid and shun me? Harry thinks, suddenly, with distinct fear and ruffles his hair nervously. He clears his throat and changes the subject. “Sirius took me to see The Secret Garden on Broadway yesterday. A birthday present,” he says, and bends his right knee to pick up the discarded baseball. He throws it in the air, and shifts as it goes wide, then catches it in his palm.As he throws it again, Jesse says, “Cool!” and Harry continues speaking, an attempt at distraction from the onslaught of queasy fear that’s stuck in his stomach like the feeling he gets after eating too much treacle tart. “Yeah, it was interesting. I’ve never been. He and Dad went to see Cats a couple years ago. They came back looking a bit peaky. I thought maybe the shows handed out sweets or something and they’d noshed on too many of them, but no! I had to wait till intermission for a bag of chips.” He throws the ball again. Catches it, then spins on his heel to get in position. Throws. A properly fat pigeon squawks angrily as the ball nearly collides with the tip of its wing. Harry continues to throw it as he tells Jesse that his dad is planning on taking him to Coney Island, since he’s set to leave the next day for London. It’s strange to think he’s going without Dad or Sirius. He’s never been anywhere without one of them and now he’s meant to get on a plane and watch the in-flight movie and order a meal without them? And not see them again till December. I’ll be gone during the High Holy Days, he thinks. Three times in the last month he’s tried to change his mind, but his father seems strangely set on this course of action now. He’s been as encouraging as ever, telling grand stories about his time at Hogwarts and pulling out old scribbles he’s drawn of the castle. Last week, Remus gave him an old photograph of the school caught in the golden pink light of sunrise, and an album full of pictures of them to take with him. Sirius told him tales about running around the Forbidden Forest at night and the large feasts. They’re beautiful stories, but Harry’s no longer quite sure that’s enough. He tries to summon up that excited feeling again, the one that had welled up inside him when he’d read the beautiful calligraphy and saw the acceptance, despite the trembling half-smile on his dad’s face on that park bench. He shakes himself out of his thoughts, determined not to dwell when he’s got Coney Island to look forward to. “You can have my Iron Man collection,” he offers, a consolation for abandoning his friend to the perils of new school by himself. Then, he frowns. “But not my X-Men. Or Captain America!” And definitely not Spider-man, Harry thinks. Jesse waves his hand. “I prefer Tony Stark anyway. All those no-maj inventions!” His eyes are wide and excited. He’s been home-schooled all his life and most of his interaction with no-maj things are the typical ones that are unavoidable in a big, integrated city like New York. Once, Harry remembers with a giggle, Jesse asked Abigail how she was able to make it to dance practice in a car that drove so slow. She’d given him an odd look and refused to share her pop-tart. Before Jesse can negotiate more comics, James Potter’s enhanced voice calls out from the open window of the kitchen that looks down onto the sidewalk, “Jesse, your mum’s calling! Time to go home. Bambi, breakfast!” Jesse and Harry groan. They fist bump goodbye once they’re inside, and Jesse floo’s away laden with various comics and a homemade crumpet. After James hands him some waffles with a huge pile of bright red strawberries and whipped cream, his father nibbles on a piece of whole wheat toast in one hand while the other occupies itself with tossing mugs into Harry’s suitcase. At one point, he darts into the living room to grab a knitted afghan from the couch his aunt had sent last year. It still has several scattered white cat hairs clinging to the threads. “Go put your sunscreen potion on,” James tells him once the last morsel on his plate is gone. “It’s bloody boiling out, and I don’t want you looking like Sirius. He’s still red from the other day.” Harry protests, since he hates the feel of the slimy potion on his skin, but James refuses to be cowed. They meet back on the sidewalk ten minutes later, after Harry’s slathered himself in goo and James has run back into the apartment for the picnic basket he forgot. Harry stops at the edge of the sidewalk across the street, several cars whizzing by, and watches his father divest Sirius’ bike of its protective tarp. Haphazardly, James shrinks the fabric and stuffs it inside his pocket. “We’re going on the bike?!” Harry asks as excitement wells up. Finally, there’s a lull in the traffic and he crosses the street. James grins, reaches into his pocket, then after a quick unshrinking charm, tosses a child-sized helmet at him. Harry scrambles to put it on. The top smushes his curls, and they fall into his eyes, but he doesn’t care. He bounces, impatient for his father to put on his own helmet. “I can’t believe it. This is the best day ever!” “Really? The best day ever? What about three weeks ago when you won the cup for the Junior League?” Harry shakes his head. “This one,” he repeats emphatically. James laughs and tosses his head back, and then spends the next five minutes instructing him on bike safety and casting several charms. Harry holds tight to his father’s waist as they drive the half-hour towards Coney Island, the charms placed on the bike allowing them to skirt through the traffic without notice, since it narrows and expands through the gaps between cars and trucks. The wind ruffles the curls that have escaped through the top of his helmet and tickles his forehead. Harry can barely hear his father’s chatter as they zoom down the parkway. On the radio, he makes out the faint sounds of AC/DC, the station permanently caught on rock music. Eight hours and seventeen long lines later, Harry sits on a wooden bench with bright blue cotton candy, his t-shirt clinging to his back and shoulders and hair frizzy, while his father scowls at the Cyclone, indignant at the line that stretches far away from the entrance to the rollercoaster. “Dad, we went on it three times,” Harry reminds him. James rolls his eyes in response and finishes off a waffle cone covered in chocolate ganache that’s melted vanilla soft serve all over his hand and wrist. “Could’ve done with a fourth,” he points out as he tosses the leftover napkin in a trash can near the bench. His father sits, arms crossed, and legs outstretched straight in front of him. As his heels tap against the ground, he turns to his son with a grin. “Think Remus will be chuffed if we stop off at the shop and get a rabbit?” Harry snorts, then takes a chunk out of his cotton candy. It melts on his tongue with a burst of sugary goodness. “Like the last two times you’ve given him a bunny? What ever happened to Mrs. Flufferbottom the Fourth?” “Sirius brought her to work with him. She–got lost in the records.” “And Hopper Tuftytail?” James’ brow scrunches as he pretends to think, and then he holds his index finger upwards as if struck by the memory, neck craned towards the blue sky. “Remus sold him to some lad at a yard sale.” “Which wasn’t even in our yard! We don’t have a yard!” Harry points out with an exaggerated laugh. “He gave him away for three bucks and a slice.” “Hmmm—so what you’re saying is I should go over and win him an oversized stuffed one then?” James puts his finger on his chin and smirks, then shifts on the bench as if he’s preparing to leap up and find a carnival booth right at that very moment. “We’ll call him Harrington.”“I’m sure he’ll console you all in my absence,” Harry replies with mock solemnity and nods along. “Galadriel will pine.” Harry shakes his head and forces his face into a look of pity. “For you! I’ve decided she’s coming with me.” He places his hand on his chest dramatically. “Good luck getting her past the front door. You’ll show up to Andromeda and Ted with so many scratches they won’t recognize you,” his father answers. It’s true. Harry would have better luck getting Remus to actually keep another illicitly procured rabbit than wrestle Galadriel out of her territory. Suddenly, his father sighs, runs a hand over the left side of his face, and leans back against the bench. Harry feels as if the mood’s shifted without warning. “Actually, Bambi, I wanted to talk to you–about Hogwarts." He pulls up his right sleeve, where his wand is strapped to his wrist with a dragonhide holster. "Silencio," he mutters. Then, he manoeuvres so that he straddles the bench, one leg stretched through the large gap between wood panels and faces Harry. "I was going to wait till we got home, but it’s running late, and we've got to head out early so it'll be straight to bed.” He stops, closes his eyes, and there are several long, excruciatingly anticipatory moments where Harry wonders if he’s about to be told his father’s dying. He swallows nervously, and then James continues, “Listen, there is something you need to know. Something we always said we'd tell you when you were older. Old enough. To process it. With you heading to Hogwarts, well–”James takes a deep breath, and Harry feels his own catch in his throat. “–the time's come." “Time for what?” Harry asks cautiously. Slowly. Without knowing why, he has the distinct feeling he’s been waiting for this moment his entire life. James swallows, and rubs his eyes, as his top teeth come out to scrape his bottom lip. The air is hot and pungent with the smell of garbage fermenting in the trash, and the lingering petrichor from the brief and unexpected summer shower a couple hours before. There’s the loud crash of bodies and the screaming of children hopped up on Nathan’s hot dogs, pixie sticks, and deep fried oreos. A toddler dressed in a canary yellow bathing suit and a bonnet runs screaming past, followed by her frantic mother, her husband following at a more sedate pace with an overwhelming waft of Old Spice. Despite this, Harry stares at his father, heedless of the activity surrounding them. “To talk about the night your mother died.” Harry freezes. His father has never talked about it. Not really. Harry’s asked, but it’s always been too hard, and Sirius won’t answer if his father won’t. His fist tightens around the fibrous cardboard cone of his half-finished cotton candy. As his father, haltingly at first, stiffer as he continues, explains about his mother’s murder, about Lord Voldemort who Harry knows from a few history lessons, and leaving Britain in the following days, Harry can’t help but picture a faceless, grim man in billowing black robes with a high-pitched laugh. He can see a flash of bright, green light and hear a piercing scream, only semi-convinced he imagines it. The more his father talks, the harsher Harry breaths, and suddenly, absurdly, it feels like the most surreal moment of his life. He’s hearing about the defeat of the darkest wizard of their age while sitting on a bench in Coney Island, at the same time as some stranger in his peripheral vision wonders where she placed her baby’s stroller. “I’m famous? Me? What are you talking about?” he asks and hopes that his father’s having him on. He can’t be famous. He’s dressed in an old, faded t-shirt with Darth Vader stitched onto it his aunt bought from K-Mart. He once had sheets with Thomas the Tank Engine on his bed for six entire months after he was entirely too old for cartoons like Thomas the Tank Engine. He trips over his own flip flops all the time because he just tosses them anywhere he pleases. His cat leaves her chewed up mouse toy under his pillow, and since it’s charmed to leap away from her when she pounces, it will randomly wake him up in the middle of the night if he shifts wrong and it decides to jettison itself ten feet into the air. This is absolutely absurd. He keeps going. “I didn’t do anything! I was just–there! A baby!” He lets his cotton candy fall uselessly onto the ground and waves his arms. “It was all Mum! Why would they focus on me?” His mother, who he’d never known, because she’d been murdered. He feels a sob catch in his throat, and tears prickle at the corner of his eyes. His father holds out his hand and Harry grabs onto it like a lifeline. “D–someone very knowledgeable about these matters told Sirius and I that your scar is a curse scar,” James explains. His mouth twists into a frown, and there’s a dark look in his eyes that Harry’s not used to seeing. His fingers are stiff underneath Harry’s, and his jaw clenches before he continues, “It’s proof the curse rebounded. The killing curse. There was a backlash of magic, and then Voldemort was gone. No one really knows what happened.” Numbly, Harry wrenches his hand out of his father’s hold. “So, I might not have done anything then.” James looks at him sadly. “I don’t know.” It feels completely and utterly useless. He’s going to go off to school where apparently everyone knows his name for something he apparently did that he can’t remember and didn’t even know about until this moment. Harry takes a shaky breath, then another, wipes his face and gets off the bench. “I want to go home now.” The entire drive back, Harry remains stubbornly silent despite his father’s attempts to talk to him. No matter how hard he tries to think about anything else, the rides from today, Quidditch, the play Sirius took him to, or even buying Uncle Remus another rabbit, he’s drawn back to the news his father told him. He adds details; his mother, smiling at him right before their door crashes in, which looks like the door he’s always known in Queens, and his room, which resembles his room now, just with a crib and a few more stuffed teddys. He thinks about all the strange incidents over the years with random people who’d come up to him and bowed. Some who thanked him, and Harry always thought that meant because he was such a polite child or some other random explanation that his dad or Sirius told him, never once cottoning onto the unimaginable notion of his mysterious childhood survival. Too many strange incidents he’d dismissed or shrugged off make sense now, and he can’t help feeling betrayed that his family kept this from him all this time. By the time they find a new parking spot, the previous one taken by a new car, and replace the tarp on the bike, Harry’s moved on to imagining people coming up to him to demand photographs, and when they finally reach the apartment and his father opens the door, he kicks off his shoes so hard they bounce off the wall. “Everything alright?” Sirius calls from the kitchen, and then there’s the sound of footsteps heading towards them. The apartment smells like reheated borscht, and his suitcase has been placed underneath the dining table, all packed and ready to go. Harry doesn’t answer, just moves past his father, who tries to talk to him, and quietly, still numb, shuts the door to his room with a soft click and collapses onto his bed. On his pillow, Galadriel shifts, paws outstretched, and he rolls over until he buries his face into the soft fur of her stomach, listening to her heartbeat, steady and alive. This may be the worst day of his life.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
~ September 1st, 1971
It’s cold. Which is an absurd notion. It’s Scotland, and even in September, it’s bound to be chilly at night. Especially since the castle’s nestled deep into the Highlands, far away from curious muggle eyes. Still, James thinks, and gathers the duvet around his bony shoulders, it’s cold. In front of him, a half-finished letter home lays on the bed. Pointing upwards, the careful cursive he’s had drilled into him for the last four years takes up a quarter of the parchment, and there’s an ink blot on the top right corner. Dear Mama and Papa, it starts, The weather here is right miserable and I miss Brazil. The weather there was much nicer, given we stayed there an entire two months, and there was sun! Even if I had to go around with Papa and look at all those weird, boring plants. I don’t think I’ve seen the sun since we came back here, and Scotland seems to rain EVEN MORE than England! Sure, I’ve been here for less than twelve hours, but I can already tell. It’s gonna be proper strange not to go to New York for High Holy Days this year, what are you all going to do without me there to eat all the apples? Eat them yourselves? But also, great news! I’m in Gryffindor, just like you dad!!! It’s all red here, and the curtains and bedposts and stuff have probably been here since you were around, which was ages ago, and they look real old. I’ve met a bunch of students already at the feast! Marlene’s here, remember her? We saw each other at the feast, so at least there’s someone around I know. There was one boy on the train–I really like him. We’ve gotten along great, and I think we’re going to end up really good friends.
His name’s Sirius Black.
Yeah, those Blacks. But he’s a Gryffindor, too! The first in his family, so he has to be better than them. And, besides, isn’t Great Aunt Dorea a Black? Not that I’ve seen her since I was like five, but the thought counts, right?
My year has a lot of boys, so we had to be split up into two dorms. Sirius and I made sure to share. There’s another boy here, Remus, and he’s–
Quiet, James thinks. And already asleep. It’s night, though, and classes start tomorrow. James supposes he should be sleeping, too, but he’s far from tired. It’s only half past ten, after all. Faintly, he hears a small noise, almost like a whimper. He blinks and tightens his blanket around his chest as his teeth worry the thin skin on his bottom lip. It’s an old place with old bones. Those sorts of places creak, and there’s rafters on the ceiling. Stone makes sound, too, when the wind hits it. He hears it again, and this time, it’s louder. It’s stuttery, and not like a creak at all. And definitely not stone. It’s crying. With a series of rapid blinks, James turns. Hesitant, he shuffles one foot off the side of his bed, bare toes several inches from the carpet. “Sirius?” he asks, faint enough so that he doesn’t wake Remus Lupin, who’s said all of four words to them in the last hour-and-a-half: his name, hello, and goodnight, all with the faint air of someone bewildered to be there. “Merlin,” he hears Sirius say, as if it’s a curse. James knows cursing. His governess cursed a lot when she thought he wasn’t listening. Underneath the bed, his new kitten hisses, displeased at being awakened from his seventh nap. He sleeps a lot. James wonders if that’s normal for cats or if he’s somehow picked up the laziest one. “Why aren’t you asleep?” Sirius replies in a wrecked sort of voice. James shrugs and takes that as an invitation to come over. Sirius protests, a little, when he drops onto his new friend’s bed, facing him. He curls his legs underneath his butt, knees pointed outwards. Sirius shuffles up, until he smashes his pillow underneath his body, the blankets all askew around them. He not so discreetly wipes his eyes on his sleeve. They’re still red. “Too excited, I guess.” Sirius smiles, faintly, and says “Yeah,” but his eyes look scared. As scared as James feels, maybe, though he won’t admit it because he’s eleven and it’s not like he’s never been away from his parents before. Somehow, though, he doubts they’re scared about the same things. “Want to talk about it?” he asks. Sirius shrugs, then mutters, “Not really.” Lies, James thinks. So, he waits. It’s hard, since his leg twitches, and there’s an itch by his eyebrow that won’t settle down. After a while, the blanket gets scratchy, but it’s what his mother does when he really should talk about things and doesn’t want to. It’s nippier over here, since Sirius’ bed is directly next to the window, and the insulation’s pretty poor, even though James thinks they should have warming charms. Draughts are the worst. Finally–after what seems like an age wherein James begins to plan to offer his blanket since Sirius looks cold, too, with goosebumps and shivers—the other boy says, “My brother’s going to hate me.” James’ brow furrows. He can’t even imagine that. He’s known Sirius Black for about sixteen hours, and he thinks he’d already share his ice cream with him. And his smuggled broom that’s covered underneath the invisibility cloak in his trunk. “Why?” he asks. Sirius shifts, and their bare toes touch. They’re like a shock of two icicles on top of his red duvet. “Because,” he tells James, “my family’s all mad. You didn’t see the look my cousin gave me at dinner. Cissy’s spitting!” “I hope it wasn’t into the potatoes,” James jokes. “They weren’t seasoned enough, but they don’t need spit to make them better.” Sirius gurgles, and his eyebrows scrunch, and then–He laughs. “I dare you to say that to her face,” he says, and his straight black hair falls into his eyes as he shakes his head. “She’d skin you alive.” “I can take her,” he tells him, and nods his head with a very serious expression and a tad more confidence than he really feels. “I’m scrappy. I go for the ankles.” Sirius stares at him with wide eyes. “Why?” He asks it like he’s never had someone offer to help him fight rude family members before. James knows how to fight rude family members. It's why it’s been years since Aunt Dorea’s been around after the chocolate pudding incident that still makes his mother laugh. He presses his foot firmer against Sirius’ and the other boy pushes back. “You’re my friend,” he tells him, as if it’s that simple. For him, it is, as James thinks Sirius is going to be his first real forever friend. “You stuck up for me earlier. On the train.” James frowns as he remembers the sullen boy with the greasy hair in their train compartment who’d insulted his dad. He can’t recall his name, so he just clarifies, “With what’s-his-face, I mean.” Sirius laughs again, and then he lays one of his legs on James’ lap. “He was such an–,” His nose twitches as he searches for the right term. “–an arse!” He whispers the curse with wide eyes. “Like wanting Slytherin’s some great accomplishment. If it was–” He looks like he wants to say more but there’s a long pause before it becomes clear he’s not going to speak again. James nods. “Too right.” Then he bites his lip and shuffles closer. “I could–stay? If you want company? Just for tonight!” There’s an excruciatingly long moment where James worries he’s made a mistake, and he thinks about taking the words back. Then, Sirius nods, and shifts, which gives James room to prop himself against the wall. Their shoulders are an inch apart, and they’re going to share an already smashed pillow, but they’re small enough to fit. They don’t sleep much, but that’s alright. Four days later, he leaves a bruise the size of a small galleon on Narcissa Black’s ankle after she calls Sirius a “disgrace to their noble name,” and screams that he just "wait till you get home for Christmas! Aunt Walburga will straighten you right out." Seconds after Sirius flinches backwards, James gets into his first ever fight. He earns his first detention, too, but he figures it’s worth it in the end. Afterwards, Sirius shows up with a saved scone from breakfast, red currant jam and clotted cream slathered inside. There’s a grin on his face and a sparkle in his eyes, and James knows he’s found his first forever friend.
~ August 4th, 1991
That afternoon, once Sirius stumbles out of the floo, full of exasperation as he mutters about “idiots that think charming machines without any skills is a smashing idea,” he abruptly decides that a holiday is in order. The flat feels too cold and impersonal without the overly loud sounds of Harry’s favourite cartoons. Without pause, Sirius crosses the room to the couch and tosses off James’ bundle of sad blankets, and orders him to pack. Then, he stuffs a fair few pieces of unfinished art into a rucksack, sends off a quick floo note to Yael to inform her of their impromptu leave, and knocks on the doorpost to the kitchen with a screeching and scratching Galadriel aloft as he beseeches a tea drinking Remus to cat sit the little demon. Once everything is in order, they head out, deciding to take the bike rather than apparate. It’s a familiar rush of motion with James’ arms wrapped around his waist, and soon enough the sounds of the city disappear, a mere memory of bustle when compared to the wind rushing through the pine trees. Eventually, the smell of the crisp, summer air as it turns from dusk to evening permeates their nostrils, and Sirius touches the bike down in Lake George to stop for gas. Hungry, they decide to grab a pizza at a restaurant made of stark, white wood, then head out further into the Adirondacks. The old maplewood cabin’s hidden away high up enough that it’s safe for them to come out here during the Full Moon without too many close calls. It’s all wood inside, with oak cabinets, an island in the middle of the open kitchen, and a built-in dining table attached to a large, curved window. From the back of the cabin, there’s a view of the lake from the window nook, and next to it there’s an entire wall of built-in bookshelves that house a couple of childhood photos of James, a dancing black-and-white miniature of the elder Potters’ wedding, and various old books. Sirius hasn’t been in there since ‘77, the last time James’ parents were around, and the large cedarwood bed with the study frame still hosts the same dusty patchwork quilt. Leading to the back is a wide hall which has four in-built bunk beds. Sirius remembers asking about them, once, and in a most dramatic fashion was regaled with the tale of Monty Potter and Jacob Kowalski using hammers and nails the muggle way to build them back when Jacob’s son, Gil, was born. At the time, the Potters’ had still been hoping for a whole house full of children. Now, during the Full Moon, the three marauders will crash on those bunks with bleary eyes. Sometimes they’d pull the curtains overhanging each bunk for privacy if so inclined, though it’s often forgotten. Sweeping outwards from the kitchen is the living room which has a curved, comfortable beige couch with enormous, mismatched polka-dot pillows and patched up fabric, the inevitable effects of inviting a werewolf in. There’s a stack of firewood next to the chimney that’s never been connected to the floo, dotted by grooves torn into the wood. On the opposite side of the chimney, a door leads into the bathroom with an old, clawfoot tub and a porcelain basin sink. As soon as he drops his rucksack and heads around the island, he curses. Then, he swats the nesting spider audaciously hanging out next to the French press while James tosses his own bag against the side of the couch. “I swear we never had to deal with these buggers back in London,” Sirius mutters as he vanishes the intruder. “Well, definitely not wolf spiders,” James muses with a shudder and a look of horror. “They’re like mini acromantulas.” Disturbed by the notion, Sirius insists, “They’re not mini.” Anything that big can never be given the term mini, not even in comparison to the terrifying buggers in the Forbidden Forest. Absently, he begins to rifle through the cabinet and finds a half-eaten bag of mini marshmallows, as well as a dented tin of Nestle chocolate powder, behind a bag of sprouting potatoes and several boxes of instant rice. In a stack shoved into the deepest corner are various jars of Campbell's soups, and some packets of ramen. He grabs the marshmallows and the powder, and then picks up the kettle from its place on the hob to start on some hot chocolate. While he putters, James drags one of the red sherpa blankets from the bunks into the living room. He wraps it around his shoulders like a cloak and appears all comfy and warm. “They sort of are, mate.” James continues, determined to stick to his point. As Sirius goes to protest, James holds out his hand. “I know, I know, they’re fucking huge. But, still, acromantulas. Those blighters could eat Prongs.” “They almost did once,” Sirius mutters, as his stomach churns at the memory. James winces, and goes to curl up on the couch, his feet drawn up underneath him. The kettle whistles once the water fully boils. Sirius grabs a chipped mug from the cabinet next to the preservation one, and rips open a packet of powder to sprinkle it into the bottom. Then, he pours the liquid and tosses the marshmallows on top, before he swishes his wand and wordlessly floats it over to the couch. For himself, he grabs a rooibos tea bag from the garishly painted rooster tin they keep the assorted teas, pours the remaining water into another mug he summons from the cabinet, and joins James on the couch. Just as the other man reaches up for his drink and cradles it in his two palms with curled fingers, Sirius settles, and sinks deep into the cushions that resemble a cloud. Darkly, Sirius thinks, Grimmauld Place never had cushions this nice. All about the stiff, upright nature. Furniture had to match the people. Disturbed by the memory, he shakes the thought away as quickly as it came. “You’re hogging it,” he says, instead, as he tugs at a corner of the sherpa. Eventually, James relents and lets him burrow, both of them curled together and staring at an empty, fireless chimney, the sounds of the wind and the promise of a distant thunderstorm their only companions for miles. “Tomorrow,” Sirius says after a few long moments. “I’m having a lie-in.” He’s begged off work for the next week and feels like he deserves it. He’s been exhausted lately, given the influx of new mishaps, and there’s the pressing reminder that his godson’s gone off now. Hell, his flight has probably already touched down in London. He’s gone, farther than he’s ever been from the two of them before. Off where Sirius can’t follow, not unless he wants to be chucked into a holding call at the Ministry of Magic. At Hogwarts, there’s no one there to keep an eye on him and make sure he’s alright. Specifically, keep an eye on the old man, Sirius thinks, and this thought is even darker than his first. Beside him, James makes a curious humming noise. “Thought that was a given?” James asks, then takes a sip of his hot chocolate. He winces, the steam still too hot, apparently, and blows on it a bit. Sirius waits to drink his own cuppa.He turns to the other man, one eyebrow raised. “Not with you around. You better not try to get me to hike with you again down to the lake.”He’s had enough four-thirty in the morning wake up calls for a bout of strenuous exercise to last him a lifetime. He’s not in the war anymore. He can afford to get a bit lazy. James rolls his eyes. “It’s good for you.” James, for some reason that Sirius can’t comprehend, finds early morning jogs fun. Sirius reminds him of this. “Remember back when you used to wake me up at five in the bleeding morning to go running around the Great Lake? That wasn’t good for me. I needed my beauty sleep.”“Why? Did it improve something?” James jokes. Indignant, Sirius stretches over the couch, which temporarily unpastes them, and tosses a frayed, polka-dot pillow at James which he dodges easily. It lands somewhere near the kitchen island. “Nothing to improve. Can’t fix perfect,” Sirius remarks as he moves back in. He sweeps away a lock of his hair that’s fallen into his eyes. Then, he primly takes a sip of his tea, the smooth, slightly nutty flavour lingering on his tongue. Though Sirius’ is just starting to drink, James’ cocoa is nearly half-done; the marshmallows have melted into thin white foam on the top of the drink, and there’s a sticky residue stuck on the rim where the chocolate’s beginning to coagulate. Sirius looks down at the arm holding the cup. Uncuffed, his right sleeve has fallen down his forearm, exposing the long, faded scar near the crook of his elbow which seems unusually more prominent. He rubs it absently as he says, “We’re going to have to pick up more supplies before Moony comes round on the Full. We don’t have much left.” James points out they’ll probably need to long before the tenth as they have “pretty much barren stock.”Sirius jerks his head towards the cabinets. “I think the freeze cabinet has a couple of frozen pizzas?” James shoots him an annoyed glance with an expression that conveys the same sentiment as a spoken “really?” Reluctantly, Sirius concedes. They will need to go to the shop soon. Still, he wonders if he can get away with mysteriously having a hard time finding parking and just let James off at the door. He hates going to the shop. Too many cashiers stare unsettlingly. There’s a long pause before either of them speaks again. Absently, James starts to play with the arm of the couch, picking at one of the patches. He pulls at the threadbare ends of the blanket and lays his head on and off Sirius’ shoulder. They finish their drinks. Afterwards, Sirius leans back against the couch and James falls back with him from the sudden loss of support. A small oomph echoes through the quiet cabin and the blanket falls from their shoulders to settle half-way down their backs, caught between their weight and the cushions. In front of them, the mugs sit coasterless on the coffee table, despite the set of marble ones stacked neatly in the middle next to a few old Quidditch Weekly magazines. There’s a dusty walkman Sirius left ages ago on the far left of the table, and a set of Shabbat candlesticks put there by Effie; they’re silver, with a carving of a cityscape near the base. Looking at everything but each other, they lose themselves in their thoughts; comfortable, familiar silence mixing with an abject feeling of loss and lack of purpose. James sighs heavily. Underneath their feet, Sirius’ toes curl around the fibres of the familiar wool rug that’s been around twenty years or more. It’s a fair bit scratchy, but he can’t help but remember the first time he’d come here, the summer after he’d run away. He’d been cautious then, so afraid of misstepping, of infringing on Monty and Effie’s kindness. Still, they’d allowed him to walk around without slippers, and eat with his elbows on the table. Sirius eyes the cranberry juice stain on the corner. That’s Harry’s, Sirius thinks with melancholy. He’d been adamant that he was too old for sippy cups. He looks out the window and takes in the black sky, the light from the moon a bare sliver through the trees. Andi’s probably picking him up now, Sirius thinks. James is the one to break the silence. “Should I have told him sooner?” His voice is hoarse. Should I, should I, should we– so many should ofs, and could ofs, and might ofs. There’s always a should have. Sirius should’ve stayed secret keeper. Lily should’ve stayed alive to raise her son. They could’ve run away long before Voldemort came after them. They could’ve never joined the war effort. They might’ve had a different life. Harry might’ve had all of them around with his forehead blessedly unmarred and his name unknown.He dwells on these thoughts more often than he should.He stretches out his arm, and James curls underneath it, head on his shoulder. Sirius tilts his face downwards. “Can’t change it now,” he whispers into James’ hair. “Got to live with the consequences. He’ll be alright. Our boy’s strong.” James nods. “He is.” Then, a deep breath. “But I miss him.” “Me too, Prongs. Me too.” Despite the large gathering outside the arrivals gate at Heathrow, it isn’t difficult to spot the Tonks family as soon as he finally makes it through customs and immigration. Nymphadora Tonks’ spiky, bright magenta hair stands out, not to mention her sheer height that she’s metamorphosed to dwarf the crowd. Several people eye her with awed or disturbed glints in their eyes as she hops on her feet, her hands outstretched to wave enthusiastically. Though tired from the long, dull flight with the three screaming babies, Harry bounces over to them. The wheels of his suitcase clack against the linoleum floor as he moves. “Aunt ‘Dromeda!” he says as he takes the final distance at a sprint through the gap between a disgruntled elderly couple. He drops the handle and lets the suitcase go with a crash as he wraps his arms around the slender woman’s waist and his fingers slide along her silk lavender blouse. “You look tired,” she tells him with a thin smile. She pats at his hair in a futile attempt to smooth it. “And dirty. You’ll need to shower soon as we get home. Wash off the travel. And we’ll have to send a message to your father straight away. Let him know you’ve made it here.” She says this as if she’d been sceptical that the large, metal contraption with no magic is meant to stay in the sky and can possibly bring passengers over the Atlantic Ocean safe and sound. Harry nods, a bit relieved to be around someone familiar. His aunt’s always resembled her cousin, Sirius, but she’s got lighter hair, which is that odd cross between a golden brown and a honey blonde. Her eyes are heavy-lidded, but the same grey as her cousin, and she stands with a tall and stately grace. Her daughter elbows her out of the way. Harry’s only met her in person once before when they’d come to New York, but he remembers her pretty, heart-shaped face. She bounces on the balls of her feet. “Wotcher, Harry,” she says as he hugs her, too. “We should head out,” Uncle Ted says, after greeting Harry. He’s got the same pleasant, heart-shaped face as his daughter, with hair that’s gone light as it fades with age. “Don’t want the rental company to charge me an extra day.” As Andromeda begins to scold her husband for “renting the car to begin with,” Tonks and Harry chatter on about various topics: her training, his Quidditch practice, whether scones or bagels are better breakfast items. Heathrow’s a large airport, and it takes them a while to reach the car park. By the time they get off the elevator, his aunt and uncle are still arguing about the merits of muggle travel. "Because, ‘Meda, I wasn't going to drag the trunks all the way down to an empty corner outside bl–” Uncle Ted catches himself. “—Heathrow to apparate from a patch of grass when anyone could be happening by! The rental is fine. Just relax, my driving is still up to snuff,” Uncle Ted finishes, and pops the trunk of the car. Aunt Andromeda sighs heavily, and she raises one hand to rub a finger against her brow. “Who’s got my suitcase?” Harry asks, suddenly conscious of the fact he hadn’t been rolling it through the long expanse of Heathrow. With alarm, he pictures it abandoned by the arrivals gate, as curious strangers good-naturedly call lost-and-found, but for no payoff at the end since he hasn’t got a telephone number for emergency retrieval on it. Panicked, he thinks that he’s lost everything, before Tonks calmly says, “I’ve got it!” She gestures to the suitcase that has, indeed, been rolling along with them. "Why is it called a suitcase and not a trunk?" she asks.Harry shrugs. "You know, I don't know." The panic recedes quickly and now all he wants is to be away from the airport. Meanwhile, Uncle Ted grabs the suitcase from his daughter and lifts it into the trunk. Harry chews at the corner of his mouth. "Why is it called the boot and not the trunk?" he asks inquisitively. Tonks thinks, then shrugs. "You know, I don't know." Harry decides mid-way through the drive that, actually, Uncle Ted is a bad driver. He presses too hard on the gas, slams on the breaks, and rides the bumpers of the cars in front of him. This would be nauseating enough on its own, but there’s also the disconcerted feeling he gets as he gazes at the steering wheel on the opposite side of the car while they drive on the opposite side of the road. It’s the first time he’s ever been in a car that’s all reversed. Despite exhaustion, he’s able to note that the city is beautiful. It’s clearly much older than New York, with buildings made of stone and attached shops and homes. Sometimes, they’ll pass newer buildings that remind him of Manhattan, and he’ll watch as a large crowd of speedy pedestrians cross the road when the cars stop. After a while, they’re driving out of the city, past green rolling fields dotted with sheep and cows and the sky a grim grey overcast. Eventually, after an hour or so, they reach Cookham and drive through the High Street to the outskirts of a narrow lane. There, they pull up to a yellow house that’s attached on both sides by a blue house on the left and a white one on the right. Like a shot, his aunt is out of the car with one hand stuffed in her purse as she fishes for her keys. Uncle Ted gets out at a more sedate pace and removes Harry’s suitcase from the trunk while Tonks grabs his hand and pulls him up the cobblestone walkway. He yawns and hopes for nothing more than a nap after his shower. His stomach also gurgles as it reminds him that the last in-flight meal had been a sad roll, some rehydrated rubber eggs, and a sausage he couldn’t eat. As they enter, Uncle Ted stashes his luggage next to a curved umbrella stand. The coats on the overhead rack nailed into the wall brush the top of the outstretched handle. They’re in a narrow hallway with crooked stairs and three doors. Scattered along the walls, there are moving childhood photos of a little girl with multi-coloured hair. His eyes linger on one of Tonks gap-toothed and holding a crup. A ribbon trails down half-way up the stairs, a prize of some sort. Uncle Ted points him down the hall towards the farthest door, which ends up being the bath. Harry quickly washes off with some fancy rosewater soap. He meets them afterwards in the kitchen and sits down at the immaculately tidy table to have a bite of toast with jam. Afterwards, he follows Tonks upstairs to her room, where a cot’s been pushed against the wall, piled high with fluffy blankets, a bit wonky and out of place, clearly the results of an extension charm. “We don’t get a whole lot of guests ‘round here,” Tonks explains with an apologetic shrug. Somehow, this means her elbow manages to knock the lamp on her nightstand onto the floor. Swiftly, she curses. Like Harry’s, her room’s full of clutter, with band posters and records on every available surface. He feels a twinge of longing for his own organised chaos. They chat for a minute or two, but the travel catches up with him quickly. As soon as she leaves, he drops off to sleep within moments with the promise that they’ll wake him up in a few hours so as not to suffer jet lag. On the morning of the 9th of August, once Tonks and Uncle Ted have floo’d off to their respective works, Harry sits at the table and watches his aunt leisurely finish her morning tea. In front of her, the Daily Prophet is open to a headline regarding the newest protest for werewolf rights after the failure to overturn a proposed decree to limit their avenues of employment. She licks the pad of her finger to turn it to the next page when she finishes, then looks up and tells Harry, “We’ll be heading to Diagon Alley today to get your school supplies and some other things.” Perplexed, he chews on his spoonful of dry, dusty Weetabix. “I don’t think Dad gave me any money for it,” he says. Which, Harry realises abruptly, is strange. Did his father expect the Tonks family to pay for it all? That doesn’t seem at all like him. She waves her hand in a careless motion. “I’ve got that all taken care of.” She takes a sip of her tea to finish it off, then continues, “Stopped by your grandparents' old place. Took a fair bit of time for the wards to recognize me since I was only there the once. The delay’s why we haven’t gone shopping sooner, but I picked up the vault key there for you.” She looks down, a bemused expression on her face as she gathers up her empty cup. “Took ages before I finally found it stashed in a drawer in the piano room of all places!”Shocked, he drops his spoon. It clatters into the bowl and splashes milk all over her tidy table. “We have a vault? Like–a bank vault? Here?” he asks her, mind reeling. He doesn’t recall his father mentioning that part. His aunt laughs. “Of course you do. Your father grew up here.” She smiles. “It’s been in your family a very, very long time.” “Huh,” Harry says, intrigued. “Guess so. So, we’re going there first?” The answer to that question turns out to be yes. They enter Diagon Alley through a grimy chimney in a pub called the Leaky Cauldron which Andromeda rushes them through with only a brief wave to the bartender. Covertly, she glances around and makes sure the brim of Harry’s baseball cap is pulled low over his forehead to hide the scar he now knows is famous from view, as they leave the pub to enter Diagon Alley. “It’s a hassle, I know,” she’d told him when she’d handed him the hat. “But it’s for the best. You’ll be getting enough attention once you get to school.” Gringotts, Harry notices with awe, is an imposing white building with multiple stories. It sits at a curve at the end of Diagon Alley, as another darker and narrower alley trails around it off to the side, and towers over all the surrounding shops. Aunt Andromeda glides swiftly into the bank through the entrance bracketed by four white columns and directly under an oval balcony. She moves through the marble hall with the air of someone used to getting her own way. Harry stumbles, gaze pointed up towards the ceiling of the ornate bank, and he waves to one of the goblins behind a counter who gives him a curious glance. Slowly, the goblin waves back, a perplexed expression on his face, and his scrunched eyebrows nearly cover the top of his wire-rimmed spectacles. Finally, they reach another goblin who seems to be a teller. “Griphook,” he introduces himself to them as they come to a stop, though his eyes still roam over a form or two held in his spindly hands. “What is your business with Gringotts today?” “The Potter vault,” Aunt Andromeda tells him with her hands firm on Harry’s shoulders. Then, she rattles off a number as Harry reaches into his pocket and draws out the small gold key she’d handed him before they left. Griphook reaches for it, his long fingers a curl as he inspects the key. Then, his unnerving gaze falls on Harry, fixed piercingly on the baseball cap. Self-conscious, Harry tugs it further down and swallows. “Hmmm,” Griphook says finally, in a slow drawl. “Everything appears to be in order.”The carts that take them down to the vault levels remind him of a roller coaster at Astroland or Six Flags. As they descend, the wind ruffles the stray curls at the back of his head where the cap doesn’t cover. They whoosh past doors and down, down further until they’re down so far Harry can’t even count the levels they’ve zoomed through. It seems almost as if they’re going straight to the centre of the Earth. As they go, Harry asks questions about the bank and the bank’s history, curious about the differences between Gringott’s and his bank in New York, while his aunt sits next to him with a pursed mouth and a green expression. Eventually, they stop in front of a large vault and Griphook places the key in the keyhole. The doors sweep inwards, and Harry enters a room with stacks and piles of gold, more than he’s ever seen. I could get lost in here, he thinks, heart in his throat. While he has his eleven-year-old existential crisis at the realisation that his family’s loaded, Aunt Andromeda sweeps past him and begins to count out galleons, sickles and knuts to put into a bag. Then, after a moment, she gathers more. “For the year,” she tells him with a considering wave, her hand curled. “You’ll probably want to pick up some things, after all.” Longingly, Harry pictures the new Nimbus 2000 racing broom he’s seen in advertisements as they shuffle back into the cart and make their way back up to the main entrance. Forlorn, he sighs as he remembers the rule on his Hogwarts letter which that first-years aren’t allowed their own broom. This, almost more than anything else, makes him reconsider the merits of Ilvermorny which does allow first-year broom possession. Once they exit, a wave of sadness hits him and he pictures his dad drinking coffee at home, while Sirius rushes around, frantic and late, as he tries to knot his tie before giving up and asking James to. Though they’d told him that they wouldn’t be able to accompany him, it hadn’t been a detailed explanation–just that they were legal and complicated reasons and a discussion for “when he’s older.” He’s getting tired of “when he is older.” As his aunt and him go in and out of shops, Diagon Alley begins to remind him of the Manahatta District. It’s full of pzazz, a distinct hustle and bustle of people dressed in robes reminiscent of mediaeval times, though much more brightly coloured. There’s a cacophony of magic everywhere. As they wander, Harry spots an ice cream shop called Florean Fortescue’s that he hopes they stop at before they head out. They linger longest in the bookstore where he buys all his textbooks, dash through the apothecary for herbs, and then head to the pet shop. Since he’s packed a cauldron already, and a few other items, he doesn’t need much more on the list. As predicted, Galadriel did not want to move house, so Harry inspects the multiple cats, rats, and owls in the shop before he spots her and waves over the shopkeeper to discuss. Once they exit, Harry hands a treat to the large, snowy owl he purchased to send letters home, assured that she’d be up for the long trips. “What are you going to call her?” Andromeda asks. She places two of her long fingers through the gaps in the cage to ruffle the feathers on the top of the owl’s head with a soft smile. “I don’t know,” Harry says. “But I’ll know it when it comes to me.” Andromeda laughs and then points him to Madam Malkin’s shop. She instructs him to go try on new school robes while she heads over to the ice cream parlour to pick them up some treats. Harry quickly hands her the owl and runs off, eager to get this done with so that he can enjoy his dessert. “Hogwarts, dear?” a squat woman dressed in powder puff blue asks him as soon as he enters. Harry nods and plays nervously with the cuffs of his sleeves. He’s never been fitted before. Most of his clothes are off-the-rack from K-Mart or, for fancier stuff, American Eagle, since he spends a lot of his days at no-maj school. “There’s another young man being fitted up for it, as well, through there.” She directs him to the back room where a small boy with white-blonde hair and a pale, pointed face stands as needles and pins adjust a black set of robes around his skinny body. Harry clambers up to the empty stool on the left side of the boy and as Madam Malkin throws a long robe over his head and begins to pin it, the boy turns to him and asks, “Hogwarts, too?” He has a bored sort of voice, the type that indicates he’s not particularly interested but asks out of a sense of enforced politeness. “Yes,” Harry tells him. There’s something about this boy that reminds him unpleasantly of Sirius’ old boss who used to look down his nose at his father and Aunt Yael’s hair and comment about “cleaning up the city.” Perhaps it’s the haughty expression or the stiff way the boy holds himself, but there’s an almost decided air of superiority to him. “I’ve already completed most of my shopping the other day. We simply had to come back though since three–” He shoots Madam Malkin a narrow-eyed, scornful look. “ —of my robes had tears in them. Imagine, for what they charge here? Father always says you can’t find good business nowadays.” He looks to Harry as if waiting for his agreement. Harry shifts uncomfortably as he thinks about the current holes in his socks. The boy continues, seemingly not bothered by his lack of response. Harry feels as if this boy is used to people who don’t talk much. “I’m going to drag my father off when he returns from Gringotts to look at racing brooms. I simply can’t see why first years can’t have their own. I think I’ll bully my father into getting me one and smuggle it in.” Though Harry agrees about the rule and thinks longingly of his own Cleansweep 7 left at home, this boy sounds like a braggart. “Hmm, yeah,” he replies, noncommittally. He tries to imagine bullying his father or Sirius into buying him a broom and believes that in response they’d box up a swifter and a dustbin with a big, bright red bow and a howler that sings “The Unbirthday Song.” They’d sent Remus a howler like that once, Harry recalls. “Where are you from? You don’t sound from around here,” the boy says, each word slow and clipped. He eyes Harry’s baseball cap with a calculating look in his grey eyes. The way he says it reminds Harry of politicians and interviewees in fragmented clips of Fox News he’s seen in Simon’s living room. “New York,” he answers. “My parents were from here and attended Hogwarts. That's why I’m going there.” “Oh,” the other boy replies, slowly, and nods as he expected that answer all along. “I suppose they’d of course send you abroad if Ilvermorny is not up to standards. And your name must have been down. Still, my parents almost sent me to Durmstang given Hogwarts’–”His voice drops to a hiss. “—proclivities.” Their robes tighten and adjust around their bodies as Madam Malkin gathers fabrics and patches from all around the shop. “So, they must be our sort then. If they went to Hogwarts,” the boy states after a minute of awkward silence. Harry freezes, his shoulders stiff and his eyes narrow. One of Madam Malkin’s moving pins prick the skin of his calf. It twinges, but Harry barely notices as looks at the other boy with irritation, thick in the pit of his stomach. “Yes,” he replies, in a low voice. “Though would it matter if they weren’t?” He suspects he already knows this boy’s answer. Their already stilted interaction becomes tense. Harry heard whispers and mutters of views like this boy’s at work parties Sirius was dragged too, and in turn dragged Harry and James to for commiseration. Harry remembers a history book at his Aunt Yael’s he read last year and thinks about the sections that discuss the segregation in the United States between them and the no-maj. Moreover, he knows about the war here and why his mother died. As if incensed at being challenged by a small, skinny boy with messy hair and a ratty baseball cap, the other boy’s shoulders square, and he crosses his arms over his chest. “I really don’t think they should let the other sort in!” He shakes his head with a sneer. “They’re just not the same. They don't know our ways and some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter.” The sneer deepens. “I think they should keep it to the old wizarding families.” Harry interrupts the boy’s rant as he points out, “That’s why it’s called learning. You learn things. Like how not to be a jerk.” Though Harry doesn’t think any amount of schooling can fix that with this boy. The boy huffs. “What’s your surname anyway? You never said” he says with a suspicious tone. Harry’s saved from answering him by Madam Malkin’s announcement that the other boy’s robes are finished. Seemingly desperate to get the boy out of her shop, she quickly waves her wand, wordlessly charming them into neat little folds and wrappers. Thoroughly thrown, the boy slinks off to the front room with his packages, all the while muttering under his breath. Harry watches through the narrow gap between his stool and the door as the mean blonde barrels past his Aunt Andromeda who stands near the shop entrance with two chocolate ice cream cones in her hands. “Who was that?” his aunt asks with an odd note in her voice as he leaves the shop. Harry shrugs. “Some jerk. I hope I’m not in the same house as him.” She only hums, and stares down the street with a peculiar look as she hands him his ice cream. It melts pleasantly with a burst of thick, sugary goodness against his tongue. He picks up the owl’s cage, and they start to head to the wand shop at the south side of Diagon Alley, and the entire incident from the robe shop quickly leaves his thoughts. The first thing that Harry notices in the shop is the distinct smell of polished wood that reminds Harry of his father and Sirius’ wands. His aunt goes to sit on a chair near the window and beckons him forward to the counter. Nervous, Harry gazes around at all the boxes with all the wands inside, and wonders, suddenly and absurdly, whether there’s all been some terrible mistake. He’s not a wizard after all, and the shopkeeper’s about to tell him he’s a squib that better make his way back to Heathrow so that he doesn’t miss the first week of middle school. He tries to laugh off the worry. His flying ability, at the very least, proves he’s a wizard. Not to mention the time he charmed Morah Golda’s hair a bright, abrasive shade of flamingo pink. The elderly man who greets them has a shock of white hair, and looks at him with knowing, pale eyes. “Ah, Harry Potter,” he says, as if the covert baseball cap covering up Harry’s scar does absolutely nothing to disguise him. “Yes, yes. I’ll say, you do look very much like your father. A mahogany wand, eleven inches, and pliable. Excellent for transfiguration.” Harry clears his throat, eyes wide to the point that they hurt. His father would’ve been in this shop ages ago, but that’s the same wand Harry’s seen every day of his life. Harry wonders if it had the small notch half-way down the middle when James Potter bought it. “Ahh, yeah. He–um—dabbles. With that. Writes stuff, I mean. About that.” He clears his throat awkwardly and crosses his arms over his chest, just under his armpits. “Yeah.”In the corner, as she turns the page of a book she’d retrieved from her purse, Aunt Andromeda laughs at his embarrassing display. Mr. Ollivander turns to eye her and, with a nod, says, “Andromeda Black. It’s been a while.” Andromeda turns another page without reading it and inclines her head. “Yes. It’s Andromeda Tonks now,” she replies simply. “So I had heard.” There’s a beat, and then Mr. Ollivander rattles off her wand components: hawthorn, phoenix feather core, ten inches and stiff. It’s a bit eerie, Harry thinks, the thought reinforced when Mr. Ollivander continues, “Your mother, if I do recall, favoured a different wand. Ten and a quarter inches, swishy, made of willow. Rather good for charms.” Harry realises he hadn’t known that. His mother’s wand had been lost long ago. It’s strange, and a bit frustrating, that this random man knows his own mother’s wand when Harry’s never even seen a picture of it. Has never held it or accidentally used it to stir a pot of oatmeal. He’s never misplaced it and found the cat swiping it underneath the couch hours later. Not like with his dad’s. He tries to picture it and fails. Then, Mr. Ollivander reaches for the cap on his head with two long, white fingers, inches away from snatching it off his tumbly curls. Andromeda interjects firmly, and the man steps back. Harry shifts on his feet, unsettled by this man and quite sure he’s not too fond of him. In a soft voice, the man says, “I’m sorry to tell you that I sold the wand that did it.” His tone doesn’t sound very sorry at all. “Thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands–” He clears his throat, as Harry’s stomach churns. “—Well, if I had known what that wand would do out in the world.” A dark thought flits through Harry’s brain, uncompromisingly harsh: You would’ve sold it anyway. The man goes on to explain that no two wands in his shop were the same. He talks up his products with the claim that since they’re made out of “powerful magical substances” Harry will get the best results from his shop. Irritated, Harry says, “My Aunt Yael’s wand works just fine. She got it from Pickleburn’s.” Ollivander stares at him, clearly scandalised. “That shop’s only been around for two hundred years. Hardly established. No, Mr. Potter, our wands here are the best.” The first wand Harry tries is snatched from his hand within seconds. The second produces a couple of sparks. “No, no, not that one,” Mr. Ollivander says, and begins to skirt around the shop as he swishes and flicks his wand. Boxes levitate in the air while the elderly man climbs his way up ladders, and then Harry is trying wand after wand after wand. It seems like he’s tried the whole shop by the time he hears Ollivander mutter, “I wonder.” He disappears round a corner for a long moment while Harry and his aunt exchange exasperated glances. Her legs are crossed, her book open against her knees. “Have you ever seen it take this long?” Harry asks, his back to the counter as his foot sweeps half-moon circles around the floor. “How long was Tonks?” “Ted told me it took ten minutes, I believe,” Aunt Andromeda replies in a wistful tone, not quite certain on time regarding her daughter’s wand acquisition. She grabs her wand from her bag and checks the time. They’ve been here for two hours. “Well–I’m sure over the years there’s probably been more than one person who’s been stuck here much longer than we’ll be. I’m sure of it.” Harry thinks she doesn’t sound very sure at all. When Ollivander returns, he has one singular wand in his hands that he holds out gingerly to Harry. “Holly, eleven inches, with a phoenix feather core,” he explains. “The wand chooses the wizard, Mr. Potter. Remember this.” Then, with trepidation, Harry reaches up to grasp it, just as the man insists, “Try it.” Harry doesn’t even need to before he knows that this is his wand. It’s like an old familiar friend as the feel of it in his hands wraps around his magic. It’s like it’s singing to him. Red sparks shoot out from the tip, almost like tiny puffs of flame. “Oh, thank Merlin,” Andromeda says with clear relief as Harry turns to her with a grin. “Thought we were going to be here till supper.” Harry feels a spark of indignation as he considers her claim not five minutes before, as she says, “I’m absolutely famished.” He turns back to Mr. Ollivander who begins to box up the wand. He’s still muttering, repeating the word curious, over and over again. “What’s curious?” Harry asks. Andromeda, mid-way through shoving her book back into her purse, moves over inquisitively, and puts her free hand on Harry’s right shoulder. Not paying her any mind, Mr. Ollivander fixes Harry with an eerie, pale stare. “I remember every single wand I’ve ever sold, Mr. Potter. Every single wand. It so happens the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather–just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother–why, it’s brother gave you that scar.” He points at the baseball cap on Harry’s head, far too accurately, as the lightning bolt scar hides right underneath the fabric. Aunt Andromeda gasps and her hand tightens on Harry’s shoulder as he swallows. Not for the first time that afternoon, Harry isn’t sure he likes Mr. Ollivander much. Quickly, his aunt hands the man a knut as payment, and shuffles them both out of the shop. He grasps the box in his hand with a pit in his stomach, the ice cream from earlier suddenly a very poor idea. They begin to wind their way through residents, patrons and dawdlers, with Harry’s right hand tucked tightly in his aunt’s, palms sweaty against her skin. In her other hand, the owl’s cage dangles, while behind them the packages they’ve accumulated levitate. Despite his aunt’s attempt at cheer as she points out shops and gives him anecdotes of her childhood, Harry breathes harshly, his throat tight. He feels like a very young child as he wants nothing more than for his father or Sirius to be there and tell him that everything is alright. I should have gone to Illvermorny, he thinks, before another, quieter thought occurs. I miss my dad.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
~ September 3, 1985 “Sticky fingers,” James tells his five year old son with a frown as he squints down. The small, messy-haired boy in front of him pouts, all ten digits outstretched, each of them a bit slathery with maple syrup. His hair’s still damp, and so’s James’, courtesy of a viscous attack from a sprinkler this morning on their way down the street, and there’s a smudge of some suspicious brown substance on the little boy’s right cheek. Harry’s tongue darts out to lick at his index finger. “Nuh-uh,” he tells his father seriously. To his left, Sirius stands and laughs, outrageously dry and utterly composed. He’s got on a pair of sunglasses which shield him from the abrasive sun. James eyes them enviously; it always looks and feels silly when he tries to shove some on over his regular, prescription-strength lenses. “He’s got you there, Jaime,” the other man says with an eyebrow wiggle. James shoots him a narrow-eyed look underneath his eyelashes.There’s a smile on his cherubic face as Harry giggles and nods, then wipes his left hand all across his blue Care Bear t-shirt. The glistening maple syrup residue makes the already alarming cartoon bears more so, far too apt given how sickly sweet the characters are. Whenever the show echoes through the flat, James cringes, and given Harry’s obsession with the show, it’s on more than it should be. It tests the limits of James’ patience for schmaltz and now his kid’s dressed in a Care Bear t-shirt. For his first day of kindergarten. Having been home-schooled, James has never been to kindergarten, but he imagines true chaos. He pictures twenty or so antsy young children with minimal supervision and thinks it all sounds like a recipe for disaster. He imagines the teacher steps on a lot of crayons and legos with twenty or so children trapped in one room and thinks back to the green stick of crayola he stepped on this morning. There’s still a green smudge on the bottom of his foot, given they had to rush out the door before they were late. He doesn’t envy being in the teacher’s shoes, and inwardly bemoans the fact he’s about to send his only son into this den of tomfoolery. “Do you have everything?” James asks, as if he hadn’t just gone through Harry’s tie-dye rucksack right before stepping on the crayon. He’d carefully inventoried the garishly blue rubber they bought at the dollar store, the plastic wrapped peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and apple slices for Harry’s lunch, a few stray marbles that have no purpose but always seem to be somewhere in the flat, a ruler with poorly drawn dinosaurs, Harry’s favourite blue blanket in case he gets cold during nap time, three number two pencils, and a chocolate pudding cup his son thought he’d snuck in there. It’s all very serious for Harry’s first day of kindergarten, which will take up eight full hours of their day. Harry nods. “Yeah!” He waves his arms excitedly and the rucksack’s thin straps bounce up and down on his small shoulders. James notices he’s got a rainbow sticker on his left forearm, though where it came from James can’t say. Suddenly, the bell sounds from the large, brick building just as a cloud starts to cover the sun. James looks over towards the fence where a dozen other stressed parents stand with their equally sticky and impatient children. Past the open gate to the left, on the pavement in front of the school, six children run around to play tag around a pole that has a hoop made of weirdly holed material. Near the entrance to the gate, there’s a woman with a clipboard, brown hair up in a bun with a pen shoved through the top. She looks over at them and smiles, through her eyes linger to James’ left. Impishly, James waves, which causes her to flush a deep shade of red and look away. “Don’t know if you’re old enough, pup. Maybe we should wait till next year,” Sirius jokes. He’s still got on his work uniform from his two day shift, which, thankfully, looks enough like a muggle one to pass muster. Even with the two-day beard growth and dark circles, he’s got several mothers, and a few of the fathers, glancing surreptitiously in their direction. Harry takes Sirius’ musings seriously. “No!” he protests with eyes as wide as galleons. He grabs hold of James’ right hand with the aforementioned sticky fingers. “Papa, no! Tell Padfoot no!” James pretends to think. “I don’t know. You’re only five.” He places a finger to his chin and scratches at a poorly shaved patch of stubble. “Might be better to wait one more year.”He contemplates it for a long, utterly serious moment. He doesn’t really have to enrol Harry in a muggle elementary school. After all, James thinks, Sirius hadn’t gone and neither had he and they both turned out fine. But, he reminds himself, Lily would have wanted their son to go to school. He feels a pang of grief as he thinks of her, and the glaring absence on his other side where his wife should be to see her son off to school for his first day. “No,” Harry protests, again. He stomps his foot into the pavement with a pout. “I wanna go to school!”“Well, I want to eat a whole tiramisu,” Sirius tells the pouting child with a smirk. A breeze ruffles some of his hair and swings the bun it's tied in back and forth. “We don't always get what we want.” With narrow eyes, Harry says, “You can’t eat tir-a-mi-zoo. There’s chocolate! You'll get sick!” With mock solemnity, James nods. “Exactly, Bambi.” “Excuse me?” someone suddenly asks. Mutually, James and Sirius turn to the left where a small woman with cornflower blonde hair and a round stomach waits. She looks vaguely familiar. “James, right?” Samantha? James thinks, trying to remember. Serena? Salamander? Sirius says, “Stefani?” and James thinks, that’s it, just as the woman nods with a large smile on her freckled face. “Yeah. We met at Yael’s graduation. How are you?” she asks. Next to her, a little girl sniffles, and curls against her right leg. “Good,” James answers her, absently. He’s not sure what else to say. It had been the only time he’d ever been to a muggle graduation ceremony and it was duller than expected. Strangely formal, the entire affair was a bunch of boring spaces where nothing happened in between a roll call of names. The entire time he’d run on fumes and a half-cup of coffee and only barely perked up when they’d gotten to the K’s and Yael spent two seconds on the stage, before quickly zoning back out after they’d slogged on to the L’s. There’d been an afterparty, though, at a club in Manhattan, he suddenly remembers. He gives the woman a closer look. She might have been the drunk blonde who’d tripped on her heel and fallen into his lap at the bar. She starts to chatter about the district and the curriculum and, most importantly, what the kindergarten teacher Mrs. Joy is like since the blonde heard from “Rachel Tipps at lamaze class.” Apparently, Mrs. Joy has nap time properly at twelve-thirty. Within two minutes, the expression on Sirius’ face turns to immeasurably bored, and he bends to play patty cake with Harry as the talk continues, his large hands comical against Harry’s small ones. In the midst of it all, James notices she’s got a tight hold of her daughter’s shoulder as if she, too, does not want to let her go off into the building with twenty or so chaotic children and minimal supervision. James wonders if it was this hard for his own parents to let him go off to Hogwarts, just as Harry asks the little girl, “You alright?” “Yeah,” she replies, even as she shakes her head no, blonde hair falling in front of her round face. She’s dressed in a t-shirt with Minnie Mouse. “It’s alright. I’ll share my sandwich with you,” Harry offers her. “It’s pb&j.” He points to his rucksack, as if believing that the girl in front of him can see straight through three layers of fabric to the parchment paper wrapped sandwich within. Hesitantly, she smiles, though her bottom lip trembles. He’s a bit of alright, James thinks, and smiles proudly at his son. “Can all students please assemble over here?” the woman at the gate calls towards the few lingerers on the pavement. “Parents, please say your goodbyes.” James freezes, heart in his throat, as he watches a conclave of children run in a lawless horde, twenty or so who prepare to go off to a room with minimal supervision. Several parents stand, stock-still, with their arms outstretched and empty. Quickly, James bends down at the knees and hugs his son tight against his chest.Sirius clears his throat. Stef-something says her own goodbyes, which are more like platitudes to get her daughter to leave. “Jaime?” Sirius says. He ignores him. “Papa!” a tiny voice follows. “You’re squishing me! I’ve got to go!” Reluctantly, James lets him go. Harry sighs, and runs a hand through his messy hair, which does nothing but mess it up further. He gives Sirius a hug, which is just as tight but not as long. Then, he offers the little girl his sticky fingered right hand, and the two are off, their trainers stomping on the pavement. James watches them fade in the distance with a squint as the sun comes back full force and the clarity of their cartoon shirts and their silly rucksacks recede as they reach the gate. Without their children around, the blonde woman shifts awkwardly, as Sirius suddenly sighs, loudly, and turns to James. His sunglasses have fallen down the bridge of his nose. “Are you sure it was necessary for us to send him here? What about home-schooling? You’re around enough.” Eyes wide, Yael’s drunk graduation friend quickly says a rushed goodbye, to which James and Sirius wordlessly wave her off. Around them, other parents quickly begin to walk away, some who have seemed to strike luck that morning to cars parked miraculously close to the school. “Yeah,” he replies with more confidence than he feels. “He’s out at four. That’s only like eight hours.”“Only,” Sirius mutters. “Well, I suppose so. Still, I’m gutted. My parents didn’t feel anything like this when sending me off, mate, I’ll tell you that.” They begin to make their way back towards the flat. “Well, they were shite,” James says, with a side-eye, as a strong burst of wind ruffles through his untidy curls. He can’t even imagine being the Blacks. “I sent him in there with sticky fingers,” James muses rather uselessly, changing the subject. “He’s gonna get maple syrup all over the walls.” Sirius laughs. They’re nearly at the corner about to turn when, faintly, James hears a continuous series of stomps grow louder, and then, “Papa, wait!” Startled, James turns, as his son darts forward to catch him around the waist. The woman with the bun trails him, the bun lilting to the side and coming out in wisps, and the pen on the pavement six feet behind. “Harry?” he asks with worry. The woman huffs as she comes to a stop and tries to protest through stuttery breath, her hands on her knees and one hand stretched across her chest, fingers pointed upwards towards her collarbones. “Harry, you really ne–” “I forgot to say I love you,” Harry says as he pulls away. James’ eyes tickle with tears at the corners, and quickly the blobs of liquid gather on his eyelashes. “You too, Bambi.” Gate woman sighs, and reluctantly hovers for another moment as Harry says the same to Sirius, and then she leads him back to the gate, loudly waxing platitudes about all he has to look forward to in school: blocks and the alphabet and sums. Harry nods along enthusiastically as they go off to join a classroom of twenty or so chaotic young children with minimal supervision. James turns to Sirius, just in time to catch him as he wipes his cheek. “Pollen,” Sirius mutters evasively. James rolls his eyes. “Sure, mate,” he says with a hand on Sirius’ shoulder. “Sure.”Then, they turn the corner and head off back to the flat. ~ September 1, 1991 Three weeks after his shopping trip, Harry wakes up, rolls on his side, and looks at the ticking clock that hangs above Tonks’ bed. She’s a huddled bundle underneath the blankets, her entire body covered head-to-toe. Through hazy eyes, he makes out the placement of the hands: five forty-five in the morning. Today, he thinks, and burrows his face into the flat pillow, today’s the day.Hogwarts day. His stomach twists, though from nerves or excitement he’s not quite clear. It’s been a rather eventful stay at the Tonks’. They’d taken him to Southwest England to see Stonehenge where, it was speculated, ancient wizards might have left the structure behind, though no one knew for sure. He’d been to Brighton Beach and the White Cliffs of Dover and spent a long, dull day in Bath where he picked up a box of Tunnocks Tea Cakes at a Sainsbury to send to Jesse de Sousa. One weekend, soon after his arrival, Uncle Ted dragged them all along on a business trip in Manchester, during which Harry and his aunt spent a long time curled in the stacks of the magical section of the John Rylands Library that the Ministry for Magic had commandeered at the turn of the century by simply adding an extra, unplottable floor. In Bristol, they enter the magical neighbourhood by a staircase labelled Worlds End at the end of a steep hill. Once there, Harry purchased a dangling Long John Silver keychain with a parrot that repeats everything you say in a small shop to send off to his father, who used to read him Treasure Island every night for an entire summer at Harry’s insistence, while Tonks chatted with some friends in a black-and-white timbered pub.During the downtime from showing him around England, Harry rummaged through his textbooks. After some debate, he’d decided on the name Hedwig, for his new owl, after reading about some random saint in Bathilda Bagshot’s, A History of Magic. The text was hard to slog through, given its dry wording, so Harry had quickly tossed it aside to start on some of the others. The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1 looked similar to the same type of textbooks he’d seen in New York, though the author was unfamiliar and the majority of the spells latinate. The transfiguration text he flipped through, recognising some of the concepts from his dad’s own babble, before he hovered over Arsenius Jigger’s, Magical Drafts and Potions. His mother’s best subject, he’d thought, and bit his lip. Placing it aside, he’d moved on to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them which was the oddest read considering Grandpa Newt’s dinner conversations regarding all his newest and latest findings. If he tried, he could even read the words with the man’s inflections. The night before, he’d packed them all away in the beige leather trunk Andromeda purchased to replace his tattered, red fabric suitcase. Today, he was going to Hogwarts. The early morning disappears quickly as the sun peeks out teasingly from behind the overcast clouds. Then, Tonks’ set alarm on the wireless blares a screeching, loud song from the Weird Sisters to wake her up at a quarter past six, and moments after her parents knock on the door to reinforce the need for speed. “We’ve got to be there by eight,” Uncle Ted says. He’s already dressed in a button down and pressed slacks. His exasperated tone hurries his daughter along as she makes her way to the bathroom to wash up. “Don’t want to be late, now do we? Remember your fifth year?” Harry leaves them to argue about whose fault the incident was and stumbles down the old, creaky stairs as he lugs his trunk behind him. His aunt has charmed it to be weightless, but it’s still large and awkwardly angled for his thin, small arms to properly grasp. He leaves it by the umbrella stand and makes his way into the kitchen where he finds his aunt hovering over the sink as she charms glasses to wash themselves. “Good, you’re up,” she says as soon as she spots him. “There’s toast and jam on the table. Eat up.” Harry digs in without complaint, stomach grumbling. Soon enough, his uncle joins them, and rattles off a list of items–textbooks, cauldron, owl, his head—that Harry must remember for school. More than once, Harry has to assure him that everything is properly stashed. “I don’t understand why we can’t just side-along,” Tonks says as she makes her way down the stairs, freshly scrubbed in a pair of overalls and a Weird Sisters t-shirt. Her hair is a bright shade of canary yellow. “Could’ve done with an extra half-hour.” His uncle inclines his head towards the ceiling with a long-suffering look, while Andromeda huffs from her place by the counter. Her pleated skirt brushes against the low cabinets as she turns around. “And have you leave an eyebrow somewhere? And with all this?” She gestures imperiously towards the hallway where the trunk rests, and then over towards the windowsill where Hedwig, who is displeased at being in her cage so soon after her trip back from New York with the letter he’d sent to his father, hoots in response. “It’s much easier to floo.” She shakes her head and puts down her teacup on the laminate countertop. “Last time I apparated with an owl he lost four feathers and a talon in Loch Lomond. We don’t have time to look for talons, Dora.” Tonks huffs back. “So,” she drawls out slowly, “instead we have to lug all this through London from the Leaky to Kings Cross? How’s that better?” Uncle Ted holds out his hand. “We all need the air.” The trip through the floo takes less than three minutes, though Tonks does knock into the floo powder canister and scatters it all over the living room, to her mother’s great displeasure. Aunt Andromeda’s still muttering about “having to clean up your messes” when Harry comes through the floo. He waves to the bartender, who gapes at him with an astonished look in his eyes, his messy hair pulled away from his forehead and lightning bolt scar on full display. “Blimey,” he hears as they exit. “Was that–I think it was.” Harry speeds up his pace. Uncle Ted drags along the trunk, its wheels bumping along every groove in the pavement, while Harry holds Hedwig, whose cage is disillusioned so that the no-majs don’t notice her as they trek through the city. It takes them about thirty-eight minutes—in which Tonks bumps into about six disgruntled pedestrians—the time cut two minutes shorter than assumed as everyone hurries to match Andromeda Tonks’ breakneck speed as they make their way from Charing Cross to King’s Cross Station. “7:58,” Uncle Ted announces proudly, as he holds up his wand while puffs of purple smoke etch out the time in the air from the tip. With a flourish, he extinguishes the time, and they make their way through the station. Tonks detours as soon as they enter and grabs a croissant from a Pret a Manger with the few pounds she has on her. Harry’s seen her semi-effortlessly handle no-maj money a couple times before since the Tonks family’s familiar with it because of Uncle Ted’s no-maj parents. She rips off a piece and hands it to Harry, who chews it absentmindedly as Aunt Andromeda looks around the various platforms in an attempt to get her bearings. “It’s like a maze in these places, I swear to Merlin,” she mutters after they lose their way two times. Eventually, they find their way to platforms nine and ten, and stand there for a moment or two as they catch their breath. Just as Tonks goes to toss the wrapper into the trash, a plump, redheaded woman strides past them, holding the hand of an equally redheaded little girl. “—packed with muggles, of course.” She continues to talk as she trails away, and the name of platform nine-and-three-quarters lingers in the air. “Say it a little louder, why don’t you,” Andromeda mutters, disgruntled. She shoots a look around, but the no-majs are all in the early morning rush of travel and speed past them all with nary a glance. “With all the muggles around,” she concludes regardless. As the Tonks struggle to gather everything into a manageable pile, Harry contemplates what a no-maj train station would look like with no no-majs around. Rather dull and cavernous, he decides, and pulls his hair down low on his forehead as they start to follow behind the entire redheaded family, which Harry now notes consists not just of the mother and daughter, but four boys, too. The family stops in front of a column and then one of the boys disappears. “Right, Fred, you go next,” the woman says, just as they stop a few feet behind her to wait their turn. She gives them a nod of acknowledgement, then turns back to her boys. “He’s not Fred, I am,” a boy identical to the one addressed complains. “Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother,” the twin next to him says. “Oh,” she replies in an apologetic tone. She gestures to the brick column with her head. “I’m sorry George.” He pulls his luggage around her, then, right before he takes off at a run, says, “I’m only joking, I am Fred.” With the shadow of his mother’s scowl, the other twin quickly follows suit. Soon enough, the rest of the family disappears through the barrier, and then the Tonks family and Harry are through, too. The platform, which is not remarkably different in size nor build from the ones outside the barrier, smells like the same stale, humid air as the rest of the station. It’s chock full with students and their families to wave them off that crowd around all the available space. There are older couples in robes; casual robes in bright colour, dress ones with ruffles and frills and lace, and plainer ones for various works. Interspersed throughout are adults in no-maj clothing with jeans and blouses and curious, bemused expressions on their faces. Older teenagers help to heft luggage onto the train for smaller ones, all up and down the length of it. It’s long, and red, and blowing puffs of billowy smoke up into the air. It’s an old-fashioned steam train; the kind Harry’s only seen in movies. Andromeda weaves her way through crowds of people with a tight grip on Harry’s hand, and her daughter zooms through the gaps in between families as his luggage glides along with her over the smooth platform. One of the redheaded kids from before pushes a cart past them, calling out “Mum?” before they settle near an open door with relatively few people. “Well,” Aunt Andromeda says with a thin smile as licks her thumb, then tries to pat his hair into some sort of order. She ruffles the fringe to cover his scar and smoothes the strands at the back of his head down, before she continues, “Don’t forget to write. It’s been lovely to have you, Harry. I’ll be sure to send a letter off to your father as soon as we’re home. And don’t you forget to write him, either. He’ll want to know all about your sorting ceremony.” “You still won’t tell me what that’s all about?” Harry asks as he hugs her. He buries his nose in her blouse and the scent of lavender fills his nostrils. James claimed that he’d have to pinpoint the individual head of house and read their mind for their favourite flower, while Sirius had told him that Harry would have to hop on one foot and the exact amount of time it took him to give up would determine where he belonged. Uncle Remus, much more seriously, told him he’d have to spend a night camping and bring back a unicorn from the Forbidden Forest. Harry hopes, with a jolt of nerves, that they’re messing around. Tonks laughs, and then muses his hair up until it’s back to its previous state as she swoops in for her own hug. “You’ll find out soon enough, Harry.” Surreptitiously, she leans down and whispers, “But beware of stools, you hear?”“Stools?” Harry says, loudly. Were they going to have to beat each other with stools, he wonders. He winces as he pictures the hard, wooden leg of an ancient stool hitting him in the head from behind but, again, Tonks laughs. As Uncle Ted lifts his wand to levitate the luggage up onto the train from the platform, the two identical redheaded brothers pop up next to them. “Need any help?” one asks with a large, mischievous grin. Harry declines, and tells them, “No, my uncle’s got it. They put a weightless charm on it earlier.” Absent-mindedly, he pushes his hair out of his eyes. “Blimey,” one of them says, eyes wide. Harry swallows, and reaches up to his fringe, just as the other one picks up where his brother left off. “Are you?” “He is,” the first one continues. “Aren’t you?” Oh Merlin, Harry thinks and glances around furtively. No one else seems to be paying them any mind. Andromeda sighs heavily as the two boys step closer with identical expressions on their faces. “Harry Potter?” they ask at the exact same time. “Umm yeah,” he replies at the same time that Uncle Ted says, harried, “Yes, yes, move along now. Train’s leaving soon.” “Wicked,” the two boys reply, and go off to rejoin their family who stand in a cluster about ten feet away. The mother is firmly wiping at her youngest son’s nose. “Mum,” he hears one of them say as Uncle Ted gives him one last hug, and he steps up onto the train. “You’ll never guess who we just met over there.” With a swallow past the lump in his throat, Harry quickly moves into the corridor so that they won’t be able to see him and point him out.“Harry Potter! He was that black-haired boy who was following us at the station.” Their voices carry, and Harry imagines that whoever stands around them suddenly knows he’s on the train. He pictures a dozen or so wizards trying to crowd onto the train to demand an autograph. As quick as he can with his scrawny arms, he drags the trunk and Hedwig’s cage along through the corridor, looking for an empty compartment. He keeps his head low as he does, but just before he’s far enough away, he hears the other brother exclaim, “He’s got an accent!” Eventually, he finds one, his breath coming at a face pace, and he stores his luggage in the rack overhead, though he nearly drops it when he miscalculates how far in it is. He knocks his glasses onto the seat in front of him. Then, with a squint, he plops Hedwig’s cage down on the seat next to him, grabs the glasses and shoves them back on his face, then turns to her with chagrin. “Sorry about all the commotion, girl. I guess this is just how it’s going to be.” He scoots across the seat to the propped open window and inclines his head to peer at the Tonks’ family wistfully. They’re still in the same spot, next to the redheaded woman who looks to the trio curiously, and her teary-eyed daughter who perhaps wants to join her brothers on the train. As soon as Aunt Andromeda spots him, she pokes at her husband’s side, and then they wave to him cheerily. With a thin smile, he waves back, and with a pang of longing pictures James Potter and Sirius Black standing next to them. Soon enough, the train starts to pull away from Kings Cross Station, slow at first, then picking up speed. Stone buildings whoosh past, interspersed with the taller, more modern ones and distant figures appear like ants and toy cars as they move. It’s only been a few minutes before there’s a knock on the compartment door, and another redheaded boy pokes his head around. He’s young, around Harry’s age, he thinks, lanky and freckled, with a pink smudge across the bridge of his nose. “Can I sit here?” he asks. “Everywhere else is full.”Harry invites him inside and shuts the book he has open on his knee. He tosses The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection next to Hedwig’s cage. With a sigh of relief, the boy carries in his own luggage and stores it. The city’s far off in the background now, the buildings faded into grass and fluffy sheep and the occasional cottage as the train treks on. The boy sits across from him with a grin. “I’m Ron,” he says. “Ron Weasley.”The boy bites his lip and sits near the edge of his seat as Harry introduces himself. His stomach wiggles, not used to wide, fascinated eyes from people whenever he says something as simple as his name. “Are you really?” he asks, an almost pitch perfect echo of his brothers.Harry shrugs. “Well, if I’m not, then Dad’s got a lot to answer for, telling me that it’s my name. Would have saved me a lot of trouble if I’d just been Elvendork Potter.” Ron laughs, and the tips of his short red hair scrape against the faded background of the train set behind him as he throws back his head. Later on, after an initially awkward moment where Ron asks about his scar, which Harry supposes he’ll have to get used to, they quickly fall into easy conversation. Ron asks questions about New York, and in return tells him about his family, the Weasleys, which consists of five older brothers who are all “in Gryffindor” and his little sister, Ginny, the girl who’d indeed been desperate to join her brothers. In turn, Harry tells him about his own family, and Ron looks fascinated at the idea of his no-maj Uncle John. “We’ve got a second cousin who’s an accountant, I think. We don’t talk about him much,” Ron offers with a puzzled expression. As they talk, Ron pulls out an extremely fat rat from his pocket, not quite the size of the monstrosities in the subway, but close: he’s fat, lazy, and seems permanently asleep. “Scabbers,” Ron says and places him down on his lap. The rat puts his head on his paws, eyes still closed. “Used to be Percy’s, till he gave him to me cause they couldn’t aff–Dad got him a new owl on account of him being a prefect and all.”“Hedwig’s already taken a letter to my dad,” Harry tells him, and he offers the snowy owl in her cage some treats. She hoots, and ruffles one wing before she takes them delicately. “I think she rather enjoyed the journey. I figured asking one of the school owls to go all the way to New York seemed a bit rude.” "Scabbers is just useless," Ron says with a frown. “I doubt he’d even be able to find Newport.” Then, he shrugs. “Course, he is a rat.” "I'm sure he has his charms," Harry rushes to reassure Ron, even as he eyes the rat dubiously. As if to answer, it lets out a snore. “Thanks,” Ron mutters with a sigh. He reaches over to hand Hedwig a treat, too. By noon, their stomachs demand food. As Harry digs through his luggage to pull out his packed lunch, Ron finds his own. It’s a lumpy package with four sandwiches inside. “Corned beef,” he says with forlorn disdain. “Mum always forgets I hate corn beef.”Harry eyes his own sandwich: falafel on a semi-squished onion bagel with lettuce and tomatoes, doused with a spicy green sauce. Tonks’ had brought it home the day before, stopping off at a deli in Stamford Hill after auror training. He bites the corner of his lip, then says, “Want to swap?”Ron accepts after some coxing, then looks at the sandwich in his hand with a perplexed expression. “What is it?” He pokes the bagel with furrowed brows. Harry takes a bite of the corned beef, which is drier than he’d like, but decent enough. It satisfies his stomach. “Falafel–it’s like, beans? Or something. I’m not sure but it’s good,” Harry answers. Ron shrugs, takes a bite, and then another, with an appreciative “it’s brilliant!”Harry nods and finishes off the sandwich. Then, he reaches for a bag of chips labelled Walkers that came in a bag identical to Lays. “Want a chip?” he says and holds the bag out. Ron eyes the bag dubiously. “A what? That’s not got chips, mate.” As his face flushes red, Harry says, “Right, yeah, I meant a crisp.” Just then, a knock comes at the door, and an elderly woman with short grey hair looks at them with a smile. “Anything off the trolley, dears?” she asks. In front of her, there’s a cart laden with all sorts of sweets. Some, Harry recognises as available in New York, too, such as Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, which he knows means every flavour from the last time he got a durian flavoured one in quick succession with snot and chamomile tea. Once in the fifth grade, he’d left one on Sebastian Anastas’ lunch tray after he’d beaten his score on their English test. The boy had wondered aloud to the whole lunchroom why the jellybean tasted like lemongrass. Harry notes the Liquorice Wands, and something labelled Cauldron Cakes that he wants to try. He asks for some, as well as the Pumpkin Pasties, which makes him think of empanadas, and the Chocolate Frogs, which he’s never tried before, as well as two glasses of pumpkin juice. “I’ve never had it as a juice before,” he tells Ron after he offers him some of the sweets. “We’ve got pumpkin butter back home. And apple butter and stuff. But I’ve only had apple juice, and not pumpkin juice back home. I wonder why?” It seems simple enough, now that he’s got a glass of it in front of him, to juice down a pumpkin. “Don’t know. You’ve been missing out, mate,” Ron says, and pops a bean into his mouth. Moments later, his face goes green. “Oh no, sprouts!”Harry winces in sympathy, then tries the juice. It’s cold and pleasant and not too sweet and he finds he likes it. Then, he opens the chocolate frog, which he nearly doesn’t catch as it leaps away from him, but experience with Galadriel’s jumping cat toys and other assorted sweets helps him wrestle the chocolate treat into submission. “Don’t forget the card,” Ron says as he catches his own rapidly hopping frog. Harry looks down. On the card an image swivels back and forth of an old man with a long, white beard and a pointed hat. “Albus Dumbledore,” he reads. “Isn’t that the headmaster?” Ron nods and tells him that the man has done a bunch of other neat things, too. Harry reads the card: Considered by many to be the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the Dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of Dragon’s blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicholas Flamel…At some point in the trip, after they’ve crossed the border into Scotland, a round-faced boy comes in to ask them if they’ve seen a toad. Since the rat doesn’t count, both boys shake their heads no. He exclaims with frustration as he leaves, and then they go back to their discussion about which Quidditch team is better: the Chudley Cannons which Ron defends passionately or the Fitchburg Finches which Harry insists are due for a comeback. At some point, the conversation turns to spells, Scabbers’ overall health, and a particular incantation Ron’s brothers told him about. As he explains this, he pulls out a battered wand, which nearly has the unicorn hair core poking through. Then, the compartment door slides open. At the entrance, a girl with bushy brown hair and slightly large front teeth stands next to the boy from earlier. “Has anyone seen a toad?” she asks in a bossy sort of voice. “Neville’s lost one.” “We’ve already told him we haven’t seen it,” Ron says. She doesn’t appear to hear him, gaze fixed on the wand in his hand. The other boy, Neville, lingers awkwardly next to her. She comes over to sit down and says, “Oh, are you doing magic? Let’s see it, then.”“Er–all right,” Ron says uneasily. He says a spell that’s more like a rhyme Harry’s written for English class, intent on turning Scabbers from grey to yellow. Harry bites his lip, eyebrows raised, as nothing happens. He rather suspects Ron’s brothers are having him on. Voicing these thoughts, the girl says, “Are you sure that’s a real spell?” She has one eyebrow raised primly. “It’s not very good, is it?” She turns to Harry as Neville stands forgotten by the door and Ron frowns at his wand. In a fast voice, she tells him, “I’ve tried a few simple spells just for practice and it’s all worked for me. Nobody in my family’s magic, at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased–” Harry wonders if that’s how his mom felt, too, when she’d been told she was a witch. He’d known all his life and can’t imagine how it feels to be told after ten years or so thinking you’re just ordinary. Well–that, at least, he knows how it feels, though it's rather different circumstances.The girl’s still speaking and finally introduces herself. “I’m Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?” Eyes the size of quarters, Ron gapes at her. After a moment, he mutters, “I’m Ron Weasley.” “Harry Potter,” he says. Her mouth drops open a little. “Are you really?” At the compartment door, Neville’s arm clunks into the metal with an exclamatory oof, his eyes wide as galleons. He wishes more people would comment on his accent and not on his name. She continues to babble despite Harry’s discomfort. “I know all about you, of course.” Of course, Harry thinks, in a sardonic tone. “I got a few extra books for background reading and you’re in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century.” “Right,” Harry says, and thinks about his own copy of The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts he’s got buried under some robes, a spellotape, and a pair of sneakers. “I’ve got one of those books. Haven’t opened it yet.” “You’re American?” she asks, with a puzzled sort of tone, before she shakes her head. “Oh, of course. Page 198, second paragraph down! Your father, James, took you out of Britain.” On Ron’s lap, Scabbers makes an odd sort of jerking motion. “I remember now. I know all about him, too. He’s in–”Harry cuts her off before she can begin to list all the book’s his father’s name pops up in for the accomplishment of not being murdered. “Umm–Hermione, Neville,” he says, acknowledging the white-faced boy who shuffles on both his feet with a startled look. “We’ve got to change into our robes. I think we’ll be there soon.” Hermione looks up. “Oh, yes. I suppose we’d better go and look for Neville’s toad.” The two retreat as quickly as they’d come. As soon as she’s gone, Ron turns to Harry. “Whatever house I’m in, I hope she’s not in it.”They’re oddly familiar words.Not even ten minutes later, with Harry still dressed in his t-shirt with the Captain America logo and jeans torn at the knees, the compartment door slides open once again and, this time, three boys enter. Immediately, Harry recognises the boy with the pale, pointy face in the middle. It’s the braggart from the robes shop. He looks at Harry now with speculative, interested eyes; far more interested than they’d been that day in August. He’s already dressed in his robes which sit perfectly tailored on his thin shoulders. “Is it true? They’ve been saying all down the train that Harry Potter’s in this compartment.” He gives Harry a once over and his eyes linger disdainfully on his ripped jeans. “So–” he says slowly. “It’s you, is it?” “Yes,” Harry replies as he takes in the two boys standing next to the blonde. They’re quite thickly set, with mean expressions on their faces. Harry absurdly pictures the blonde dressed as Don Corleone and stroking a white cat since the other two boys have a distinct air that reminds him of bodyguards. As if suddenly remembering his posse, the boy introduces them as Crabbe and Goyle, last names only, no firsts. It’s odd, as if this boy thinks of them as no more important than a fly on the wall. And then, he holds out his hand to Harry. “And my name’s Malfoy, Draco Malfoy.” Bond, James Bond, Harry thinks in his most pompous voice as Ron gives a slight cough to hide a snigger. There’s something vaguely familiar about Malfoy’s name, though Harry can’t pinpoint why. Offended, Malfoy turns to Ron and begins to insult him, his hair, his freckles, and his family. Ron stiffens, and Harry does, too, especially once Malfoy launches into the same pureblood supremacist spiel Harry remembers scornfully from Madam Malkin’s. As he does so, his hand hovers in the air, empty.Harry raises an eyebrow. “And you still haven’t learned, I see. No matter. I can tell the wrong sort for myself,” he says coolly. A pale pink tinge appears on Malfoy’s pale face. “I’d be careful if I were you, Potter–” he starts, and nearly spits out Harry’s last name. “Unless you’re a bit politer you’ll go the same way as your mother. Your parents clearly didn’t know what was good for them and it seems you’re the same way. A traitor to the name of wizard.” He scoffs as he looks at Harry’s clothes again, then to Ron. “Pure folly. Hanging around with this riff-raff.”Harry feels anger churn deep in his gut, and Ron launches himself up off his seat. After a fight that ends with Scabbers finally showing that there’s some life in his decrepit little grey body when he attacks Goyle’s finger, the three unpleasant boys disappear, minutes before the landscape breaks from an endless expanse of beautiful highlands to a small train station bracketed by mountains on all sides, a series of shrill whistles announcing their arrival. Out the window, in the distance, Harry can just make out the outline of the castle.
Early morning on September the 4th, James rolls over as his sleep slowly recedes due to the incessant tap against the window glass. It’s a Wednesday, and his charmed alarm clock informs him in bright red light that it's only four-fourteen. The moon is still in the sky. He’s got to be up for a five a.m shift at the bakery, so he groans and attempts to chase precious moments more of sleep. By his feet, his cat meows plaintively, awakened now and soon to be on the prowl for kibble. Her ear brushes against his bare toes and tickles them. The owl continues to tap. Click, clack, click, clack. Rap, rap, rap. James reaches over to grab his glasses from the nightstand and his hand knocks into a stack of books that clatter to the ground with a bang. As soon as he puts them on and wordlessly illuminates the room with a nightlight charm, he spots his son’s new owl, Hedwig. Much more alert than he was mere seconds ago, he throws off the covers and opens the window. She flies in, one outstretched wing nearly hitting him in the chin, and then lands on his desk chair to hold out her leg imperiously. In a neat bow, his son’s tied a rolled up piece of parchment and a square package. As soon as they’re off, she leaves her perch and settles on his desk. James watches absently as her talons dig into an open page of The New York Ghost, ripping through the word quadpot in the middle of the headline, and then she starts to clean her feathers. DEAR DAD (AND SIRIUS), it starts as James begins to circle his room. He nearly trips on his upturned duvet that’s crumpled on the floor in a spiral, and curses, before he continues to read: I’ve arrived at Hogwarts!!! Amazingly, it wasn’t raining the last couple of days, which I’ve come to realise is a rarity over here. I’ve been assured that the break in the clouds won’t last very long. Why didn’t you tell me it rained so much?!!!! I miss you both! It was strange to go off to school without you guys but Aunt ‘Dromeda and Uncle Ted got me off alright. But anyway, good news!! I’m in Gryffindor! Just like you and Sirius and Uncle Remus and Mum! The ceremony was nothing like what I thought it was going to be–an old hat? Not even in my top ten list of ‘What isn’t everyone telling me about this?’ Ron’s brother told him he was going to have to wrestle a troll, can you imagine? James’ own father had told him they were going to have to swim to the bottom of the Great Lake and challenge the Giant Squid to a duel, so he sympathises with this kid whose brother lied to him.
Oh, Ron! I met him on the train. He’s great and in Gryffindor with me. He’s got five brothers and one sister, can you imagine? Ron Weasley. I met a couple other people who ended up in Gryffindor, too. One boy, Neville Longbottom, he seems very quiet, and a girl named Hermione Granger. Ron wasn’t thrilled she’s in Gryffindor, too.
Weasley, James thinks, and wonders if he is one of Molly and Arthur’s kids. They’d just had another a few months before Harry, he vaguely recollects. He’d never met them, but he remembers Molly’s brothers, Gideon and Fabian, from his days in the Order. He’d rather gotten on with them and grieved when they’d died. A deeper pang runs through him as he circles his room for the second time when he reads Neville’s name and thinks of Alice and Frank. He continues to read: That boy from the robe shop though, the one I told you about? He’s here. Malfoy–I didn’t think about it on the train, but I recognize that name. Aren’t they one of those old, dark families? He’s in Slytherin, no surprise there. A Malfoy, James thinks as he sits down in his chair, legs protesting. Narcissa’s son, then. Sirius had read about his birth in The Daily Prophet, just like the rest of them not privy to inside family information. He pictures a miniature Narcissa, right down to the expression of something unpleasant permanently stuck under her nose.
And there’s this teacher…I don’t think he likes me much. He was staring at me oddly from the head table at the feast. It made–anyway, it doesn’t matter. I recognized Professor McGonagall from all your stories, and she’s so stern, I can’t believe you called her Minnie! How did you get away with that?
James grins as he remembers Minne’s affronted looks and exasperated sighs. Then, he ponders this other teacher with a niggling suspicion and a quickening frown.
It’s a bit…it’s a bit of a drag to have people ask to look at the scar all the time, though. I thought about wearing the baseball hat all the time, but they already know me now. Probably won’t work. I guess eventually I would have known about all this because EVERYONE mentions it here. I’m in books, Dad, books. You too, apparently. But anyway, it’s getting late here, and classes start tomorrow. I’ll send this off in the morning.
Love, Harry
PS: The package is for Jesse. I forgot to send it last time.
It might not be him, James thinks, not able to shake the suspicion towards the teacher Harry mentioned. Still, his son had only been there for a few hours at that point. Who else would already dislike him? After all, it had taken even James at least a month or so to get on Professor Slughorn’s nerves–of course, it was after he’d told him that Fleamont Potter, creator of Sleakeasy’s Hair Potion, was too busy finding plants in Nepal that year to come to the man’s Christmas party and he wasn’t going “to bother my dad about it when it's going to be Chanukah just so that you can show off all your illustrious contacts.” No wonder he’d never garnered an invitation to the Slug Club, he muses wryly. There are so many emotions that run through James as he rereads the letter and, not for the first time, he wonders if his own parents felt this, too. He blinks, and rubs the remaining sleep out of his eyes, then contemplates waking up Sirius to ask him about his suspicions. Plus, Harry’s in Gryffindor! He’d be proud of him no matter what house he’s in, but a part of him had been worrying about Harry stuck in a dorm with so many families like the Malfoy’s–Given who Harry is, it’s a reasonable concern. There were still too many looking for revenge. James bites his lip and starts to route around in his desk for a pen. “You give me a second, Hedwig, and I’ll get you some treats from the kitchen and send you off on your way. How does that sound?” She hoots, and Galadriel hisses from her spot on the bed, coverless. “Oh shush,” James mutters as he shoves around unstacked exploding snap cards, a zippo, three scrunchies, a dungbomb, various scribbles and, oddly, a spurtle he seemingly must have attached at some point to a plush mouse toy with a glittery piece of string, too. “Got it,” he mutters as he pulls out a pen. He tears off a bit of canvas paper from his sketchbook and settles back into his chair as Galadriel makes her way over to curl on his feet. Hedwig continues to nest on the paper, now taking a quick kip, and he begins to write:
Dear Harry,
We’re so proud of you! Maybe we can send you some of Aunt Yael’s makeup or something–might cover it up better than a baseball cap and you won’t risk losing it when you fly. What do you think of that? It’s been strange here without you, too. Sirius keeps turning on the television and leaving the Looney Toons on while he’s doing the washing up and you know he hates the Road Runner. And the fourth bagel’s been just sitting out. We’ve had to put so many in the freezing cabinet to preserve it now. Oh, and Mischa pulled himself up the other day at the shop–or well, your Aunt Yael insists he did, I wasn’t there. Chaya was having some sick leave so I was up at the front manning the shop all by my lonesome. I’m telling you, all the Quidditch Mum’s seem to come by in droves whenever I’m up there. It’s like they’ve got a spying charm in the shop so they know when best to bother me.
Speaking of, I know the kitchens have it covered, but I’m sending some challah for Rosh Hashanah with Hedwig. (Have you joined Hillel yet? Join it!) It’s only a roll or two, not as heavy as a full loaf, and I’ve put some preserving charms on it so it should last. If there aren’t enough apples because you’ve eaten them all (I don’t care what Sirius says, it’s not me it’s you who does), the way to the kitchens (DON’T TELL UNCLE REMUS I TOLD YOU) is under the Great Hall. There’s a whole bunch of food paintings down there, it’s quite obvious what’s around so you can’t miss it. You have to tickle the pear on a painting of a bowl of fruit. Some of the workers might remember Sirius and I.
James bites his lip again, and ruffles the hair at the back of his head, “As for this teacher–” he writes, “What’s his name?” He scrawls on a few more sentences, then pads on soft feet to the kitchen so as not to wake up Sirius to get the rolls he’s saved from the stock the night before, and then sends Hedwig off on her way. Thoroughly awake now, he and Galadriel make their way to the living room with a cup of tea, and he soon burrows under the throw blanket and places a silencing charm on the whole room, before he turns on an endless rerun loop of the Looney Tunes.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
~ September 27, 1971 “For the last time, Mr. Potter,” the stern-faced woman with the tight bun says. She levels him with a look over the brim of her narrow spectacles, arms crossed in front of her. She looks rather like she did when she caught him trying to sneak a niffler into his governess’ room the year before. “First-years cannot join the house teams. No exceptions will be made. No matter how good you may be.”It's Monday morning on the third week of classes. For the last five days, flyers have been posted around the common room advertising the final call for tryouts for the Gryffindor team. James wants nothing more than to join since he knows there’s a still open chaser position available. Plus, he thinks with a pout, he’s even got his own broom! Granted, no one but Sirius knows about it and so far they’ve only chanced taking it out twice but it’s there and ready to be used! “Mi–” he starts to say before he corrects himself at her fierce glare. “Professor McGonagall, I know Captain McKinnon’s having a hard time finding a chaser and I’m brilliant, you know. Tell her, Marlie!”In a hunch over her desk, Marlene mumbles that her brother really is having a difficult time, but that she’s “not saying that James should be on the team, Professor McGonagall. That’s all him!” Her pine marten attempts to climb up on her shoulder to play with her swinging blonde hair as she shakes her head. James scowls. Next to him, Sirius pats him on the shoulder consolingly with one hand, and runs the other over the furry bristles of the hairbrush in front of him. Professor McGonagall had set them a rather challenging task for first years that James wonders if she’s ever set before for their age group. To turn a pine marten into a hairbrush. “Most,” she’d told them at the beginning of the class, “will not produce results today. This is to begin to get you all to think about the practicalities of transfiguration. The properties. What do you need to consider when asking one form to change to another?” Near the end of the class, James has a hairbrush in front of him. It’s solid and unmoving, and he can’t find even a trace of its former adorable fluffiness, with its wood bristles and long, shiny handle and distinct lack of button nose. While waiting for Sirius to catch up, he added a fleur-de-lis design to the barrel. “This is excellent work, Mr. Potter,” McGonagall said when she came over to inspect their brushes. Out of the thirty-four of them in the class, only three of them have some semblance of a brush. As for the rest, pine martens rest in laps, in hair, and on chairs. They’re playing over desks and rolling around on top of textbooks. Before McGonagall had come over, James had spent the last twenty minutes trying to teach Sirius how to play a muggle card game called Slappy Jack under the desk. His right thigh smarts something awful. Absently, he rubs it with a tingly hand. Next to Marlene, James sees that Lily Evans’ pine marten’s tail looks narrower than before and he smiles. Her shoulders are stiff and straight, and she points her wand towards the animal’s mouth as it snoozes in a curl as she tries again, her long red hair pulled back into a high bun. She’s got a scattering of freckles on the back of her neck, he notes. The tail shortens about a millimetre and goes a tiny bit shiny, though still furry. To their left, Mary MacDonald’s pine marten rolls around on her desk in a tussle with her partner’s, Niobe Keller. Sat to their right, Remus Lupin manages to transfigure the fur of his pine marten to a texture that looks like wood bristles. James hears him mutter triumphantly at his own progress. Next to him, Dorcas Meadows has been reading a book for the past five minutes, with a shape that resembles a suspiciously whiskery brush on top of her textbook. Futility, he tries for the team again. “You’ve seen me, Professor! You know I can do it.” He mimes diving with his right hand. “James,” she sighs with frustration, two fingers up to pinch the bridge of her nose. She seems to momentarily forget that they’re both in a classroom full of first-year Gryffindors and Ravenclaws instead of his mum’s book club. “You will drop this or it’ll be five points from Gryffindor.” Though James doesn’t really care about dropped points, and Sirius has already lost them about fifty, Marlene and Remus do (and, he reminds himself, he’s finally bonding with his dorm mate after the Hogwarts Hillel’s Rosh Hashanah services), so he nods. “But next year,” he tells the transfiguration professor as she starts to walk away to go help Maxwell Colby wrestle his pine marten away from her desk chair. “Even if I have to try out for a beater position. I’m going to be on the team.” “I do not doubt it,” Professor McGonagall says with an indulgent look over her shoulder at the same time as Lily Evans huffs and shoots him a glare over hers. “What’s that for?” James asks as soon as McGonagall is out of hearing range. “Do you ever stop showing off?” she replies, and turns around in her seat to look at him. The pine marten squeaks with the loss of her wand to chew on, its mouth open to reveal bristles for teeth. “You two have been slagging off all morning.” Sirius stiffens next to him, before he leans back in his chair, propping the back two legs on the ground with the front two aloft. He balances with the air of someone not used to the action, legs jolting back and forth. “Mind your own, Evans,” he says as his hair touches the back of the chair and it teeters underneath him. “We’ve been done.” He gestures to their hairbrushes, which he’s put on top of one another in a criss-cross. “So that means you can just distract the rest of us?” she counters with an eye roll and a slight hint of red on her cheeks. For the life of him, James can't figure out what he’s done to piss off Lily Evans. It seems like she’s had a problem with him since the start-of-term. It’s a bit sad since he rather likes her. She’s snarky and, when she forgets she dislikes him, is just as judgemental about people’s weird fashion adjustments to the school uniform. Cause really, he thinks with a shudder as he remembers Bertram Aubrey’s solid gold crocodile pin, who puts that on their lapel? With slight irritation, he crosses his arms and swings his feet back and forth underneath the desk. “Not our fault if you’re listening to us,” he replies. “That’s your choice, not ours.” “Lily,” Marlene sighs, and tries to intervene. “It’s not like they’re over here poking us.” Lily turns to her aghast. “You maybe. But Potter dropped that sprig of nettle into Sev’s cauldron last week. It ruined the entire batch!”Then, she turns back to him with an accusing glint in her eyes. James knocks the top of his desk lightly with his knee. “This again,” he says with frustration. It’s been a point of contention for days. “I’ve already told you that was an accident. I wouldn’t just faff about in a room full of potions. My dad’s taught me better.”The tripping jinx on Thursday, however–Well, that hadn’t been an accident. In his defence, Snape had been dramatically repeating some rather choice words from the howler Sirius’ vile mum had sent him at breakfast that morning to a group of enraptured Slytherins. “Even if that’s true, he’s still a bother to Sev,” Lily says, and crosses her arms, too. They stare at each other and it's practically a dare for their opponent to blink first. “I really don’t understand you, Evans,” James says. “He’s an absolute jerk. Have you heard the stuff he’s said about Corky Renshaw?” Corky Renshaw, a rather clumsy Gryffindor in the other first-year dorm, is, if James recalls correctly, muggleborn, just like Lily Evans. Marlene nods and turns around. She’s given up on turning her pine marten from an adorable fur ball into a hairbrush. Instead, she lets him run loose and off the desk to dash around all their classmates. “Jaime’s not wrong,” she says. “You know, last week I saw him by the lake with Corbyn Mulciber. They’re mates, they are, and Lily, believe me, you don’t want to go near Mulciber. He’s bad news. My little sister heard him talking about legalising muggle hunting at last year’s Christmas party,” she tells them all with a white face and a shudder. Lily bites her cheek and looks away from James. “They’re just housemates,” she says in a small voice. “We don’t know what they were talking about. They share classes together. They’re probably just exchanging notes.” Sirius scoffs, and mutters, “Sure,” under his breath. “Even if that were true,” James says as he leans across the desk, using her own words from earlier. “Weren’t you the one miffed with him on the train for something? Or am I remembering that wrong?” He might be. He had been, admittedly, far more enthralled with talking to Sirius at the time and hadn’t even gotten around to introducing himself to the redheaded girl. He remembers she’d stormed into their compartment to sit down with a growl with Snape slinking in afterwards full of excuses about something. She narrows her eyes and, in a furious tone, says, “That’s none of your business.” Then, she flicks their hairbrushes off the desk with the tip of her index and middle fingers. Sirius’ skitters across it and stops near the edge, while James’ lands with an oomph. Right before she spins back around, she tells them sharply, “It’s Slap Jack, not Slappy Jack. And you’re playing it wrong. You’re supposed to slap everything but the jack.” James exchanges incredulous looks with Sirius, and then Marlene shrugs apologetically before she, too, turns around. “Oh no,” the small blonde says as she remembers her escaped pine marten. She shoots up to chase it around the classroom and almost knocks into Professor McGonagall who exclaims, “Marlene McKinnon, if you don’t return to your seat, it’ll be five points from Gryffindor!” James summons his hairbrush off the floor. It’s only a bit dusty. He brushes it off, then turns to Sirius and asks, “What did I say?” “No clue, mate,” Sirius replies with a shrug. Then, in a whisper, he tells him, “Don’t worry about it, she’s daft. Friends with Snape. Anyway, I’ve heard that the pitch will be unoccupied later. No unauthorised practices after nine.” They do, indeed, go to the pitch that night to take his Nimbus 1000 around the goalposts. It’s a difficult task to keep the cloak around the both of them and the broom while in the air but, somehow, they manage. James is in front, hands a firm grip on the top of the handle and Sirius’ arms around his waist. As the wind manages to freeze the skin on his cheeks even through the cloak, James does exactly what Sirius told him not to and wonders what, exactly, he’d done to piss off Lily Evans. ~ September 2, 1991 Dad’s insane, Harry thinks by the time his transfiguration class ends. Under no circumstances, he decides, will he ever address Professor McGonagall as Minnie. He figures she’d leave him in detention for life. He tells this to Ron, who looks at him with wide eyes and an open mouth. “Your dad’s mad,” Ron agrees with a nod, but there’s a note of admiration in his voice. He’s probably thinking of the sheer chutzpah it takes to call Professor McGonagall something so informal. “Not even Fred and George would dare.” Halfway down the corridor to the Great Hall, as they follow the large crowd of peckish students, Ron shoves his textbook into a grubby satchel, while Harry swings his backpack over his left shoulder. Faintly, he thinks he hears his cauldron rattle against the measuring instruments he tossed in there this morning. “Sirius, too. He calls her that, as well,” Harry says idly as they sit down across from Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas, and next to Hermione Granger and Lavender Brown. “He told me he sent her a fruit basket once. Right before they graduated. I wonder if she ate any of it.” There’s a stack of golden pies with tempting crusts, baskets of various rolls, canteens of gravy and bowls of mashed potato mountains and pears. Further down the table, there’s a tureen of soup, steaming a steady flow towards the ceiling.Seamus Finnegan looks up from his plate of pie and mash, his sausage and parsnips all around his plate, the crust almost all eaten away. “Who did what now?” he asks curiously. Ron shakes his head, eyes impossibly big as he reaches for a pie. “Harry’s godfather,” he answers in a slow voice, while Harry scoops up some mashed potatoes. “Sent Professor McGonagall a fruit basket. As a present. While he was still in school. And he calls her Minnie.” Dean’s elbow knocks into a butter dish and Seamus drops his fork into his mash. “No,” Dean says, in the same awed tone as Ron. “He’s mad.” Seamus nods. Next to Harry’s dorm mates, a third-year whispers in her neighbour's ear, who gasps and looks at the four boys with shock. Soon enough, news of Harry Potter’s godfather’s exploits towards one Professor Minerva McGonagall travels up and down the Gryffindor lunch table. Harry’s just about to cut into his pie when Fred and George Weasley shove Seamus and Dean aside to sit in front of him, elbows on the table and fingers held together in pointed triangles up to their grinning mouths. “Inform him we need him to teach us his ways,” they say in unison. Seamus scowls at them, and reaches over to grab his plate. He holds it close to his chest as he shovels the rest of his food into his mouth. Not as quick as his friend, Dean sighs as George begins to pick the remnants off his plate. Harry shrugs. “I mean–he kind of picked up the name from Dad. She and my grandmother were friends apparently.” He takes a mouthful of mushy peas. His dad made them once when he was attempting to show Harry the food of his birth country. The school’s were much better. They weren’t still crunchy.George drops Dean’s fork. “McGonagall’s got friends? I thought she was beyond the need for them.” He places his hands dramatically over his heart. “Was convinced she thought they were useless since she’s gonna inevitably rule the world,” Fred remarks, and swipes the dropped fork. He stabs a large sausage and bites off the end. “What do you two have next?”Behind him, Harry hears someone whisper through the clamour of voices, “That’s Harry Potter.”“Where?” “Next to the tall kid with the red hair.”Harry feels sweat creep down the back of his neck and his tie seems like a noose. There’s got to be about a dozen eyes on the back of his head. It was like this at breakfast, too. He swears, if it’s the same at dinner, he might go eat by the lake. If he doesn’t manage to get lost on his way there. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry sees Dean scowl and grab a roll from a basket, furiously buttering. “Potions,” he answers and thinks of his unopened Magical Drafts and Potions textbook at the bottom of his backpack. His mother’s best subject, he reminds himself nervously. Around the table, Percy Weasley the prefect begins to pass out flyers for extracurricular activities and other various news. Hermione Granger grabs four of them. Harry spots familiar lettering at the tiptop of one of them in the far right corner that says רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה and leans over to ask her for it. Slowly, she hands it to him after she takes out a quill and parchment from her bag to write down the information.HOGWARTS HILLEL: ROSH HASHANAH SERVICES SEPTEMBER 8TH-9TH, CLASSROOM 7A. 6 PM, SEPTEMBER 8TH. 10 AM AND 2 PM, SEPTEMBER 9TH. LET’S MAKE THIS A SWEET NEW YEAR! FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: MIRA KIRK, RAVENCLAW. There’s a doodle of an apple slice as it dips into a honey pot, charmed to move. “Odd name,” Harry hears Hermione mutter. He shrugs and says, “I think my dad went to school with her uncle or something? He’s mentioned someone named Kirk, at least. And it wasn’t about Star Trek.” Hermione goes “hmmm” but, as Lavender Brown asks what’s so odd about the name, Harry tunes out her lesson on Gaelic etymology and the word for ‘church’ to hear Ron arguing with his brothers. “—you told me it was a troll,” Ron complains. “A troll, Fred! I thought I was gonna hurl into the lake when we were coming up on those boats.”Harry tries to loosen his tie as Fred waves his hand dismissively and says, “Can ickle Ronniekins not handle trolls?” The sausage stuck to the fork flings itself into the air to land in Neville Longbottom’s soup. The round-faced boy exclaims, “Oh, bother,” as yellow liquid splashes onto his robes. Seconds later, while Harry’s grabbing napkins, someone with a Hufflepuff tie walks slowly past Fred and George, then stops to stare at Harry. He scowls down at his plate of half-finished potatoes and peas. Next to him, Ron scoffs, and moments later, Fred flinches back with a sharp ow and knocks into the rude stranger with the back of his head. George raises an eyebrow as the stranger quickly moves off. “What?” he asks his twin. “He kicked me on the ankle!” Ron smirks as George rolls his eyes. Fred protests, “The ankle, George!”As Fred and George begin to debate the worst place on the human body to be kicked by one’s little brother, Ron turns to Harry with a sigh. “Better hurry up, mate. I’ve heard Professor Snape’s a nightmare.” With a groan, Harry quickly finishes up his potatoes and peas and shoves the flyer into his backpack. Potions, Harry comes to find out, is located in the dungeons. It’s as if Salazar Slytherin had been a supervillain long before supervillains had ever been a concept considering his location for a lair deep in the most unpleasant reaches of the school. If Harry remembers correctly, Sirius once told him the Slytherins slept in the dungeons. Rather absurdly, he pictures their green and silver four poster beds pushed up against the walls next to chains and manacles with rust stains that look suspiciously like blood. It’s cold and draughty down here and there’s a harsh, musty smell that Harry believes might be mould and mildew as it festers. In the actual classroom, there are pickled animals in jars all around the walls, bits of collagen broken off to float in the murky liquid. Stomach a flutter of butterflies, Harry files in next to Ron and they find a desk to sit at, taking out their cauldrons and books. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry spots Draco Malfoy looking at him from his seat next to Crabbe and Goyle. As soon as their eyes meet, Malfoy sneers. Harry resists the childish urge to stick out his tongue. At the start-of-term banquet, Harry’d gotten the distinct impression that Professor Snape didn’t like him. He’d written as much to his dad, puzzled by the man’s behaviour. By the end of the lesson, Harry knows Professor Snape doesn’t just dislike him: he hates him. The man sweeps into the classroom as soon as everyone sits, his cloak billowing behind him. With his pale skin and long, black hair, he reminds Harry of a bat. He starts roll call from the front of the classroom, standing tall, his shoulders so tense they resemble a bowstring about to snap. As soon as he gets to Harry’s name, he pauses, one long finger hovering over the parchment. Softly, Professor Snape says, “Ah, yes, Harry Potter. Our new–celebrity.”Taken aback, Harry barely hears Malfoy and his goons snigger.Snape finishes calling out the rest of the names. Underneath the desk, Harry’s hands are restless. He takes his right one and wraps it around his left wrist, ringing it back and forth as each name is read. Snape’s black eyes seem cold and empty, and remind Harry of the dark tunnels in the subway, endless and unfathomable. By the time he gets to Blaise Zabini on the attendance sheet, Harry’s convinced himself the subways took their aesthetic from his potions professor. The professor launches into a speech about the glories of potions that sounds rather demeaning towards other subjects. As he continues, it’s clear that he thinks the students are all dim since he remarks that he doesn’t expect them to understand the beauty of softly simmering cauldrons. The implications are far from subtle. It’s rather presumptuous, Harry thinks. Hermione, at least, had been very excited for this class. And he wasn't not interested, he told himself. After all, this was his mother’s favourite subject. At the end of his speech, everyone is silent, and Ron and Harry exchange a look with raised eyebrows. “Told you,” Ron mouths silently. Harry grimaces. Suddenly, Snape calls out his name. “What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?” Harry swallows and he thinks, what? He gets the distinct impression this isn’t an early first-year question, since he hasn’t seen a hint of it in the few pages he did flip through. Next to him, Ron looks stumped. Hermione’s hand shoots up into the air. “I don’t know,” Harry answers truthfully. He sounds as dim as Snape made them all feel. The man’s lips curl into a sneer. “Tut, tut–fame clearly isn’t everything. I don’t know what certain people—” His voice nearly drops to a sibilant hiss. “—teach you in America, but here students address their professors respectfully. As sir.” Harry shifts in his seat, cheeks red, and tries not to glare as he grits his teeth. Snape ignores Hermione’s hand as she shoves it upwards farther into the air. “Let’s try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?” This answer, Harry knows. Sirius used to use them a lot, and keeps several in a stash in his room. “In the stomach of a goat. Or the potions cabinet, I suspect,” he replies, the snark slipping out before he manages to consider his words. “Sir,” he tacks on at the end. Or the hospital or the apothecary, he resists the urge to add. Snape hadn’t exactly specified what type of location he was looking for: primary or secondary. Ron gapes at him. Draco Malfoy swivels in his seat to pin him with an astonished look. Hermione, as her hand practically shakes, lets out a squeak.“Ten points from Gryffindor for your cheek, Potter,” Snape says. Then, clearly not to be outdone since Harry answered the question correctly, he asks another. “What is the difference, Potter–” Harry’s name sounds harsh coming out of his name, spittle droplets flying into the air at least six inches in front of the man. “—between monkshood and wolfsbane.” Harry knows this too. Yet, he’s rather put out now. In an ill-advised temper, Harry shrugs and says, “I don’t know, sir. But Hermione seems to know. Why don’t you try her?” Harry catches Seamus’ eye as several people laugh and Seamus winks. Snape’s scowl deepens. “Five more points.” Then, he orders Hermione to sit down and rattles off the two answers Harry didn’t provide. Asphodel and wormwood, it turns out, make a sleeping potion called Draught of the Living Death, while monkshood and wolfsbane were, of course, the same plant, also known as aconite. After snapping at the entire class for failing to write the answers down, the lesson goes downhill from there. As they’re put into pairs to mix up a potion to cure boils, Snape makes a point of singling out Harry who, nervous and irritated, messes up his own potion from nearly the start. Snape derides everyone, except Malfoy, who he seems to like and claims is the only one of them who can stew his horned slugs perfectly. Seamus’ cauldron blows up soon after as Neville Longbottom somehow manages to turn it into a twisted, melty blob. As the potion seeps across the stone floor, Harry moves his feet out of the way before it can burn a hole in the soles of his sneakers. Neville moans in pain as angry red boils pop up all over his arms and legs. Harry tries to stand and help him as Snape snaps, “Idiot boy!” He clears the spilled potion away with a wave of his wand. Then, he tells Neville exactly what it was he did wrong, not bothering to send him off to the hospital, nor help him, as the boils spread to Neville’s nose. Ron pulls him back down to his seat just as Snape finally remembers he’s supposed to be in a position of pastoral care and orders Seamus to take Neville to the hospital wing. Then, Snape turns his gaze on Harry and Ron. “Potter–why didn’t you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he’d make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That’s another point you’ve lost from Gryffindor.” Incensed, Harry opens his mouth to argue that he was minding his own potion, but Ron kicks him. “Don’t push it, you’ve already pissed him off. I’ve heard he can turn very nasty.” “Nastier than this?” Harry asks with a scowl, but listens to his friend. Twenty minutes later, as they climb the stairs out of the dungeon, Harry’s mind races with a feeling of deep dejection. What could he have possibly done to make Snape hate him so much? Even his rather vile fifth grade teacher, who’d sent his dad home notes every other week about Harry asking too many questions in class didn’t hate him as much as Snape. Stomach queasy, Harry barely pays attention to Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts. Professor Flitwick, at least, is vastly more pleasant, though he squeaks when he gets to Harry’s name on the roll call and topples off the stack of books he stands on to see the class. Embarrassed, Harry siddles down in his seat. In Defence, Harry realises despite his high hopes, the class is going to end up a bit of a dud. The classroom smells overpoweringly of garlic, and Professor Quirrell, though knowledgeable, stutters a lot and seems extremely nervous. When the students ask about his turban, he claims he got it from an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a zombie, which Harry doesn’t believe for a second, and neither does Seamus Finnegan who challenges him to elaborate more. Quirrel doesn’t, and changes the subject to the weather which, Harry has come to realise, is a very British tactic of evasion. Ron leans over to whisper in Harry’s ear. “Fred and George think he stuffs it with garlic to ward away vampires wherever he goes. Ask me, all he’s warding away are us.” At the end of class, Harry waves Ron off. “I’ll meet up with you later. Going to send a letter to my dad.” Ron nods, and goes off with Seamus and Dean, telling the muggleborn Dean Thomas all about gobstones. Harry does send off a letter, but he also wanders around for a while with his head down. Despite that, he can still hear the whispers as they crawl all over his skin. Eventually, he finds himself on the third floor. There, he slides down in an alcove and puts his head on his arms, elbows on his knees. He breathes in and out, in and out, and counts from ten to one. Then, he repeats it all again. He’s watched Sirius and his dad do this, sometimes, though neither of them had been aware he’d seen it. He pulls out a small picture frame from his pocket and watches as his young, teenage father tries to teach his very young, teenage mother how to waltz around a flowing fountain. She’s got a large smile on her pretty face, her black bonnet hat at a tilt on her red hair. The whispers still surround him. “Alright there, Harry?” someone asks. Harry’s head jerks up–and then up, and up. There’s a man who has to be related to giants in front of him. It takes Harry a second to recognise him as Hagrid, the groundskeeper from the harbour who’d led them across the lake in boats the night before. He’s got a bushy black beard and black eyes, like Snape, though his are warm as they gaze steadily at Harry. The messy-haired boy hadn’t introduced himself, but he supposes that doesn’t really matter. Everyone knows who he is, after all. Harry sniffs, and wipes the back of his sleeve against his eyes with the hand holding the picture. Hagrid smiles down at him kindly and says, “Here.” In his right hand, there’s a rather squishy handkerchief. Gratefully, Harry reaches for it and blows his nose. “Just–needed a break, is all,” he tells the man. He sighs and offers back the handkerchief. “You keep it,” Hagrid says. He bends awkwardly at the knees, which does nothing to make him smaller. “Listen–it’ll let up. Just you wait, soon enough everyone’ll be used to you. You’re their hero, you know? Just takes some time, is all.” Harry sardonically laughs. “For what? Sitting in a crib?” He plops his head back against the stone and the picture falls into his lap. The stone is cold, and it sends shivers up and down his back. Hagrid looks startled. “Your da didn’t tell ya?” He says it with the air of someone who can’t quite believe that’s true. Harry shakes his head and his hair falls away from the lightning bolt scar. “He did. Just–doesn’t make sense, does it?” Hagrid shrugs, and pats his shoulder. Despite his care, Harry still feels it all throughout his back. “Well, something about you stumped You-Know-Who, alright. I reckon that means there’s something special about ya.” “Sure,” Harry mutters, not sure about anything at all. “I’m sure I was Voldemort’s biggest challenge.” Hagrid shudders at the name. That, Harry notices, is something everyone seems to do, though his dad and Sirius seemed to say it just fine. In fact, the first time he’d said it in front of Uncle Ted who’d promptly shattered his wine glass and corrected him with “You-Know-Who” Harry had been shocked. He doesn’t understand how a name can be so taboo. It's not like Voldemort’s going to burst out of the statue of Pegasus by the astronomy tower if he says it enough times like chanting Beetlejuice. “Well–you’re here and he’s not,” Hagrid offers. That, at least, Harry can’t say is wrong, though it’s a small comfort. “Listen,” Hagrid says as he stands up at full height. He offers his hand to Harry, who takes it, his photo held tight in his free hand. As Hagrid lifts him up off the ground, he says, “Why don’t you come by me hut on Friday? I don’t get many visitors and it’s been nice to chat. If you wanna. You can tell me all about your week and how you’re settling in. Bring a friend, as well.” Harry nods, with a small smile. “That sounds nice. I’ll ask Ron,” he promises. The whispers don’t let up by the end of the week, but Harry and Ron enjoy a pleasant visit at Hagrid’s. He’s nice and friendly, with an equally friendly and fierce looking dog, Fang, who slobbers all over Ron’s robes as they attempt to chew rock hard rock cakes with as much politeness as they can muster. It turns out, Hagrid had known Harry’s parents and their friends. He spends the first ten minutes of their visit recalling stories about finding James and Sirius and their friends in the Forbidden Forest, and that Lily loved the greenhouses. “How is your da? Haven’t seen him since–well since it happened,” Hagrid asks with a sad look on his face. “Sirius neither. A wreck he was. The both of them.” “They’re doing alright. Dad took me to Coney Island before I left,” Harry tells him, then spends the next five minutes explaining to a confused Ron and Hagrid what Coney Island is and that it did not, in fact, have anything to do with conies running around all over the place.“Muggles do what?” Ron says when Harry describes the Cyclone.Later on, as Ron complains about Filch and Filch’s bothersome cat, Mrs. Norris, Harry spots a Daily Prophet headline about a break-in at Gringotts bank on 31 July. Both Ron and Hagrid trail off as they notice Harry’s not listening. Harry’s eyes scan the article, reading about the vault and the unsuccessful theft. Hand on the back of his neck, Hagrid blurts out, “Was there that day. That bloody vault and all.” Abruptly, his eyes go wide and he looks down at his table as Ron and Harry exchange a puzzled look. “Shouldn’t have told you’se that.” Harry shrugs. Whatever had been in the vault, the thief didn’t have it. His mind circles back to a more pressing topic. “Hagrid, you know Professor Snape?” Hagrid eyes him over the rim of his teacup. “Aye?” he says suspiciously. Ron sighs, clearly exasperated. “I’ve told you this already. Professor Snape doesn’t like anyone, Harry!” Harry shakes his head. “But he seemed to really hate me.” Hagrid doesn’t meet Harry’s eyes as he says into his bushy beard, “Rubbish! Why should he?” Then, Hagrid turns to Ron and asks about Ron’s brother, Charlie, and his work with dragons. It’s an obvious attempt to change the subject, which only confirms Harry’s suspicions. For some reason, Professor Snape hates him. With a deep sigh, Harry listens to Hagrid and Ron talk, his mind still caught on Professor Snape and the resolve to figure out the reason. ~ September 12, 1991 That afternoon, there’s a barn owl passed out against a batch of rugelach. His feathery head leans precariously close to a bowl of cinnamon sugar. Sirius points this out to James, who stares at him through the mirror. He’s been staring for three whole minutes. His only words so far have been, “Minne’s been replaced by someone, mate,” with an ecstatic grin on his face. It’s strange, not because it’s the afternoon while both men are in the middle of work, but rather, because Sirius wades chest-deep in the Hudson while he waits for James to get to the point. Somewhere in the water, his partner tries to locate a jet ski that reportedly sings, “It’s Raining Men” in the style of an operetta. What it is with people and charming bloody machines to sing terrible pop songs, Sirius can’t fathom: it’s not even an umbrella, now that would be funny. So, it’s really a poor time for his best mate to call him and say nothing other than one (actually rather alarming) sentence and for there to be an overtaxed owl next to a batch of biscuits. Despite the warming charm, he shivers. Out of view of the mirror’s peripheral vision, he hears Yael sigh loudly. Sirius pictures her with her hands on her hips, like Effie used to stand. “Get to it, cousin. This poor owl. What did she do? Put a speed charm on him? He looks like he’s one wing in the grave.” James breathes in at the same time that Sirius curses as something unexpectedly brushes against his leg. He hopes it’s not a mutant ninja turtle. He doesn’t care what Remus claims, those things have to exist somewhere. He casts a wordless spell to blast whatever it is away from him. It floats upwards with a burst of red and floats benignly on the water.Fucking water celery, he realizes. Sirius scowls. Impatiently, he waits for James to say something, then snaps. “You don’t speak in the next five seconds, I’m hanging up,” he warns him. In an unintelligible garble James blurts out words. “What?” Sirius asks, utterly bewildered. “What the hell did you say?” Slower this time, James says, “Harry has made the school team in his first year. He is going to be a seeker.” Sirius Orion Black III will never admit he nearly lost his wand in the Hudson River that day. He just manages to catch it with his bare toes, thankful he left his boots on the dock, as he says, “What? Oh, Merlin’s bloody balls, Minnie has been replaced. Our boy! Seeker! He’s eleven years old! I’m so proud.” He shivers in the water, this time from excitement rather than fear of the foliage.In the distance, he notices his partner struggle to wrestle the jet ski. It drags him along, instead, in great big waves of water, now stuck on repeating the chorus in a high soprano. “This is the best bloody day of my life,” James says with a huge grin.Sirius agrees. “Really?” Yael asks sarcastically. She flits into view as James moves the mirror. There’s a smudge of chocolate on her forehead and she does, indeed, have her hands at her hips. They’re untying her apron strings. “Not the birth of your son? I’d rather think that was the best day of your life.” James turns his grin towards her. “Well–second then. Without his birth, this day wouldn’t be possible, now would it?” Her hand hovers over the owl as she covers his unconscious body with her stained apron. “We should let him rest before he goes back. Honestly, what was that woman thinking?” Yael asks no one in particular, since neither Sirius nor James can bring themselves to care about the exhausted owl. Sirius nods. “Our boy. The youngest seeker in who bloody knows how long.” James knows. It’s a century, apparently. Sirius’ partner shouts something at him. Sirius, rather professionally if anyone asks, shouts back, “Not now, mate. Family emergency!” Not the least bit taking advantage of the man’s shocked sputters, Sirius starts swimming for the docks. In the distance, his partner shouts back a deeply unflattering comment. Sirius sighs, and stops. His feet tread the water as he shouts, “Accio, jet ski.” It spatters his partner full-on in the face with a stream of water and an ear-splitting high note as it rushes towards Sirius. A seagull narrowly avoids the moving aquatic vehicle with an indignant squawk. A few feet before it hits him, Sirius freezes it in place. Then, without a by your leave, he abandons the jet ski’s dulcet tones to croon about men and his partner to deal with. No matter, he’s new anyway. He doesn’t know how to work with Sirius yet. The notice-me-not charmed mirror levitates in front of him as James continues to yammer on and Yael continues to kvell over the owl. “Are we sending him his Cleansweep, then?” Sirius asks as soon as he’s back to the dock and rings out his wet hair. With a quick glance around to make sure there’s no one about, he casts a drying charm and shucks back on his shoes. James shakes his head, hair going in all directions as his hair tie gives up its attempt to keep it together. “No, no. Not good enough.”Yael rolls her eyes. “You bought it for him two years ago. It’s practically new.” James flicks a lemon at her. It rolls uselessly off the countertop with a sad, echoey plop. “That’s practically ancient. No, Chanukah’s coming up.” “It’s September, James,” Yael protests. As if she said nothing, James continues, “We’re getting him a new broom. A nimbus! Sirius, can you owl order one from work? Like, send off an order to Andromeda or something? Tell her we’ll pay her back?” “Why not ask Minnie? Since she’s been so generous?” Sirius asks, only half serious and mostly sarcastic. James latches on to it as if it’s a brilliant idea, and thus Sirius Black finds himself promising to write one Minerva McGonagall to ask her to spot them the galleons on a new Nimbus 2001 for Harry Potter, youngest seeker in a century. He doesn’t even think his eighteen-year-old self would have had the audacity, and wonders what the kid would say if Sirius had a time-turner and could go back to inform him of his future endeavours. Later that day, Sirius stops off by the bakery. Predictably, James still bounces off the walls with happiness. As soon as he comes in, he notices the customers give James some odd looks, clearly wondering whether the sweets have been doused with some funny potions as they pay for them up at the counter. One moustachioed man holds a box of pistachio cream croissants up to sniff at with suspicion in his gaze. Behind the till, Chava gives Sirius a wobbly, concerned smile as he waves, and follows James to the kitchen, where Yael is finishing the washing up. The barn owl now rests in a soft bed of leftover Greek salad in a large silver mixing bowl. His head’s on some cubes of feta, and one taloned foot is elevated on a black olive. Sirius notes the up and down movement of his chest, so clearly, he’s still breathing. “Did you send it?” James asks after he offers him a biscuit, thankfully sans feathers.Taking one, Sirius rolls his eyes. “Of course I did.” And bloody terrifying that had been, too.Then, he breaks out into his own gleeful smile and, like a little boy, puts his hands on James’ shoulders as the two bounce up and down. “Oh, for fucks sake,” Yael mutters as she directs a coffee cup to the drying rack. “Idiots.” Fondly, James says, “Remember when she kept turning me down? Hypocrite.” The smile on his face is never going to leave. Sirius finishes off his biscuit, then grabs another. There’s no chocolate on these, just raspberry jam, so he’s not gonna find himself heaving the contents of his stomach into a toilet later. “Reckon you could use him to send a nasty letter to old Snape? Bloody git,” Sirius scowls as he remembers Harry’s description of his first class with the loathsome man. Once a blighter, always a blighter, Sirius thinks, no matter what Dumbledore claims about his ‘change of heart.’ Yael turns on her heel. “Don’t you dare,” she says to James, and points a rolling pin at him as he looks at the owl contemplatively. “You’ll just make it worse. What are you going to say? ‘Please stop, thank you very much, my mutual enemy from school?’ That’ll go over well.” “Who says there’d be a bloody thank you?” James retorts, and swipes the rolling pin from her hands. Aggressively, he picks at a spot of tacky dough she missed. “He doesn’t deserve thanks. Who’s mean to a child just because he didn’t get along with his father? I always knew he was a petty fuck.” Sirius, a self-aware petty fuck himself, nods in agreement. He goes over to the middle countertop where James’ rucksack sits next to a stack of cream puffs. There, still open with the ink facing upwards, is McGonagall’s letter. The absolute cheek of it, Sirius reads as his eyes scan over the words. He caught it at a fifty-foot dive. You’d have been proud. Never, in all my years! “When you have a complaint about a teacher, you tell the teacher’s boss,” Yael offers reasonably. Sirius and James turn to stare at her with equal looks of incredulity. Snape’s boss is, after all, Albus Dumbledore, the same man who’s the reason they’re in New York currently bothering her with all this quidditch talk and old, childhood rivalries. Yael rolls her eyes, and mutters, “Oh, right,” before she shrugs. “Well, didn’t Harry say he was Head of Slytherin House? You can always tell yourselves you’re getting him back by giving Harry that broom. Once Harry wins that cup out from under his house, that’ll stick it to him.” Sirius rather thinks a picture of that expression on Snape’s face would be a gift for him. He resolves to write to Harry to ask his friend, Ron Weasley, to bring along a camera. After a bit, as James and Sirius discuss the best way to inform Remus of their boy’s newest news, a haggard looking John shows up with baby Mischa in a papoose, holding a sippy cup. They’ve both got identical shocks of brown curls. He doesn’t even bother to give the two of them a glance, just heads over to his wife and says, “I don’t even want to know what’s going on with those two.” She tells him that’s smart. Sirius flips her off, and then all four of them plus bouncing baby head out, closing up shop. Sirius knocks into James’ shoulder with a grin as they walk and, right before they reach the flat, Sirius wishes he could be there for Harry’s first game. James flicks on a light soon as they’re through the door. The flat’s empty and dark and lifeless. Sirius heads right into the kitchen without banging his foot into a truck or cringing on a lego. His foot twinges with phantom pain as he passes where Harry usually tosses his Millenium Falcon toy. He pulls out some takeaway for James and him: some browning guacamole, leftover refried beans and yucca sit sadly on a bed of wilted lettuce leaves. He heats it up and the entire place starts to smell like old oil. Then, he grabs a jar of salsa and a bag of crisps that he upends in a bowl, before he joins James at the table. James reaches for a crisp, and dips it into the guacamole, once again reading the letter from McGonagall. “Lily would’ve been so horrified. And proud. But horrified. Where the instructor was during all this, I’ve no bloody idea.” Sirius dips one of the yucca chips into the salsa with a shrug. It’s a bit soggy, since leftover fried food always is.Under the table, Galadriel bats at his shoe. Reinforced by dragonhide, Sirius doesn’t even flinch. “She’d have held it over your head for years that your son made the team younger than you.” James laughs softly. “Yeah, she would have.” There’s a quiet lull as they nibble at their paltry supper leftovers. “I’ll ask Andromeda to try to go. To his first game, I mean,” Sirius says. He frowns. “Since we can’t.” It hadn’t exactly bothered him much before. Aside from Remus, there wasn’t much that held him over there since James and Harry were here. There’d been nothing but sad memories and graves with the names of their friends. Now, though–now it itches and pricks at him like never before. They’re not allowed to visit their own bloody kid. James shakes his head. “If it’s too much out of the way, it’s alright. We’ve asked her for a lot.” He frowns down at the letter, expression fallen. “I’m sure we’ll hear all about it from Minnie.” Tap, tap, tap.Sirius, chip half-way dipped, looks to the window where Harry’s snowy owl pecks insistently at the glass. James gets up and pulls it open along with the screen. She flies through and lands with her foot in the guacamole and a ruffle of outstretched wings. Sirius sighs. James comes to stand next to him and unfurls the note.DAD (AND SIRIUS)!!! L’SHANA TOVA! GUESS WHAT?! I’VE MADE THE HOUSE TEAM! IN MY FIRST YEAR! I’M SO EXCITED! Love, Harry. PS: Can you send my broom?
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
~ October 4, 1971 James bends down to pick up a fallen branch and hand it to Matilda Joseph as the rain turns from a gentle patter to a kind of light, lingering mist. Matilda levitates the twisted branch back to the top of the sukkah, the middle three long, dark fingers of her wandless hand directing it to its place. James and the second year Ravenclaw girl stand at the bottom of a hill on the outskirts of the castle's ground near to the all-magical village of Hogsmeade. The sun’s low in the sky, and James can just make out the shadow of the moon, round and full, as if invisible strings pull it upwards towards the sky while they wait for Sukkot to start. The sukkah is small, just large enough for the ten of them in Hogwarts Hillel to eat and sleep and wave the lulav. In their downtime, they’ve been building it out of beech and oak wood they’ve gathered from the forest; sturdy branches make up the roof and hooked on smaller, thinner branches to dangle towards the ground are sparkling flowers found only in magical forests. They shimmer as they reflect the light and cast a natural glow inside the sukkah. James spent half a day the day before in the kitchens with a paring knife, carving trees and bushes out of carrots and apples and parsnips. Later, Nina Silvers cast preserving charms on them to keep the carvings fresh throughout the entire festival. As he watches one sway with the light breeze, James swears he can smell etrog like a perfume as if wafts from the sukkah into the open air, intermixed with the sharp scent of eucalyptus. On the long, rectangular table, ten glasses full of pomegranate juice rest next to their silver plates. There are smaller glasses left unfilled for the mass-produced grape juice ordered from London ready for kiddush and ten sets of different forks, spoons, and knives. The utensil handles are composed of myrtle and willow, with emblems carved like etrogs near their individual bases, donated by the Peretz family to the Hogwarts kitchens at some point in the last three decades. Right in the middle of each plate, their napkins jet upwards like a rolling field, the individual layers folded and transfigured to stay in place. At the centre of the table, a lulav and a knobby, large etrog rests next to ten stacked siddurim and a covered loaf of challah. At the top of the sukkah, the wind ruffles the foliage as it runs through the field, a beautiful cover of russet and fading green, some yellow and interspersed with amber. It’s a burst of colour as dusk continues to fall. The open side of the sukkah faces towards Hogwarts. Though James can’t see it, too far away to make out more than the outline of a tower or two, he thinks that everyone must be thinking about dinner, now. With a burst of amusement, he imagines Sirius leave the Great Hall and make his way from the castle to the lake to find the Giant Squid, given his dramatic claim that afternoon in potions class that he’s going to find company with the celepod while James and Remus sleep outside for an entire week. “Who am I gonna spend time with after class?” Sirius had complained at breakfast over a plate of scrambled eggs when they informed him. “MacDonald?” The tall, dark haired girl three seats away had blushed to the tips of her ears. James shakes himself out of his musings, and looks around. Remus had disappeared without a word ten minutes before James made his way to the sukkah and James still can’t find his fluffy head of hair. Instead, over by a pumpkin that’s placed like a doorpost near the left supporting beam, he spots fourth-year, Asnat Silver, with her head a tilt towards the sky, a tumble of spiral curls a wave down her back. She starts to muse about loopholes to her younger cousin, Tikvah. “If we’re not casting it on the sukkah, do you think we can cast the rain repellent charm around the area? So the ground doesn’t get all soggy?” Tikvah, a small girl with a round face, tries to balance with her bottom atop the pumpkin’s stem. It wobbles as she says, “I don’t think so? It’s not the proper weathery elements, is it? It’d be like we weren’t even outside.” Across from them, Nina Silvers, no relation to either of them (well, at least not within the last three generations or so), bends at the knees and puts down her flower arrangement, her black waves of hair an inch from brushing the ground. She brings up one hand and brushes it away from her eyes. “Not everyone sleeps outside every night though. My family doesn’t. Actually before I came here, I’d really only slept outside once or twice.” James thinks there might be a Silvers on his family tree, but he hasn’t seen his mum’s side of it since his last trip to the Potters’ Italian flat back in ‘69. He remembers one year his parents had paid for all his cousins to come with them to Italy during Sukkot. They’d spent the entire festival in the Alps with Uncle Newt looking for a particular community of gnomes while Aunt Tina and his dad drank sangria out of a flute charmed to keep refilling itself. He’d been about seven, at the time. The year afterwards, his mum’s job had picked up again and they’d spent Sukkot in a hotel in Japan, flooing back and forth to the temple in Tokyo to eat at their communal sukkah, just dad and him since his mum was swamped talking to some boring diplomats regarding trading agreements over puffer fish spines. They were very potent ingredients in certain potions, or so his father said. “Yeah, but yours is Reform,” Asnat tells Nina with a shrug. “Abba does everything in our sukkah at home. Ima, too. Don’t they, Tikvah?” Tikvah confirms with a bounce of her big, chestnut brown hair. As the three girls continue to discuss the particulars of Jewish law and magical loopholes, Bolesław Kirk twitters around with bobby pins and sticking charms as he tries to fix individual kippot in people’s hair. James feel’s his tug at the pins despite the charm, his wayward, wild strands reluctant to keep anything on his head. He looks towards the hill again. Remus is not here, still. It’s almost nightfall, too, he realises, as he takes in the bright, round moon that shines a beacon of light in the darkening sky. James frowns and runs through the entire day. Sure, Remus had been looking peaky all throughout breakfast and lunch, and he’d hardly touched his beef sarnie at all –which was, admittedly, unusual since he normally wolfed food down with more speed than Sirius or James would ever match–but he hadn’t said anything about missing services tonight. He turns on his heels and counts the nine of them who mill all around the field. James, Matilda, all three Silvers, the oddly named Bolesław Kirk. About twenty or so feet from the sukkah, Elisheva Greenburg frowns into a hand-held mirror as she holds her wand to her face with a poorly performed make-up charm making her lips appear blue. Finally, over by a fallen tree, Avner Peretz and Alexandra Landau huddle over their homework, their quills a furious scribble. “Where’s Remus?” he asks out loud. Next to him, Matilda shrugs and replies she has no idea but that if he doesn’t show up soon Nina’s going to have to claim her kneazle as the tenth for a minyan, again. Elisheva, her lips now an odd shade of teal, says, “Poppy Pomfrey said something about a sick mum? I ran into her on the way down. He had to go home.” She reaches up with her free hand to fluff the bottom of her wedge hair. James frowns harder and wonders when Remus could have gotten the news about his mum. He’d been sitting right next to him in Charms and Defence. In fact, James thinks, as he runs through the entire day again, they’d barely been five minutes apart all day. Heedless of James’ concern for Remus, Nina tells Asnat and Tikvah Silvers that she’s brought blankets with warming charms. She promises to hand them out to “whoever wants them.”James wants one. He runs his fingers over the goosebumps on his right arm, and stares at the empty hill and the full moon, the sun almost completely faded. Now that the sun’s just about set, Bolesław Kirk announces it's time to begin. They all claim their places at the table. James enters last as he gives a final, long look at the hill. Matilda Joseph lights the candles, and as Kirk starts the service, James launches into familiar prayers and songs. When the dark fully hits, James swears he hears something howl in the break between their songs, though no one else appears to notice. When it’s his turn to wave the lulav, he grabs it enthusiastically, and shakes it as best he can. Eventually, a pop outside the tent announces dinner’s been brought, and a house elf from the kitchens, Tippy, James thinks, directs several others. James’ mouth waters as they place the food on the table. There’s roasted eggplant with lots of oil and garlic, sprinkled with sumac, and hummus laden with pine nuts and pomegranates. Next to that, a wooden platter of various goat cheeses: feta cheese, a domestic one from Lanarkshire, a smooth and creamy labneh, and smoked, oval ones imported from Eastern Europe. The main dish is a roasted salmon with lemon and thyme, coloured yellow by turmeric. There’s roasted potatoes and a broccoli salad side, the vegetable steamed and still bright green, interspersed with nuts and raisins. Left in an artful arrangement of leaves on a platter, there’s roasted artichokes and in a large, glass dish, a lokshen kugel rests with a golden brown top. The elves carry over small bowls to place on top of their plates and fill them up with fragrant lentil soup. Left on a side table for later, there’s small tarts shaped like roses, dotted with dates and candied orange. Forlornly, James thinks that Remus is missing out as he dips his spoon into the soup. That night, his belly stuffed full to bursting and antsy with jittery nerves, James rolls around in his warmed blanket, the rain a comforting pitter-patter as it hits the ground. Down by his feet, D’Artagnan lets out a steady purr, small furry body contorted in a content curl. At some point, the tenacious feline found his way out of the dorm and across the grounds to James. How, James muses, is a mystery, but he’s aware that he’s got a rather odd cat. Wrapped up in a leftover napkin and stuffed at the bottom of his rucksack underneath tomorrow’s robes, he’s got challah, potatoes, a couple of cubes of cheese, and some artichokes saved. A tart, too. Sirius will enjoy them, he thinks. And if Remus is back, him too. The roof drips in slow lines through the gaps in the ceiling as the rain continues to come down. He stares at the stuttered droplets, and watches as the carved hangings swing, listens to the gentle snores of his classmates, and believes, just as he drifts off, that he hears another distant howl, deep and strong and loud.It reminds him of a wolf.
~ September 10, 1991 That night, Harry sits down to dinner still reeling from his earlier meeting with Oliver Wood, Captain of the Gryffindor team. He’d been convinced Professor McGonagall was about to send him off home before she brought over the fifth-year Gryffindor with the burly shoulders. Really, he thinks with a burst of infectious joy and relief, he can’t believe his luck. “You’re joking, right?” Ron says with a piece of steak and kidney pie halfway to his mouth. There’s a bit of gravy stuck at his hairline, pasting together two large strands of red hair. He drops his fork and it clatters with a ding against the plate as he shakes his head. “Seeker?” he says in a tone of distinct disbelief. “I know,” Harry says with a large grin. “Dad told me first years never play. He tried to get McGonagall to let him on the team when he was in school and she was having none of it.” Ron shakes his head harder. “You must be the youngest House player in about–”Harry shovels a piece of pie into his mouth and swallows quickly. “A century,” he finishes. “Last one was a Hufflepuff keeper. They let her play on account of losing their keeper half-way through the year. Some sort of tragic accident. Wood told me.” He spoons his pie ravenously into his mouth since all the day’s excitement has made him feel rather peckish. As he does so, tiny bits of steak fall off his fork and onto the table. It’s only been little more than a month since his last Junior Quidditch League practice but he’s desperately missed the game. The feel of the wind, the smell of broom polish, the feel of grass against his back after he touches down, all sweaty and winded. Ron just sits and gaps at him from across the table, his own food long forgotten. “Wood’s gonna start on my training next week,” Harry says, though he’d tried to tell the fifth-year that he’d been in the Quidditch Junior League in New York under the direction of his dad. As Wood had never heard of the Junior League, which made sense as it was a mostly States-wide phenomenon created by overenthusiastic parents and former players, he insisted on the extra training. Still, Harry thought he could see the wheels turning in Wood’s brain about how to suggest that as an option for British children after they’d left the classroom. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry spots Fred and George Weasley enter the hall and rush over to them, their grins a stretch from ear to ear. George sits down next to Ron and grabs a roll. “Well done,” he says in a low voice as he leans over the table, robe sleeve nearly in the gravy boat. “Wood told us. We’re on the team too–Beaters.” Fred sits down next to Harry and whispers in an equally low voice, “I tell you, we’re going to win that Quidditch cup for sure this year. We haven’t since Charlie left, and even in his last year they didn’t win it, but this year’s going to be brilliant. You must be good, Harry, Wood was almost skipping when he told us.” Harry grins and feels like skipping, too. He needs to send the news to his dad, he thinks, and pictures James Potter dancing around the kitchen from happiness with a bowl of chocolate cake mixture in his arms. He may even put up a sparkly banner outside the door of the shop to announce Harry’s success. Jesse, too, he reminds himself, and wonders if Hedwig is up for two trips. He’d sent off one note to his friend already, and gotten back a sheet of paper with all the information about Illvermorny Jesse’s managed to gather in about a week. It’s big, it’s hard, and he’s in Pukwudgie sharing a room with a boy who snores like a dragon’s gut. Fred reaches over him to grab a serving dish of mostly untouched jellied eels. They ooze in a dull, grey gelatinous mass that Harry finds visually unpleasant. Nonplussed, Fred spears one straight out of the communal dish and pops it into his mouth with a squish. Then, they quickly say their goodbyes as rapidly as they’d said their hellos, off to join their friend, Lee Jordan, in a gander at a secret passageway out of the school. “I wonder why they don’t want to show us?” Harry muses, but only briefly. Within seconds, his attention is torn by a far less welcome entourage as Draco Malfoy waltzes up with Crabbe and Goyle on either side of him, their arms a bulge across their thick chests. Malfoy sneers at Harry and his almost empty plate of steak and kidney pie. “Having a last meal, Potter?” he asks as he elbows Ron out of the way to lean over the bench. “Have you written to your father yet to tell him what a disappointment you are? I expect he’s waiting for you to crawl back home?” There’s a note of false sympathy in his voice. Harry rolls his eyes. “I expect if that were true he’s already got my place set at Ilvermorny. My uncle works there, you know. They’re not going to turn me away.” Malfoy sniffs. “Oh, yes, substandard education for the Great Harry Potter. How fitting.”He’s acting braver now that he’s back on the ground with his minions, Harry thinks. He tells him as much. Malfoy stiffens. His elbows dig into the table as he leans as close as he can to Harry without losing his tie to the gravy boat. Ron blews the side of the boy’s robe away from his mouth. “You think I can’t take you on my own? I’d take you on anytime.” Harry raises an eyebrow coolly and Ron scoffs. “Tonight, if you want. Wizard’s duel. Wands only–no contact.” Harry rolls his eyes at the other boy’s dramatics. “You have heard of one before, I suppose?” Malfoy asks as his voice drips fake politeness. “Of course he has,” Ron says, and pushes Malfoy away from the table. Menacingly, Crabbe cracks his knuckles in response. Indeed, Harry has, and the thought that eleven-year-old Malfoy wants to challenge him to a semi-archaic practice where they’ll at most shoot some sparks at each other is so laughable that he doesn’t hesitate to agree. If nothing else, it’ll be something to tell his dad about. “I’m his second,” Ron says and Malfoy nominates Crabbe. The matter settled, the three Slytherins slither back to their own table.Afterwards, Harry and Ron share looks of slight surprise across the table as Ron picks up his fork for his forgotten pie. It looks a bit coagulated and cold. “Well–you won’t die, at least. We’re barely two weeks into school, none of us know enough magic to do any real damage.” He cuts up a piece of leathery looking steak. “I bet he expected you to refuse anyway.” “Could always punch him if he shows up,” Harry says with a shrug. He’s never punched anyone before, but he hit Timothy Cartwright with a quaffle once. It’d been an accident, but Harry recalls the sickening break of bone with a shudder. His dad had had to set it again and take the Cartwright’s out for dinner so they wouldn’t pull their son off the team. “Excuse me?” a prim voice says. Ron sighs. “Can’t a person eat in peace in this place?” Harry looks at Hermione. She stands just behind Ron with her feet straight and arms crossed. As he meets her eyes, she moves closer, gaze unbroken with his. The other night, during the Rosh Hashanah party, he’d seen her when she wasn’t so determined to be the best at everything. It had been nice, he’d thought then. She was nice enough, and even funny, when she relaxed. She hadn’t cared when honey fell onto her head and made her curls all sticky after Mira Kirk had accidentally thrown the jar. She’d laughed, instead, and Harry had, too. Now, there seems to be almost no trace of that girl. “I couldn’t help overhearing what you and Malfoy were saying–” Ron looks down and mutters into his cold pie, “Likely story.” She ignores him. “—and you mustn’t go wandering around the school at night, think of the points you’ll lose Gryffindor if you’re caught, and you’re bound to be. It’s really very selfish of you.” Irritated, Harry sits up straight and places his arms on the table. His dad had never once got caught out late at night. Course, Harry didn’t know how, but his dad had told him as much. And he’s not going to be the one that doesn’t dare show his face. No, that’s Malfoy, not him. With a scowl, Harry says, “It’s really none of your business, Hermione.” Ron waves her off goodbye and she leaves in a huff. After an evening of Ron’s attempts at duelling advice, Harry lays awake in wait for midnight and listens to the sounds of Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas get ready for bed. He’s got a pocket full of cat treats leftover at the bottom of his backpack from Galadriel and a laser pointer to distract Mrs. Norris, since neither boy wants to be caught out by Filch. For a long moment, Harry considers whether Hermione’s right and if it’s worth it to risk breaking another school rule when he’d just gotten onto the quidditch team but the thought of Malfoy’s sneering face stays at the forefront of his mind. He can’t back down. Someone needs to take the jerk down a peg. Through the dark, Harry hears Ron whisper, “Half-past eleven. We’d better go.” Harry nods, though Ron can’t see it. Then, he slips off his bed and pulls on his bathrobe while Ron does the same by the next bed. Both boys grab their wands and tiptoe out the dorm, careful not to wake Seamus and Dean. Down the spiral staircase with bare feet they go, their shoes in their hands, to the common room where a few embers still glow red in the fireplace, the armchairs an obscure blur in the dark.Right before Harry reaches the portrait someone clears their throat out of sight. Harry jumps as a voice says with an accusatory tone, “I can’t believe you’re going to do this.” Then, a lamp flicks on and he sees Hermione Granger in a pale blue nightgown and an open pink bathrobe. There’s a deep frown on her face. Furiously, Ron tells her to go back to bed. Hermione retorts by informing them she’d almost snitched and told Percy Weasley the prefect. Harry scowls and crosses his arms over his chest. “Just come on,” he tells Ron and pushes open the portrait. Hermione, who has to be the most stubborn person Harry’s ever met, follows. Ron and Harry stand outside the portrait and put on their shoes as she continues to argue with them about their selfishness and the House Cup. “Oh come off it, Hermione,” Harry says with a weary sigh. “It’s just a school award. There’s six other years to win it if you care that much.” He ignores the niggling voice that reminds him he once asked for a recount during a spelling bee contest as he’d been determined that Sebastian Anastas could not have won the blue ribbon for Number One Speller in the Third Grade Class. “Just remember when you’re on the train home tomorrow, I warned you–” she says with her own furious whisper and turns back to the Fat Lady. Who’s gone. The three stare at the empty portrait, stuck on the outside of the common room. With a shriek, she asks them what she’s meant to do. Sleep outside, Harry almost suggests out of sheer irritation. He sighs, again, and says, “Guess you’re coming with us. Unless you want to get caught out here by Filch?” Ron shoots him a look of disbelief, everything about his thoughts on the matter perfectly visible in one pointed red eyebrow on his freckled forehead. Hermione nods in agreement, far too placidly. It soon becomes clear why as they begin to make their way down the corridor. “I suppose if he finds all three of us, I’ll just tell him the truth. That I was trying to stop you.”Ron immediately launches into a rebuttal, which seems like it’s about to spark an argument. Harry sighs. “Shut up, both of you. Don’t you know anything about stealth? We’ll get caught for sure this way.” That’s the last thing he needs, for Mrs. Norris to find them arguing in their bathrobes in the corridor outside the Gryffindor common room.There’s a soft sound down the end of the corridor. Harry freezes.“I’m not the loud one,” Ron protests snappishly. “She is.” Another sound. Something–or someone–is there. He points his finger towards Hermione, who scowls at him. Harry waves his hand at the two of them and whispers. “I heard something. Like–snuffling.” It’s not any cat sound he’s ever heard, but Mrs. Norris is an odd cat, Harry thinks, entire body tense as he waits for the tattletail feline to pop up out of the shadows. “Mrs. Norris?” Ron asks. His tone is all breathy with nerves. It’s not Mrs. Norris. It’s Neville Longbottom, clearly released from the hospital wing. He looks at them with equal parts fright and relief as he jerks awake from his curled position on the floor to see them. All three of them stare back at him with identical caught-out expressions. “Thank goodness you found me. I’ve been out here for hours. Couldn’t remember the new password to get back in,” he says. With a bone deep sense of exasperation, Harry holds two fingers up gingerly to the bridge of his nose underneath his glasses and presses hard. Hermione bends down to help Neville up off the floor as Ron tries to make their excuses to leave. As Neville begs them to stay, Ron looks at his watch and glares at them with irritation. “I swear to Merlin, if either of you make us late for this–” “Let’s just go,” Harry interrupts, impatient for this entire night to be over and done. They begin their trek through the castle again. It’s different at night. Colder and draughtier, with an almost eerie, spooky feeling. It reminds Harry of an old campfire ghost story, the no-maj type he’d heard a couple of times during school trips with tents and s’mores and far too many spiders in the woods. There’s a sense of foreboding, as if they’re characters in some grand story about to encounter a pitfall in their journey. His dad would tell him it’s the building. Old bones, he used to tell Harry, old buildings have old bones. All the people who have lived and died in those walls, who have been loved and brokenhearted and given up pieces of themselves, it's as if they’ve grown roots in the ground. Harry’s not sure if his dad meant physical ones like the ghosts that travel through the halls, forever stuck without moving on, or emotional ones, and, as they get closer to the third floor, Harry thinks he can almost feel echoes in the atmosphere as they stand on the last moving staircase. Finally, in the stripes of moonlight that flitter through the high windows, they find their way unaccosted to the trophy room. There’s no one there. Malfoy, as predictable as ever, is a no show. Harry shrugs with a yawn and tired eyes. “Let’s just wait. How do we know he cares about showing up on time?” Ron suggests. Neville, who Harry realises has been following them completely ignorant of their entire situation, looks around the trophy room and asks why they’re hanging out there in the middle of the night. Hermione sighs and launches into a spiel about selfishness, dramatic boys and, oddly enough, Malfoy’s lack of punctuality. A few more minutes pass by. “Maybe he chickened out?” Ron whispers. Harry doesn’t think so. “He never intended to show up at all,” he tells him with a growing feeling of dread. He puts his hand over Ron’s mouth, and waves at Hermione and Neville to stop whispering. Then, he strains to hear, listening to the sounds of the school. The wind through the windows, the staircases creaking as they move and–There. A thud. Like a cat, jumping from a high perch. Harry pulls Ron and Hermione back behind a bunch of old trophies on an overladen shelf. Her arm sweeps out to grab Neville in the last second, and she quickly puts her hand over his mouth before he can so much as sneeze. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry reads the inscription on a golden cup: Quidditch House Cup, 1976: Captain James Potter.Hi dad, he thinks absurdly. “Sniff them out, my sweet,” Filch says, far too close for comfort. Harry winces and places his forehead at the base of his dad’s trophy. “They might be lurking in a corner.” They are, indeed, lurking in a corner. Harry glances around for better cover. Over the top of the trophies, he sees Filch move away from the door, back turned towards it. In a crouch, Harry motions for the other three to follow him as quickly as they can. Elbows to knees, Harry shuffles around the trophy shelves in an attempt to stay out of sight, conscious of his gravity defying hair. It’s dusty down by the bottommost shelves with trophies and badges that clearly haven’t been polished in aeons. He looks behind him. Neville follows at a crawl, palms flat against the floor, while Hermione uses the shelves for stability as she moves one bent knee forward at a time. Ron looks to be matching Harry. Then, they’re at the door. They just need to get around a long gallery full of suits of armour. “This way,” Harry mouths at them over his shoulder and stands straighter for faster movement. Ron grabs Harry’s hand and, as Harry glances back again, he sees Hermione’s got a tight grip on Ron’s collar. “No, no, not over here. Perhaps they’re out there,” Harry hears Filch utter. Fuck, he thinks, which is a word he’s never used before but has heard Sirius say at many a passing car and the neighbour’s extremely loud chihuahua. Suddenly, Neville lets out a squeak of fright and tries to take the final distance at a run. Overestimating his space, he crashes into Ron as he trips and then the two boys topple right into a suit of armour.
CRASH.
Hermione and Harry exchange a look as soon as the steel breastplate hits the stone floor and then–“Run!” Harry shouts, no use for subterfuge anymore. He hears Filch yell at Mrs. Norris deep in the trophy room, but he’s already gone, the other three quick as his heels. They jet down the gallery of armour, Harry with a quick, nimble stride, Ron with gasps for breath, and Hermione with a steady litany of “oh my god, oh my god.” All the way in the back, Neville apologises. None of them have any idea where they’re going as Harry dives head first through a tapestry that spits them out from a secret passageway near the Charms classroom. Harry feels they must be miles from the trophy room. Hermione stops to catch her breath, one hand against the wall. Ron’s bent over with his hand on his chest and Neville nearly crashes on the floor as he wheezes. Taking deep breaths, Harry says, “I think we’ve lost him.” Unless Filch knows about the hidden passageway, Harry thinks with creeping doubt. Hermione puts her other hand against her chest. “I–told–you–” she tries to say. She takes in a deep gasp of air and holds a stitch in her side with a shaking hand. She tries again. “I–told you!” Ron suggests they make for Gryffindor tower, which Harry thinks is a fair suggestion. If they’re in their beds then there’s nothing for Filch to find. Hermione shakes her head. “If you thought it might’ve been a trick, why did you agree? Filch knew someone was going to be there. You have to see Malfoy tipped him off!” Harry scowls. “Of course I see! And he might still win if we don’t get ourselves back to the dorms and then what? We see that smug look on his pointy little face?” Priorities, Harry, an inward voice that sounds oddly like Uncle Remus, says.In front of them, Neville grips the handle of a door. It jiggles but doesn’t open. Ron stops Harry and Hermione in the middle of their argument. “Let’s go already.” It’s not going to be that easy. Harry suddenly feels like this entire night is an absurd movie script for some B-list horror film as Peeves the Poltergeist flies in with a look of glee on his face and yells for Filch in the loudest voice he can. It echoes through the corridors. As Ron takes an ineffectual swipe at him, Peeves yells louder, and Harry worries that this might be the end. “We’re done for,” Ron shouts. Hermione shoves him out of the way of a locked door. “Alohomora!” she says, and the lock clicks. The door opens. They file through in an attempt to escape. The door closes again and all four pile up to it, listening–to Peeves argue with Filch. It’s a stall or a trick or perhaps Peeves is just bored of this game. Harry feels a tug on his robe, and he jerks his elbow back as he listens to the caretaker argue with the castle’s least favourite ghost. Eventually, Peeves leaves with a whoosh and Filch’s voice begins to grow distant. “He’s gone. He thinks this door is locked. I think we’ve made it,” Harry says to Ron with a grin. There’s another sharp tug, which loosens the bathrobe tie around his waist. “Get off, Neville!” Harry says, and spins around on his heel. “Fuck,” he says, out loud this time. They weren’t in a room at all. They were in a corridor. The third-floor corridor that they’d been warned against at the start-of-term feast. And now they know why. Ron whimpers and Hermione backs towards the door as Harry stares, eyes wide and numb, at the nightmare in front of him. It’s a dog, but not just any dog. This dog isn’t Padfoot in a chase with the cat around the apartment or Harry’s neighbour’s yappy chihuahua. Harry vaguely remembers seeing a drawing of a dog just like this, once, in a book. This dog has three heads, with three pairs of eyes and three mouths. All three mouths are open to show sharp, full sets of yellow fangs that drip with drool as it stares at them. Harry knows the only reason they’re still alive is that their sudden appearance must have taken it by surprise, but that won’t last for long. His hand joins Hermione’s as they both make desperate gropes for the doorknob. Well, if it’s Filch or death, give me Filch, Harry thinks, with his heart in his throat. His father will not wake up tomorrow morning with Harry’s corpse dropped off at the doorstep like the daily post.They fall backwards out through the door as it opens. With a heave of effort, they close it just as one slobbering, snapping jaw comes dangerously close to parting Harry from his right hand forever. Filch is nowhere to be seen, but Harry has no time for small miracles. At this moment, he wants nothing more than to be back in bed. Eventually, they make their way back to find the Fat Lady returned. Tired, his mind stuck on a moving reel from the actual monster in the third-floor corridor, Harry takes the stairs two at a time. They stare at each other, speechless in the dim light of the lamp still on in the common room. Neville appears as if words have no meaning to him anymore. Ron asks the obvious question: What, exactly, was the dog doing in the school?In a fit of temper, Hermione turns on them. “You don’t use your eyes, do you? None of you! Didn’t you see what it was standing on?” Harry hadn’t been looking at its feet. That had been the least of his concerns. “It was standing on a trapdoor,” she tells them with a pointed glare. “It was obviously guarding something.” Then, with one last remark about their characters–and Harry will never forget that Hermione’s priorities put expelled before death, which he thinks would make Uncle Remus question her life choices–she disappears towards the girl’s side of the tower, her bushy brown hair even more staticy than its normal appearance. After the boys go to bed, Neville with a look that makes Harry think he’s in desperate need of a sleeping potion and Ron with wide eyes and shaking hands, Harry pulls out a scrap of parchment and begins to write to his dad about the team. It’s absurd, really, to start on this now–but he figures that since he’d escaped from the very jaws of death that night life deserves some good news. It’s a short note, straight to the point. The excitement from earlier has turned to an odd sort of concentrated dread as he thinks about the dog and the third floor corridor. He begins to pick it apart as his mind searches frantically for clues. The trapdoor, the warning at the start-of-term feast. He bites his bottom lip. It’s chapped from the cold. PSS, he debates writing, Do you know why anyone would leave a cerberus in a school full of kids? Just as a thought. But what could a mythological ancient dog be guarding in a school? Abruptly, Harry remembers the visit to Hagrid’s, and the article in the paper. He’d been there he had said, in vault seven hundred and thirteen, the vault the thief had failed to steal from. Because there had been nothing to steal, Harry thinks with a sudden burst of clarity. Whatever it was, it had been at Hogwarts all along, hidden underneath four massive, clawed feet. In the end, he leaves out the postscript’s postscript. He figures that might send his dad through the roof, and Sirius with him. He pictures them showing up on the Hogwarts grounds after a red-eye across the Atlantic, armed with their wands and ready to take on a three-headed dog. Harry’s not quite sure who’d win that battle, but he has an absurd image of his dad loping a chocolate chip cookie into one of the dog’s six eyes while Sirius takes out a bottle of no-maj hairspray and attempts to light it on fire. Best not to tell them, he decides in the end. It’ll only worry them, after all. ~ October 7, 1991 "Harry’s acting weird," Sirius says as soon as Remus puts his bag down on the couch, eyes weary and body tense from driving with a suspended licence. It's still about an hour or so until the full moon but he can already feel it in the sore, persistent ache in his bones. As he throws his long black robe onto the back of the couch, Sirius puts down a white styrofoam box on the table with an almost completely raw steak that fills it from edge to edge. Remus heads over and sits down as Sirius paces around the cabin, the smell of Mimsy’s Olden Spring Breeze laundering potion on Sirius’ clothes and grilled steak overtaking his senses. “He’s eleven. All eleven year olds are weird. I should know. I work with them,” Remus replies with a long-suffering sigh as he thinks about his last class of the day, a group of rowdy first-years who want nothing more than to go look for vampires as he picks up a steak knife and begins to eat. James is nowhere in sight but he can smell the scent of his cologne linger near the door, so he must be around somewhere. He can’t hear anyone in the bathroom or in the back, though, and figures it’s not in the cabin. He’s probably scouting the area for campers, Remus thinks. Sirius shakes his head. His hair just brushes against the tops of his shirt as he does so, grown out again from the shorter look he’d been trying to sport. “He’s hiding something.”Remus shoots him a sceptical look. “I reiterate, he’s eleven. What is he going to hide? A detention or two?” Plus, it’s not like James can talk. With the amount of detentions he’d had, he’d be a hypocrite to get on Harry’s back about them. Remus dips the steak in some ketchup since the cabin lacks worcestershire or brown sauce or basic necessities like mostly edible food. They really need to get on going to the shop. Sirius clears his throat and sits down with his legs outstretched on the couch. Remus shifts at the table, and turns to look at him as Sirius says, “We hid plenty of stuff when we were eleven. Got into things.” Remus rolls his eyes, then winces as the action pulls at every nerve ending, from the lids to the corners of his eyes. They’re growing sorer as his vision heightens and begins the process to change, just on the edge of human perception to wolf’s. “Hiding James’ broom and the family heirloom are hardly getting into things. And you didn’t even hide it well. I knew he had that broom by our fourth night in the dorm. Kept leaving thistles everywhere on the rug. And in the bathroom. I found them in the shower drain once.”And pulling those out of the drain had been an exercise for his new-found friendship’s longevity, Remus remembers with a smirk. “Prong’s poor hiding skills aside–” Sirius begins to dismiss, then sits up. “Actually, no, not Jaime’s poor hiding skills aside. Harry inherited the poor hiding skills.”Remus points out James’ skills weren’t that poor considering they kept being animagi a secret for years, as well as the invisibility cloak. His fingers’ go stiff around the fork as he cuts up the last bit of steak, his stumble still a rolling grumble.There’s never enough food on these nights. There’s also about three wrappers tossed in the back of the car from Burger King and a carton of empty chips. “Moony,” Sirius says as he places his chin in his hands and his elbows on his knees. Remus pushes the container away and watches as the slosh of red juice goes from one side to the other. “He’s asking me all sorts of questions about dogs. Food, sleep methods, their capability of biting a man clean in two. It’s all he’s got in his letters home. Well–except about Quidditch training. But what kinds of questions are those?” Odd, but no worse than some other things he’s gotten questions about from children Harry’s age. They seem to have a rather alarming preoccupation with the macabre, very intent on coming up with the most disturbing scenarios to discuss in class when Remus is trying to teach them methods of extracting a ghoul from someone’s house. If Harry’s wondering about the lethal force of canine’s there could be plenty of unalarming reasons: he’s writing a short story, he’s telling a ghost story to his dorm mates, he’s turning in a poem about a large group of hunting dogs, or he’s running around the Forbidden Forest at night looking for viscous predators– “Does he think I’m some sort of dog expert?” Sirius continues as Remus comes back to himself. He swallows and listens to the beat of his friend’s heart. Thump, thump. Sirius shakes his head. “No, I think he’s trying to look for wolves or something in the Forest and wants to know how to prevent becoming mincemeat.” Outside, something heads for the cabin. Clip, clip, clip as it comes down the steep hill.Remus protests weakly. His skin feels like it's on fire as dusk begins its give to night. Sirius scoffs, and Remus watches as a microscopic spider crawls next to him on the couch. Behind him, near the bottom of the bathroom door, a silverfish clings to the frame. “Jaime did, remember?” Sirius says. It’s as loud as if they’re right next to one another. Remus grabs his wand and directs the container towards the sink, before the wolf ends up with it in its teeth tonight and they wake up to scattered bits of foam all over the place. “Went looking at the end of first year.” His bones pulsate around his knees, his wrists, then his collarbones before his tailbone starts to scream at him for a long moment that builds to a crescendo of agony. “Which was dumb. He could’ve gotten himself killed,” Remus answers through a tight throat. Remus still can’t believe James’ audacity and compulsion to completely rule out the possibility of just regular wolves as the midnight howling’s culprit by actually going to look for them. He’d been lucky he hadn’t died. They’d all been lucky they hadn’t died going into that forest like they did, as often as they did. There’s an angry hiss and then Remus hears a raccoon skitter away from the recycling bin, before the door bangs open and hits the wall. It swings one more time on its hinges as Sirius and Remus turn to see Prongs’ antlers at a downward tilt, long and tall and curved, with a branch dangling on the topmost one. His fur is a deep, russet red, thick and fluffy around his chest, while around his hazel eyes, white spots circle like spectacles, the distinctive mark of an animagi. He moves one of his back hooves and kicks up a grove in the dirt, too big to really manoeuvre easily through the door before it’s been extended. The sky is dark blue behind him, with swirls of black. He bellows loudly, and shakes his fur. “Just change back,” Sirius snaps. There’s a growl at the back of Remus’ throat, before he recognises pack, pack, pack. The stag rolls his eyes in an uncharacteristic movement for a deer, and then there’s a loud pop and James stands in front of them. The branch plops away from his head without its perch and lands on the ground by his trainers as he stretches to work out the tension in his muscles, and then he cracks his neck. Pack, Remus reminds the wolf, Reminds himself, he thinks, as his eyes following the movement, the vulnerability of the fragile man in front of him. “I’ve been thinking,” James says as he comes in. He smells like wet grass. “The mirrors–what if we try the distance test with a dummy mirror? That way, we don’t risk losing it like you nearly lost yours last time when I tried calling you from San Francisco. If there’s flames, it will just be the dummy mirrors.” Sirius sits up straighter, intrigued. He begins to point out the charm logistics of making more than a three-way mirror connection with dummy mirrors before they move on to the actual distance testing that’s longer than the length of the United Kingdom. Pack, Remus thinks as blood rushes through his ears. “Padfoot, Prongs,” Remus says in a low voice as the moonlight begins to flicker through the window. The bones in his feet pop with a sickening crunch. Everyone winces. “Now is really not the time.” Sirius quickly levitates anything breakable he can see into cabinets and inaccessible spots, as James uses a temporary widening charm on the door and turns back into Prongs. The large stag dwarfs almost everything, nearly a height with the top of the cabinets and his antlers almost brush the ceiling. In a matter of seconds, Padfoot joins him, the black dog about half the stag's size, though the stag’s size is mainly antlers from that point on. The dog snuffles. Then, with a scream of pain, the wolf growls, before the dog lunges forward.Pack, pack, pack, the wolf thinks as the moon hovers full and round in the night sky.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
~ October 31, 1982 The plate smashes into the ground and shatters into jagged shards. Little bits of ceramic bounce on the scruffed tile and come to a stop underneath the wobbly-legged table, while a couple more skitter underneath the sink to rest in the large gap that mice crawl through. Outside his small, ill-built flat, in a building with five other ill-built one bedroom flats on the ground floor, James can hear every sound his neighbours make. Discreetly, they’ve extended the flat in the no-maj neighbourhood as best they can, enough to give Harry his own room. He never sleeps there, though. Outside his flat, through the thin walls, a little girl keeps screaming bloody murder in the narrow corridor. What had been an intelligible shriek mere moments before is distinct enough now that James can just about pick out the words, “Candy, mommy!” He holds a hand to his racing heart. Thump, thump, thump. Blood rushes in his ears as he sweeps his wand at the pieces to repair the plate. Thump, thump, thump. “AHHHHHH!” James flinches into the counter behind him and winces as his hip scrapes along its jagged, wooden edge. Something lands with a loud clatter in the sink. The edge of his toes hit the newly repaired plate and it skirts across the ground before it plops against the bin. As he pulls away, he sees the linoleum curl back in a peel from the counter’s side. Dimly, he registers it’s a little boy this time. In the corridor, the little monsters continue their tirade while their mother attempts to calm them down with platitudes and promises of snickers bars. James closes his eyes and grips his shirt above his breastbone as he breathes in and out, in and out, and counts down from ten. Ten, nine, eight–“Dada!” Seven, six–“Dada?” I can’t do this, James thinks, as his breaths come out at full force, faster than they should, and his heart jack-hammers inside his chest. Through it all, he yells, “I’m coming, Harry!”When he turns back to the sink with grit teeth and a tight throat, he opens his eyes to see that their dull silver cooking pot’s upturned on its side. On the eternally drippy faucet, remnants of their dinner droop mournfully off the side and there’s bits of tomato sauce all along the walls and cabinets. They’re a dark shade of red against the off-white paint. James stares at them. Ten, nine, eight– “Dada, you where?” his son calls plaintively.He glances over to the window. It’s pitch black outside. He reminds himself that Harry’s out of nappies and fully potty trained and dressed like a bloody pumpkin at Yael’s insistence for Halloween. They’re in New York on a Sunday night in a cramped flat with secondhand furniture and a broken tap and Sirius should be back from his mediwizard training soon. He said that three hours ago, James thinks with frustration, and screws his eyes shut once again as his fist grips the side of the sink tightly. At first, that had been fine. An extra hour or so alone with his thoughts. He breathes. The screaming stops. They’re in New York. And Lily is dead. Through the dark of his eyelids, he tries not to picture the house and her body and the cat with its guts spilled all over the door. “DADA!” his son practically screams this time, and James hears tiny stomps. Then, a sharp tug at his black pyjama bottoms–He jumps, heart at rest in the hollow of his constricting throat. His son looks up at him with wide, green eyes that seem impossibly big and unfathomably bright. His hair sticks up at the back, and the pumpkin costume’s got a rip in the shoulder that James isn’t sure was there twenty minutes ago. “Dada?” he asks with his arms up. James tries to smile and fears it comes out more like a grimace as he bends down to pick up his son who quickly snuggles into his shoulder. He breathes in the smell of a dollar store two-in-one Yael dropped off last week in his son’s hair. Tear free, the bottle claimed. James feels tears trek down his cheeks as he carries Harry over to the table and watches the flame of Lily’s yahrzeit candle as it flickers. His wife is dead. She’s never going to come to New York to live in a shitty, one bedroom flat in an equally shitty building that should probably be condemned with an appalling landlord that leers at his renters and ignores the request to fix the leaking ceiling above the loo. Ten, nine, eight–And Sirius isn’t here.Seven, six, five– His wife is dead because he didn’t just pack them all up and say screw it to the goddamn bloody war with a sayonara note that read: Goodbye, Dumbledore, thanks for nothing. After all, what need is a secret keeper when there’s customs and immigration to keep Voldemort away? No, it had been him and his own stupidity and blind faith in people. His wife’s dead because he trusted Peter Pettigrew to care about them as much as James cared about him.Four, three– “AHHHH!”James’ knee knocks into the side of the table. Another bloody kid with their bloody trick or treating. Harry shifts, his tiny nose pressed against James’ collarbone, right above his staccato heart. James wonders if Harry feels his heartbeat underneath his thin skin, and wonders what his son thinks is happening. He tries to focus on something–anything. The balled up piece of paper James had tossed in Sirius’ empty dinner bowl bounces up and down. Thump, his heart beats as his mind goes ten. Five seconds later, a knock sounds at the door but James ignores the kid waiting outside. He doesn’t have any candy, anyway. He unfurls the newspaper article Remus sent with a no doubt expensive international communications owl for those who don’t have their own. 28 October, 1982: POTTER COTTAGE TO BE TURNED INTO A WAR MEMORIAL FOR FALLEN HERO LILY POTTER ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF HER DEATH. PATRIARCH STILL MYSTERIOUSLY ABSENT!James growls, and thumps his fist against the table. Harry snuffles, and grips his shirt as tight as he can in his small fist. The paper crumples between his fingers. Ten, he thinks, but his mind goes dark. Back home, in Godric’s Hollow, a village they’d lived in for mere weeks, Lily’s body rots in the ground underneath a gravestone he’s never seen. Had no say in putting up. Instead, that fell to her sister. The sister who hated her. Nine, he tries to keep count, but his mind drifts to his bloody accounts which have been frozen for overseas use and now he’s working the till in his Aunt’s shop to keep their heads above water. Eight. He’s only twenty-two years old and he’s already a widower with a crying son and no parents to speak of. He lives in a place where mice nibble on his morning bagel. He’s never lived in a place with mice nibblers before.Seven. The mirror stays silent. Sirius doesn’t call again to let him know why he’s late. It’s October 31, a year after Lily’s death because she’s not been alive for three-hundred and sixty-five days. She died alone in a cottage that was once an aunt’s he saw so infrequently he’d forgotten what she looked like before she left the place to him. This cottage which he can’t even prevent the bloody vultures at the Ministry of Magic from turning into a fucking martyr symbol. Instead, there will be thousands of gawkers at the place she’d died, staring at the blood stains on the floor. And James is alone. In a shoebox flat with a tap that just stopped the tomato sauce drip as it begins to crust, and children who want candy at the door. Numbly, he gets up and leaves the paper a sad heap on the table. Harry shuffles against his chest with his thumb in his mouth and asks where they’re going. James doesn’t answer, just pats the top of his head. By the uncomfortable brown couch, he grabs Harry’s diaper bag then they’re out the door. The air is cold and brisk as he walks past costumed children and parents with indulgent smiles. He must look a fright, with a tomato sauce stained t-shirt and a beard he’s not shaved in three weeks. He keeps walking. Harry tries to reach for a jack o’lantern that dangles from a tall tree as they turn the corner towards a pizza shop. Once there, James opens the door and goes straight to the toilet, then turns down the tap to open up a portal for the Manahatta District. All the while, he keeps counting down from ten.When they reach the New York Central Synagogue, there’s only about fifteen or so people dressed in tallit and holding siddurim. Enough for a minyan, at least. James winces as he remembers in his haste to leave he didn’t bring his tallit. He grabs two kippot from the communal basket in the outside hall, fixes them on their respective messy heads, and then he joins the prayers. It’s coming up to kaddish. One, James counts down and hugs Harry close. “Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’meh raba b’alma–” James says and joins in with the other mourners. At the end of the prayer for the dead, he breathes. And then the mirror in his pocket buzzes against his thigh.After the services end, James calls back as Harry plays with the kippah on his head. “Where are you?” Sirius asks as soon as their images become visual to one another. His eyes are wild; there’s circles underneath them, pressed bruises that seem like they’ll never go away and red finger marks trail up and down his face from his forehead to his chin. “Temple,” James answers in a dull, quiet voice. “It’s been a year.”Sirius sighs. His hair is as wild as it’s ever going to be, clear evidence he’s been grabbing at it. He’s still dressed in scrub robes and he’s got one hand on their smudged door knob. He looks ready to march right out the door. “You couldn’t leave a note?” he asks. It comes out accusatory. You couldn’t call, James thinks back, equally accusatory. Instead, he tells Sirius he’ll be home soon. Harry falls asleep on the way back, and his breath turns to soft little snores. The young trick or treaters have tapered off, instead, teenagers and young adults all decked up for Halloween drinking parties rush to their destinations. By the time he puts the key in the door, Sirius opens it for him. “I’m so, so sorry,” he says as soon as he sees James. “I tried to get away. There was a quarantine ward of pox.”He looks worse in person; ragged and desperate and haggard. Guilt floods through James, but he’s not sure if it's about his earlier thoughts or about living while his wife’s dead. Both take a deep, hiccuping breath. Then, James is out of the corridor as his best friend holds him, the scent of day-old coffee in his nose as a stream of tears leak out of his eyes. Between the heat of their bodies, Harry sleeps, safe and sound. Sirius rubs up and down his back and they say nothing at all, instead they just stand there. Just two lost men. ~ October 31, 1991 Wordlessly, James flicks his wand to pull a formerly frozen pizza out of the oven. Its top’s overflowing with spinach and peppers, what should be a blast of green on top of overly browned cheese and a slightly burnt crust but appears more crisp than James prefers. He waves a niffler shaped oven mitt in the air to stave off the smoke before it sets off the alarm, and directs the pizza to the wooden trivet with a small cough. By the windowsill, Lily’s yahrzeit candle flickers, bright flecks of orange against the glass, as trick or treaters run around outside. With the food done, James dims the lights in the rooms to maintain an air of no one home, then picks up his nearly empty glass of wine. He rolls down the right sleeve of his fluffy maroon jumper as he sips at the remaining dregs of red, before he places the glass down and cuffs the other sleeve. Then, he pours another glass from the rapidly emptying bottle, and sits, legs crossed underneath the table, his warm feet clad in fuzzy socks. His kippah clings by a thread onto his hair as he tilts his head back and sips at the sharp, bitter wine. It’s quiet in the flat. Outside, children scream and demand treats, but inside there’s nothing. The television is off, and Galadriel’s hiding somewhere, no longer kvetching for food. It’s not the first Halloween without Harry around the flat, but it’s the first with him there. James’ fingers shake and he desperately desires a cigarette. In a mug, there’s some leftover remnants of apple cider Sirius brought back from a farm upstate. James has finished the entire batch, and three glasses of wine in the last hour and he still wants a cigarette. “You told your son you’re quitting,” he says to no one in particular as Sirius will be at work for another hour and Remus is off for his semester at Ilvermorny. It’s strange, to come home each day and be alone until Sirius stumbles back. For the last ten years, his life’s revolved around Harry but with Harry at Hogwarts, James finds himself at a loss with what to do. He sips more wine and grabs his sketchbook and a pencil and begins to draw. He etches out lines first, then the clearer shapes, as he continues his work on another panel for a moving comic he’s been working on in tandem with another artist out of Miami. As he begins to give detail to a tree, he’s conscious of a buzz underneath his skin, the demand for a cigarette louder and louder. He bites his lip and grips the pencil tight as he ignores it, the familiar landscape of the Wye Valley Walk, a footpath between Wales and England he and his father took Sirius on the year he came to live with them, filling the upper left panel. He colours the trees and grass a deep, vibrant green as he works, and the wine gets lower each time he takes a pause. When the glass is empty, he refills it, and flicks his wand to send the empty bottle to their recycling bin underneath the sink. At the end of the path, he sketches the outline of a young woman in a lace dress robe as she walks away from the viewer. The mirror buzzes in his pocket just as he finishes the charm which makes the trees sway with breeze lines. “Hmmm,” James says as he answers. Sirius stands on a busy street with his hands shoved in the pockets of his dragonhide jacket while a boy dressed as Batman runs around in a circle with a war cry behind him. The mirror must be hovering under the notice-me-not charm, James decides, as a young woman with a miffed look grabs the kid’s shoulders and attempts to drag him along without even a glance at Sirius or his magical contraption in the middle of no-maj Manhattan. “What do you want for dinner?” Sirius asks and James glances over at the forgotten, cold pizza that, he can admit now, is more than slightly burnt. James shrugs. “I’m not really that hungry.” The wine and apple cider swish in his empty stomach. Unimpressed by this, Sirius asks again. Awoken from her nap with the sound of Sirius’ voice, Galadriel jumps up on the table and flops next to the quarter-filled glass. James sighs. “Just get me what you think I’ll like.”“Fine, fine,” Sirius answers just as a taxi honks its horn obnoxiously at stalled traffic. James hangs up and flips back to the previous page. The girl stands on a rock as water rushes over her bare right foot. The left hovers over the Wye in a perfect arch, just about to dip. On a tree branch in front of her, a small kingfisher stretches its wings, bright blue and orange plumage the only colour on the page. James smiles sadly and puts down the pencil to close the sketchback. Absently, he pets Galadriel’s belly, only two swipes, before he moves to the top of her head. She rolls into the palm of his hand with a contented purr. His other hand moves up to rub his eyebrow, the lack of water and the downed bottle of wine catching up to him with the beginnings of a nagging headache. He can grab a potion from the bathroom medicine cabinet to stop it in its tracks or he can sit here and watch the flame flicker while he pats his cat’s head and listens to the sounds of silence in the flat. I don’t want to be here, he thinks as he sits there in the quiet. Eventually, the wooden chair frame starts to dig into the small of his back and his headache grows, wine stale on the roof of his mouth. He longs for a cigarette and the sounds of his son at home. Slowly, his eyes flicker back to the sketchbook and he thinks about his wife. “We’ll go there,” he’d told her once, over a breakfast of scones he’d just learned how to bake on a chilly morning in Godric’s Hollow. He’d spread his own with the last glops of marmalade in their only jam jar. “When this is all over, I’ll take you and Harry and we’ll camp. I hear they’ve extended it, more stops than before.” Lily had laughed and leaned over the table to give him a kiss. Then, she broke apart the scone to pick the raisins out because she always picked the raisins out. “Just the three of us sleeping underneath the open sky?” James smiled at her, then, his nerves already tightly bundled underneath his skin and singing with the apprehensive tension of isolation. The walls had felt oppressive, like they were closing in. His aunt’s place had always been rather small but it had become positively miniscule to him the longer he stayed. “Is there anything better?” he said to Lily, and reached over to pop the raisins into his mouth. “Maybe we’ll bring Sirius.”And Remus, he’d hoped, not able to bring himself to believe his friend a traitor, no matter Sirius’ suspicions, They’d drag Peter, too, he’d decided, though Peter had hated camping and sleeping out beneath the trees and never managed to last all that long on a hike. On second thought, maybe he’d just go with him to the annual Herbologists Society Conference for Rare Dynamic Plants that he loved. Gardening, gardening Pete could do. “Since you’re bringing Sirius, I’m taking some of my friends,” Lily had replied. They’d tried to pretend at happiness that morning, as if in just a few weeks everything would be back to normal. Yet that very night Marlene McKinnon died, just on the heels of her girlfriend’s murder. James and Lily hadn’t heard until days after the fact. James breaks away from his memories as the door opens and Sirius steps through, arms empty. James raises his left eyebrow at the lack of takeaway bags. “Clearly,” Sirius says as he tosses his keys onto the table next to the door. “I’ve brought back nothing. But, I have an excuse.” James raises his right eyebrow as Sirius comes over with a familiar scent clinging to his jacket like a barnacle. “You’ve been smoking,” he says in a low voice. His nerves jump underneath his skin like a persistent itch. “You’re supposed to be quitting.” Sirius picks up the wine glass and wrinkles his nose at the smell of acidic grapes and burnt pizza. “And you’ve been drinking. Clearly, we’re two-for-two in poor decisions tonight.” Then, with a shake of his head, he says, “Up for a trip?” Later, as James sips on a cold milkshake at Jones Beach in the cold air with goosebumps all along his neck and arms he wonders why they can’t just go on a trip for all the long months until Harry comes home. In their temporary reprieve from the flat, he feels the itch for the cigarette lessen, the ever persistent buzz of his nerves fades, and the laser focus on the lack of his son starts to go away without the reminder of it in his face. He watches Sirius run across an empty stretch of wet sand with bare feet, their trainers forgotten in the sand. The wave flows up and over his feet to soak the bottom of his cuffed jeans. Stuffed inside one of his shoes, the wrappers from two potato knish crinkle in the breeze as James watches the stars in the sky and the moonlight reflect off the water in a silver sheen. Sirius shakes his wet hair out in a movement reminiscent of Padfoot and strays droplets of salt water drop back onto the sand as he walks up the sandy incline to join James. His t-shirt clings to his chest as he shivers, clearly cold underneath all that wet. He reaches out to grab James’ hand and pulls him closer into the surf as the next wave breaks the shore, foam leaving smooth sand behind as it recedes. Cold bursts over his toes and, in the distance, a shadow jumps with the waves in the water–a dolphin. Then another, and another. Together, they laugh as they watch them, one after the other jump and flip in the water. James breathes in, the smell of salt water deep in the back of his throat. “Think he’s enjoying the feast?” Sirius says. James nods. “Yeah,” he says and watches a smaller, baby dolphin leap into the air. “I hope so.”
Before Harry knows it, two months go by and he’s not sure if it's the class load since every spare moment he has he spends reading his text books, scribbling essays, or practising new spells. It might even be his preoccupation with trying to stay on Snape’s good side (which Harry is ninety-nine percent convinced doesn’t exist) or even the memory of Malfoy’s face when Harry had shown up to breakfast the morning after the midnight not-a-duel only to have Hedwig drop a suspiciously broom-shaped package straight into his scrambled eggs.“A Nimbus 2000,” he’d exclaimed with awe as he looked at the brand new broom on his bed the second he and Ron were back in the dorms. Dad had gone all out, Harry’d thought with a wide grin and bouncing feet. Enviously, Ron had shaken his head. “You’ll be unbeatable.”The early morning quidditch practices with Oliver Wood, who seems to grow more and more pleased with each one about their chances for the Quidditch Cup, has also occupied a lot of Harry’s time. So, it’s with surprise that he realises that Halloween’s arrived when he wakes up to the smell of baking pumpkins that seem to fill every hall. At lunch, Harry and Ron sit next to Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas with golden pumpkin pasties in their hands, discussing no-maj Halloweens as opposed to Samhain. Harry watches a bead of perspiration on the side of his cold, sweet glass of pumpkin juice and wonders if can ask the kitchens to spice it. “So you just dress up?” Ron asks with a look of befuddlement on his face. “As what? With what? Clothes? No transfiguration?” One year, Harry had used a potion to turn his skin green so he’d be a realistic Hulk but that was as close to using magic to spruce up his costumes he’d ever gotten. “Mostly no,” he tells Ron as he pops some crust into his mouth. Dean Thomas, a muggleborn, nods. “Last year I was Han Solo.” “Who?” Ron and Seamus ask with confused looks. Ron continues. “Is he some great American wizard or something?” Dean and Harry laugh. “He’s not even a master of the force,” Harry says, and doesn’t bother to explain. He finds it far more amusing to let Ron wonder about the ways of the force. Dean contributes by informing Seamus and Ron that two years before his little sister had dressed up as a witch. Shoulders straight, they bristle and ask how she’d been able to acquire the robes, which sets Dean and Harry off in a fit of giggles.“So, does your dad dress up and take you out then? I’ve heard Americans are big on Halloween,” Dean Thomas says. Then, abruptly, as if the idea of it has just popped into his mind, he asks, “Are there really razor blades in apples?” Harry side-eyes him over his second pumpkin pasty. “I’ve never seen one,” he says. “We go bobbing for them, my Aunt Yael and I. My friend Abigail’s parents usually take me around. Dad’s not–big on Halloween.” Simultaneously, the other three boys wince as they collectively remember the other reason for this date’s fame in the magical world.Harry tries not to let it sit with him. It’s always been a strange day for him–when he’d been really young, his dad had sent him off in the mornings either with Aunt Yael or his bubbe. As he got older, it was usually a group of his school friends. Sometimes, he wouldn’t see his dad until the next day. He figures his dad had never wanted to be too sad around him thinking about Harry’s mum. Now that he knows how she died, Halloween has taken on an even more macabre edge. He tries not to squirm in his seat as he thinks about bright green light. He comes back to the conversation as Seamus says, “Wait? Razors? Muggles are strange. How many people end up at A&E?” “What’s a razor?” Ron asks with confusion at the same time that Harry asks, “A&E?” “Think you Americans call it the E.R,” Dean replies with a shrug. Oh, Harry thinks and nods. He supposes that it makes sense and then asks what it stands for. As Dean and Harry discuss the linguistic differences of Emergency Room and Accident and Emergency, Seamus launches into an explanation about razors. “They’re like special blades muggles use to get the hair off their face. Me da uses one.”“Why not just use a hair removal charm?” Ron asks Seamus, and then his mouth rounds out into an oh as he remembers Seamus’ dad is the same man surprised by his wife on their wedding night with the news that she’s a witch. The conversation turns to Charms the day before. At the start of class, Professor Flitwick had informed them that he thought they were ready to start making objects fly. It’s a spell that Harry knows his father and Sirius use often, though both hardly ever speak the incantation before things hover all about the flat. Harry’d been paired with Seamus but Ron had ended up paired with Hermione Granger, who hadn’t spoken to either boy since Harry’s broomstick had arrived. It had made for an awkward few weeks in Hogwarts Hillel in which he tried to get the available seat next to Anthony Goldstein at each communal dinner. Neither Ron nor Hermione had been happy about being forced to work with one another and, in the end, Hermione had shown off her charms skills by correcting Ron’s pronunciation and levitating her practice feather four feet off the ground. Ron is still angry about it a full day later. “She’s a nightmare, honestly–” he says as he reaches for a bowl of parsnips. “It’s no wonder she’s not got any friends.” Ron jerks forward into the side of the table as someone rushes past. It’s Hermione. Harry’s stomach squirms with guilt as he catches a glimpse of the side of her face before she gets too far away and sees her lashes are wet with tears. He grimaces at Ron. “I think she heard you.” He swallows uncomfortably as he remembers the first night of Sukkot when Hermione had launched into a long explanation about all the practical uses of an etrog and had bored three of the others to near tears. Still, he thinks Ron's not quite right. Hermione has friends or, at least, he sees her often enough in the library sitting next to Neville Longbottom. And she seems to get along alright with Parvati Patel and Lavender Brown, though admittedly that’s only when she’s paired with them in class.Though Ron denies being bothered, he looks uncomfortable throughout the rest of the day. At some point, Harry asks Neville if he’s seen Hermione at all since lunch, and learns that she hasn’t been by the library for their afternoon study session. Ron grows to look more awkward as the day progresses towards the feast and there’s still no sign of her. On their way to the Great Hall that night, Harry stands next to Parvati Patel and Lavender Brown as they wait for a group of fourth-year Hufflepuffs to stop blocking the entrance. “Hermione’s not coming, she told me. She just wants to be alone,” Lavender says and shakes her head. “I found her crying in the bathroom stall.”Harry bites his lip as Ron shoots him an uneasy look. The sense of guilt Harry feels dissipates as soon as he enters the hall and sees the lavish decorations set up for the Halloween feast. Though not as impressive as New York, where there’s a charmed Jack O’Lantern in the middle of the Manahatta District each year that speaks in riddles to children and spits out treats with the right answers and tricks with the wrong one, the thousand live bats that flutter from the walls and ceilings, with more in a swoop of black clouds over the tables, are a sight to remember. The candles in each pumpkin jump as the bats’ wings flutter around them. The tables fill with heaps of food: beef wellington and mushy peas, baked potatoes and various pasties, all kinds of salads with nuts and raisins and cubes of pungent cheese. There’s a large dish of butternut squash covered in sticky honey and cinnamon and carrots in parsley sauce. Harry is just reaching for a baked potato when his Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, Quirrel, sprints into the hall. His ever-present turban is lopsided on his head and his eyes are full of terror. Instantly, everyone stops, some with forks half-way to their mouths, while others’ arms hover over the serving dishes, ready to fill their plates. Professor Quirrel pays none of the students any mind, just runs through the hall between the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables.Finally, he reaches Professor Dumbledore’s chair at the head table. The old man’s beard, which is so long it rests over his empty plate, gets caught underneath Professor Quirrel’s elbow as the man slumps, then gasps, “Troll–in the dungeon–thought you ought to know.”Then, he promptly passes out in a heap of purple robes. Within seconds, panic ensues. Students fling themselves up from their chairs, several plates scatter all along the floor, and Harry narrowly avoids being hit in the face by a projectile spoon. Across the hall, his eyes meet Malfoy’s, who freezes in place as he tries to pretend he’s not screaming at the top of his lungs. CRACK, CRACK, CRACK. Purple firecrackers explode from the end of Professor Dumbledore’s wand and fall like ash onto the ground in front of the head table. “Silence,” he says in a calm voice. Then, he orders the prefects to lead everyone back to their dormitories. Percy Weasley takes to the headmaster’s orders like a duck to water. As they file out of the Great Hall and begin to climb the stairs, dozens of students in huddles of fearful whispers and whimpers, Harry turns to Ron and asks, “How could a troll just get in here? I thought there were wards around this school. It’s supposed to be one of the safest places in Europe.”Ron shrugs. He’s got an expression of deep bemusement on his face. “Aren’t trolls supposed to be really stupid? Maybe it just–walked in?” A second after he says it, he seems to realise how odd that sounds and suggests that Peeves let the troll in as a joke, instead.Harry doesn’t think so. It seems too–malicious, for Peeves. As they make their way through a crowd of confused Hufflepuffs, Harry gasps and grabs hold of Ron’s arm.“Hermione,” he says. “She wasn’t at dinner. She has no idea.” Ron bites his bottom lip and chews at the corner, blue eyes full of fear. Then, he sighs. “Fine,” he snaps. “Percy had better not see us. I’m not gonna hear about this from Mum.” Harry casts a glance at Percy, who’s all the way in the front of the group, only visible from his distinct shock of red hair. His back is turned, intent on his mission to get them all back safe and sound as he navigates their large group through the corridors and up the staircases. With a jerk of his head as the signal, Harry and Ron slip into the group of Hufflepuffs going the other way, before they slip down an empty side corridor and make for the girls’ bathroom. At the corner, they freeze at the sound of footsteps. “Percy?” Ron mouths, but Harry shrugs, as they fall behind a large stone gryphon and out of sight. It’s not Percy. Harry peaks around a thick stone leg with half his hair like porcupine quills on the side of the gryphon’s toes to see Professor Snape cross the corridor and turn out of view. That’s odd, he thinks, as the man’s swift stride takes him far away from the way to the dungeons. “Why isn’t he down with the rest of the teachers?” Harry says to Ron. “I thought all of them were supposed to be dealing with the troll?” His friend has no answer for him and, quiet as they can, they follow Snape’s footsteps as far as possible without being seen. Just as Harry remarks that Snape’s heading for the third floor, which he believes is generally suspicious in a moment such as the one happening now, Ron asks if Harry can smell something. To intent on getting to the bottom of Snape’s actions, it takes until Ron’s question for Harry to notice the incredibly foul stench of public urinal and dirty quidditch socks that overpowers his nostrils. Something grunts. As if in slow motion, Ron points, and Harry watches with his feet frozen as a huge figure moves in their direction. Ron whimpers, and then they shrink back, a gasp aborted in Harry’s throat, as it lumbers down the corridor. It’s massive, at least twelve feet or so, with the distinctive lumpy body of a troll, its skin dull and grey. In one gigantic hand it drags a long, wooden club across the floor as it moves past them–And stops at a door with a key in the lock. It studies it for a long moment where Harry wonders if the troll knows how to operate locks-and-keys before it opens the door, and walks inside. “We could lock it in there,” Harry suggests to Ron. “The teachers will have to find it eventually right?” “Right,” Ron says nervously. On the tips of his toes so as not to make too much noise, Harry pads up to the door, grabs the key, and quickly turns it in the lock.“Yes,” Ron whispers with a slightly hysterical note. Harry turns to him with a grin. With a sigh of relief, they start to head towards the tower, almost to the corner of the corridor when–They hear an ear shattering, piercing, utterly terrified scream. The kind of scream actresses only hope to replicate in Halloween slasher films. The kind of scream Harry never thought he’d hear in real life. “Oh, no,” Ron says, his face so white all his freckles stand out in sharp relief. “It’s the girl’s bathroom,” Harry confirms. Fuck, he thinks as both of them say, “Hermione!” Without any real conscious consideration, Harry takes off at a run back towards the bathroom. Though he’s only a scrawny eleven-year old with absolutely no combat skills and only two months of real wizard training, he tries to think about all the possible ways he can sneak into the bathroom and wrestle Hermione Granger out of the room safely with the troll none the wiser. Looney Tunes always had tons of weird, zany scenarios where the main characters were put into ridiculous situations that they managed to get out of unharmed at the very last minute, surely there’d been something similar there that Harry might draw from?Unfortunately, no bright ideas occur. Hermione huddles under a broken sink as water spurts on the floor in great, giant puddles from a shattered tap. The sole of Ron’s sneaker slips slightly in one of the bigger puddles, but he manages to maintain his balance. She turns wide brown eyes full of fright upon them the second Harry and Ron crash inside the room. Crash. A sink falls to the ground. Crash. Another breaks in half on its descent.More sinks lose their place on the wall, exposing pipes and the dark caverns of the school’s indoor plumbing system as the troll advances on her and swings its giant wooden club through the air. Desperate, Harry shouts, “Confuse it,” to Ron, before he grabs a dislocated tap and lodges it as hard as he can against the wall. It crashes against the stone with a metallic ding and the troll stops inches from Hermione. The fight becomes a blur. Ron throws a metal pipe at the troll, who shakes it off without notice, while Harry yells at Hermione to run. It doesn’t help, as Hermione is silent and frozen with terror, except for the bursts of adrenaline that cause her to skitter away from the troll the more it looms. Harry narrowly avoids a swing from the club and ducks down underneath a sink that’s miraculously still attached to the wall with only half a basin. “Run,” he tells Hermione again. She looks at him, wide-eyed as the club comes down against the floor. Ron dodges, and skitters back, but Harry’s eyes are drawn to the club. He reaches into his pocket and draws out his wand. We’re gonna have to knock it out, he thinks, as the troll roars and advances on Ron. With a deep breath, Harry gets up and takes a running leap up from the wall with his wand in his hand, the base of his sneaker acting as a springboard for momentum. The action jettisons him up onto the troll’s leathery back, which he then climbs up protruding bits of troll like the one time Sirius took him to a rock climbing gym to show him in no uncertain terms that “your father’s barmy”. Desperately, he tries to cling on to the troll’s shoulders while it shimmies, its shoulders like a great, wiggling worm, doing its best to shake him off. “Hit him with the club!” he yells at Ron. “How?” Ron asks in a shrill voice as Harry jams his wand up the troll's nose, his right arm tight around the troll’s throat for stability. He almost loses his grip as the troll lets out a great bellow, until Harry hangs from his neck’s rolls with one hand attached to the troll’s body and the other a fist as he tries not to slip down the handle of his wand. In one great breath, Harry and Hermione shout together, “Levitate the club!” Harry drops to the ground just as Ron manages to perform the spell and the wooden club hits the troll directly on the head. They all scramble back, Harry and Ron towards the door, Hermione into one of the broken bathroom stalls with its door thousands of tiny broken pieces on the floor. The troll steps forward on one giant foot and then–It’s down, a giant mass on the floor next to a dozen broken sinks and several lost doors. They barely have a moment to share a look of relief before Professor McGonagall, Professor Quirrel, and Professor Snape arrive. Each of them come in and step back with shock and horror on their faces as they take in the sight of the unconscious troll. Quirrel sits heavily with a whimper and quivering hands on a toilet with no door, while Snape and McGonagall immediately begin to interrogate them. Harry’s stomach is in his throat at the look of fury on Professor McGonagall’s face, and as he begins to try to explain he pictures the look on his dad’s face when he reads the inevitable letter his head of house will send. Dear James Potter, he thinks, Due to unfortunate circumstances, your only son is an idiot who decided to defy direct orders and take on a mountain troll loose in the school. At what time is it best to schedule his immediate departure from the grounds?Then, a miracle occurs. To the end of his life, Harry will never understand what makes Hermione Granger lie for them that day but, as Ron and Harry exchange looks of awed astonishment while Hermione spins a yarn about wanting to take on the troll herself, Harry resolves to sit next to her at breakfast the next day, even if he has to drag Ron along. Once they’re out of the bathroom and back on their way to the common room, Harry and Ron share another look, before they quicken their pace to move in step with Hermione. The next morning, she sits with them at breakfast and lunch.“Will there be many more death-defying stunts with you?” Hermione asks that night after the Shabbat candles are lit and the motzi said. They’re standing by the kiddush table in classroom 7A. The clock on the wall says eight-thirty, Harry notes. In the centre of the room, Anthony Goldstein and Lira Melammed argue over whether or not fowl should count as pareve. The eight other members of Hogwarts Hillel mill about in various groups; some continue to sing a Shabbat song or two, while a couple of others nosh on dessert. By the door, one seventh year continues to sip from a glass of smuggled in wine. Hermione offers Harry a glass of grape juice with a smile. She has her bushy hair up high on her head in a bun and she’s stuck a couple of her quills in the tie to keep it in place. Despite that, some flyaway strands touch the tips of her ears and obscure her right eye. He pushes his own overly long, messy hair out of his eyes, and she offers him a hair tie, too. With a chuckle, he accepts both the juice and the tie as he pulls back his hair with one hand and brings the glass to his lips with the other. She’s got on a nice, pleated skirt that falls gently to her knees and a bright blue blouse, the only other one besides Harry around dressed in no-maj clothes. Harry shakes his head, then reaches up to stop his kippah from sliding down the crown, one clip wiggling loose. “I really hope not,” he replies, and offers her a piece of challah. She breaks a tiny bit off the corner to nibble. “I’d like to make it to twelve.” Hermione shrugs. “Well,” she says in a contemplative tone. “I’ve already done that.” Harry breaks first with a chuckle and then both of them burst out into full on giggles. Her shoulder knocks into his. “You know,” she says, with a nervous look on her face. “I was really rather surprised when you asked me for the flyer that day. None of the books I read about you said anything about you being Jewish. I had thought–well, honestly, I had thought I’d get to Hogwarts and be the only Jewish kid around. But then there was this and I was shocked and happy and–well what I’m trying to say is that there really is rather a lot I didn’t expect.” “There’s probably a lot about me you didn’t expect,” Harry says with a small smile. “I really didn’t know anything about those books, you know,” he says as he thinks back to the day they’d met on the train. He looks down into the empty glass. “My dad–he didn’t say anything. About that. I knew about my mum, obviously, but not how. I only learned about Voldemort–” She flinches at the name but Harry goes on as if he didn’t see it “—and all that after I’d gotten my letter. I think he just wanted to protect me. Maybe. He worries. Like, a lot. He and Sirius both.” “Best not to mention the troll to your dad, then,” Hermione replies. She leans back against the table, and her elbow skirts a plate with the remnants of tzimmes stuck to the side. “But I want you to know that was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do. And I think he’d–they’d–be proud of you.” He’s not sure if she means Sirius or his mum or both, but he’s grateful all the same. “Unless Professor McGonagall’s already written home. I suspect if I get a howler in the next couple of days, we’ll know,” Harry jokes. Harry knocks her shoulder gently with his. They begin to chat about Charms, and then their transfiguration homework which Professor McGonagall’s set on the logistics of reconfiguring the colours of objects from dark shades to bright ones. Soon, it turns to a discussion about potions and Snape’s seemingly utter disdain for Harry. On the way back to the tower that night, Harry hands her his gloves when she shivers, and when they say goodnight, it’s with a promise to see each other in the morning. Ron’s fast asleep on top of his covers while Scabbers is a lazy, great lump on the nightstand when Harry finally changes out of his dress pants and into his thermals, the only one in the dorm who requires the extra layers. The chill of October fades into the chill of a damp November that hits his body differently than any he’s ever felt in New York. Then, he stares at the canopy and lulls himself to sleep with the sounds of Seamus Finnegan’s snores, and hopes he doesn’t dream about trolls, or a cerberus guarding a trapdoor or, worse, a bright, green light.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
~ August 26, 1972
“Just hurry up, will you,” Sirius snaps at the small, skinny boy behind him. “You’re going to make me late.” He dodges a muggle who’s coming out of a corner shop called Londis, and narrowly avoids impact with a lamp post. Sirius scowls, and quickly fixes his hair in the reflection, before he continues down the street.
“I can hardly know that if I have no idea where we’re going in the first place,” Regulus snaps back. Sirius turns around to glare at his little brother, all the while moving backwards so as not to stop. Several muggles curse and grumble as he uncaringly bumps into them. Regulus has his hand on his side as he nurses a stitch there from trying to match the pace Sirius set through the streets of London from Grimmauld Place. After all, escaping Kreacher’s watch at the door in the morning was no mean feat. “Sirius, come on. It’s five in the morning.”
At least they’ve made it out of Islington, Sirius thinks. They’re making good time.
“You’re going to get us in trouble,” Regulus protests as Sirius lurches forward to grab his hand and drag him along until they are standing on the side of a road that appears empty except for a few parked cars. All the while, Regulus keeps up his objections.
“This is just like the other day when you dragged me to that muggle neighbourhood,” Regulus says with a scowl. Sirius grins at the memory of the cinema, even though the cashier had waved them off when he tried to pay for tickets to something called
The Godfather
with a handful of knuts and held up the line, to the apparent annoyance of all the muggles around. “Why can’t you ever do as you’re told? They’ll send you off to Durmstang, you know they will. It’s all they’ve been saying all year.”
His grey eyes are dark and glassy and Sirius spins on his heel and grabs his shoulders. “Just–come with me, alright? Do you really want to just sit there all day while Aunt Druella and Uncle Cygnus go on about betrothal plans? Hmmm?” Regulus looks down, hesitant. Sirius goes on, and says in a slightly shrill voice, “While Bella sits there with her creepy husband and tells us about his ‘hunting’ lodge?”
The man should be in Azkaban, Sirius had decided once he had the displeasure of meeting him. He’s felt stuck in that house ever since he came back from Hogwarts where he’d found that he could
breathe
for the first time in his life. Their large, looming house feels even more like a tomb now that Uncle Alphard’s gone–finally banished from the house after bringing home his latest fling, or so Andromeda told Sirius when he’d made his sad return to Grimmauld Place’s dark, depressing halls.
Regulus squirms. “No,” he replies in a small voice. Too right, Sirius thinks. The kid’s been stuck there with those tossers for a year. Then, his brother crosses his arms across his chest with a petulant look on his face. “Fine. But we have to be back by dinner. She’ll get suspicious if she doesn’t see us for so long.”
Sirius smiles, and he puts his arm around his brother’s shoulder. “Great. I promise you, Reggie, you’ll love it.”
Suddenly, a small, messy-haired boy becomes visible around the corner on the other side of the road. The boy jumps up and down excitedly, his hand in the air as he waves. Sirius' smile grows larger as he waves back, and Regulus grows more tense in his embrace. A petite woman with wide hips and a bunch of large, messy curls held back by a maroon scarf tied at the top of her head that falls halfway down their length follows behind him, and warns him to watch out for traffic as he tries to cross the street without a glance.
As they get closer, Sirius sees how much James Potter resembles his mother. They’ve got the same dark hair, though hers is interlaced with shocks of grey, which he can see through the tangle of curls loose where the scarf ends at the crown of her head. Their eyes are the same shape, and they’ve got the same mouth, a thinish upper lip with a fuller bottom one. Her cheekbones are softer, with signs of her long years in the slight weathering of her darker skin, though still pretty as she seems to age into a sort of stately, understated grace. She’s got an old, vintage hat in her hands, a cloche, Sirius recalls, with a black lace flower on the side. Her eyes are darker than her son’s, almost black near the edges of her irises with lighter shots of brown around her pupils, a shade that reminds him of the outside of an almond. Still, Sirius realises, they both share the same warm, kind disposition, he can tell, even without hearing her speak.
James throws his arms around him as soon as they’re within reach.
Sirius clutches him back like a lifeline, and accidentally pulls Regulus in as well, until the kid quickly darts back.
“I’ve missed you,” James says as they pull apart. He’s got a smattering of freckles on the tip of his nose that hadn’t been there before, skin browner from the summer sun. “This summer’s been so long.” His voice breaks a little, going deeper and then higher as he speaks. “I thought we’d never leave New York.”
Mrs. Potter rolls her eyes at her son. “It’s so hard for you to spend time with your cousins now, bubbeleh?” She reaches over and ruffles his already messy hair.
“Mama!” James protests, face red with embarrassment.
Sirius rolls his eyes, too, but he can feel his smile grow so impossibly large he feels like he has no more room for it to go. How he’s missed that face, he thinks. “I’m sure the sun was a hardship, mate. Mrs. Potter,” he says, and turns to James’ mother. She stands with a smirk and her hands on her hips. “I’m–”
“Sirius,” she answers. Sirius blinks, as she offers her hand. He takes it and, instead of shaking it, kisses the back of it like he’s seen his father do at boring Christmas parties. Eloquence, a voice that sounds disturbingly like his mother’s reminds him. He shakes it off as James’ mother says, “I know. Jaime has hardly shut up about you since he got home.” Then, she turns to his brother, and the smirk fades to a small, perplexed smile. “Regulus, right?” Her eyes are soft, softer than Walburga Black’s could ever hope to be.
Not that she would hope, Sirius thinks.
Regulus jumps next to him. There’s a deeply startled look on his face, and Sirius isn’t sure if it’s the presence of the Potters, who are known in the Black home as blood traitors, with the exception of Dorea Black Potter and her son, despite, as Uncle Pollux phrases it, “Her unfortunate marriage to Charlus.” Charlus Potter’s mother had, after all, been a Lestrange, so there is in the eyes of the Blacks “hope for that one.”
They’d been married for over thirty years and his uncle is still saying that.
It could also, Sirius thinks, be the fact that Mrs. Potter seems to know Regulus’ name, given that neither boy can recall ever having met her before. Perhaps James had told her his brother’s name, too.
Regulus nods quietly with wide eyes.
“Do your parents know you’re here?” Mrs. Potter asks. Regulus coughs. Sirius tries not to let the panic he feels show on his face. Bugger, he thinks, and wonders if she’s about to send them off home–or worse, come with them to ask Orion and Walburga’s
permission
. Suddenly, he and James’ brilliant summer plan to spend time with one another feels like it’s on a fast journey to a crash and burn.
“Yes, Mama, they know,” James says smoothly, and turns wide doe eyes on his mother. “If we don’t hurry up, we’ll be late.”
Mrs. Potter raises an eyebrow. “Hmmm.” Then, she sighs, and reaches into her cloak’s left pocket and pulls out an old high heel that’s seen better days. It’s broken at the tip and hangs by mere threads away from the sole. “You better not tell anyone at work about this, son. And don’t go bragging at school. I’ve pulled a lot of strings to get this portkey,
capisci
?” She turns a stern gaze upon her son. “James,
perché suo fratello è qui?"
She gesticulates heavily as she talks, using her hands to punctuate her words.
“
Si
,
Mama
.
Ehh, non lo so.
”
Regulus’ eyes grow impossibly wider and Sirius reaches out to grab his shaking wrist before he can run back home. “It’s fine, don’t worry,” Sirius whispers in his ear. “We’re just going to a quidditch game.”
Regulus swings his head so fast Sirius swears the bottoms of his brother’s curls end up in his mouth. “The match in Dublin? The World Cup One? The one between Japan and Germany? That’s been sold out for months.” His voice grows louder and louder with each word, as excitement bleeds through his tense nerves and all his rapidly disappearing scruples.
Mrs. Potter laughs and gently draws Regulus forward. “Well, I’ve got a bit of pull with the department. I’ve made the Japanese ministry a lot of money over puffer fish spines.”
Probably more curious than he wants to be, Regulus asks, “Puffer fish spines?” His brows scrunch as he turns his gaze on Mrs. Potter, looking her in the eye for the first time since they’ve arrived.
James falls back to stand next to Sirius. This close, the messy-haired boy seems to be of a height with Regulus. His best friend’s voice drops to a low, curious whisper as he asks, “Why did you bring him?”
Because I don’t want him to end up a knob and maybe if he talks to someone other than a bloody Slytherin he won’t end up there, Sirius thinks, but says, “He likes quidditch more than I do. Plus, you wrote you had an extra ticket now that your dad’s begged off and Remus said he couldn’t come. Do you mind?”
James shrugs. “No. Just as long as I get to see you, it’s cool.” Then, he frowns, and his eyes seem to study Sirius’ face as if looking for something. Sirius tries not to shift. “I had been wondering if you’d even gotten my letter. You didn’t reply.”
“Too risky,” Sirius replies with a grimace. “She watches the mail, you know? Only reason your letter got past is because you sent it with that bloody raven. She’s not on the lookout for those.”
James frowns. “Yeah.” Then, he looks over at Regulus, who asks Mrs. Potter what the practical applications for puffer fish scales might be.
“What?” Sirius says.
“It’s just–he’s not gonna say anything, right? To your mother?”
Sirius shakes his head. “No,” he says, more confidently than he feels. He glances over at Regulus just as Mrs. Potter announces their departure in three, two, one–
Surely he won’t say anything, right, Sirius thinks with concern, the sparking bundle of nerves he’s been since he left the house at four-thirty going from a ten to an eleven, just as the portkey latches in the pit of his stomach and they’re gone in a whoosh.
~2 November, 1991
BOY-WHO-LIVED TO BECOME THE YOUNGEST SEEKER IN HOGWARTS HISTORY
Yes, readers, you read that right. Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, is set to become the youngest seeker in Hogwarts history. The former youngest seeker in Hogwarts history, Ramona Orpington in the 18th century, exists only because of a technicality. What is this technicality, you may be wondering. Well, she turned twelve the day she was given the position for the Ravenclaw house team. At only eleven-years-old, Harry Potter now goes down in history for not one, but two incredible feats. It’s been over a century since the last time an exception to the well-established Hogwarts rule regarding first-years and broom possession was lifted on the merits of a particularly talented player. You’d be forgiven for wondering, of course, whether Harry Potter’s inclusion on the team was based solely on pure talent or whether there was favouritism involved, especially at the hands of Minerva McGonagall, known associate of the late Euphemia Potter. Is this not-quite-nepotism at the hands of one friend to the grandson of another? Bias? After all, if one looks at the last seven dismal years for the Gryffindor house team, a famous name involved couldn’t hurt their image.
Yet the Potter family’s history with quidditch goes back a long time. Amongst the potioneers, politicians, and artistes, the family has long boasted a number of members involved in Britain’s favourite pastime. It began with Hugh Potter in the 15th century who spent ten years of his youth after graduation from Hogwarts travelling around the Middle East to learn how to make the enchantments on brooms last longer. Before Hugh, a man known for his prolific string of wives, an enchanted broom had a shelf-life of five years or so, hardly worth the investment of galleons back then! And it hardly stops there: Hugh’s daughter, Asha, the Potter family matriarch for a time, was a chaser for the Wimbourne Wasps for fourteen years, while Godfrey Potter married Doina Nenad, the second cousin of the infamous Romanian quidditch player, Niko Nenad, a dark wizard described by his contemporaries as extremely volatile. There’s a number of broom makers in the family, from Evaine Potter Lufkin, who owned a somewhat substandard shop in Diagon Alley in a self-declared competition with Quality Quidditch Supplies to Lucia Potter Zabini, who dabbled in children’s toy brooms from her home in the Italian Riviera. More recently, Harry Potter’s great-aunt, Yseult Potter, sister of grandfather Fleamont Potter of Sleekeasy’s fame, who are of course scions of the French Toubeau family known for their three-generations of quaffle makers through their mother, spent the final forty years of her unmarried life as an assistant coach for the Holyhead Harpies, Finally, those in Hogwarts at the time might recall his father, James, enjoyed a seemingly successful school quidditch career as the team captain who won the cup three years running before his mysterious (and rather worrying) disappearance from Britain. Needless to say, it seems our beloved quidditch may be right in Harry Potter’s league.
It’s this reporter’s hope that we find out all the details of Harry’s first game, as we can only expect it will lead to great things for the Gryffindor team.
Rita Skeeter
“She didn’t even name anyone else on the team,” Harry mutters sullenly as he pushes the
Daily Prophet
article away from him with disgust. He glares at the paper as if it will burst into flames right then and there. “And what does she mean about dad's disappearance? He lives in New York. We go to his art shows all the bloody time.”
They’re in the library on a Sunday afternoon. At the far end of the long table, Hermione sits directly across from him, her wand on the table next to a gigantic stack of books and three unrolled sheets of parchment with half-finished essays she’s working on at the same time. Ron’s at the end corner of the table, his own, considerably smaller stack of books composed of just their Charms textbook and a couple of issues of
Martin Miggs the Mad Muggle
. Harry’s got his potions textbook open, turned to a section on herbicide potions and debates whether to write about their uses on fruits and vegetables as a means of poisonous warfare. If nothing else, it might appeal to Snape’s sense of doom and gloom. At the end of the table, a study group of fifth-year Ravenclaws already in panic-mode for the O.W.L.’s do their level best to ignore them.
Harry hadn’t wanted to read the paper, at all. He’d ignored the article when it had arrived at breakfast, informing everyone around them of Oliver Wood’s new secret weapon. On the way to the library, several students had come up to congratulate him, while another offered to run around the field with a mattress in case he fell. Harry hadn’t taken that suggestion too well–and had gone into a long rant on the way to the library about the Junior League. Then, Fred and George Weasley, on their way out of the library to meet up with their friend, Lee Jordan, tossed him the paper with a smile and said, “You might get a kick out of it. Wood’s gonna be spitting mad!”
They didn’t seem too upset at the exclusion of their names, but Harry dreads to think what the rest of his teammates think about this. Not the least Oliver Wood, who might even at that moment be running around doing damage control.
Ron and Hermione share an uneasy glance over their respective readings. Ron’s got his turned upside down, so that Martin Miggs appears to swing wildly from a tree branch right-side-up, while Hermione looks as if she has her finger on the same sentence she was on before he’d started to read the article. “Err–” Ron says with a grimace. “You don’t know?” The redhead gives the article a hostile look.
“Know what?” Harry asks.
Awkwardly, Ron shuffles his feet underneath the table. “Err–well–” He bites his lip. “Your dad he–well–Hermione?” He turns to her with wide eyes. She tosses him back a look of alarm. Harry feels a growing sense of unease in the pit of his stomach as he watches his friends struggle to form sentences.
She clears her throat. “Well, you see, Harry, your dad–”
She stops and purses her lips.
Irritated, Harry snaps, “Just get on with it already.”
They flounder for a minute longer, and just as it seems as if Hermione will
finally
answer, an unwelcome voice says behind them, “That he ran away, of course. Just left your mum’s body like a coward and took off. It’s rather suspicious, if you ask anyone with sense.”
With no invitation and far less welcome than a vacuum salesman at the door at six in the morning, Draco Malfoy comes into view, and stands just behind Ron with a sneer on his pale pointy face. He’s alone, for once, his goons nowhere in sight. As his lips grow into a smirk, he grabs the article over Ron’s head and traces the headline with his index finger. “And believe me, a lot of people have sense,” he says, his voice positively dripping with spite.
Ron scowls and says, “Go away, you git,” and tries to bat at him, while Hermione attempts to grab the article away from the blonde. Harry feels the hair at the back of his neck stand on end as he tries, and fails, to come up with reasons not to chuck his potions textbook at the jerk’s head.
“We went to live with my dad’s cousin,” Harry replies. There was nothing mysterious about it. He shakes his head, as a few messy black strands fall into his eyes and mouth as he waves his hand. “Our house was blown up!”
Malfoy’s got a look of fake sympathy on his face. “And your grandfather’s manor house wouldn’t do? Sure, I’ve heard it borders
Wales
, but it was still serviceable.” Malfoy tsks, and Harry bites his bottom lip. “So how was it the
only
place around was some random cousin all the way across the pond?”
What manor house, Harry wants to ask before he abruptly remembers Aunt Andromeda’s explanation back in August, about finding the key for Gringotts in the piano room.
“And where are you from? Leeds?” Ron snaps and rolls his eyes. Malfoy frowns at the redhead and his jaw clenches with a twitch. “Maybe the man just wanted to get away. His wife had just died.”
“I’m just saying, it’s all rather questionable. Why–” Malfoy lowers his voice to such a soft point that Harry strains to hear it. “I heard Sirius Black got into a fight with Dumbledore that day. At the funeral, no less. Imagine that.”
His task complete, Malfoy knocks one of Hermione’s books off the top of her stack and onto Ron’s comics, then siddles away as quickly as he came. Harry watches as the hem of his robe brushes the tops of his boots.
Why would Sirius be fighting with the headmaster, he wonders, right before Malfoy disappears around the library stacks.
“Don’t listen to him, Harry,” Hermione says. She reaches across the table to pat his hand. “He’s just trying to upset you.”
Ron nods supportively. “His family’s been trying to throw dirt all over your dad for years now. It’s all just rubbish, my dad says. We’ve never believed a word of it.”
Harry shakes his head. “Yeah,” he replies in a dull voice. He really doesn’t know what rubbish Ron’s family doesn’t believe. Then, more faintly, he says, “Is that really what people say?”
Hermione smiles sadly. “Well–it seems so. Some of the books, well, they weren’t too flattering. But those are the more questionable ones, written by authors that I’ve since found out were under suspicion of some rather dark dealings back in the war. There’s a book here called
You-Know-Who’s Followers: Known Death Eaters and Their Fates
. Technically, it’s sixth year reading and above but I wanted to follow-up on something I read in a book on the dark arts, see, so I took it out. It’s all rather fascinating, in a horrible way, do you know they didn’t even know how to identify those in the inner circle until seven years after the war ended? And some of them bribed their way to a pardon. Anyway, I digress. It’s hardly right to believe their account of things.”
Harry nods. “You’re right,” he says, then bites his lip. “It’s just–Dad told me when I left he wouldn’t be able to come with me to Aunt Andromeda’s. I wonder if this is why?”
And what, Harry wonders again, as they all turn back to their essays, could Sirius have possibly been arguing with the headmaster of a school about at his mum’s funeral?
Later that afternoon, just before dinner, Harry waves Ron and Hermione off with an excuse. “I’m gonna go send a letter to my dad,” he says. As soon as they’re out of sight, he turns on his heel and goes in the opposite direction, towards the grounds.
He bends his knees and braces against the wind as he heads down the hill to Hagrid’s hut. He’s not sure if he’ll find the groundskeeper there, but he’s been by a few times since the first tea, usually with Ron. Fang greets him with a loud series of repetitive barks as he knocks on the wooden door.
It swings open and Hagrid stands there, flour in his great bushy beard and an apron around his waist. “Alright there, Harry?” he says as steps aside to let Harry in.
Suddenly awkward, Harry crosses his arms over his chest and stares at the copper kettle that burns at a rolling boil on the open fire. “Umm–yeah, sorry. I don’t know why I came.”
He kicks the front of his sneaker against the floorboard.
Hagrid frowns. “You look like you’re in strong need of a cuppa. Go sit down, I’ll pour us some.”
The British, Harry now knows, believe many things can be solved simply with a good cup of tea. For a long time, it had been something he’d seen as a particular quirk of his family’s, convinced they just held a really strong love for a good earl grey or a strong assam. Their tea horde had always been unusually highly stocked with various blends: chais and various greens, rooibos and lavenders and chamomiles and the strong, black teas Uncle Remus drank at breakfast. Now, he realises, it was their quirk because it was so intrinsic to here. Tea, Harry decides as Hagrid hands him a steaming cup, is the British cure all.
He holds it in his frigid palms and puffs on the smoke. “Sorry–I should have written first.”
Hagrid waves his hand. “Nonsense. You’re welcome anytime.” Hagrid takes a sip of his tea, despite the no doubt scorching temperature. “What’s on yer mind?”
Harry bites his bottom lip. “You said you knew my dad?” He stares into the dark amber liquid in the cup and watches it as it swirls with tea leaves that catch at the bottom as they drift slowly from the diffuser. “When he was in school.”
“Aye, I did. And yer mum, too.”
Harry nods. “Did you–what did you think of him? My dad?”
“I liked him well enough. He always made me laugh.”
Harry smiles, then bites his lip. “And Sirius? What did you think of him?”
Hagrid shifts, and takes a long sip. Harry squirms with a pit of unease. “He’s a good man,” Hagrid says finally. “Better than many would’ve thought. Considering–”
Harry latches on to that. “Considering what?” he asks eagerly, the pit of unease is more of a cavern now. The fight with Dumbledore? He’s highly regarded, Harry remembers, as he thinks back to the Chocolate Frog card.
Hagrid coughs. “Doesn’t matter, not with him. He’s a good person. Don’t be letting anyone tell you no different about that. Him and Andromeda, both.”
Though Harry desperately wants to know what, exactly, it is about Sirius (and apparently Andromeda) that made Malfoy, and now Hagrid, speak in that odd tone, he knows he’ll be getting no answers from Hagrid on that front tonight.
Hagrid gives him a long, level look over the rim of his tea cup. It’s so small in his large hands that it’s almost like there’s no tea cup there at all as his fingers wrap around the curved sides. “What’s all this about?” he asks, and there seems to be something almost suspicious in his tone of voice as he takes another sip of tea.
Harry blows on his some more. “Just something Draco Malfoy said.”
Hagrid jerks, and nearly spills some assam down his front. “Malfoy? Pay him no mind. It’s all prittle-prattle.” He shakes his head so hard his beard seems to shake. “The Malfoy’s were up to their necks in dark dealings, make no mistake. Whatever he’s saying, it’s nonsense.”
Harry nods, and for the first time since the library begins to feel a sense of relief. As Hermione had said, no use listening to those who’d been close to Voldemort in those days. But he still feels like he needs to know. “But you like him? Dad?” he asks again, hungry for reassurance.
Hagrid smiles. “One of the finest students to ever come out of Hogwarts in all the time I’ve been here. Ya know, the second he and yer mum graduated, they were off fighting You-Know-Who. That takes some courage and they had that in ‘em.”
“It just seems like there’s so much I don’t know,” Harry says with a note of desperation. “Things he didn’t tell me.”
Hagrid looks at him with soft eyes. “Some things are hard to talk about. And back then? It was dark times, Harry, dark times. People didn’t know who to trust, You-Know-Who had so many followers in all sorts of places. Places ya wouldn’t think to look. You’re still young, Harry. Yer da will tell you, in time. Mark me on that.”
Harry nods, and takes a sip of his rapidly cooling tea. It’s only once he’s back in the dorm that night that he realises he forgot to ask Hagrid if he knew anything about Sirius’ fight with Headmaster Dumbledore.
On Saturday, after the match, Harry sits next to Hermione in his hospital wing bed as he waits impatiently for Madam Pomfrey to finish checking his health. “You only swallowed it,” Ron says as he leans against the nightstand. “And you spit it back out. It’s not like it’s still in your stomach. Don’t know what you’ve gotta be here for.”
Harry nods, full to the brim with the excitement of winning his first Hogwarts quidditch match, and itching to discuss the harrowing incident with the broom. “Adults,” he says with a put-upon sigh, while Hermione rolls her eyes at them.
“She’s not checking you over for that, Harry,” Hermione says as she shakes her head. Her hair flies every which-a-way, and nearly hits Harry in the eye as he tries to clean a smudge off his glasses’ lens. “You almost fell off a jinxed broom and cracked your head open and died, for Merlin’s sake. Or have you already forgotten that?”
Harry shrugs. “Someone would’ve stopped the impact.” He hopes, anyway. Surely McGonagall or Dumbledore wouldn’t have let one of their student’s go splat. “You said it was Snape? I knew it, I told you both that he hates me.”
Ron sighs. “Well–trying to kill you does seem a bit extreme, but it did stop after Hermione set him on fire.”
Hermione nods. “All the evidence points to him.” She frowns and shifts, her entire body held in an awkward stance. “I can’t believe a teacher would honestly try to murder one of their own students. A teacher! Imagine.”
“Teachers are people, too, Hermione,” Harry points out. “And then there was the limping we saw the other day. He’s up to something and we already know it's something with that dog.”
Just as Ron goes to answer, Madam Pomfrey comes back with a vial of some sort of cloudy grey potion in her hands. “What dog? There better not be a dog in my hospital ward.” As Hermione assures her there’s no canine present there, Harry drinks down the vile concoction that tastes like a mix of toenails and belly button lint, both of which he’s had as flavours of Bertie Botts Beans (and
not
from a dare from his friend Simon), and then sits as still as he can while Madam Pomfrey runs her wand over him to check his vitals.
“Let’s head to Hagrid’s,” Harry suggests as soon as they’re released. Around them, kids are in huddles on the grounds, desperate to keep up the momentum of Saturday fun. As they pass a group of sixth years, Harry faintly hears them whisper about a house party late at night. He continues, and grabs Ron and Hermione to lead them down the hill. “He was at the game. He’ll probably want to hear.”
Hagrid, it turns out, is not so convinced about Snape’s treachery. “Why would Snape do somethin’ like that?”
Because he hates me, Harry thinks. Matters in potions class have only gotten worse with each session. In fact, Harry’s convinced Snape’ll try and find a way to fail him, given that he’s not
the worst
at potions, and actually semi-competent. The position of worst in the class falls to Neville Longbottom, who Snape mercilessly bullies, too.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione share a look, each of them wondering whether they should talk about what they know to Hagrid. Hermione raises her eyebrows and purses her lips, while Ron nods. Harry turns to Hagrid and says, “We found out something about him. He tried to get past that three-headed dog on Halloween. It bit him. We think he was trying to steal whatever it’s guarding.”
Harry will never forget the feeling of incredulity as the name Fluffy leaves Hagrid’s mouth. A cerberus named Fluffy, he thinks with faint horror. That’s the type of name you expect some small, yappy mop dog stuffed in a purse on the subway to have, not the monstrosity on the third floor. Not for the first time, Harry questions Hagrid’s life choices. It’s later, though, that proves to be the most interesting part of their visit because Hagrid inadvertently gives them a name: Nicholas Flamel.
~ November 3, 1991
“That’s a shite birthday present,” Sirius says and points to the article open on the desk. Rita Skeeter, he reads, and resolves to find a way to send her something nasty. “Why would you show me this on the day of my birth, Jaime?”
James shrugs, and leans against the doorframe as he watches Sirius bumble about the bedroom.
Sirius flips through the pages of the
Prophet
Andi insists on sending along to them. A sale on Zonko’s products, an expose on vampires, a rather troubling motion on anti-werewolf laws under the direction of one Dolores Umbridge, and, on the last page, a blurb about the status of Arcturus Black’s inherited blood malady.
Critical
, Sirius reads, and stares.
He hadn’t seen the man since he was sixteen. Since that day–
He closes the paper. “Why is Andi always sending us rubbish? Why isn’t it ever anything nice? Like, a crup or something.”
“I don’t think it’s legal to send a crup through the post. Not to mention what Uncle Newt would say about the endangerment of magical creatures,” James replies with his cup of coffee raised half-way to his lips. His hair is a wild mess around his ears, just brushing the top of his t-shirt. “Besides, some of it’s nice. Harry
is
the youngest seeker. It’s something to be proud of.”
“Except for the part where she implies Minnie let him on based off his name
and
Mum Effie,” Sirius points out, and grabs his t-shirt off the back of his desk chair. As he pulls it over his head, he frowns. “I’m surprised she didn’t call you a subpar coach or some other such hogwash.” He grabs his socks, sits down on the bed, and lifts up one foot. “That part about the lesser competitor? They almost drove Quality Quidditch Supplies out of business! Lesser, my arse.”
The scar in the crook of his right arm stands out prominently, especially against the paw print tattoo on his right bicep that needs to be touched up. He looks away and towards the door.
James shrugs. “They did almost burn down their own shop at one point though. Dad claimed it was an accident, but I’m not so sure. The Lufkin’s were a bit odd. There was a bunch of their old journals and letters and shite in a box in the attic. I read them once when I was real bored. Anyway, I’m pretty sure Evaine was convinced husband Lufkin was cheating on her with a seamstress in Knockturn Alley. ”
“How sordid,” Sirius replies and gets off the bed and finds his comb on the desk. Quickly, he runs it through his hair. “Stunning,” the talking vanity mirror on the desk says. “Absolutely gorgeous.”
“Thank you,” Sirius says.
“Not you,” the mirror replies. “Her.”
Sirius scowls and looks down to see Galadriel bathing herself in unmentionable places on his desk chair. “Wasn't she also the one who thought that having a joint Hogwarts quidditch team play matches against the other schools was a good idea?” Sirius asks as he continues to run the comb through his hair. A few stray strands continue to fall into his eyes. “Pretty sure it was one of you Potters that tried to pitch that to the School Board.”
James tilts his head. “No, that wasn’t her. That was someone else.” Then, he shrugs. “Pretty sure her name was Tamsin. She married a Bones or something. She’d of had us playing on the same team as the Slytherins. It was about school unity, I believe.”
Sirius scowls. “Imagine if that had worked? By the time we graduated half the Slytherin team were future Death Eaters. They’d have been sending bludgers after their own team mates.”
James awkwardly grabs the comb from his hand and puts it down on the desk as Sirius begins to run it more aggressively through his hair as they both remember who the seeker of the team had been the year they graduated. James clears his throat. “Yeah–sorry,” he says, and then hands him the mug of coffee.
Sirius takes a long, deep drink. It’s black and strong, just the way both of them prefer it. His mouth twists as he gives himself one final glance in the mirror. “Don’t be, he made his choices.” Then, he sighs. “So, after we incinerate that garbage article with extreme prejudice I was thinking Cape May?”
James laughs, but the sound is hesitant, as it always is when the subject of Regulus comes up even passingly at any point. He reaches down to the desk and picks up Galadriel who snuggles against his chest with a loud, rumbling purr. Sirius has never quite understood the bond cats seem to have with him. He’s reasonably sure cats and deer aren’t companions in the wild. “It’s the beginning of November,” James says, as if they weren’t just standing on a beach at midnight the other night with their bare toes in the icy Atlantic. “That’s where you want to spend your birthday?”
Sirius shrugs. “It’s either that or we go stand outside in a line and see if they’re selling half-price tickets for another showing of
Cats
. We could always see it from the beginning pissed this time.”
“As tempting as seeing a bunch of people dressed in cat leotards again is,” James says teasingly, “if we go to Cape May we can get that taffy that Harry likes and send it off to him with Hedwig next time she comes. Maybe it’ll be there around his first game.”
Sirius shrugs, and then James is off to change. They could apparate to Cape May or take a Ghost Bus, the equivalent to the UK’s Knight Bus, and get there a bit quicker (provided, of course, that the Ghost Bus doesn’t try to make a stop in the Poconos or near Cape Cod first), but Sirius doesn’t really want to apparate when they could fly the bike out there instead. Two hours later, they park the bike near a rocky outcrop off the beach, and then walk into town. Past the Victorian houses with balconies and bright colours, some converted to Bed-and-Breakfasts, they find their way to the marketplace at the edge of the town near the shore where a bunch of tourist shops thrive in the summer. The majority are shut down with the end of the season, but there’s still a bookshop and an ice cream parlour on the no-maj side open.
James pops inside and buys them both a cone. “It’s pumpkin,” he says as he hands Sirius his and a bottle of root beer, which James can’t abide but Sirius has developed an unusual taste for. After stopping in another shop for salt water taffy, they make their way to the beach and walk along the side for a while, towards the dunes and a brush of grassy stalks. They pass back and forth from end to end of the shore. James walks barefoot on a series of large rocks that jet out towards the water while Sirius picks up shells and pockets them for later.
Then, they start to make their way towards the white and blue boat with the Cape May sign. “Is he coming home for the break, mate? Cause if so, we need to set up that international portkey around now,” Sirius muses, and nearly steps on an almost translucent ghost crab that unexpectedly pops out of the sand. Its beady eyes gaze on him with accusation for a moment or two, before it scuttles away.
James shrugs. “He hasn’t said. His letters seem–preoccupied. If I see one more mention of Snape, I don’t care what Yael says, I’m writing to that smarmy git and giving him a piece of my mind.”
James frowns sharply, and bends down to trace the letters c, e, and m with the tip of his wand.
“He’s stopped asking me about dogs,” Sirius says, mind still caught on that. He
thinks
if Harry’s gotten into serious trouble Minnie would tell them–but he doesn’t put it past Dumbledore to stop mail going out of the castle, either. Perhaps it’s left over paranoia from the war, when no one in the Order was supposed to tell anyone else where they were or what they were doing to keep the secrecy intact, or perhaps it’s because he’s still not comfortable with Harry so near the Dursleys and so far away from them. “Either he’s done with that interest or he’s realised I was getting suspicious. As he’s your son, my mind’s on the latter.”
“He better not have gone looking for wolves,” James mutters and, with a quick glance around, hops into the boat. “He doesn’t have the cloak. He can’t hide.”
Hypocrite, Sirius thinks fondly, and doesn’t point out that if there had been wolves in the forest then they probably would have smelled James under that cloak. “You know how many muggles probably get in this thing all year and take pictures?” he points out instead. “I don’t think you need to act guilty about it.”
He gets in behind, as James says, “Habit, I guess.”
Then, there’s a familiar lurch in his stomach.
The shops are more ramshackle as they make their way back up the beach. Unlike the muggle side, the magical side is made up completely of boardwalks in lieu of concrete and stone walkways. They chat about Harry’s evasiveness in letters as they walk past
Magical Maladies
, the potions store for magical ailments, which has an old witch in three pairs of bifocals and a robe made completely of individual patchwork squares out front. She’s got several people in a gathering around a stall as she tries to get customers to buy a sickly yellow concoction as a cure for black cat fever. Next to her shop, in a bright blue house with a wrap around porch, there’s the sweet shoppe called the
Twelvetrees Confectionary
, then the broom supply store where six men in quodpot sports robes chug beer on the steps outside and cheer loudly. Some of it splashes out of their steins and onto the ground below. At the end of the street, in another ramshackle building with a roof that leans to the left, they walk into the pub.
In the booth farthest away from the door, Sirius sees a group of Pukwudgies huddling over a gobstones board with Long Island Ice Teas, half-empty. The Heckling-Heckler Gin inside the glass makes obnoxious seagull calls each time someone picks up their glass. In a booth three down from them, a large group of people with empty beers, cosmos and fire whiskeys drunkenly talk about werewolf rights and the Body for Protection of Magical Species newest pitch regarding subsidised wolfsbane availability, while over by the bar, two women loudly discuss whether or not snallygaster heartstring wands are more volatile than dragon heartstrings. “Go find us a booth, it’s my shout,” James says, and then makes his way to the bar.
Sirius passes by the booth of political activists and gives one man an irritated look as he slurs and tells his group of disgruntled, sloshed friends, “But why should my money go to pay for potions for them? I work hard for my money.”
Sirius settles in a booth in the corner by the front of the pub and plays idly with a napkin as he watches James lean over the bar to talk to the bartender. He rolls his eyes as he sees the two women stop mid-conversation to stare. There’s a cloud of cigarette smoke in the booth next to him, which makes him itch to grab the nearly empty pack out of his jeans pocket (his last one, he tells himself), and a sharper, more acrid scent that reminds him of pot. He can just see the top of a blonde bouffant over the booth, and hears a burst of giggles as someone downs what he can only assume to be gigglewater.
The music changes from a Weird Sisters single to something from Scream, a new magical band that seems to have taken its inspiration from Michael Jackson’s
Thriller
video. As the song,
Creature Smash
or some such parody of the
Monster Mash
, echoes loudly throughout the pub, Sirius only just makes out a woman in the next booth over say, “—there was an article in the
Baltimore Poltergeist
the other day about them. A real dark family, it said. Apparently, the patriarch’s about to kick it from some blood curse.”
It might not be him, Sirius thinks. There’s plenty of dark families in the world, more than one has to have a patriarch about to cease to be. Then, a deep voice says, “Are you talking about the Blacks? There was an expose about them a while back in the
Journal of Magical Families
. They don’t branch out much, do they?”
Sirius stiffens, back straight against the booth, and slides down the side out of view. His breath comes to a halt inside his throat for a second before he forces himself to breathe. “Well–with all that inbreeding over there in those families, of course those blood maladies carry over,” another woman replies, with a giggle. A small ding follows her giggle, then the sound of a glass hitting the table. “I work in the Infectious Magical Disease Ward at Picquerary Memorial, and let me tell you, the things I’ve heard about those old families over there.”
“Well, none of them have deemed to come over here, far as I know,” the first woman says in a gossip tone. “Not good enough for them, I expect.”
As the man starts to launch into a speech about the mass magical wave of immigration in the 1600s, the second woman cuts him off and says, “There’s a Black living in New York. So I heard.”
Sirius reaches for that cigarette.
It had been years since he’d been in the unfortunate, unpleasant position of unwitting eavesdropper to a conversation about the Blacks. He really didn’t want to be thinking of them on his birthday of all days–
After all, they always had to ruin them.
Just as he ignites the tip with his wand, the first woman says, “Him? He doesn’t count. I heard they chucked him out.”
Indignant, Sirius almost turns around to say, “I left them, thank you,” but the second woman squeals loudly and shouts for her puffskein, which she evidently left on the beach, and James finally pads back from the bar with two glasses of smoking old-fashioneds in his hands.
Sirius puffs out the first drag as James sits and asks, “What’s wrong? You’ve got that look on your face.”
Not wanting to spend the rest of the night dwelling on
them
, Sirius points to the political activists. “Talk over there,” he says. “Some bell-end going on about not wanting to help pay for wolfsbane.”
James scowls at the group, while Sirius continues to take in deep, deep drags. He picks up his glass and lets the whiskey burn a fire in his throat and travel down to his stomach to warm him up. Everything about him feels chilled despite his dragonhide jacket. Years of no word about them but today there’s been more mentions and passing hints towards their existence than he’s had to deal with in aeons.
Since Walburga died, at least.
Absently, Sirius rubs at the scar on the crook of his elbow, as he tells James they should write to Harry about whether or not he’s coming home. Thirty-two-years old and his life revolves around his godson. He really is getting old, he thinks, and sips more firewhiskey and orange out of the glass.
The next morning, head still fuzzy with the after effects of a hangover potion, Sirius stumbles through the front door and skirts around a howling Galadriel with a wince. With no reason to drive drunk, and no real inclination to find a sobering potion with every shop closed after midnight, they’d crashed for the night in a muggle bed-and-breakfast. James drops his jacket on the ground next to the coat hanger, and blearily says, “Yes, yes, darling, it’s coming. I’m sorry, baby girl.”
He rubs the bruise on his jaw as he heads into the kitchen, Galadriel quick at his heels, and shouts, “Want some breakfast before work?”
Sirius gingerly pats his sore eye socket and cheekbone with two fingers. Poor idea, he thinks, getting into a fight with the guy at the bar who wanted to lock up werewolves for a full week of the month. Thirty-two years-old might be a bit too old to keep getting into brawls. Still, poor idea, no regrets. Sirius shouts “Yeah, eggs will you?” and heads for his room.
There’s a pale, tawny owl with dark streaks hanging out outside on his windowsill. It blinks at him, and he blinks back. That’s not Hedwig, he thinks a tad bit dumbly, and then sighs heavily before he crosses the room to let the bird in. It’s not Nebula either, Andromeda’s screech owl, so he can’t think who’d be sending him owl mail.
The owl lands with grace on his desk chair and holds out its leg. There’s a fancy looking envelope, with a stamped bit of wax as a seal.
To Mr. Sirius Orion Black, Queens, New York
, is written in beautiful calligraphy on the front. Sirius’ lips twist, the roof of his mouth bone dry, and he jams his thumb underneath the wax to break it.
It comes apart in little green specks, and then he pulls the letter out.
And collapses onto the bed.
Mr. Sirius Orion Black III:
It is my formal duty to inform you of your reinstated position as the Black family heir apparent. Arcturus Phineas Black, current Black family head of house and owner of the Black Family Estate has, at this time being of sound mind and body, unconfounded and fully willing, finds that in the absence of available heirs, with the death of Regulus Black in 1979 without issue, the death of Orion Black without further issue, the death of Lucretia Black Prewett without further issue, the death of Walburga Black in 1985 without further issue, the death of Pollux Black in 1991 without further issue, the death of Cygnus Black without further issue in 1989, the imprisonment of Bellatrix Black Lestrange, and the unsuitability of Narcissa Black Malfoy, you will be given back your position within the Black family, and thus awarded reaccess to the Black family vaults and Black family estate upon the event of Arcturus Black’s death.
Within the envelope you will find keys for the vault and the estate. No signature is required at this time, the wards have already been altered.
Good day.
Sebastian Buckleton, Esq.
At the bottom of the lawyer’s letter, there’s a tighter scrawl. It looks jerky, a bit misshapen, unusual for the owner’s hand:
The house will not end up in the possession of the Malfoy family
.
Perhaps you will remember your duty for once in your life
.
For a long moment, Sirius does nothing but stare at the jumble of incomprehensible words.
Absurdly, his first thought is that he’s going to be late for work.
Spite, Sirius realises, as he abruptly begins to laugh. The sound is harsh; half-amused and half-horrified, it carries throughout the entire flat and scares the lawyer’s owl into a ruffle of feathers. The bird takes off through the window as Sirius bends over, his whole body shaking, arms wrapped around his stomach as he continues to laugh. “Sirius?” James calls with concern laced in his tone. Through the sound of footsteps and the laughter which won’t seem to stop, Sirius thinks, I ended up with that fucking house because of fucking spite.
How very like a Black.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
~ December 25, 1971 Through the small windows of the common room, the ones not covered by any type of curtains, James sees the sun hide behind the clouds in a sweep of grey. It’s been a hazy sort of colourless expanse for days, almost wan and lifeless, broken up by a darker grey when the drizzle turns from mist to larger droplets of water that seem to beat the earth with determination. The Hogwarts' grounds have turned muddy, which makes the steep hills that lead down to the forest or the village dangerous to walk down without risking a slip-and-slide. Some of the students who remain for the winter break have taken to charming robes to act like a sort of snowboard that propels students up and down the steep hills, though snow is a far off dream this winter. Some students, James notices, have had their robes charmed not entirely willingly. Other students wistfully move about the halls, or stare at their homework in the library while yearning for a white Christmas.It’s most definitely not a white Christmas, James thinks. Nor, he ponders as he sits in the common room, curled up on an armchair close to the fire and wishing for a few more moments of sleep, does it look anything like the Yule parties James’ parents have sometimes dragged him to for their respective works. Those were gaudy and ostentatious; there were huge trees that went from floor to ceiling, chandeliers with twinkling lights and singing ornaments, and people dressed in expensive clothing munching on canapes and drinking champagne and eggnog. There, James had been relegated to the kid’s corner, and given a gingerbread biscuit to nibble, while the grown ups pandered to one another and pretended that they loved everyone else in the room, never once having a bad word or ill wish against their fellow party goers. In the Gryffindor common room, James spots the green sprig of leaves tied in a red bow strategically placed above the stairs and the portrait hall called mistletoe. Though he’s never encountered it before, he’s been told there’s a rather odd tradition attached to it wherein people are made to kiss underneath it, which he’s not sure he likes the sound of. Sirius had even told him that some were charmed not to let the poor unfortunates go until they kissed, with a sort of forcefield keeping them in place. The thought of that drove a shudder down James’ spine and he’d made a vow to avoid any and all mistletoe hung around the castle. There’s also a bunch of unworn, and seemingly not smelly, stockings over the fireplace mantle etched with the names of the students who stayed behind. There are even ones for him and Remus, though neither boy can recall buying, stitching, or indeed, ever seeing the odd stocking before. The morning they appeared, Sirius had told them they were for “stuffing little presents in, like candy,” though James can’t figure out why anyone would want to eat chocolate that had been in a sock, even if no one’s toes had been there first.He tears his eyes away from the string of hosiery and back to Sirius. Throughout the common room, the wireless plays sickeningly sweet Christmas songs, and James feels like he’ll never get the tune of Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree out of his head now that it’s stuck in there like an invasive weed. It’s a muggle song, introduced to magical Yule traditions via muggleborns over the last five years or so, or so one of the older students claimed when it started to play throughout the room. With a relentless earworm rattling on, bleary eyes and an empty stomach, James exchanges a glance with Remus. It’s strange to sit there and watch Sirius sort which presents to unwrap first as the only two boys (or so it seems) in the common room unfamiliar with the Yule traditions of their fellow students. Still, there they sit that morning, as Remus’ foot taps impatiently and James flops his head back and forth against the back cushion of the chair, in wait for something to happen besides an endless array of discarded wrapping paper. “I mean, you guys get presents. I saw them,” Sirius says, as he rips off the shiny silvery paper from a small box labelled From, Regulus and discards it underneath a plush ottoman where a pile of lumpy, balled up refuse takes refuge. With a smile, he pulls out an elaborate box that’s decorated with images of frogs playing the organ, while several others dance to the melody. It’s the Special Holiday Addition Chocolate Frogs, which James has never had before. Sirius opens the box and pulls out a frog that’s bundled in red linen wrap, which leaps with a red frosting coat and a hat made of marshmallow immediately onto Remus’ lap as soon as it’s unfettered. The fluffy haired boy jumps, and his back digs further into the armchair as he tries to keep a tight hold of the squirming treat. Sirius grabs his wand from the arm rest and summons it, and then he quickly bites off its head in two smooth, large bites. It smears a layer of cream all over his mouth. “They were left on your bed for at least eight days, Jaime,” he continues, as if chocolate frog decapitation is a common occurrence in the common room at six-thirty in the morning. That’s not untrue, James thinks. After all, his parents had sent him presents which the house elves left next to the foot of his bed during all eight nights of Chanukah. James bites his bottom lip, and his left leg jiggles as he looks to Remus, whose hands are tight on his knees. He’d had considerably less presents, all from his mother, and none, that James can recall, from his father. By the third day, James had gotten the house elves to leave his present–a new book on the history of the kelpie in Britain–by the foot of the bed. Remus had seemed happy when he’d opened it, though his eyes had been wide and his face red. On the last night, there’d been a gift of sugar quills for James with a hastily scrawled note on his duvet, though James honestly hadn’t expected anything back. His stomach grumbles insistently as he looks at the cream left behind around Sirius’ mouth. He reaches into the pocket of his bathrobe and pulls out one of the sugar quills, breaks it in half and hands one half to Remus. “Thanks,” the other boy says as he takes it, grateful for the slight sustenance to calm his rumbling stomach. “Well, yeah, but it’s not the same,” James finally says as he sucks on the tapered end of the sugar quill. “Presents are an event for you guys. You woke us up at six in the morning for this. I’ve not eaten and at this rate we’ll be here till the Chinese food tonight.” “Chinese food?” Sirius asks with a frown and furrowed brows, as he weighs one present in his hand, then another. “Where are you going to get that? Are you going to sneak out the castle or something?” Sirius shakes his head, and his hair flies every which-a-way. He’s dressed in downy, thick thermals with a patterned design, which are a tad too small around the shoulders and short at the ankles. “Why? There’s a whole feast!” Remus and James exchange another look. “It’s an American thing, or so I’ve heard. Lots of Jews go out on Christmas and eat Chinese food,” Remus says, as he nibbles on his half of the sugar quill. “My family’s never done it. It’s just a regular nosh at ours. Well, sort of. Dad tries for the Christmas dinner some, and I think he goes to mass. He took me once, but Mum was proper mad, so he never did again. Plus, Mum hates sprouts and can’t cook a goose to save her life, so–it’s like minimal effort for Christmas at ours.”He doesn’t seem too sad to be missing his parents’ minimal effort Christmas. But, James thinks, he’s supposedly seen his mother three times since they came to Hogwarts, so maybe he just figures going home again is a waste of time. James shrugs as Sirius turns his gaze on him. “I don’t think my dad’s celebrated it properly since he married my mum. Least–that I’m aware of.” His thoughts turn to their return letter, the one that arrived after he’d informed them he was going to be staying at Hogwarts this year and therefore not able to join them in the Alps to look for rare winter plants. Oh Jaime, his mother had written, it’s wonderful of you to stay and keep your friends company. Don’t worry about us, I’ll make sure your father doesn’t fall into a nest of horned serpents again. Or try to bring home another marmot. I’m not having more rodents in the house, I tell you. It’s the rodents or me and he knows better than to choose the rodents. He tries not to wonder too hard about the look of relief in Sirius’ eyes when he told him and Remus at the breakfast table he’d also be staying for the holiday break since his mother and father were “going away again and I don’t feel like the travel, you know? Besides, the Alps are freezing this time of year. I’ll see them soon enough.” He tries even harder not to think about Lily Evans, who’d been signing up to leave at the time and had shot him a fierce glare before she’d flounced off with Severus Snape. James nibbles on his bottom lip as he breaks himself away from his thoughts. “Actually, I’m wrong,” he says, suddenly struck by a memory of his dad complaining in front of the vanity mirror in the main bathroom while putting on horrendous red and green dress robes with bright silver trim. As he leans forward, James’ hair falls into his eyes, a little too long and in dire need of a haircut. He pushes it back impatiently as he tells Sirius and Remus, “I think my dad’s sister dragged him ‘round for a Christmas goose when I was about three? It was the one year we were home on that day. Well, actually it was the twenty-sixth. Mum and I went to Chelsea Market and got a curry.”Remus looks at him with a raised eyebrow and James watches as he rubs the back of his neck. His other hand pulls idly at a piece of thick beige thread which pokes out on his right knee. His pyjamas look old; old and frayed and too short, since they expose most of his bony ankles to the cold. Transfixed by the goosebumps on his friend’s skin, James thinks he should go and get him some long socks. “You guys are gone a lot,” Remus says with a tone that borders between wonder and bemusement. “Before Hogwarts and supply shopping, I’d never been past Cardiff. And that was to visit Dad’s family.” Sirius shrugs. “We’re normally in France if we’re not at those stuffy ministry parties and soirees with the other so-called acceptable families to my parents. This is much better.” Sirius nods decisively and positively beams at the two of them. “You’ll both have roasted goose tonight, I’m sure. Not really a Yule without the goose, is it?” Then, he frowns as he pulls out a book from his father from the expertly wrapped parcel in front of him. James doesn’t catch a glimpse of the title, but Sirius shoves it back into its packaging and sets it aside. Then, he pulls out two presents from his still half-unwrapped pile and says, “Here.”He shoves the parcels at them without looking either of them in the eye, and then puts his hands behind his back as soon as they take hold of them. The presents are neatly wrapped with perfectly folded edges and tied up in red ribbon. It sends a pang of guilt through James’ stomach. During Chanukah, James had handed Sirius his gift still in the bag with no card and no pomp, but Sirius hadn’t seemed to mind. He’d been too excited from winning an entire pot of chocolate coins from his first game of dreidel to care whether there was a bow or a card. Out of the corner of his eye, James sees Remus look awkwardly at the gift in his hands. “It’s not much,” Sirius says. Which, James thinks, with no small amount of suspicion, might be a lie, as James had asked his dad to send over piano music from a Parisian shop he’d been in for Sirius, and he’d told his friend much the same. Whatever Sirius has given him, the present is a lot heavier than a twenty-page book of sheet music. James watches Remus turn the box over in his hands, as if he’s debating on handing it right back to Sirius. The other boy’s thumb traces the swirling pattern with gentle strokes. James looks around the common room and scrutinises all the other happy, wide-eyed Gryffindors around. The boys sit in a perfectly strategic position in the fluffiest armchairs by the fireplace, with tartan patterned blankets on their laps and mugs of hot chocolate on the round table in front of them, nary a coaster in sight. They’re nearest to the tall, evergreen pine tree in the corner which is covered in garish silver and gold tinsel. From silver hooks, twinkling candle flames dangle, each protected by a charm meant to save the tree from accidental ignition. There’s moving ornaments that run around the entire tree where spaces are free, and some laugh and attempt to fight with one another in a merry chase. Despite this splendour, there’s only a handful of other students around to enjoy it as most of the upper years that stayed are nursing hangovers upstairs from the late night Christmas Eve party, with only a smattering of the younger years in the common room with their own presents and their own huddle of friends. Except one, James notes. A small, slightly chubby boy with blonde hair, sits hunched over a present or two, slowly unwrapping them at the farthest side of the common room from them, all by himself. He looks familiar, and it takes James a second to figure out from where. “Isn’t that Peter Pettigrew?” he says to Remus and Sirius. He jerks his head over to the other side of the room and Sirius twists around, his neck craned at an odd angle. “Our year? I didn’t know he was staying, too.” “Hmmm–think so,” Sirius says with a shrug as he turns back around. His tone edges on bored disinterest at the sudden change in subject, and he doesn’t seem interested in pursuing it further. Instead, he says, “You should open them,” and points to the presents. James looks down at the box in his hands again. It’s large and shiny, with dancing reindeer wrapping paper. He lifts it up and shakes it and hears something careen from one end of the box to the other. Remus continues to trace the pattern on his parcel contemplatively. “Think we should invite him over?” Remus suggests with a tiny amount of caution in his tone. “He looks–kind of sad.” As if he’s heard them, the other boy’s eyes look over at them and land on Sirius’ pile of gifts, some unwrapped and propped against the table, others still in their parcels. Pettigrew’s eyes widen impossibly large, and then he looks away, back to his own gifts, face red as a tomato. “Why?” Sirius asks with a hint of surprise in his voice. He looks between the two of them with narrow eyes. “Isn’t he the kid that blew up his pine marten in transfiguration last month?”“It was a weasel,” James says, his stomach churning as he remembers the incident. “He looked pretty sick over it.” Though, most of the class had been sick and covered in guts that day. James’ had never seen Minnie so angry, and he almost winces at the memory of her fierce tongue-lashing aimed towards the shaking Peter Pettigrew. There’d been a large subsequent loss of points regarding “listening to my instructions on the proper wand hold.” James thinks the majority of Gryffindor still has not forgiven Peter for it. “And he looks sad. He’s all by himself,” Remus says, voice dipping low into a whisper only James and Sirius can hear. “How would you feel alone on Christmas? He’s even got the dorm to himself since all his dorm mates left and all. It’s probably been a pretty dull break.” Sirius looks at the ground. His eyes are fixed on the package that’s labelled From, Mother, and he picks at the wrapping of another at a rapid pace with his thumb and index finger. James follows his eyes to the parcel from his mother where it rests at the far edge of the pile, close to the fire. It’s so near the edge of the flame, James thinks if he juts out his foot wrong the entire box will go ablaze. He wonders if Sirius did that on purpose, not quite willing to toss it but hoping for the opportunity for it to burn. “We’ve only got three hot chocolates,” Sirius says through tight lips. He jabs his fingers to the mugs which sit with perspiration and rings underneath their ceramic bottoms sticking to the table. “I’m not sharing mine.” Then, as if to punctuate his point, he reaches over to his neglected hot chocolate which has to be tepid now and takes a long sip. James puts down his present near his feet and waves his arms. “Hey, Peter? Wanna come over here? There’s room,” he shouts as he makes the executive decision for all three of them. Remus shoots him a small smile, but Sirius crosses his arms over his chest. Peter jumps, and James watches as his head jerks up so fast that if it hadn’t been attached to his neck it might have come off. His elbow jerks and smashes through the top of one of his cardboard presents as his body straightens. The parcel caves in with a sad sound, and then he meets James’ gaze, all wide eyes and open mouthed surprise. “Me?” he says, and points to himself at the same time that he looks around the room as if another Peter will manifest behind him. No one does. His blonde hair flops limply as his head swivels. “Yes,” Remus confirms, and lightly kicks a pouting Sirius’ shin. “We’re still opening and so are you. Might as well.” Sirius sighs heavily, rolls his eyes and then twists again. “Yeah, come on, will you?” As if he’d been waiting for Sirius to allow it, Peter picks up his presents in shaking arms, trips on his own slipper, and bumbles his way over to their armchairs in white thermals and an open bathrobe. He sits next to Sirius’ pile on the ground since there’s not another armchair circling the fire. James rolls his own eyes, then gets up to cross the room and push an empty one over, before he shoves a tartan blanket at Peter. The small boy wraps it around himself twice while muttering, “Thank you.” During this, Sirius finally wheedles Remus enough that the other boy opens the present. It’s an entire stack of the wizarding detective series: Orpington’s Adventures by Galvanius Orpington. Twenty volumes over the last two centuries, and all, it appears, first edition. Remus blanches, and his hands tighten around the stack, wrapping paper still caught underneath the heavy books on his lap. “I can’t–” Remus starts to say as his shoulders slump and his face pales. The old scars on his cheeks and nose stand out prominently. “Sure you can,” Sirius says with a nod, his shoulders equally as straight as Remus’ are sloped. He swipes his hand through the air. “I saw you eying that lone one down in the library. This way you won’t have to wait around for people to check them back in. It’ll take you years to read them that way.” Peter’s eyes are as wide as coins as he looks at Remus’ gift. “Wow,” James hears him whisper. Sirius clears his throat and then nudges James’ chair with his foot beneath the table. “Now you,” he says. There’s something urgent in his voice. “Come on, James. Open it!” “Is it dim sum?” James jokes and shifts in the chair. “Cause I promise you, dumplings won’t go bad that quickly.” Remus snorts, while Peter’s brows furrow and his head inclines and Sirius rolls his eyes. “Go on, you knob. Just open it,” Sirius says and nods his head in quick, rapid movements. James picks up the box and then, painstakingly, peels back the paper gently and carefully. Sirius huffs impatiently and taps his foot against the table. Tap, tap. It takes James so long to fully unwrap the present that even Remus is fed up, urging him to stop being a berk about it all. Once the paper’s off, James rips into the cardboard with two thumbs, all decorum lost, and pulls out a bright gold quaffle. It’s not just any quaffle, though. It’s an old, dragonskin quaffle, a make James recognizes from around the last century from the Museum of Quidditch History in Berkshire. They were used during a tournament series of specialised games in the UK when the Chudley Cannons were enjoying a brief winning streak. On the side, stitched into the lining, is an autograph.James gasps and nearly drops the quaffle. “You got me Titus Ollerton’s own quaffle? That he won the championship cup with?” James nearly screams and hugs the quaffle tight to his chest as he nearly falls out of his chair and attacks Sirius with a hug. His entire body nearly crashes into him, and his friend falls back with an oomph, then grabs him around the waist as the two boys fall into a laughing heap on the floor. James’ knee catches on Peter’s foot as they descend, and he hears the other boy ask Remus, “Are they always like this?” “You get used to it,” Remus replies. “You’re mad, you are,” James says with a smile. Sirius smiles at him, too, and then ruffles his hair as they collapse in on each other. “How’d you do it?” “Reggie wrote about an auction of the guy’s estate since he passed in October. I wrote to Uncle Alphard and asked if he minded attending and getting me something,” Sirius says. “You know, since you’re obsessed with this guy and all. I know more about his passes than I want to.” He doesn’t sound nearly as put out as his words suggest, if the grin on his face is any indication. Peter whispers, “Merlin’s beard,” while Remus sighs. James rolls his eyes, and then lifts himself up on his elbows. He extends his hand and helps Sirius up and then joins him in his armchair. “I’ve enriched your life.” They’re a bit squished, as James’ elbow digs into Sirius, but the other boy puts the tartan blanket over their legs and turns his body so that they’re a bit more comfortable, with James’ legs half on top of Sirius’ lap, the rest of him propped up on the arm rest. They turn their attention back to the other two boys. Remus has all twenty volumes of his present at his feet. He’s still looking at them as if he’s not sure whether to be happy or to insist Sirius never go through the effort again. James turns to Peter, instead. “So, Peter,” James starts to ask. His eyes catch on the tag wrapped around a bright yellow ribbon on one of the unopened presents. From, Mom, it says in a hasty, loopy handwriting. Peter’s got about three more unopened in front of him, with only one unwrapped. Socks, it looks like. “Why are you still here? We thought the rest of our year went home.” Sirius’ head flops back against James’ side. “Oh,” Peter says. James notices his lips are chapped when the boy’s slightly crooked incisors scrape against them. “My Mum she uh–she–well–” He looks down, then away. His fingers fiddle with the ribbon. “She’s with her new–” His face starts to turn red, red as a tomato again. James and Remus share an awkward glance, while Sirius stares at his fingernails. “Her um–”“Fellow?” Sirius finally suggests. His lips are pursed and his tone once again in that narrow spot between boredom and active disinterest. James takes a second to wonder about Sirius’ guesswork or if Sirius actually knows something about Mrs. Pettigrew James didn’t. “Is that it?” Peter’s face is so red James wonders if he’s about to combust. “Yeah,” he says in a mumble. Remus glares at Sirius, to which Sirius shrugs back and the two proceed to talk in a series of gestures that include vigorous head shaking and rolled eyes. James’ elbow digs into Sirius’ side as he turns his head to whisper, “Be nice,” in Sirius’ ear. All the while, Peter plucks at the wrapping of his presents quietly. “Say, Peter,” James says. The small, blonde boy turns wide, watery blue eyes on him. “How are you doing on the transfiguration homework? Need any help?”If nothing else, James thinks as Peter nods so enthusiastically he might be a bobble head toy, it’ll give them something to talk about.
~ December 25, 1991 Harry looks out the window to see that the dusting of snow that had previously covered the Hogwarts grounds and frozen over the lake is nearly gone. It lingers in icy patches, in bits of discoloured frost on stones and trees and the grass, but its previous vibrance is absent, a fade from its brilliance before. It had been nowhere near the amount of snow that usually hammers New York in winter, but it had been respectable. Enough for snowballs and snow angels, at least.Upstairs in his dorm that morning as the clock strikes seven, Harry thinks about the mess he and Ron left behind near the good armchairs by the fire the night before. The chess set is still down there, and, if no one’s disturbed them, all the pieces are still in their last places on the board from their tenth game this break. Harry’s never been a great chess player, and Ron’s superior skills meant he’s won all ten games. Over the last few days, Nicholas Flamel, Snape, and Fluffy have been nothing but a blip in their minds as they shift into winter break mode. After the rigorous exhaustion of classes, they desire nothing more than toasting forks for marshmallows and snowball fights on the grounds. At one point a couple of days before, Harry had lost his footing and slid nearly all the way down one of the steep hills near to Hagrid’s hut. It’s as if all seriousness has fled, replaced by childish glee. Harry’s worries about his classes and his concerns about Snape’s overall attitude had seemed to suck happiness out of him all term, but it had all come flooding back with the first flake of snow from the sky. The day before break had begun, he'd written to his father and Sirius, thanking them again for letting him stay. When Hedwig had left the owlery, battling the fierce storm, Harry’d winced with guilt. She hasn’t come back yet and Harry wonders if she’s recuperating from her journey in their flat back home. Harry shivers just as a chilly draught blows through the open window. He wraps his blanket around his shoulders tighter as he watches Ron excitedly bounce from one present to the next at the foot of his bed. He’s never seen a pile of presents like this except on birthdays, and it is rather interesting to watch Ron shake and move the individual parcels around in an attempt to determine which ones are socks.“So, you’ve never gotten anything for Christmas before? This is the first time?” Ron asks and points to Harry’s own extremely modest pile of gifts near the foot of his four poster bed. Given that Chanukah had already passed, he’d been surprised to wake up and see the packages there. Harry bites his lip. “Well, sort of,” he says as he shifts his left foot underneath his knee. “We used to have Secret Santa at my old no-maj school. People would exchange gifts to someone else the teacher randomly assigned in the class. Little things. I got a box of nerds from my friend, Abigail, once,” Harry muses. He bends over the side of the bed and looks at the tags on his gifts. As his hair falls in front of his eyes, he sees Ron mouth “nerds” with an expression on his face that seems as if he’s not sure whether to feel alarm or bemusement. “They’re a type of candy,” Harry explains as he lifts himself back up. “Not actual–nerds.” Ron nods, but the puzzled look remains on his face. “So, then, that’s a Christmas gift,” Ron says, as he sits back on his own bed cross-legged, his presents all in a circle around him on the mattress. His red hair sticks up on one side like a porcupine, all straight angles. Harry chews at the corner of his mouth. “I guess so. But not on the actual day though.” Then, with some regret the second he exposes his bare toes to the cold air, he leaps off the bed. He bends at the knees and routes around the gifts, before he pulls the misshapen one tagged From, Mrs. Molly Weasley out of the small pile. Weasley, he thinks, and realises that Ron’s mother had sent him a gift. He shoots Ron a look as his red-headed friend begins to pick away at the wrapping on the first present. “Tell her thank you,” Harry says, even as he resolves to send his own note to Mrs. Weasley. Then, he grins and tells Ron, “Dad gets a gift each year from Sirius. It’s a joke, though. Sirius gives him dim sum–it’s umm–food.” Ron looks at him with scrunched brows. “Dumplings and other things,” Harry explains. Within days of their friendship, Harry had discovered that Ron is often confused by no-maj things, even more than Jesse de Sousa who at least had some second hand exposure through Harry via Abigail. Ron, it appears, had not only been home-schooled by his mother, but had spent most of his life in his home in Devon. After the sandwich exchange on the Hogwarts Express, Harry realised Ron might never have had food that wasn’t quintessentially English before, except perhaps the occasional curry. Through the course of their friendship thus far, Ron’s demanded descriptions of the various foods Harry and Hermione mentioned to him. During Chanukah, he’d scarfed down the latkes they’d brought him back with pleasure, trying both the sour cream and the apple sauce, and asked if he could come with them next year to “light those candles and have more of these potato things.” They hadn’t even gotten around to giving him sufganiyot, which may have been a good thing. All the donuts would have been gone before the Chanukah party. “Your godfather really puts dumplings in a box every Christmas and hands it to your dad?” Ron asks with a perplexed look on his face and rubs at a line of freckles on his right cheek. Harry begins to rip open the wrapping paper of the lumpy parcel. It’s something soft–fabric. He pulls it out and holds up a thick, handmade sweater. “Doesn’t the joke ever get old?” Harry shrugs as he pulls on the embroidered sweater Ron’s mom sent him. It is a nice shade of green with the letter H large and prominent on the middle of his chest; he burrows into it with glee since the fabric’s nice and warm against the chill of the early morning in Scotland. Then, he regathers his blanket on his shoulders from where it trails off the edge of his bed. “Hasn’t seemed too yet. I think Sirius just likes eating dim sum at this point,” he replies. Ron shrugs. “Must be good,” he says, as he gathers a box of homemade fudge and shucks on a maroon sweater, almost identical to Harry’s, except for the R in the middle. “Mine’s always maroon. She makes us all one each year,” he explains, and then shrugs. “Guess she thought you might need one. I told her you’re always complaining about the cold.”“It’s really nice of her,” Harry says, as he’s been extremely cold in the draughty castle, and then tries some of the fudge which had been in a small bag tied with a bow underneath the sweater. It’s delicious. Harry picks up the next parcel which is wrapped in thick brown paper. To Harry, from Hagrid is written on top of it. Harry smiles as he pulls out a wooden flute that looks hand-whittled. He runs his fingers over it, and his thumb dips into each hole. He doesn’t know much about music, despite Sirius’ best efforts. Nevertheless, he blows out a note that sounds a bit like an owl. The next parcel seems to be from Aunt Andromeda and Uncle Ted, who have sent him a book called Fifty of the Most Magical Places in Great Britain, with a note on the front page that he might “find something of interest that he wants to visit,” and a photograph of the Tonks and him in front of Stonehenge attached with a permanent sticking charm. The before-Harry waves at him from the moving image. The last parcel is the smallest, and extremely light when Harry picks it up. There’s nothing to indicate who’s sent it on the top, and Harry’s brows furrow. Over on Ron’s bed, he’s unwrapped a bunch of his own presents. There’s an assortment of different candy and a stack of new Martin Miggs the Mad Muggle comics, as well as what appears to be a new wand maintenance kit. “I think your dad sent me this,” Ron says, voice high with surprise and wide eyes, as he opens the box and pulls out the various vials of solution. Indeed, Harry recognises his father’s handwriting on the attached tag.Harry weighs the light package in his hands as he watches Ron unwrap his final present. It’s the one from him, Harry recognises, since it's thin and long and rectangular. “Wow, is this a muggle comic?” Ron asks as he pulls it from the wrapping. The X-Men issue is bright and colourful and entirely stationary. Harry watches as Ron pokes the drawn figure of Wolverine with one freckled finger, while Cyclops shoots a colourful red beam from his eyes. “Huh, it’s so weird that they don’t move.” “Yeah. It’s one of my favourite’s. That and Spiderman,” Harry tells him. Ron shudders, and Harry feels quite thankful he hadn’t asked his father to send over some of them with this reminder of Ron’s extreme arachnophobia. “You gonna open that?” Ron asks and points to the feather light parcel in Harry’s hands. “Yeah,” Harry says as he stares down at it. Slowly, he unwraps it and something fluid, softer than he’s ever felt, almost like silk but with a different sheen, as if he’s trying to catch water slithers across his palms to the floor. It’s silvery grey and incandescent. Harry and Ron gasp. “Is that–'' Harry starts to ask as Ron drops the box of Every Flavour Beans Hermione’d sent him. “If that’s what I think it is,” Ron says. His blue eyes round as wide as galleons. “Those are really rare, and really valuable. Your dad?” Harry shakes his head. “No, Dad sent me my Chanukah gifts already. And he’d of left a note or a card or something.” Harry picks the invisibility cloak up off the floor. It’s a bit jarring, since his brain expects the liquidy sensation to drip off his skin, but the fabric holds. “Who would send me an Invisibility Cloak?” he asks, as if Ron has the answer. Ron shrugs. “Try it on,” he says, with a little jerk of his hand. As Harry throws the Cloak over his shoulders, Ron yells and tells him to look down. When he does, Harry feels his stomach swoop as he sees that his feet are gone, and he runs to the mirror. The reflection that looks back at him is his head suspended in midair on its own; an odd sight that makes Harry step back on the balls of his feet. He’s never seen a floating head before–well, not outside of the weird marble statue heads that scream high-pitched cries when children pop around the corner in the Manahatta District during Halloween. Harry pulls the Cloak over his head, and watches with awe as he completely disappears in the mirror’s reflection. Behind him, Ron says, “Harry, there is a note after all! It fell out.” Harry turns on his heels, pulls off the Cloak, and grabs the letter in a tight fist. He doesn’t recognise the narrow, loopy handwriting as he reads: Your father left this in my possession before your mother passed on. It is time it was returned to your family. Use it well. A Very Happy Christmas to you. Harry stares at the note, with a strange swooping sensation. It’s as if his stomach has left his body through his feet. His father, he thinks with some hesitation. His father had never mentioned an invisibility cloak, much less leaving it to someone. Though Harry’s come to find out many secrets in the last few months, he can’t fathom his father just giving away something so valuable, and even more, not mentioning it to his son. Harry bites his lip and stares at the note as Ron admires the Cloak. Ron tells him how much he’d love an invisibility cloak, while Harry stares at the letter. Finally, Ron asks, “What’s the matter?”Harry shakes his head and drops the note on the bedside table. “Nothing,” he says, and resolves to write to his father. Given the anonymity of the note, he’s the only one that can give Harry any answers, he decides. He stuffs the Cloak out of sight just as Fred and George Weasley bounce into the dorm. They both wear their blue Weasley sweaters and large, mischievous smiles. As they exchange mutual greetings, he promises himself to put the matter out of his mind for now. Three nights later, Harry sits with his legs crossed underneath him and his hands folded on his upturned knees. The cloak rests in a gentle fall of fabric around his hips, and he tries not to shift too much; he doesn’t want to tangle it and accidentally lose its place if it falls over something it can cover. He scoots closer with the heels of his sneakers to the looming mirror and watches his mother turn to his father; she’s young, still, but nowhere near as young as the last photograph Harry has of her. No, she’s a young woman in her early thirties here, with laugh lines at the corners of her eyes, like his father. She grabs his father’s hand in hers, and her slender, freckled fingers twirl around James’ longer, bonier ones, as their entwined palms trace a gentle rise and fall in the air. Then, they each rest their joined hands on Harry’s right shoulder. It’s as if she’d never died, Harry thinks. All the stolen years she’s never gotten to live are right there in the laugh lines, the shorter hair, the clothes that Harry swears are straight out of Aunt Yael’s wardrobe. His own reflection stares back at him with a large, beaming grin, and then turns to the figure standing close enough to his dad that their shoulders touch. Sirius has a large smile on his face, it stretches from ear to ear as he laughs with his head at a tilt towards the stars, his hair a gentle fall against his shoulders, while Uncle Remus stands next to him and shakes his head in amusement.Behind the five of them, Harry recognises the two older couples who appear to be chatting amiably to each other from across the mirror. He’s seen them in photographs, though he’s never met them. They’d all been gone before his first birthday. On the far right, there’s a distinguished type of beauty in Euphemia Potter’s face, and the tumble of messy curls around her reminds him of his, the lines of her face similar to her son’s, but softer almost. Next to her, Fleamont Potter stands with slightly bent knees, which reduces his impressive height. He’s knobby in his joints like Harry, and his chestnut hair is sprinkled with grey. Harry’s surprised to notice a cluster of pale freckles across the sweep of his high cheekbones which nearly blend into his golden tan. Near the farthest right edge of the mirror, Aunt Yael and Uncle John stand with baby Mischa. One pudgy infant fist attempts to pull the scarf off his mother’s scalp as he turns in her grip, while in a chair in front of them Queenie Kowalski sits with a large, ragdoll cat on her lap, tiny paws upturned to clean. Next to his mother stands the Evans. He’s only seen them in the few photographs from his parents’ wedding photos, but he recognises his grandfather’s green eyes, and his grandmother’s red hair. They’re curled into one another with a loving look on their faces. Near the farthest edge of the mirror, there’s a bone thin woman with an angular face he doesn’t recognise, and a boy his own age: he’s blonde, and round, with watery blue eyes. They’re so far off to the side it’s as if they’re not there at all, Harry thinks. They’re almost intentionally separate, and Harry’s brow furrows as he traces the woman’s eyeline to see her gaze caught on Lily Potter with a look he can’t decipher. The boy’s eyes stare off to the side, as if he’s unaware of the people around him.In the background, amidst the familiar figures of Granddad Newt, his Bubbe Tina and the Tonks, there are more figures with eyes like his, more with his tumble of messy curls, and a couple with knobby knees, but they lack distinction. They’re like a faded photograph and Harry feels untethered to them, not able to make out any defining features. Absurdly, he thinks about the descriptions of Abigail’s family reunions; those relatives she sees once or twice a year who hand her a quarter as if it means something and then she promptly forgets their names as she runs off to go play on the slip-n-slide in the front yard. This, Harry feels, as he squints and tries to interpret the lines of their far off faces, feels like that. “So–” Harry jumps as he feels his inside turn to ice at the sudden sound of another voice. “Back again, Harry?” Harry cranes his neck to see a figure whose legs dangle over the edge of one of the desks by the wall. He swallows as he recognises the long beard, the pointed hat, and the old face of the headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. In his desperation to get to the mirror, mind fixed on the strange pull it’s had over him for days, he had walked right past the man and not noticed. “Umm–I didn’t see you, sir,” he says, his cheeks hot. He feels like a fool. He’s never interacted with the headmaster personally before, and it seems an odd time to now. Dumbledore inclines his head with a twinkle in his eyes as they stare unnervingly over the rim of his spectacles, his pupils fixed on Harry. “It is strange how nearsighted being invisible can make you,” he remarks. Underneath his thick beard and moustache, Harry thinks he sees him smile, and feels a rush of relief. He comes to join Harry on the floor, and Harry hears his joints creak as he sits on the cold stones. He listens carefully as Professor Dumbledore describes the mirror and its strange magic. The Mirror of Erised, Harry gathers, reflects a looker’s heart’s desire. Harry looks to his mother again, as Dumbledore says, “You, who have never known your mother, see her, standing there with your entire family.” The old man’s blue eyes stare at the reflective surface as he says, “I wonder if your father would see the same.” “I don’t know,” Harry replies and realises he has no way to even fathom what his father’s greatest desire is. He hadn’t even known his–not until this moment as Professor Dumbledore describes the device’s purpose. He thinks about Ron, who’d seen himself with trophies, standing out amongst his many brothers, and wonders what Hermione’s would be, too. Harry stares at the happy, smiling couple in the mirror, as Lily leans her head against James’ shoulder. His father turns, and kisses her forehead just as Dumbledore says, “Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible.” Nothing in the mirror is possible, Harry already knew this. After all, half the people he recognises are dead and gone. Still, it’s with some reluctance that he acknowledges it, and he feels his breath catch in his throat. “It’s an illusion,” Harry concludes without looking at the headmaster. He looks away from the image to stare at the stone floor. His mother is dead, and the smiling couple in the glass can only ever be that; a mere reflection of the past.“Indeed,” Dumbledore confirms. “The Mirror will be moved to a new home tomorrow, Harry, and I ask you not to go looking for it again. It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that.” Harry nods, wordless, and closes his eyes. As he stands up, he thinks about the question that’s been burning in his mind since that day in the library with Draco Malfoy. “Sir–” he starts to say but stops as Professor Dumbledore looks down at him with a gentle, expectant look. Harry squirms and decides to be bold. “Professor Dumbledore. Can I ask you something?” “Obviously, you’ve just done so,” Dumbledore smiles, his lips obscured by scruff. “You may ask me one more thing, however.” Harry sighs. One more, he thinks. He opens his mouth to ask about the funeral, to ask about Sirius and settle the matter once and for all in his head. He’s been imagining rather vivid scenarios, all of which he feels can’t possibly be real, and he needs to know that Malfoy is wrong. Something stops him, though, as he stares at Dumbledore’s face, those blue eyes fixed on him. Instead, he asks him about the mirror and what he sees. Socks, Harry thinks, as he heads off to bed. It’s only once he shoves Scabbers off his pillow with a scowl that he thinks the headmaster might not have been quite truthful with him in the end. ~ December 30, 1991 Their wireless croons out the dulcet sounds of Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain as Sirius leans up to reach the top shelf of their preservation cabinet. James rolls his eyes as he hears Sirius mutter, “We’re never gonna finish all this food. Where’s Moony when you need him,” while Stevie Nicks sings, “If you don’t love me now, you’ll never love me again.” Absently, James scratches the back of Galadriel’s ear as he watches Sirius inspect a half-empty carton of lo-mein, then stack it next to a pint of white rice and some sad, leftover egg rolls that have been coagulating in their own fat drippings for days on the counter in front of him. Near the edge of the sink, there’s already a plastic oblong container of wonton soup, two scallion pancakes that rest on a ripped paper towel, and three red bean buns in tupperware. “On a date,” James responds, and cranes his head back to stare at the ceiling. On his lap, Galadriel purrs like an old engine, steady and with a rumble. “Remember? You’re the one that set them up.” The song turns to Landslide. As the first refrain begins, Sirius sighs. “And what’s wrong with having a date here and eating the food we’ve already got? Where’d they even go? A food truck?” Sirius scoffs and shakes his head, while Stevie Nicks’ voice rings throughout the kitchen. Oh mirror in the sky, what is love? Can the child within my heart rise above, she sings and Sirius begins to hum along. James lets the music wash over him as he tilts his head down and watches as Sirius opens a container with a suspicious grease stain on the bottom and sniffs. His face contorts as his lip peels back, and then he vanishes the container and all its contents. “Keep that in the bin and our neighbours will think we’ve got something rotting in here,” he says. James rolls his eyes, and Galadriel lets out a long, scornful meow, which nearly out pitches Nicks’ voice as she croons, “Well, I’ve been afraid of changing cause I’ve built my life around you.” Sirius shoots the cat a glare, and then proceeds to grab a scallion pancake and some soy sauce to toss on a plate, singing along, “But time makes you bolder, even children get older and I’m getting older, too.”He’s already eaten dinner, but he’s clearly taking his mission to get rid of the leftovers seriously. Magnanimously, James refrains from pointing out that it was Sirius who ordered enough food for ten people on Christmas morning and summons the other scallion pancake with its sopping paper towel. He begins to pick at it, as he says, “Are we ever going to talk about it?” The song ends, and changes to Billy Joel’s Vienna. James feels a layer of grease stick to the roof of his mouth and create a film on his tongue as he tears off a larger chunk of five-day-old fried dough and chews it. Sirius fumbles with a pair of chopsticks as he tries to dip a triangle of dough into his tiny helping of soy sauce. “Talk about what?” he asks, gaze fixed on his food. “Remus’ date? She’s a bit of a stickler for the rules, but I think he’ll like her. They’re both obsessed with whether or not the Jersey Devil’s real.” The foundations of a real relationship right there, James thinks sarcastically and watches the thin, greasy, and no longer so crispy pancake wobble as it touches the sauce. “Sure, Remus’ date,” James says with a nod and pursed lips. Galadriel meows and arches her back as his fingers trail from her ear to her neck. “What do you think he’ll hand her? Gardenias or roses? Do you think he’ll set the mood with some light reading or will it be straight to business? Her place or ours? Should we clear out in case something goes on in the living room?” He hears Sirius sigh as he continues, “And after they get married do you think they’ll spend their honeymoon searching for the Jersey Devil or–” “Alright,” Sirius says with another, much longer sigh. “I take it you don’t mean Remus’ date then?” His hair falls in front of his eyes as he stares at James. James stares back at him flatly through messy curls, as Galadriel finally leaps off his lap to trot over to her water bowl. “What do you think I mean? The same thing I’ve been asking you every night for over a bloody month.” “Maybe if you stop nagging about it, we’d talk about it,” Sirius mutters sullenly, and stabs his scallion pancake with one of his chopsticks. It digs into the table with a dull sound and leaves a thin smear of oil on the surface. Then, Sirius collapses back against the chair with a grunt, and crosses his arms across his chest. One plain wooden chopstick pokes out between his index and middle finger. “It’s not like I want that house. I’d happily see it burn to the ground.” “Andromeda could probably make that happen,” James says, not entirely unseriously. He’d once had a thought or two about setting the place ablaze. Sirius shoots him a dark look from underneath his eyelashes. James shrugs and continues, “I’m just saying, it wasn’t expected. At all.” After Orion Black had died, Sirius had learned from the obituary in the Daily Prophet, same as Regulus’ death. They’d gotten a letter regarding Walburga three weeks after the fact from Andromeda, who had apparently debated even informing Sirius. Neither had thought to acknowledge their only remaining son. Over the years, James has honestly thought Arcturus Black might have charmed all memory of his eldest grandson out of his own head, let alone ever leave him to inherit a single knut.But the estate–well that James couldn’t fathom. Sirius scoffs and rolls his eyes so hard James thinks they might pop out of their sockets. “It wasn’t out of some hidden scrap of love in his cold, shrivelled heart,” he replies in a cold voice. “That didn’t exist. It was spite, and I will spitefully not accept ownership of that house. It can rot for all I bloody care.” “It kind of already was,” James points out a bit uselessly. He remembers the one and only time he’d been in that house; it had seemed more like a mausoleum than the actual crypt the Black family buried their dead in. It was dark and dank and full of mothballs. He’ll never forget the actual heads of house elves on the walls which had made James want to sick up right on their expensive carpet. “And it’s not like you can go and see it anyway. But it still means something.” Sirius looks away from him, towards the wireless which has moved back to Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams and stays stubbornly silent. The chopstick begins to drum against his wrist in tune with the melody. Fleetwood Mac had always been one of Sirius’ favourite bands. His, and Lily’s, James thinks, as he tries to figure out how to approach the contentious subject. He teeters on the edge of turning the wireless off, but he doesn’t want to put his friend on the defensive even more. James has never really known if he’s ever the right person to address childhood trauma. He doesn’t know how it feels to suddenly and completely unexpectedly be gifted with the very real building where the majority of that childhood trauma took place, but he does know Sirius can’t keep bottling it up. It’s never been good, historically, when Sirius Black attempted to bottle something up. There tended to be explosions. “Sirius–”“How about we talk about Harry’s letter instead. He had the Cloak,” Sirius says in a fast voice, and leans forward across the table as he interrupts James before he can continue in a direction Sirius clearly doesn’t want to go. The chopstick slides out of his hand and across the surface before it lands at the edge of a placemat. He swallows as Sirius turns his gaze on him, the conversation now flip-flopped around on him. “This entire time,” Sirius continues, and his voice grows colder with each word. “We had Andromeda search the cottage. We had Remus search the manor. We went through every box and every trunk and nothing. All because the old man had it this entire time.”James scowls and crosses his arms. Harry’s letter had been an uncomfortable reminder of Albus Dumbledore’s meddling in their lives. “I honestly thought he’d returned it,” he mutters. Though how he thought this James can’t even recall now. After all, he didn’t distinctly remember Dumbledore sending him back the Cloak, though he does remember Dumbledore had sent a parcel the morning of the first. He’d assumed it had been the Cloak, since he’d left it unopened on the counter in Sirius’ flat because his mind had been too torn up by recent events to bother with it.“If only we could sue,” Sirius says. The shadows caught on the angles of his face give him a slightly viscous look. “First he wants to steal your son, then he gets us banned from Britain, and now we find out he’s had your family’s property all this time! What’s next? Active murder? Is he gonna toss us off a cliff and send Harry packing to the Dursleys the next morning?” James puts his head in his hands. “I don’t think he’d go that far,” he mutters into the flat expanse of his palms. They feel cold and clammy and James wonders if they need to adjust the heating charms in the flat. His hair falls around his ears and his face and creates a shroud through the little gaps of light in between his fingers. “That’s stretching it a bit, mate.” The wireless shudders to a brief stop and then–Running Up the Hill begins to play.Sirius scoffs but doesn’t say anything more about Dumbledore’s potential to murder his opposition. Instead, he simply says, “I hate December thirtieth. Never anything good on December thirtieth.”Peter’s birthday, James thinks with dawning realisation. Peter’s thirty-second birthday because he’s out there somewhere, alive, while Lily is dead. He’d always tried his best not to acknowledge December thirtieth. “No,” James agrees and takes his head out of his hands to stare listlessly at the stack of Chinese food on the counter. “Never anything good.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
~ June 27, 1972 James feels the prickle of the long, bristly wheat brush against his bare calves as he runs through the field outside his grandmère’s farmhouse. The dry dirt crunches beneath his shoeless feet, abrasive and in desperate need of rain. Several small, knotty sticks dig into his arches as he calls out, “Don’t you dare eat that mouse. You’ll give yourself a stomachache,” to D’Artagnan. The cat’s luxurious orange tail sticks straight up in the brush, clearly on the prowl for prey. Above the stalks of wheat, James sees the gentle incline of the hill that leads to a nearby village. To the left, the farmhouse sits at the top of another hill, one with a gentler, slighter incline. This is the first summer he’s been here without his grandmère around. The sun hits the golden stalks of cereal with a bright, bronze glow and threatens to blind him temporarily. He squints and stumbles on a thick brush of downed wheat. He catches himself, and brushes the dirt off from his right hand onto his shorts, then shouts, “D’Artagnan.” He’s nearly lost his cat in the narrow gaps between the ripe grass, and his nose tickles with the promise of a sneeze as the feathery tips brush his nostrils, the stalks nearly at a full height with him. The balls of his feet crush more loosened grains as he runs, calling all the while to his mischievous feline. They eventually meet at the edge of the golden field, the satisfied cat lolling about on the ground with the corpse of a dead field mouse in his mouth. “Gross,” James mutters, lips curling. The cat spits the small, bloody body onto a smooth circle of brown dirt and, deliberately, begins to snack, tail first. “Do you have to do that in front of me?” James asks. His cat ignores him in favour of rapidly consuming his catch. On the other side of the farmhouse, the vineyard rests, where his grandmère’s family has cultivated grapes for wine for the past three centuries. If he runs off farther down the hills, and takes a left instead of a right, he’ll reach the wood. It’s a familiar place. In the past, he’s climbed the alder trees there, or ran across downed oak trunks. About five or so minutes into the wood, there’s a small brook that travels down a steady incline to a dip towards the village. The air is so hot the lure of the cold, clear water feels like a siren’s song, and he longs to feel it rush across his toes as he watches the stream travel in gentle ripples far out of view. The last time he’d been by that brook, his grandmère’s had taken hold of his hand in one thin-skinned, liver spotted hand, and carried a picnic basket made out of blue wicker in the other. Her grey hair had been pulled up into a bun at the top of her head, thin wisps escaping out of the large, imposing brim of her yellow hat. She’d set down a chequered blanket and given him a half-glass of watered-down wine, before pointing out all the familiar spots of her childhood. It had been the last day he’d had with her before she passed. She’d looked dull and peaky then, though he hadn’t recognised the tired lines in her drawn face, the way her wrinkles seemed drawn out, all the more prominent with the loss of her strength, sapped from her thin bones with the effort to keep breathing. He knows this farmhouse like the back of his hand, but it doesn’t feel like his anymore. He knows the pop of the grapes underneath the pads of his thumbs, and the feel of their skins as they slide off his fingers. He knows the smell of the fermenting wine, sharp and sour and tangy, and he can tell a random hiker the exact sound the cows in the barn make when they desire milking, or companionship. He’s always loved this farmhouse, but this year feels different. Lonelier. He’s more conscious that he’s the only kid around for miles. He looks around him, and spins in a circle. He spins again, and again, and stares, dizzy, at the vast field of wheat as he revolves past it, then the sloping hills in front of him, and sighs as he comes to an abrupt, jarring stop. In the distance, he sees the scattered figures of a dozen old farm hands, who have only ever indulged his mischief so far while attending to tasks. He tries to wave towards them, but no one looks over. He pushes out his wobbly breathlessness through his nostrils in a huff and picks D’Artagnan up in his arms, more to keep him from chasing anymore field mice than to guide him back to the farmhouse. He begins to head back, the call of the woods no longer as seductive as it seemed before. “Adieu,” he says to a farm hand who sits on a wooden bench halfway between the wheat field and the farmhouse. It’s carved with gentle, curling grape vines, and the man in the work robes hums peacefully while whittling away at a long branch. D'Artagnan's claws dig into the crook of James’ elbow. “Quin va?” The man only smiles and waves him off, eyes drawn with focus to the tip of the sharp knife against the peeling wood. There’s a scatter of shavings at his feet, dusting the top of his dragonhide boots. The soles of James’ naked feet have a blanket of debris and earth as he makes his way up the walkway, then pads through the cut grass. The recently watered soil cakes between his toes, and leaves imprints of the stones where the grass ends. He walks along the edge of the pool, careful to avoid the cracks in the rectangular stones, and then sets D’Artagnan down. The cat’s back arches, and his tail swoops in a half-circle towards the ground. In the centre of the water, an inflatable raft stands at rest, and a forgotten glass of champagne hovers before it. Wary of the water, the cat quickly flounces away in search of an escape from the sun. His sleek, orange form heads towards the red brick awning, held up by wooden support beams and disappears through the blue doors of the square, yellow bathhouse.There’s a loud, triumphant cat noise as soon as he disappears and James hopes he’s not hoarding a rodent graveyard in there. A stiff breeze brushes past, which threatens to unbalance him just as he stands on one leg, the other poised with one foot on the side of the pool. His hair rushes forward in front of his face, then back again when the wind retreats. D’Artagnan plaintively meows inside the bathhouse, but James doesn’t bother to investigate, not eager to see if his suspicions about mice are correct. He moves towards the main house. It’s two stories, and beige, with the same red brick roof tiles as the bathhouse and the farther off barn. It’s always been rather petite for the vast swaths of lands around it. As he pads through the front entrance, his feet leave behind dirt and dust on the wooden floor. He thinks about going towards the stairs towards his bedroom, but then he hears his parents’ voices from the kitchen and, with a moment or two of careful deliberation, opens the door of the wooden credenza left barren and unused near the front entrance. He crouches down into the small space, empty except for a stack of pale doilies carefully placed in a corner, and an old, steel candelabra. “Maman’s cousin has written to express interest,” his father says. It’s so low James has to strain to hear. “Her great-granddaughter is almost of age.” Who’s expressing interest in what, James wonders. He scratches at a rough patch of red skin on his calf, and steadfastly ignores the twinge in his bent knees. The strong, heady smell of coffee begins to drift from the dining area into the foyer, and James’ nose twitches. “It’s not like we can’t afford the upkeep on the place, Monty,” his mother says in a sharp voice. She sounds almost mournful, like she had at the funeral. Though Isabeau Potter hadn’t been her mother, James thought she’d taken his grandmère’s death the hardest. “Your mother left it to you.” There’s a sigh, and a ruffle that sounds like the crinkle of parchment. “And who else am I to leave it to, Effie? James is not going to want to run this place, you know that.” James pouts, and thinks, thanks for the confidence, Papa, with a pout. His father’s not far off though. He doesn’t want to sit around selling wine and making cheese for the rest of his life, especially in a place where there’s no room for a quidditch pitch. He knows, since he’d asked once, but every single acre’s taken up by the trappings of farm life. “And I’m not getting any younger. The company’s hard enough to run as it is,” his father says in a low voice. He sounds tired, James notes with sudden surprise, in a way that he’s never noticed before. His mother sighs, and he hears a clink he thinks might be the base of a porcelain coffee cup as it hits the marble tabletop. “And what about that other letter? The one from him. What does he want now?” She sounds harried. Just as his elbow starts to protest its bent position, and his spine threatens to remain stiff for all the rest of his days, James also hears the pitter-patter of padded feet join his parents’ voices. Then, a soft scratch at the grated door of the credenza. “Oh no,” he whispers, as D’Artagnan begins to meow. “Meow,” the cat calls as his father responds, “He asked to look at it again. I’m not sure how many more times I can tell the man no.” “Go away,” James says through one corner of his mouth, lips pressed together tight. One tiny paw reaches through the gap and attempts to reach him. “D’Artagnan, go away. Go find a mouse.” “Meow,” the cat calls again, his baleful yellow eyes on James’ face through the slots. “He’s too bold, that’s what he is,” his mother replies in a tight voice. “Meow.” James wishes he’d remembered to take his wand with him to the field. If he had, he could summon the small, discarded mouse toy he spots underneath the first floorboard of the stairs to distract the determined feline. “Well, he’s got a lot of power,” his father says in that contemplative tone of voice he gets whenever he’s working on something particularly interesting. “Men like that think they can get away with whatever they ask. No doubt, he’s certain we’ll concede eventually.” James freezes as his cat’s spine arches, soft furry belly turned inwards as it concaves, and then–“MEOW,” the feline yowls and jerks forward with all two of his front paws and nine pound body weight into the credenza with a resounding smack and a puff of orange fur. James closes his eyes as the sounds in the kitchen grind to a halt. Within seconds, he hears his mother’s heels click-clack across the wooden floor, then he sees the trimmed silk hem of her dress robes through the narrow slots. She wrenches the credenza door open and bright light streams through. He squints as it bears down on him from the large, open windows on the right side of the front door. As James looks sheepishly up at his mother through his eyelashes, his traitor cat flounces off, business done. “Ciao, Mama,” James says with a toothy smile and a crooked wave, elbows and knees still bent. She sighs and shoos him out of the furniture. His entire body aches from stiff limbs as he stands up straight and stretches; all five feet two inches of him, dirty and dusty and caught in a compromising position. “What did you think you were doing?” she asks in a sharp tone, fingers pressed against her temples. James watches as his father leans against the doorway that separates the kitchen from the corridor. He shakes his head at his son, his chestnut hair slicked back with Sleakeasy’s. It looks incredibly shiny. In his hand, he holds a porcelain mug decorated with fleur-de-lis. “Well—” James tries to think up an excuse, anything to make it appear as if he hasn’t been eavesdropping on his parents. Given his position, the odds of pulling off that lie are close to none. “I was looking for D’Artagnan’s mouse.” Then, he widens his eyes. “Oh, look, it’s over there!” He points to the stairs where his cat plays with the aforementioned toy, his furry back flat on the ground and all four legs curled around the tiny faux mouse. His paws scrape against the bottom of the staircase board as he wiggles. His mother doesn’t even turn, but he hears his father chuckle. “With the door closed?” his mother asks, one eyebrow raised primly, her fingers outstretched towards the credenza. “Jaime, we’ve talked about this.”James sighs, and rubs the back of his neck, sheepish. “I know, Mama.” He tries to grin at her. It fails to sway her, as her frown remains. His father chuckles again. “Don’t be too hard on him, Effie. Boy’s probably bored.” James grins wider towards his father, who winks back, an indulgent smile on his face. His mother sighs, then rolls her eyes. “Very well, then. But if I catch you listening to private conversations like that again, I’ll confiscate your broom, do you hear?” James nods with wide eyes and crosses his fingers behind his back. Then, she ruffles his messy hair. He follows his parents into the kitchen. There’s a French press on the table, with his mother’s mug next to a folded up napkin, and a stack of papers in front of her placemat. Their plates are empty, though James spots bits of croissant crumbs scattered around their surfaces, as well as on the cotton tablecloth and a half empty pot of whipped honey. “I thought you were writing to your friend to come visit? Remus, was it?” his mother asks, as he sits down in the chair across from her. “He can’t come,” James says, eyes downcast. He flicks at a crumb. “Says his mum’s sick again.” The night before had been the full moon, James recalls. It had appeared full and ominous in the bleak dark of his bedroom here, where there were no lights around for miles. He bites his lip and thinks about the book he’d bought at the bookstore in the village the other day. The book on werewolves. He’s still not sure, but sometimes–sometimes he wonders. Remus’ mum is sick an awful lot, and an awful lot of that time seems to coincide with the full moon. “What about Sirius? You seem quite close with him,” his mother says, as she picks up her mug and takes a sip of her coffee. Then, she swirls more milk into the cup from the tiny milk jar next to the French press and adds a lump of sugar. “Hardly a letter comes without his name.”James shakes his head. “Sirius’ parents aren’t going to let him come. They’re–well–”He trails off, not sure if he should get into Sirius’ horrible home life. “Hmmm, yes,” his mother replies, in a tone that suggests she knows quite well what James means regardless. Then again, there is Aunt Dorea, so she probably does. He watches as his parents exchange a look, before his father turns to him and says, “Son, we’ve been meaning to tell you something. And, if you want, you can invite your friends. Specifically, we were thinking Sirius.”James feels his loneliness begin to abate as his parents tell him about their plan. He runs off to write Sirius before his mother’s even done explaining their plot to help him abscond with his friend for the day so that he can leave Grimmauld Place at least once this summer. “No running!” his mother calls. “I love you both,” James yells as he leaps up the stairs, taking them two by two, and bounds into his room with a crash into a pile of discarded shoes. Once he’s rescued himself from footwear, he grabs some parchment. Then, he sends off his mother’s ancient raven before the ink dries, and goes back to his room to stare at the calendar on the old, creaking desk, fervently wishing for August to come.
~ February 23, 1992 “Aunt Tina’s sources say it’s gonna be denied again,” Yael tells her cousin as she searches through an overstuffed rack of formal dress robes for babies. They’re in a large, magical department store that has always reminded her of Macy’s called Crabbeapple’s Goods Imporium. It has bright, fluorescent lights that beam from chandeliers dangling precariously all along the ceiling, and off-white walls in a long, rectangular expanse of identically sized narrow aisles. Over the enhanced wireless, which inflicts all the store’s patrons with its unwelcome presence, Rick Riverton’s talk radio introduces a surprise guest: Henry Handlebroom, a politician running on a platform of reduced contact between no-maj and the magical community. “So, Henry, maybe I call you Henry?” the host says through the tinny speakers. “You’ve made quite a stir in the community with your statement that, and I quote, ‘that no-maj should simply not marry into the magical community.’ What do you say to your opposition?” “Well, Rick–”Yael and James shudder simultaneously, as the sleazy politician’s oily, unwelcome voice invades their eardrums. Sometimes, she’s keenly aware how recent the overturn of Rappaport’s Law truly is, and how attitudes towards marriages like hers are still more scornful in private than public opinion truly reflects. She turns her wedding band around on her finger, once and then twice, as it catches on her knuckle. She grits her teeth as the man on the wireless prattles on. Despite being inside, she adjusts her sunglasses as they start to slip down the bridge of her nose in a poor attempt to hide the large, dark circles underneath her eyes. She scowls at a rather plump woman over by the onesies display who looks at her curiously and angles her body away from the scrutinising gaze. “So–not looking great at getting access to that vault over there from over here,” she continues to say to her cousin, desperate for something to do other than stare at dress robes and listen to bullshit. Aunt Tina’s last message hadn’t been too hopeful that James would get his Gringotts vault access back anytime in the near future. Nor, Yael thinks, the warrant rescinded. James’ forehead bangs into the shiny, curved rod that holds the clothes in the most narrow gap between the hangers. “How does one man have so much pull?” he asks, voice muffled by dress robes and fingerprinted steel. Some of his hair clings to a white, ruffled dress robe with some type of stiff frill at the collar that Yael briefly considers might have been nesting there since the nineteenth century. It comes with attached baby booties, though the booties are made of crocheted lace with deliberate holes, and don’t seem appropriately warm enough for infant wear. She grabs that hanger and pushes it away as far as she can. It moves about an inch. “Well,” she says and clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “There was that whole thing with Grindelwald. Defeating a dark wizard tends to give one some leeway with things, I suspect.” She pulls out a bright yellow dress robe that appears to have a classic footie pyjama appearance, and then frowns at the hole near the collar. It looks a bit like moth bites, or a doxie, she decides. “And the whole Supreme Mugwump thing,” she adds as she puts the fraying robe back onto the rack.She has no idea how she’d even wrestle her wriggling baby into it, anyway. James growls, though it sounds less impressive with his face still pressed into the robes. “Defeat one little dark wizard and everyone bows down to you,” he mumbles, before he lifts his head up to glare at the rack. His fingers start to fiddle with the hangers, and then he bats away one that’s full of fur trim and the colour of vomit. “You know we can get Mischa something better than this,” he tells her, as he eyes each and every baby dress robe with distinct disgust. They are all rather hideous, she concedes silently. She shakes her head, then reaches up to adjust her headscarf as it slips down the side of her skull. “He’s gonna outgrow them, so why bother spending a lot?” That’s been John’s argument about purchasing from Walmart, after all. James leans his shoulder against the rack, and it creaks as he pulls out another hanger with curled lips. It’s orange and sprinkled with glitter. Yael thinks it might be modelled after a luminescent pumpkin. James shakes his head and says, “So that he doesn’t look like a stuffed gourd in the pictures?” He shakes the robe, and it flips in the air in a rush of colour. “Think of him when he’s ten. He’s gonna try to hide the albums under the couch cushions when his friends come by. What’s this for anyway?” “Some award event or other Bubbe’s dragging me too,” Yael says. “I think it has to do with horses?” She shakes her head at his raised, doubtful eyebrows, and admits silently that horses don’t sound quite right but she hadn’t been paying much attention when Queenie floo called. She’d been too busy nursing a gigglewater and preparing formula for the next week since she deserved that alcohol, thank you. “Honestly, I have no clue. She just wants Mischa to come, too. Says she doesn’t spend enough time with him.” Yael shudders to think what Queenie will do if she shows up to this event all dolled up sans baby boy. This reminds her that needs to adjust her own robes that she hasn’t worn since before her pregnancy, as she’s not going to slog through another rack or two in the crowded women’s section to find something for herself. Plus, she thinks as she watches the plump, nosy woman now by the underwear and hosiery display pull out an entire pack of mismatched socks, Queenie Kowalski would likely have a heart attack if she knew her granddaughter had gotten her dress robes at a department store. All the while, Handlebroom’s reprehensible voice continues to bleat on about his truly sickening ideas, as she imagines putting on something from Crabbeapple’s and showing up to Queenie’s event. She’d never hear the end of it. “She’s by every weekend,” James says as he puts the side of his face down on the topmost rod. The poorly constructed rack creaks again, and a dress robe slides from its hanger to curl into a puddle on the floor, hidden beneath the shroud of full hangers that trail from four stuffed rods attached to the central metal pole. “How much more time does she need with him?” Yael laughs and feels her stomach swoop. She’s tired and cranky and Mischa had been up all night with colic and a growing tooth, while John had locked himself in the bedroom with sound cancelling headphones since he needed to get up early for work. “Knowing her? Every minute.” And I might give those to her, she thinks, only a little bit desperate. With a resigned sigh, she pulls the least egregious dress robe off the rack. It’s minimal lace, but powder puff blue with polka dots. Then, they head towards the check out, and leave the circular rack at a precarious tilt, as the talk show comes to its end in the background. At the counter, James picks up a stack of chewing gum, and a couple of flimsy, smudged compact mirrors and tosses them towards the cashier. “Sirius ran out,” he explains when Yael gives him a curious look. The spotty teenager tallying up their purchases looks like he wants to ask how someone runs out of mirrors, but Yael shakes her head vigorously at him. He blanches, then pops their items into a bag. “Have a good day,” he says with an uncertain smile at them as they leave through the revolving door. They pop out into a desolate lot at the end of a street in the middle of magical nowhere Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey. The sun’s a speck beneath the thick, looming clouds. Not for the first time in her life, Yael considers that there is next to nothing truly magical about New Jersey. “I can’t believe you’ve dragged me down here,” she tells James as they stand there. He twists his hair into a bun at the back of his neck, while looking at his progress in one of the new, compact mirrors. The fierce February wind licks at the scarf on her head, and the one around her neck, and threatens to take the fabric along. She grips them tight. “And that you want me to go to Smithville. I hate Smithville,” she adds. It has those creepy, beady-eyed creatures–the ones that, she maintains, are not ducks with those scowly looking bills and plotting faces. She’s convinced they’re the product of some charm gone horribly wrong. There’s no other explanation for them. She reaches into her pocket when the wind dies down, and pulls out her woollen mittens, then shoves all ten fingers into their warmth while the chill bites at her cheeks. She shoots her cousin a disgruntled look as he simply pulls his dragonhide jacket around his shoulders with no scarf and no mittens, and wonders if he’s placed a warming charm on himself. “I don’t want to go to the de Sousas alone, and Sirius begged off,” James says, and then he rips the tie from his hair with a loud sigh. His curls fall in a loose tussle all about his face as soon as they escape the ineffective prison, and he shoves the mirror into his jeans pocket. “They’re always–weird, when I’m alone.” His face settles into a grimace, mouth downturned so far it threatens to become one with his chin. “Whatever,” she mutters and digs around in her purse. She flings three diapers, a pacifier that’s been gummed to oblivion, an old lighter with a peeling label, two containers of bright pink baby powder, and a ticket to Bugs Bunny’s Creature Features onto the lopsided sidewalk, then bends down to grab her lipstick as it clatters to the damp concrete. It’s smushed into an unrecognisable, bone dry mass as she applies it. Then, she grabs her wand from her back pocket and swishes it, gathering all her discarded refuse back into the bag’s depths. “Why do they want you to visit without Harry anyway?” “Haven’t the foggiest,” James admits, one shoulder lifting up into a half-shrug. He shoves his hands into his pockets. Snow begins to fall from the cloudy, overcast sky in a thick sheet. It dots his black hair with bright white flakes, before it melts into the strands. They begin to walk, and her snow boots pound through the already large deposits of yellowing snow pushed up into small hills on the sidewalk with loud crunches. She slides across black ice, and he catches her, just as she asks, “So, what’s up with Remus? And–Bluebell, was it?” What an odd name, Yael thinks, as she struggles to remember all the details of Remus’ newest girlfriend. James stares at her, his fingers a firm grip on the crook of her elbow to hold her steady until they’re sure the black ice is gone. He shakes his head, though his eyes never leave hers as he says, “Sirius set them up. As a joke. He met her in swing class, a place Remus will never be caught dead in. They’re still together.” “That’s good, right?” she asks, slightly hesitant. Remus hadn’t had much luck in the dating department, after all. The last had thrown a lukewarm cup of tea in his face after he’d asked her if she was going to drink it before it went cold. They’re all still a bit puzzled by that incident. The one before had told him she wanted seventeen children and a great dane. She’s lasted all of one date. “She’s going up next weekend to Illvermorny,” James says, his brows scrunched. “You know, she told me that the Macusa’s got the Jersey Devil locked up in a cell in the Grand Canyon. Which is not its natural climate, of course.” He says this so matter of fact Yael wonders if he actually believes this is true. They turn the corner, and then he smirks. “The Grand Canyon, Yael.” “Because that’s the unbelievable part,” Yael replies. She looks at him, sceptical, through her eyelashes, though he can’t see that through the shaded glass. She shakes her head, and wonders about the stability of Remus’ dating life if he’s entertaining that. The right corner of James’ mouth tilts further upwards. “Well, it’s not like she’s claiming it’s Grand Central.” He bumps his shoulder gently against hers. They finally reach an open expanse near the edge of the wood, where a cluster of spruce and fir trees sit next to the set up apparition point. They linger there for a moment, as they watch an older couple with stooped backs, floral print pants and three bags full of discount Valentine’s candy argue about which city their house is in. With a long-suffering sigh, Yael scratches above her right eyebrow, then turns to James and says, “You know, Harry’s letters have been strange. Has he asked you about a Nicholas Flame?” Not that she’d had the faintest idea what he’d been talking about when he’d sent his extremely short note consisting of a greeting, an update about his terrible potions teacher, and that question. Really, she doesn’t know what he expects from her. She barely knows what day of the week it is anymore, given how tired she is. Going on three weeks, and only four hours at most a night will do that to a person, she supposes. She can’t wait till Mischa’s sleeping eight hours. “Flamel?” James responds. He nods. “He did. Sirius, too. And Remus.” “Think it’s for some sort of school project?” It must be, if he’s so dedicated to receiving an answer. However, James scoffs. “I doubt it. Only reason he’d need the name of some random wizard is history, and Binns is still teaching. That’s not a name associated with the Goblin Rebellions, so it’s nothing to do with class. No,” he shakes his head as the couple finally decides they live in Miami, only for the haggard looking wife with the overall shorts over the floral pants to turn to the other woman and shout, “No, Daytona Beach!” “If he’s asking about this Flamel guy, it’s for something else,” James continues, as if the decrepit couple isn’t arguing about which Florida location filled with alligators and humidity they reside in right in front of them. “I hope it’s not for something nefarious, because I swear he won’t see that Nimbus again.” Yael rolls her eyes. “Yeah, for like a day.” She waves her hand dismissively in the air, and sees her breath come out in visible puffs with the chill. James is notorious for never sticking to a punishment. Harry’s grand record of grounding lasted four hours. The couple leaves with a loud crack, and then it's their turn. She sighs, and says, “Side-along?” James nods, and then they’re off, gripped tight by the sensation of being pushed through a vacuum tube through time and space, all to spend a long, long night in Historic Smithville dodging dodgy waterfowl.
~ March 2, 1972 Ron’s twelfth birthday comes and goes with a lopsided blueberry muffin that’s got a smear of clotted cream arranged on top and a single thin, procured candle (though how it was procured Harry doesn’t think he wants to find out) shoved in the middle. Harry and Hermione join Fred and George in an off-key rendition of Happy Birthday while Percy the prefect opts out. He sits near the edge of their section of the table in the Great Hall with a sniffle and a new ink pot that he shoves over to his brother with nary a card in sight. The next day, Ron gets a rather more unwelcome, belated gift: a slew of homework from their professors that threatens to overwhelm them. “It’s only Monday,” Ron complains as they make their way to the library after class. They’re a few steps behind Hermione, whose hair seems even bushier from the rapidly growing humidity of March. It sticks to Harry in a light sheen of sweat, as his robe clings to the slick skin of his neck. He quickens his stride to catch up and watches as one of the books at the top of her stack threatens to upend onto the floor. Her arms tremble as she steadies it with her chin. “How is it they assign us so much work on a Monday,” Ron continues to complain. “They have nothing better to do than grade,” Harry replies absently, as he tries to keep pace with Hermione. For someone less than athletic, she maintains a remarkably fast speed. “Or so it seems.” Right before they reach the library, Ron sighs heavily, and runs off back to the dorm to “pick up what they forgot.”Harry shrugs but Hermione doesn’t even notice his departure in her haste to her destination. Calves burning, he takes the final distance at a run to catch up to her. Despite the hours of Wood’s vigorous quidditch training over the last few months, he feels out of shape, like his muscles are nothing but limp noodles. There’s a huddle of Slytherins and Ravenclaws hunched over a huge stack of books at the table closest to the large double doors. Behind them is a smattering of studious younger students, and nearest to the large window with the stained glass Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas try to impress an uninterested Lavender Brown with their burping abilities. Harry waves at them as he follows Hermione past the stack of potions books, and towards a secluded alcove where they can speak with a tiny illusion of privacy. She sets her stack of books down on an old, scratched up desk with a resounding smack. Harry sits down a bit gentler and starts to trace at some of the initials carved into the side of the wood. DM&MM he reads. They’re tiny letters, almost miniscule. There’s a series of about forty others or so, as he traces across various streams of initials, his fingernails catching in the groves of RAB+ which tapers off the side of the desk to slink into the obscurity of its underside, before he curves his fingers up again and ends at LE&JP. Hmmm, he thinks, just as Ron comes back with Harry’s chocolate frog card. “I really don’t see why we even need this anymore,” he says as he collapses into the chair next to Harry. Hermione doesn’t look up from her book, but simply turns the page with one finger. “We’ve got to have memorised all that’s on it by now.” “You should always refer back to the source material,” Harry tells him, remembering the greatest piece of advice his fifth grade teacher had ever given him. It had helped him win many debates against Sebastian Anastas in the lunchroom. Hermione nods in agreement, and the ends of her hair, which are getting a bit long and scraggly near the bottom, brush the upturned pages of her book as she bends down to inspect a word. “And that’s our only source material,” she adds, right before she draws back and closes the book with a decisive snap and a mumbled “useless.” The Twelve Uses For Dragon’s Blood: A Brief History by Bertha Babbington, Harry notes, and remembers that Albus Dumbledore is credited for discovering its uses. He wonders how much history there could possibly be if one man found them all, but then again, maybe they’d been failed attempts by others before. Just as Harry resolves to check out the book once Hermione’s done with it, she says with a heavy sigh, “If only we could get into the restricted section. I’m certain the books there would be much more helpful. How can we ever find anything with only the approved book list out here?” Ron’s eyebrows jump nearly all the way up his freckled forehead and into his hairline, but Harry’s heard Hermione’s desire to get into the restricted section before. It’s surprisingly common, and usually expressed whenever she feels like her essay isn’t good enough or that there is another area of argument to explore in their set assignment. “You want to break the school rules?” Ron exclaims in disbelief, while Harry chews contemplatively on his bottom lip. Though his father had written to him to tell him that, yes, the invisibility cloak had once been his, but that he’d been under the mistaken impression it was in a box in an attic somewhere back in his parents’ house, Harry hasn’t used it since his conversation with Dumbledore about the mirror. Not, he believes, out of any inherent desire to go searching for the mirror again, but rather, he simply hadn’t seen the need to. He’d been so busy with quidditch practice in the pouring rain and piles of homework that he’s fast asleep as soon as he lays down each night. The spare moments he does have are spent with Ron and Hermione on their new project: the philosopher’s stone. Finally, he says, “we could,” and stares in the direction of the Restricted Section of the library. Hermione turns to him so fast Harry thinks she might have pulled a muscle, while Ron swivels to gape at him at a more sedate pace, though with less surprise than he’d shown towards Hermione. “Why not?” he asks, a bit defensive. His shoulders stiffen. “We could use the Cloak. It’s not like we’re going to keep the books. Just borrow them for a bit. An hour or two.” Hermione’s eyes narrow. “Harry, we don’t even know what books we’d need. Going through the card catalogue would take ages, and we don’t even know what book will be helpful or not.” To Harry, it sounds as if she’s backtracking on an idea that had been hers.“Unless there’s one just called The Philosopher’s Stone and All You Ever Wanted to Know,” Ron jokes with a nervous laugh. Hermione rolls her eyes, but Harry doesn’t find the idea so absurd. He drops his voice to a low whisper, wary of others listening in. “Maybe there is. Not—that,” he says and waves his hand towards Ron. That would be a dumb title and Harry can’t imagine any publisher allowing that to print. “But something that indicates it. Look, Sirius told me he and my dad used to use the Cloak all the time when they were here. The kitchens, flying outside after hours, just to wander when they were bored. They never got caught.” Actually, Sirius had written to advise him that he should absolutely use the Cloak to explore the grounds, gorge himself in the kitchen, and take people on midnight flights around the pitch like they’d done. Harry tactfully doesn’t inform Hermione of this endorsement. Hermione’s voice meets him at a decibel lower than he can manage. “Just because they never got caught doesn’t mean you won’t. And you’re only a first year, Harry. We know enough about the stone to know that Professor Snape wants it–yes,” She holds up the flat of her palm to stop Harry’s protests. “I know, we need to make sure he doesn’t get it after what we heard him say to Professor Quirrel. But he doesn’t seem like he’s in any hurry if you ask me, given the fourteen inch essay he’s just assigned us on the various uses for beetle eyes.” Out of the corner of his eye, Harry sees Ron’s lips curl with disgust as the other boy moans. “Why eyes? They’re all jellied. It’s vile.” Harry leans closer, so that their foreheads almost meet in the middle of the table over the large stack of books Hermione’s hoarding. “And what if that’s just a distraction? For all we know he already has the stone!” Hermione shakes her head, her hair a tickle against Harry’s cheek. “Why would he still be teaching if he did?” It’s a valid point. Harry’s sure if he’d just robbed the most secure place in magical Britain under the nose of one of the most powerful wizards in the last few centuries, he’d be getting the hell out of dodge. Still, who knows what goes on in Snape’s mind. The man somehow maintains his position as a professor despite his absolutely appalling teaching methods. Filled with righteous indignation at the thought of Snape and the memories of his awful classes, Harry tells Hermione that Snape’s mind is a mystery no one can truly solve. “Harry, sometimes I think you’re a bit too fixated on this matter,” she replies in a small voice. Askance, Harry stares at her, while Ron groans behind them. “It’s affecting your work. I noticed you got an A on that last herbology essay.” Harry leans back and throws his hands up in the air and his knee jerks up into the table with a thump. Hermione rolls her eyes, again, and leans back with pursed lips and crossed arms, while Ron asks, “What’s wrong with an A?” This proceeds to start another argument about the importance of grades which distracts them from the assigned homework that sits, ignored, in their bags. Later that day, as dusk begins to bleed into the faint sun that weakly streams through the narrow breaks in the clouds, Harry sits in the owlery on a window ledge. The window’s propped open to let in the cold air, as well as the owl delivery service. He crosses out another attempt at a letter to his dad. Dear Dad, he imagines writing as he leans his head back against the cold stone. I know I’ve been bothering you about this and you already said you’ve never heard of him, but fear not, because that’s not what I’m writing about! Have you ever heard of the philosopher’s stone? It’s some potentially powerful magical object that might give Professor Snape unlimited power or something, but worse, we know it will make him immortal. An immortal Snape doesn’t bear thinking about and since the power he does have he abuses by making Neville Longbottom cry in class and implying that I’m a dunderhead who will coast by in life on fame and peanuts, we’d like to stop him before that happens. He’d probably elect Draco Malfoy for Minister of Magic or something, given how much he praises him in class. Any titles or books you can recommend would be extremely helpful. Especially about how to get past a cerberus! Your totally innocent, absolutely up to nothing questionable or liable to get me expelled, son, Harry. His father would love that, Harry thinks with a scoff as he throws another wad of parchment to the ground. It lands next to a pile of droppings and pellets. Hedwig pecks at his shoulder, and he curls his fingers under her chin. “I know, girl,” he says. “I’m trying.” She hoots in response. He thinks about the last letter he’d received from his father and bites his lip. Mischa’d come down with a bad case of infant dragonpox after some event Aunt Yael’d taken him to and was in the Magical Maladies & Infectious Diseases Youth Ward at Picquerary Memorial Hospital. James has been bringing her take out every night and manning the majority of the baking and inventory for the store over the last few days. It sounded as if neither of them had slept much. Harry resolutely decides it’s probably better not to bother his father with inquiries about the stone. The last thing James Potter needs right now is to know his eleven-year-old son might plan to fight his professor over a rock after a harrowing battle with a large, three-headed dog. Still, something has been nagging at him. This is the newly recognised reality that Professor Snape isn’t that old. Oh, there are lines on his face, and his skin is sallow enough that he appears older than he is, but Harry reckons he has to be around his father’s age. Suddenly, he wonders if they’d known each other. He picks up his pen again and starts to write. Dear Dad,
I know I’ve been complaining about him a lot, but it just occurred to me that you might have known Professor Snape in school. He doesn’t look that much older than you. Was he always such a jerk or is this a new development? If you did know him, I mean. You might not have.
Anyway, all’s good here. Classes are challenging, but quidditch has been amazing. Oliver Wood is even more of a drill sergeant than you are as a captain, dad. I didn’t think that was possible, but he’s had us out in the rain at six in the morning four times a week.
Oh, Professor McGonagall told me to congratulate you on your newest article in the Transfiguration Journal. How come I didn’t see it? You used to always show me your drafts! You should send it with your next post, Hermione would love to read it, too. I’m attaching some sugar quills for Uncle Remus’ birthday. Fred Weasley got them at Zonkos for me. You’re still heading up to Illvermorny to see him, right? If not, please send the quills along. Don’t eat them!
Love,
Harry
Right before Harry attaches the letter to Hedwig’s leg, another sudden thought occurs to him. He laughs at his own foolishness, not sure why he hadn’t thought of it before. His stomach pops with excitement as he pulls out another sheet of parchment from his bag and begins to scribble. Hedwig hoots inquisitively, leg still stuck out at an angle to receive her deliveries. Jesse, he starts,Do you have access to all the books in your library? We don’t here. Some things are restricted, which is kind of lame, if you ask me. Anyway, do you think you can look up a creature called the cerberus? I want to know if there are any methods to soothe it or tame it or something.
How’s Illvermorny?
Harry
P.S. Don’t ask me why I need to know about this dog, okay?
Then, with a gentle pat to her head, he attaches both letters and the sugar quills, and sends Hedwig off.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
~ September 24, 1972 “Huh, weird,” James mutters as soon as he spots the small, skinny boy on the pitch. He has to squint to make him out, and for a long second, he thinks he’s imagining him. Some fever dream, he tells himself, only because it’s surprising, at five-thirty in the morning, to see anyone else there. On the hike back up, the grounds were curiously empty on the road from the border of Hogsmeade to the castle. He stops at the edge of the pitch to catch his breath, taking in air in short, shallow gasps. The figure’s still there when he refocuses. This boy is the first he’s seen since he left the others in Hillel passed out in the sukkah. They were all covered by fluffy blankets, wrapped tight within their depths. Ignoring his human’s departure, D’Artagnan had bat his sharp claws at a curlicue string of preserved etrog peel with a crushed beetle underneath his head. It’s a relatively overcast day; the clouds hover with a threat above the pitch, dark and fit to burst a tantrum all over the field. He’d felt more than one bold raindrop drip onto his face during his trek, and he wipes away dallying moisture from his hairline where it rests in thick, sweaty clumps. The air is musty and humid, soupier the higher up the grounds he’d gone. It’s not the best conditions for flying, or for assessing the skills of new players. James feverishly hopes the rain holds out until after his tryout. Just one more hour, he hopes, and then he’ll be on the Gryffindor team. Despite his anticipation for the day, sleep the night before had been slow to come. More than once, he’d pushed his blankets off and shucked on his shoes, only to shuck them off again. I’m right, his mind rotated back and forth, his eyes fixed on the full moon. I’m right. As he thought this, sleep arrived in spurts and stops, his whole body on edge, in wait to hear the same tell-tale howl from the year before. And howl the wind had; long and loud, almost wretched in its heavy pitch. With a quick glance and a heavy yawn, he scratches at an itchy, red rash on his collarbone, and sees no one but the single, solitary figure anywhere else around. Breath caught, James hops up the four sets of rows in the stands, teetering a bit on the second with an abrupt head rush, and sits down next to Sirius’ surly brother. Behind them, eleven more rows reach upwards and curve around the entire field, space upon space for students and faculty to sit. Startled, Regulus jerks his head, hair all ruffled in tiny little curls, as James begins to trim the ends of his broom of loose branches. He doesn’t want any extra drag while up in the air today. As the other boy shifts, James glances towards him from underneath his frizzy bangs. The younger boy’s robe lies discarded in a pile by his feet, with the Slytherin crest face up towards the sky. James points to the broom on his lap and says, “First years aren’t allowed their own brooms, you know.”Through pursed lips, Regulus replies, “It’s not mine. I got it from the shed.” Early morning shed theft isn’t much better than smuggling in a broom, but James isn’t one to judge. Given its battered, scratched appearance, it’s rather obvious on close inspection. The Blacks, after all, would never settle to give their son a subpar broom, given that they didn’t even like Sirius and he’d come to school this term with the newest model on the market. There’s a limp and holey quality to the one on Regulus’ lap, as if the wood’s started to succumb to rot from the inside, too old and cheaply made to truly use well but too necessary an acquisition for the school to truly give up. Regulus looks away and fixes his gaze on the goalpost farthest from them, while his small hands tighten around the bumpy, lopsided handle. There’s a deep, jagged divet near its end, about a centimetre or so wide, that his pinky finger slides down and catches in. His thin cheeks are red, and the strands of hair close to his hairline damp with sweat, sticking to his pale skin in thick patches. The rest is mussed in a way that Sirius never manages, evidence of his early morning flight. It’s startlingly unrefined for a Black. James squints at him through his eyelashes, and tries to clear his dry throat. He’s never really looked at him before, he realises. Regulus has a similar side profile to Sirius; the same long, sharp nose, with identically carved high cheekbones and thin, sharp eyebrows that slant at a downward sweeping angle above the same wide, slate grey eyes. His eyelashes are shorter, though, less of a sweep, as they point straight and outwards with a rigid determination. His face is all harsh angles, James thinks, and very aristocratic. Perhaps it’s the green, Slytherin tie, bright against his wind-ruffled white shirt that brings it all out. Regulus’ jaw twitches, as James continues to perform standard broom maintenance in the spot next to him, despite the expanse of empty seats that surround them he could move to. He traces the fingers of his left hand over the handle, where he’s painted a series of wavy, light blue lines which resemble a gush of wind near to the broom’s head, while the right continues to prune. “Is there something you wanted, Potter?” he asks finally, his lips pressed into a pale pink line, but his grey gaze fixed solidly on James. James smirks and flings a ragged twig over the bleachers onto the grass. The wind picks it up as it descends, and it swirls through the air along with the gust before it falls, pitifully, back to the earth, farther than where he threw it. “Weren’t you calling me James about a month ago, Reggie?” he asks. His throat feels tight, the back of it in the cavern behind his tonsils all coarse, like sandpaper, as he speaks. His knees shift wider to get into a more comfortable position, and he nearly brushes against the other boy. Their brooms almost brush, too, rounded knobby end to rounded knobby end, as James continues to remove the loose twigs. Through lowered eyes, James sees Regulus’ nose wrinkle, and a vein in his jaw twitches. “It would have been confusing to call you Potter in front of your mother,” he says, his spine straight and his shoulders so rigid they sculpt him into a box shape. All stiff, proper lines. “Not really,” James replies, smirk widening. “She’s Mrs. Potter.” Regulus scoffs, and rolls his eyes, his hands a curved clench on the handle, as he says, “You don’t have to talk to me just because you’re my brother’s friend. I came out here for quiet.” “I’m not quiet?” James asks, and loudly snaps a final, loose twig which appears to be hanging on by a prayer. Regulus’ jaw clenches and he turns to look out at the pitch.“My ears were ringing for hours after the World Cup,” he counters in a clipped voice, but the corners of his mouth tremble as if to keep them from lifting upwards into a smile. James watches as his right hand curves around his left wrist, his broom at rest on the tops of his knees. The knobby bones that connect his forearms to his hands are stark through nearly translucent skin. There’s a dull, red mark there, faded in tone as it merges back with the rest of his skin. James frowns, and his brows scrunch so far down that he sees the outline of his tiny eyebrow hairs like a shadow as he peaks up through his eyelashes. He bends forward, body curved at the waist, the broom handle digging with a dull pressure against his sore abdomen as he runs his palm against the bottoms of the broom’s bristles, checking their evenness. A thin line of sweat runs down the back of his neck and trails underneath his shirt. Overhead, the sky grows darker, till the entire pitch is ringed in shadow, with a mist of fog starting to build in thick clusters around the goal posts. It’s as if the dawn hasn’t come at all. “You know,” he starts to say, voice raspy as the rain begins to fall. Droplets hit the stands with sad, small splats, a round blob as it makes contact with the wood before it disperses into a formless pool. Quickly, James grabs his wand from his pocket and casts a charm to repel the downpour from his broom, then, with a moment of deliberation, casts it on Regulus’ borrowed broom, too. The other boy turns his head and stares at him again, grey eyes darker with the lack of sun in the sky, edging to black. “You don’t need to avoid your brother just because you’re in Slytherin. There’s no actual rule saying we can’t talk to each other. Just look at Snape and Lily Evans.” Though, he thinks with a cringe, he really doesn’t understand that friendship and never truly will. “Who?” Regulus asks flatly, either not knowing or not caring about the aforementioned Skytherin-Gryffindor friendship. His hand tightens around his wrist, while water begins to slosh down his face in thin rivulets. James brushes away the precipitation from his face, and hears a clammer of voices as a group of ten or so figures with red trimmed robes and ties start to file onto the field. The other boy shakes his head, and a stray spray of rain soaks James’ eyelashes. “I’m not,” he says, finally, as a tall, burly figure with a whistle starts to unload an enormous rucksack on the field. “Not?” Captain McKinnon tosses three quaffles onto the ground, while a figure James recognises as Nina Silvers from last year’s team and Hogwarts Hillel levitates a long table to the edge of the grass where the stands start. The night before, he’d seen her tipsy on one glass of wine and tripping over her own boot laces. Another cluster of Gryffindors enter the pitch, and some break off to join the group on the field, while others head towards the stands. He sees Indira Patel’s, one of the team’s chaser’s, black hijab flap in the wind as she sprints over to help Captain McKinnon unload. The others meander slowly, and some sit down on the first row, seemingly content to crane their necks towards the sky if it means not risking slippage on the wet, wooden panels in an ascent. Some more head upwards. Towards them. “Avoiding him,” Regulus says. “It’s just–”He trails off, voice halting to a whisper, then fading out as three girls approach. Regulus looks down, gaze fixed on the wood, as Lily Evans plants her feet on the row behind them and crosses her arms. James smiles at her, while Marlene McKinnon and Mary MacDonald allow curious, but wary expressions to cross their faces as they spot the Slytherin boy with a purloined broom sitting next to him. “Lily!” he says brightly, then he coughs, bending his face quickly into his elbow. Out of the corner of his watering eyes, he sees Regulus shift an inch or so away. “Have you come to watch me join the team?” “No,” she replies bluntly, her freckles stark on her nearly bloodless face, the only splash of colour a hint of red on the apple of her cheeks. She’s shivering with the drop in temperature as the rain picks up, her robe sleeves a thick bunch in the bends of her elbows. There’s a thick bramble of goose pimples next to her freckles and tiny, sparsely visible red hairs flat to the skin of her arms, tapering off as her wrists meet her hands. “Mary’s trying out. And who’s to say you will make the team. Awfully sure of yourself, aren’t you?” James opens his mouth, then coughs again, his body bent in a bow downwards as it wracks through him with sudden force. “Should you even be here, Jaime?” Marlene asks, her voice low with concern. As James looks up, he sees Lily’s eyes fixed on his face, as a frown threatens to take over her mouth. Even Regulus breaks his staring contest with the stands to look at him warily. “Sounds like you need a pepper-up.” James shakes his head, his hair a sopping mess. “I’ll be fine,” he assures them, even as he feels his face grow hot, and something slippery slides down his neck that’s more sweat than rain. Lily moves forward, her right knee bent on her respective plank, red hair a long trail over the sides of her face as half her body leans over, but Mary breaks through the silence to say, “I’m sorry, what are you doing here?”Her hair springs up over the sides of her head like a bonnet, despite the rain’s best efforts to drench it. She points to Regulus, who clears his throat and looks away. His hair sweeps forward to cover his eyes briefly as he gazes towards the sky, not the pitch, as if conscious that a lone Slytherin conveniently in the stands while a Gryffindor try-out prepares to take place looks less than a favourable circumstance. Mary turns to Marlene and Lily, lips tight. “Is he allowed to be here right now?” she asks. “There’s no law saying he can’t. It’s a free pitch,” James responds with a cough.This can’t be happening right now, he thinks, and resolves to ignore the growing itchiness in his ears and the roughness in his throat. He’ll persevere. Mary turns to him with disbelieving eyes. “He’s a Slytherin.” “I can just–” Regulus says, as Lily adds, “So now that doesn’t matter to you?” in James’ direction, while two more figures make their way up the stands from the field. One trips on the second row, and the other turns back to him in a smooth motion on his heel despite the thick puddles accumulating in the empty spaces, catches the other boy’s elbow, then straightens his tie.As Sirius moves with a steady stride towards them, it grows faster the closer he comes. Regulus starts to stand up, his knuckles ghost white as he cradles the broom handle between his neck and shoulder. As soon as they get within a foot or two, James sees Peter’s got a sodden, wilted chelsea bun in his mouth. “Regulus?” Sirius says, as Captain McKinnon yells up from the field, “Potter! MacDonald! Get your arses down here if you’re planning on trying out!” Regulus catches his elbow as James stands, his entire body shuddering as it tips forward. Sirius reaches out, too, his hand scant inches from him and asks, “You alright, mate?” Peter nibbles on the end of his bun, then says through a mouthful of pastry, “You don’t look good.” James nods, and waves dismissively. Come hell or high water, he’s going to make the team, even if he has to spend the next three days in the hospital wing. Mary, clearly not one to drop a matter, scowls as she grips her own broom tight to her chest. “You should go,” she snaps at Regulus.Sirius scowls back at her and says, “He should stay,” and plants himself right in James’ discarded space next to his brother as James starts to head, a bit woozy, down the stairs. As he wobbles his way down, James hears Regulus’ feeble attempts to protest and Sirius’ stubborn rebuttals as he strong arms his brother to stay and watch. James stumbles on a puddle on the third row, but steadies when a cold, smooth hand wraps around his clammy arm. It’s Lily. “Just–” She stops, as if struggling for something to say. Or stopping herself from saying something else.“—try not to die out there, alright?” she finishes as soon as their feet hit the sopping, slippery ground. James holds back a cough, and nods. Mary’s fast ahead of him, nearly joined with the huddle of the current team members. They’re both trying out for seeker, and she’s already got treating him as the competition down pat. “I promise,” he tells Lily, with a crooked smile. “You’d miss me too much.” She rolls her eyes. “You’re mad,” she says as Captain McKinnon shouts one more “Potter!” in a loud, no nonsense voice. James dashes as quickly as he can through the muddy field to meet them. He’s feverish, and aching, and his lungs feel cramped, but he gets up on his broom all the same. Through the thick fog and mist, he spots the snitch, and as he dives forty feet in the air towards the ground in pursuit, his head swims with the effort to stay upright, but he catches it all the same. As his fingers wrap around cold metal, he haltingly swoops with a shout, triumphant, and lands with a loop-de-loop, and swooshing nausea. Still standing, he holds out the snitch in his palm to show Captain McKinnon. McKinnon grins with all his teeth and takes the snitch with fervent congratulations. Blearily, James thinks he’ll make seeker after all and, with a heady, feverish laugh, he collapses face first into the dirt.
~ May 1992 Near the end of March, Harry finds out that his father had indeed known Professor Snape. He was in our year, James wrote, and we didn’t get on. We’ll talk about it more when you’re home, alright. That was it. That was all he got. Two lines in a rather long letter that informed him of his baby cousin’s recovery from his bout of pox, as well as a long, narrative prose that went into detail about Remus’ birthday bash. That apparently included his new girlfriend dragging them all to perform karaoke. Someone booed me off stage, his father wrote. I just think they don’t appreciate talent. In a postscript, Sirius scribbled, Your dad’s just in denial that he sucks. It was proper caterwauling. Ruined Queen, he did. Though not as bad as the guy who sounded like a drunk Mickey Mouse that made us suffer through all eight minutes of American Pie. Twice. I digress. Yes, Bambi, we knew Snape. Sounds like he’s gotten slimier in his old age. Harry had had to resign himself to receiving no more answers on that front. Before he realises it, Passover comes before the start of spring break, though the weather remains as bleak and grey as ever. For the first time in his life, in a place not swept for chametz, it had been a difficult week to get through. Though somewhat due to the last minute essays they’d been swamped with before the break, it was mostly the temptation of the abundance of leavened foods in the Great Hall during each breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The first two nights had been easy enough, given the familiarity of the seder, the matzah ball soup and flourless chocolate cake brought to them by the house elves in classroom 7A satisfying and delicious, but afterwards, they’d been surrounded by classmates who ate their sandwiches and toast regardless of the fifteen students among them not partaking in chametz. Hermione’d broken on the morning of the seventh day with a nibble of wheat toast off Ron’s plate and guilty eyes over the brim of her open, well-thumbed textbook, but Harry lasted until evening, upon which he’d scarfed down three slices of treacle tart he managed to wheedle out of the elves in the kitchen. Afterwards, Spring Break saw a significant number of students stay, since most failed to receive the special dispensations to head home. Not that many bothered to try for them. It had been a struggle to find privacy in the library to discuss the stone or Professor Snape, since the beleaguered upper years fixated on their N.E.W.T’s and O.W.L’s were suddenly joined by the younger years who all seemed to wake up one morning with the dawning realisation that their exams were creeping up on them. Moments to talk were few and far between, and it failed to let up once the break ended. Hermione and Harry were forced to focus their efforts on their schoolwork, barely taking a moment to breathe, while Ron spent his spare moments flipping back and forth between Martin Miggs and the X-Men. But it is after the end of Spring Break that the real challenge comes. Harry’s still not sure how he’d come to find himself in a great dragon exchange caper to preserve Hagrid’s place as groundskeeper at the school, but he does manage to find something amusing in it all to relate back to Jesse once his friend’s return raven finally comes in the middle of May. So, we’ve got detention next weekish. Not sure why it's taken so long, or why it’s just one detention, he writes to Jesse, and nibbles on the end of his quill right before he dips it back into the ink pot. He’s run out of ballpoint pens, and has to make due until next semester, since he’s not going to write to his dad to send him a pack of bics with only a month and a half left. At least Malfoy’s forced to endure it, too. Dad didn’t seem mad at all, surprisingly! Actually, he wrote that he’s proud of me, which is a bit odd. I kind of wonder if Professor McGonagall actually told him that Malfoy was claiming I had a real, live dragon involved and that we were sneaking it out of the castle. Not that she believed that, so maybe she didn’t tell Dad Malfoy’s story? But, Norbert breathed fire and stuff. Well, more like puffs of spurty smoke that had a hint of orange to it. Kind of looked like a dying lighter, but the tiny thing was trying his best. It wasn’t some stuffed toy. Maybe Dad thinks I just really wanted to give Ron’s brother a plushie? If McGonagall told him, I mean. He pulls the quill back and glances down at Jesse’s letter. It lays in a spread of three sheets on his duvet. It’s on lined paper, but spotted with several large ink blots, clear evidence of quill use. They had us diving in January gathering weeds and such, he reads. Something about testing our mettle. I just think that our herbology teacher’s a bit loopy because I swear I might have gotten frostbite if we’d been down there five more minutes, even with the warming charms because there was an actual sheet of ice we had to blast through to get to the water. I could feel the life leaving my pinky toes. Harry skirts over the long explanation regarding Jesse’s non-existent frostbite, and his eyes scan down three or four paragraphs before he spots what he needs. There’s a bunch of books about Greek mythology in the library. A few no-maj ones, surprisingly, too. Are there snakes? According to one book, these guys are supposed to have snakes for tails and stuff. You could just ask the tail politely if it can leave the school, maybe? I mean, I’m only assuming you’re asking about a real life dog and not because you’re joining a larbing club. That’s what those role games are called right? The ones your friend Abigail was kvetching about cause her brother was too into them or something? But anyway, can you do that? Just ask? Like you did that cottonmouth at the lake that one time, remember? Sorry this took so long, by the way, I had to wait for one of the school ravens to be free. Harry distinctly does not remember any snakes. He’d have been more alarmed if he’d heard talking, too, in the room with them that night. No, it had just been the three heads. He keeps reading. Mildred, (I told you about Mildred right? She’s the one half our year is going around calling the worst witch?). Anyway, Mildred also told me that these dogs are supposed to be the guardians of Hades. Or, well, one of them, at least. Since I doubt Hogwarts is Hades, are you sure it’s even a cerberus and not like its distant, smaller cousin or something? Because according to her, Hercules had a time trying to battle that thing. It’s pretty tough in a fight. There’s really nothing I could find out other than that, though. If you die, can I have your Spider-man collection? But don’t die. And if you get expelled and have to come here, I’ll totally convince my roommate to find new arrangements. He snores, so it won’t kill me none to kick him out. Harry shakes his head with a wry smile. Then, he picks back up his quill, dips it into the ink, and puts his half-finished sheet of parchment by his sock clad feet. You can only have my collection if I cease to be, he writes. If I am an ex-Harry. And not before so don’t go writing to Dad saying I told you that it was okay. And given that everyone currently hates me for the points we lost, I might just pull myself out and join you. It’s been miserable. I actually suggested to Wood that I resign from the team. Granted, he dismissed that and all, but it’s been hard. The four of us (Hermione and Neville and Ron and I) have all been eating at a sad corner of the table in the Great Hall by ourselves since the incident. Does Illvermorny have this points system, too? I can’t lose any if there’s no system to lose them to.
Anyway, thanks for looking. More than we found here, and Hermione’s scoured the library shelves we’ve got access to looking for anything on it. It’s like all the good stuff is hidden away under lock and key. It’s gatekeeping. That’s what Uncle Remus calls it, anyway. Honestly, what do they think we’re going to do with the information? And what’s the point of hoarding it?
Midway through his mental construction of how to describe his last quidditch game, the door opens with a bang against the opposite wall. Harry drops his quill, and the tip swivels in a half-moon against his duvet with a leftover ink stain dark against the bright red. He tries to ineffectually rub at it with a wet thumb, but it proves futile.“I just ran into Lee Jordan. He gave me the cold shoulder,” Ron says in a rush of words as he bounds into the room. Harry presses harder with the pad of his thumb to the stain on his fabric. “Lee Jordan! Do you know the amount of points he’s lost with Fred and George? He has no room to judge.” Ron collapses with a groan straight onto Harry’s bed. He lands with an oomph, and Jesse’s letter scrunches underneath the side of his shoulder and upper arm, his legs outstretched and straight, pointed towards his own bed. His red hair fans out around his head, pin straight and, like Harry’s, in need of a trim. He rolls his neck with a wobble as he says, “You’d think we set fire to the school or something, the way everyone’s acting. And I wasn’t even there!” He shoots a dark look towards Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas’ beds, where the two boys studiously ignore them over a game of gobstones, and two precariously balanced teacups. Deliberately, without turning his head, Dean Thomas reaches over to shut the curtain with a decisive snick and manages not to tip over his tea. Harry rolls his eyes and gathers his letter to place on his nightstand with his ink pot and quill. “I just hope Malfoy’s getting the same treatment in Slytherin,” he mutters, as he thinks about the nosy, tattletale blonde. He’s never gone from popular to unpopular so fast. Though he’d never been quite popular before, so he’d never had a status to truly lose. It seems even his fame no longer fascinates his fellow Hogwarts students. Not that Harry minds that too much, but it is strange to suddenly become the house pariah because of points. “Doubt it,” Ron replies, his blue eyes fixed on the red canopy above Harry’s bed. He runs his palms up and over the duvet. It creases under his path, then smooths, then creases. “He’s pretty much their little prince, isn’t he? What he says goes and all.” Privately, Harry doesn’t think that’s quite true. Malfoy, like them, is only a first year student. Did it really matter how much money or status his father had when he’s still eleven and struggles to reach the high shelf in the potions classroom? Especially in a house surrounded by other snooty aristocrats with money and status. He’s not sure, but he feels like one small child must get lost among them all, nothing special when everyone attends the same parties and lives off of describing their families’ various homes. Surely, he decides, the upper years have no time for much of Malfoy’s nonsense. The night of their detention on May twenty-sixth, Harry decides he, personally, has no time for Malfoy’s nonsense. Though he finds it rather alarming that they’ve been assigned detention in the Forbidden Forest, which by definition is forbidden, and that Hagrid’s the only adult around to supervise them once Filch leaves and they start to trek through the dark and rather creepy trees, he’s not going to give Malfoy the satisfaction of knowing he finds this just as appalling. “I want him,” the blonde says once Hagrid tells them they’re going to split up, pointing to a rather fatigued looking Fang whose mouth is open in a cavernous yawn. It exposes all of his long teeth, the sharp front ones all slick with drool. Harry thinks he should inform Malfoy that Fang is actually a rather useless dog, and certainly not going to be much help in a fight, but Hagrid does that for him. Malfoy doesn’t seem to care, and Fang joins the two boys with a pitiful whine as his familiar humans trail off in another direction. After their first initial split up, calamity ensues. Though the trio’s talk with Ronan the centaur is illuminating, it’s less pleasant to realise Neville’s panic and subsequent call for help using the red spark system had been caused by Malfoy's idea of a joke. “I can’t believe he snuck up on him from behind,” Hermione whispers low in Harry’s ear, voice laced with scorn. Harry, having seen the terror in the blonde’s eyes earlier, thinks he can. It seems his own brand of dealing with his feelings; to displace them onto another. Exasperated, and clearly ill at ease with the blonde’s actions towards Neville and his casual disregard for the fear of others, Hagrid reassigns teams. Once they’re told to team up, Harry and Malfoy exchange equally displeased glances. The four of them stand there for a long moment, as if Hagrid might be waiting for Malfoy to promise it was all a tragic accident and he can put them back into their initial teams. That never comes and the trees cast deep shadows in the night sky over them. Barely a glimpse of starlight escapes through the thick overbrush of leaves from the looming oaks and sycamores. Harry waves mournfully at Hermione who stares back at him with sympathetic eyes as he turns to follow Malfoy into the forest. He keeps his gaze on the ground out of caution towards the thick, jutting roots pricked with thorns trapped under packed mounds of dirt, knotgrass, and fallen leaves, as well as to look out for the silvery sheen of unicorn blood. The hem of his robe is too short, now, given an unexpected growth of at least an inch or two, and fails to shield his ankles from the dangers of the forest floor, even on the path. He can already feel a few stinging cuts pulse insistently on his ankles and calves. Though Harry prefers to spend the majority of this detention in silence, Malfoy, it seems, is not of the same mind. “Always the special treatment,” the other boy says in a voice that sounds like it’s a mutter, but loud enough Harry’s clearly meant to hear. His blonde hair has fallen out of its thick case of product, so that it’s no longer pulled back tight from his forehead, which makes him look extra pointed. The loose hair softens him, slightly, as it falls into his grey eyes. When he turns his head to look at Harry, the light of the lantern Harry’s holding catches on his silvery irises and casts them in an eerie glow. They’re lighter than Sirius’, Harry notes absently. His godfather’s are more like smoke, less like a pale, glittery pearl that’s never seen the sun. “Beg pardon?” Harry says in a cold voice, employing one of Hermione’s favourite turns of phrase. She often aims it against Ron whenever he starts to complain she’s rereading her own work too much.Malfoy’s nostrils flare, and in the cold night air, too oddly cold for May, Harry sees his breath come out in a puff of smoke. “You heard me,” Malfoy insists, voice curt. In that moment, he stands so still, he looks like a marble statue. Harry’s shoulders straighten, spine tense, as he stands with planted feet in thick underbrush where beetles and spiders might scutter about beyond where he can see. There’s a hole in the sole of his sneakers, and he hopes no creepy crawlies make their way into his footwear as he waits there. Malfoy’s hair is bright in the dark, a shock so pale in its near white-tone, and his face isn’t much darker, so in the narrow, convex area where the lantern’s flickering light touches, he’s almost like a mirage of silver, as his black robe merges with the dark and it threatens to subsume him. He stares at Harry with his lips pulled back into that characteristic sneer that seems permanently etched onto his features. Harry starts forward, as Malfoy repeats, “You get special treatment–Potter.” He nearly spits out his name, the syllables rounding on the vowels into something harsh. In the distance, something shrieks a shrill call, inhuman and startling, but Malfoy and Harry ignore it. A fox, Harry thinks, as Malfoy moves forward, too, and their noses nearly touch. “A first year who breaks the rules and gets on the quidditch team. Allowed your own broom. Caught out of bed after hours with nothing but a detention to show for it, even though we both know that was no midnight walk you and Granger were partaking in.” His lips curl so far his straight, white teeth are bared. “I bet your father’s so proud of you.” The thought hits Harry before he realises it that he can hit him, no one will see. He’s not proud of the feeling that rushes through him, his stomach a tight, twisty knot. His fist clenches, with all the suppressed irritation and rage he’s tried to push away over the last two terms while Malfoy strutted his way through the halls, lording his arrogance and his cruelty over the other first years. Harry ruminates on every potions class laced with barbs from both the blonde in front of him and the professor he just can’t shake from his thoughts. He thinks, again, a dark thought: Surely, he doesn’t know how to hit back. It would be too no-maj for him. He takes a deep breath, and clenches his fist, though the grip of his other hand stays tight around the lantern’s curved handle. “He is, actually,” Harry says instead, and breathes out deliberately slowly. “Is yours?” Malfoy’s lips tighten, but since they’re still pulled back, it comes across like a snarl, before everything smooths into a practised, placid mask. He steps back, so that their breaths no longer catch on each other’s in the narrow space between the two of them. “When there’s something to be proud of,” he replies. Harry can’t help but ponder if there’s a double-meaning there. Though a thick layer of scorn pervades his voice and the words no doubt meant to imply that Harry’s father has nothing to be proud of in his son, there’s something else there. Underneath it all, Harry’s struck with the realisation that despite the sweets packages that come often to the Great Hall, he’s never once heard Malfoy speak of his father in a loving tone. How often, he begins to contemplate, does Malfoy’s father tell his son he’s proud. He can ask. There’s nothing stopping him, except the knowledge that he and the boy in front of him are not friends, and that anything Malfoy might say to him is as believable as a grain of salt hiding in a sugar bowl. He’s curious, but not curious enough to pry. They start to walk along the path again, looking for the silvery sheen of unicorn blood. There’s been nothing but silence that follows them in the depths of the forest since the shriek. It unsettles Harry more than sound and he can’t help but fear what’s hidden in the dark. It’s Malfoy, once again, who breaks the silence five or so minutes later, just as they’re coming up a steep, but short incline that ends at the base of a broad trunked sycamore tree. “He does know you’re in detention, right?” he asks, and his breath erupts outwards in short gasps. Harry has a brief moment where he wonders who he is before Malfoy clarifies, “Your father. You’re in detention, so does he know?”Harry believes he’s more surprised by Malfoy’s curiosity than Malfoy is. The other boy's mouth snaps shut quickly, as if embarrassed by his own question, while Harry looks at him in a squint through the lens of his glasses. “Yeah,” Harry replies. “He knows.” He’s not going to reveal that he’d been wondering whether or not his father truly knew the details of his son’s midnight escapade to Malfoy, but he’s not exactly lying. Malfoy shakes his head. “Proud,” he mutters in a low voice. “Imagine. Proud of trouble-making.”“Well,” Harry says before Malfoy can spew out anything more. “My uncle told me Dad spent a lot of time in detention when he was here, so he’d be kind of a hypocrite if he scolded me for it, really.” Harry tilts his head, and jerks forward to nearly steady Malfoy as he stumbles down a descending hill on the other side of the sycamore. “I don’t think he ever spent any time in the forest, though. That’s our special punishment, I bet.” Malfoy’s boots slide further down the hill, and he just manages to catch himself before he faceplants. At the bottom, he stares, open-mouthed, at Harry who stands with tense legs halfway down the curving path, lantern held up above his head, the wrought iron bottom just high enough that it doesn’t catch on his hair. Next to Malfoy, Fang sits on his hind legs, so quiet even with the press of his padded feet to the hard packed, congested ground thick with foliage and thorns that Harry’s forgotten he was even there. Harry doesn’t know what comes over him. The corner of his right lip curls upwards, and he muses on the absurdity of this strange moment in time; searching for an injured unicorn in a forest that’s name specifies its forbidden nature with his greatest rival, commenting on his father’s childhood detention record as if he’s with a friend. Perhaps Malfoy realises this, too, because, for just a moment, he laughs. Not a cruel laugh, not at the expense of someone else. Just a laugh. It stops as quickly as it starts, then Malfoy’s eyes grow large, and he turns on his heel and says, “Let’s just hurry up, will you?” Harry sighs, the strange moment broken, and walks down the hill. Fang bounds on ahead, just within their sights. Neither look at each other as they fall back into silence and continue into the forest.
~November 29, 1979 The cold man burrows his arms into a leather jacket that’s a tad too large on his skinny frame. His hands disappear underneath the sleeves to rest under his armpits, and his breath comes out in a steady stream of visible condensation. On the corner of the narrow London street, three drunk lads trail out of Tesco laden with crisps, gin and tonic in cans, and a rude gesture to a homeless man with unlaced shoes who sits next to the curb and hopes for spare change. The lights are bright and artificial, the cobblestone pavement broken and craggy. One woman almost loses her heel to a crack between two stones near the old, dusty looking black door that leads to a number of old tenement flats. On the side of the door, there’s a list of residents next to germ-ridden buzzers and peeling lamination. The cold man sighs through grit teeth and a tight throat and cricks his neck to watch two figures in the flat on the first floor. Once, it belonged to Alphard Black, though he only ever used it for illicit dalliances with men not up to his sister's exacting standards. The window’s large, one of those tall ones that trail from nearly the floor to the ceiling. Due to the drawn curtains, it reveals to idle passersby and curious onlookers an old couch that’s got tape on the corner which points outwards to the street, and a piano shoved into the narrow space next to it. Behind that, there’s an easel, though the portrait is facing away from the street, so no one passing by would be able to make it out. Inside, James Potter rubs his eye with his thumb, and winces as his knuckles drag against the large, yellow and blue bruise at his temple. It smarts with deep throbs as he pulls back. Then, he reaches for a cigarette in one hand and the paintbrush on top of an old, paint smudged piece of sheet music in the other. His knees are bent on the couch cushion and his entire body flexes as it stretches around the piano’s surface when he reaches forward to touch the canvas with the tip of the shaking brush. The oval living room is so small that every piece of furniture crowds together into a cramped disorder. Despite this, the flat's renovations within the last few years have kept it up to date and its elegant walls and dangling crystal chandelier belay the mismanaged array within. He’s caught in between worry about his girlfriend and, more pressingly, his girlfriend’s news, and nervous elation, though the cold man doesn’t know this. James’ hands jiggle the paintbrush, his breath comes out in stops and starts, and he nearly drops the cigarette a time or two as he works out his anxiety through art.On the couch, Sirius Black touches his toes to the edge of his friend’s bent ones, and stares at the barren ceiling, his hair a thick fan towards the ground as he cranes his neck over the arm of the couch. His left arm is splayed around the top cushion, the couch just short enough that he doesn’t seem uncomfortable as his trapezius muscles stretch, while the other dangles towards the coffee table that’s more of a tiny nightstand that only manages to hold one teacup. In that moment, as the cold man outside rubs his hands over the smooth fabric bunched up underneath his armpits and rocks on the balls of his feet, the teacup catches stray ashes in the bottom of cold, stale earl grey that’s been nesting there for days. The wireless plays the Beatles, some song the cold man will not recognise, as Sirius worries, too. Through the thin walls, the flat next to them hosts some sort of stag do, and there’s a dozen or so spliffs exchanging hands, so the acrid smell of pot lingers in the surrounding flats and around the staircase. It’s so thick, it drifts from the cracked open window across the street to the patrons of the Tesco, the couple that lingers near the closed opticians, and the dog tied up by a boarded up chippy which went ablaze from a grease fire the week before. It’s so strong it overpowers the upturned bin with the fermenting garbage bags left strewn halfway down the street. It reaches the cold man, too, but he ignores it, gaze fixed on the two men. Inside, Sirius says, “She’ll be alright, mate. Even if–well, it’s her decision, right?” James nods, a lump in his throat. “Yeah, her decision.” They’re only nineteen-years-old. He messes up a line as his hand quivers into a low dip, and he vanishes the error on the canvas with the wand shoved into his back pocket. They both look at the grandfather clock shoved in a corner near the door. It’s nearing midnight, and they worry about their friend, Remus Lupin, who’s four days late off in an unknown location and unaware about James’ girlfriend’s news. Outside, the cold man chews his bottom lip into a tattered, bloodied massacre, and ignores the stinging bite of pain. His foot hovers over the curb, but as a car passes between his side of the street and the flat, he hesitates. His hands shake underneath the thick, too big fabric of a jacket that’s not his. Not, this time, from the cold. The cold man’s heart beats in time with the drunk lads’ obnoxious cackles, which refuse to let up and persevere in that annoying, repetitive pace that is common to drunk lads. He brings his foot up, then steps back again. He begins to retreat on the pavement, turns on his heel, and gets four paces down the street before he turns back. The cold man does this five times, and each time he stops back at the edge of the curb to stare at the window for long periods of time while his mind flip-flops with indecision. All the while, Sirius and James continue to worry inside the flat, unaware of the scrutiny they’re under. Sirius, at a loss of what to do, goes to the kitchen to put the kettle on. As he moves, he shakes, since his limbs still hold a faint tremor, the aftereffects of a curse at the hands of a Death Eater the week before. He disappears from the cold man’s sight, and once he’s gone, the cold man’s throat tightens into an impossible constriction. Breaths come out with effort, as he waits for Sirius to come back into view. In the kitchen, Sirius pulls a knife out of a cluttered cutlery drawer, and stabs it through a piece of bland Hovis, already pre-sliced. Then, he arranges narrow fingers of sandwich bread on a plate, layered with cress and cucumbers, but forgets the mayonnaise. He wraps it in cling film and leaves it next to the sink, then takes down three mugs for tea when the kettle sounds, just before the clock ticks its final tock into the next day. Inside, the clock chimes midnight as a taxi pulls up to the opposite curb of the cold man, right in front of the old tenement flat. The cold man’s body tenses underneath the too big leather jacket wrapped like a cocoon around his skinny frame as he watches a slender, redheaded woman exit the cab. She’s dressed in jeans and a warm looking jumper, with a thick woollen coat and a hat with a cotton poof at the top and sparse fur trim. She’s dressed for the weather, unlike the other women who pass her by on the street with extremely quick strides, hoping exertion will mask the fact that their legs are covered in thin hose and short skirts, all determined to be cute, if cold. As Lily Evans hands the man his fare and waits for the change, the cold man ducks his face to the ground and turns on his heel to avoid meeting her gaze. She doesn’t pay him any mind, not when the driver hands her five pence as change, and certainly not when she turns and goes to fumble with the bell, her right hand at rest on the flat of her stomach. When James Potter bounds down the stairs two at a time to meet his nervous yet decisive girlfriend waiting outside, the cold man on the opposite side of the street, unaware of the exact nature of the trio’s concerns and filled with concerns of his own, leaves.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
~ July 30, 1978 Lord Voldemort arrives on the bank of a river thick with refuse: plastic holders, bottles with peeling Coke or Irn Bru labels, cigarette butts with mushy paper, or bags of Walkers, half empty, with sodden crisps. There’s already a dirty quality to the water, dusty and grey, evidence of the long footprint from the industrial factories he can see even above the treeline, with their thick clouds of black smoke still exhausting vile fumes into the air. His quarry is already far down the path that leads away from the riverbank; behind them, a man meanders lazily with a curious scruffy hunting dog at play by the disused mill just to the side of the path, while a woman runs in hideous, bright pink trousers, with a thick band of the same colour wrapped around her red, sweaty forehead. The couple he’s seeking quickly walk past the graffitied signpost advertising Cokeworth’s only relic, and he taps his secured wand lazily, tripping the running woman before she reaches the fence. Then, he follows them through the sliding doors of a middling sized, mundane store. He barely spares a glance to the sign at the end of the parking lot informing patrons they’re shopping at Morrisons. It, too, is mundane; it’s a busy day, as muggles wander listlessly in and out of their automobiles, some cursing their ineffective machines, while others struggle to pry their children away from bothering a malingering swatch of geese who loiter on a browning patch of grass next to an abandoned trolley and a downed bicycle. They stop in the produce first. The boy, with a large laugh, whispers something to the girl, before he turns around to inspect the paltry offerings of fruit in the chipped, wooden bin next to his hip. His face is the same as the picture in the dossier; high cheekbones, large eyes behind square spectacles, and rather boyishly pretty in a way that speaks of long-lasting youth. Once, Voldemort had been rather the same, before he sacrificed looks for power. He waits by a batch of seven bruised banana bushels while the boy bats doe eyes foolishly at the redheaded girl who titters a laugh with her back towards Lord Voldemort, as the couple playfully fight over a plastic tin of strawberries. She reaches forward with one thin, delicate arm, almost a swat, before it turns into a caress, fingers running through already messy hair. The boy stretches his arms upward, holding the strawberries just out of reach, and she balances on the tips of her toes, her entire back bent in an arch that emphasises the slender lines of her form. It’s laughable, when a simple summoning charm would do to end this pitiful game the couple performs in the middle of the produce aisle, but the muggles surrounding them take no notice of the utter tedious normality of their actions. Voldemort sees, though. He runs his index finger over the tip of a particularly blackened banana and traces his fingernail over its skin like a spider would spin a web, swirling patterns into it. In his enthusiastic youth, he’d have taken a moment to enchant the fruit, leaving it for ignorant muggles to purchase and take home, only to find it rotten to the core. He’s older now. His little jokes have turned to a far more ruthless purpose. His purpose is why he is here, in this dull, charmless village in the Midlands. He watches as the girl turns around on her heel, which is naked to the air and clothed only by a thin strap that reaches towards her ankle, the shoe flat and barely sufficient. She pays him no mind as she grabs a container of raspberries, the long ends of her braid brushing over the plastic tops. Through a large, smiling mouth, she tells the boy, “Life is just a series of grocery shop trips, Jaime. And then we die.” How trite. Lord Voldemort sees no need for grocery shopping. That is what house elves are for, and unproven new initiates chosen for post-mission snacks to satisfy his ravenous ranks. The boy skips, the bottoms of his rubber trainers scuffing the floor, as he grabs her around the waist, and pulls her inward. She tilts her head upwards to kiss him, her face an echo of the classical beauty of vapid film starlets the other boys in the orphanage were delusionally obsessed with during his childhood. When the couple pull away, the boy tickles her button nose with his, and says, “Just leave my corpse next to the ice cream freezer then, okay?” His fingertip digs into the limp banana peel, and he watches as a pimply-faced boy with a patchy goatee near the pears lecherously eyes up the girl’s bare calves, as she comes to stand at the edge of the bin. Eventually, her boyfriend joins her, after picking up a different container of strawberries. They come around with their trolley, hands clasped together on its handle, and pass him by. Never let it be said that Lord Voldemort doesn’t know how to blend; the sleek lines of his black jacket and waistcoat are perfectly pressed, the white shirt underneath expensive silk, and his trousers are crisp lines. Of course, the disillusionment charm helps. He follows the couple at a sedate pace, leaving behind the spoiled banana, and watches as the boy lifts his feet to the undercarriage of the trolley and uses his body weight to propel it forward. It squeaks with a shrill, tinny sound as it swivels on a broken wheel, and the boy crashes straight into a table stack of assorted pastries. The girl rolls her green eyes but smiles at him indulgently. “If I have to be the one to tell Sirius you suffered a bakewell tart induced concussion, you’ll never hear the end of it, James Potter.” The boy uses his left foot to right the trolley, and despite his childish antics, his face is stretched in a grin. An old crone with jowls and folds around her neck gives the couple an irritated look as she stands with her hands outstretched towards a bag of under-baked crumpets, while a businessman in a pressed suit simply walks past the couple with a baguette held between his shoulder and his head. The crone has no idea who stands there among her, who she glares at with her rheumatic eyes while the boy picks out slivered almonds from his nest of hair–he clearly doesn’t use his father’s vaunted hair potions–and brushes strawberry jam off a ratty looking t-shirt with a label that says Black Sabbath he’s entirely too comfortable in for a pureblood wizard. It’s a disgraceful display, really. Though he’d only encountered the boy’s parents a time or two before, he remembers them as rather more presentable; their public appearances always spoke to their wealth through the clean, well-tailored lines of their robes. One would assume that with a diplomat for a mother her son would present himself with a tad more decorum, especially in such a triflingly insignificant setting such as this. Alas, he is simply a boy, who didn’t have the benefit of learning how to comport himself at the hands of Slytherin house. The truth is, Voldemort muses, as his right hand drifts towards the pocket on the inside of his suit jacket where the dossiers Evan Rosier had handed him rest, that the Potter family had always been rather inconsequential. Certainly rich and well-established; known, on occasion, for their rather passionate political views, and often with a good amount of power attached. They were old, too, as far as his research showed, but the majority too complacent, too unambitious and unconcerned by important matters to truly stand out among the shining stars of the old, pureblood lines. His fingers brush against the smooth edge of the dossier. This one though–Well, he’d rather impressed Voldemort with the transfiguration charm he’d used to turn a fire hydrant into a baseball bat and knock Dolohov out with, despite his lack of ability to talk at the time, during a skirmish the month before. Or so it had been reported. “Would he really be surprised, Lily?” the boy says to his girlfriend as he shoves the trolley over to her. She takes it in her own hands, clearly no longer trusting him with such a simple task as controlling a box on wheels. The old woman huffs, and the boy turns to her with a salute. “Ma’am,” he acknowledges, and performs an imaginary hat flip and an overly dramatic bow. Surprisingly, it softens the woman, her spine loosens, and her craggy face splits into a toothless smile. He could use a man with people skills in his ranks, Voldemort thinks, his lips pressed blade thin. He picks up a box of Weetabix from an endcap display on half-priced breakfast, the illusion of shopping, and follows them through the next aisle where the girl tosses in a bag of hamburger buns next to the strawberries, as well as a bushel of tomatoes and a plastic bag of semi-wilted lettuce he hadn’t bothered to notice her pick up. Underneath, there’s a bag with an indistinct label, but shot through with a dark brown. “Sirius might be too in love with that motorbike Uncle Sean’s helping him fix up to visit you at Mungos, anyway,” the girl tells her boyfriend. He pouts in response.The name rings a bell. It takes a moment, but it dawns quickly enough. Sirius, Voldemort remembers, and shoves the box of Weetabix onto a shelf stuffed with far too many mass-produced scones, the older boy the Black family had failed to deliver to him, presenting instead their younger, less impressive son. Compensation, perhaps? Rosier had given him a dossier on the elder Black son, too, and he remembers the scandal in the Daily Prophet that detailed all the torrid details of Euphemia Potter’s demand for custody. It had rankled his favourite soldier, Bellatrix, into a truly awful mood. She’d killed an entire muggle family in Hackney that night. That had impressed him with all its sinister cruelty. He wonders if he should approach Sirius Black, too, as he hovers ten steps behind the couple while they toss spices into the trolley, debating the merits of smoked paprika versus Hungarian, before they turn to analysing whether bay leaves truly do anything to enhance a dish. Afterall, he’s being rather magnanimous, with the offer he’s prepared to give the two he follows, thinking of the blight on the couple as the boy tosses in a tin of black beans. After all, as her dossier had said, the girl is of no magical blood. It shows his willingness to acknowledge true talent, even in the undeserving. They finally stop in a back corner of the shop, where four freezers are shoved next to the bend between two walls; the first holds various ice cream bars and cartons, which the boy reaches up to select, while the other hosts frozen vegetables and fruits. The girl turns to the opposite wall, where racks of half-priced wine and beer sit, all for muggles to drink away their wearisome existence. “What about this one?” the girl asks, as she pulls down a bottle of store brand shiraz. Opening up the next freezer, the boy says, “Not kosher,” as he reaches for a bag of frozen mixed veg. She leans with her back pressed against the alcohol selection. “I saw you drink half a bottle of non-kosher prosecco last week. Actually, I believe it was full on guzzling it down, one might say.” Voldemort waits for a man to stop fumbling with a six pack of Tennents over by the display of intoxicants, before he approaches the couple with an easy, gliding stride, just as the boy says, “Alright. I just don’t like shiraz.”The girl opens her mouth, the front two just slightly crooked, when Voldemort stops in front of them and says, “Excuse me,” and drops the disillusionment charm. Instantly, the couple straightens, more alert than they had been previous. The boy straightens from his slouch and stands at a height with Voldemort. His left hand drifts behind him, towards his back pocket, where his wand peaks up in the space where his t-shirt hadn’t met the waistband of his jeans. The girl’s hand goes to her right arm, where the outline of a holster is just visible through the folds of her billowy dress sleeve. Good, Voldemort thinks, quick reflexes. Up close, they appear no less young, and no less utterly normal, except for the way their shoulders round, muscles taut, and they meet his gaze unflinchingly, which few dare to do. “I need no introduction,” he says, at ease at the opposite end of the trolley from where they stand, his hands curled behind his back. In between them, their half-hazard, unpaid selections rest in a careless toss. A vein in the boy’s jaw twitches, and his eyes dart behind Voldemort, mindful of the ignorant muggles crowding round the shop. “Nor any need to be in this shop,” he replies, and his voice is firm. He shifts closer to the girl, and the outline of his tense, defined musculature is visible through every strand of his thin clothing. Voldemort doesn’t blink, but it is interesting to note the boy’s courage; no one ever ventures to try to backtalk him when he stands in their presence. “Quite,” Voldemort agrees. He does not, after all, find this tiresome pursuit of the couple in this insipid place overly pleasant. “However, you have been dodging my attempts to reach out. Why, one of my men told me they approached you last week and you told him rather colourfully to ‘bugger right off a cliff’.” The girl scoffs and stands so close to the boy they may as well be one person. Voldemort tips his head towards them and says, “I concede it may have been poor form to send a former friend. But he did insist he had a rapport with you. I see now he was wrong.” In fact, the newly graduated Severus Snape had volunteered, overly eager and a tad too enthusiastic, mind focused on pleasing his new lord, even though Voldemort’s original instinct had been to send Regulus Black, a more known factor. The three fall silent as a woman with too much foundation pushes a trolley with all four wheels squeaking past them, grabs a four-pack of cider, and heads towards the checkout. A toddler with a gigantic stuffed bear that has one eye dangling from a loose thread follows her, calling “Mummy,” in a high-pitched voice. “I sent missives, too. Five of them, matter of fact,” Voldemort continues. “We tossed them in the fire,” the girl tells him, her face cold and her lips pressed thin. As bold as her boyfriend. “Hmmm. I’m sure you both recognise what an honour it is for me to come myself, Miss Evans,” he says, and unclasps his hands to run the fingers of his right hand over the smooth metal handle of the trolley. His left hand hover over a brown potato bag, to show he has no need to brandish a wand.“Honour?” they both say at the same time, disbelief in their tones. “Yes,” he says, and picks up the bag of the potatoes. He tosses it back and forth in his hands. “My followers have told me much about you both. Impressive duelling skills, rather high grades. In fact, Mr. Potter, you graduated with almost a complete set of outstanding N.E.W.T’s. Rather rare, so of course you understand why you would come to my attention. True talent is hard to find, you see.” The boy’s jaw clenches so hard Voldemort thinks he might break some of his teeth, as if the thought of coming to Lord Voldemort’s attention abhors him so. He turns to the girl. “And you, Miss Evans, show much promise in the potions field. I’m always in great need of skilled potioneers. Even one of your–circumstances.”She bristles, her breath held entirely in her chest, as it pushes against the confines of her floral patterned dress. “My circumstances? That I’m a muggleborn?” “Yes,” he answers simply. “You have risen above your birth.” As has he. Without warning, the boy’s foot presses against one of the wheels of the trolley, and he pushes it forward. His shoulder hits the cold, condensation blurred freezer door from the effort. The metal makes an impact with Voldemort’s stomach, but he pays it no mind. Let them have their little rebellions. Spirit is what he’s here for. He sets down the potatoes. “This is my final offer. Deny me now, and the consequences will be on you.” He reclasps his hands behind his back. Strapped to a holster similar to the girl’s, his own wand rests above the pulse point of his right wrist. His fingertips brush it as he waits. They look at each other, eyes meeting with focused intensity. He waits. As a large family with five screaming children turn the corner and kick a borrowed football around the linoleum floor, the couple leans across the wide expanse of the trolley. “We’re only going to say this once,” the girl tells him, and Voldemort thinks he knows their disappointing answer before it’s fully spoken, just as the muggle mother scoots behind the couple to reach for a bag of frozen blackberries. “Fuck off,” the boy finishes. The mother drops the bag onto the shelf below and turns to them with a scandalised look.Despite himself, Voldemort smiles. It’s not a nice smile, his lips too thin now to truly produce something charming, and it's not one of pride. Rather, it’s amusement. “Hey, kids,” the boy says, and grabs his girlfriend’s hand, leaving his trolley behind. The mother produces an alarmed sound from the back of her throat. The boy pays her no mind and grabs the football in his arms, then the couple takes it with them as they run down the aisle, leaving their shopping behind. “Come on.” The mother lets the bag of frozen blackberries crash into the bottom of the freezer, as her hoard of five children yell and follow the retreating couple. The alarm sounds as they run past the cashiers and to the front entrance, but no security guard pursues them. An ineffective escape, if Voldemort were so inclined to follow them, but he has no desire to kill this entire shop. Not with his designs on the Ministry of Magic; it would be so tedious to have to memory charm so many workers of too many incidents. Still, he could follow them, if so inclined. He doesn’t. He recasts the disillusionment charm, as there’s no further need for the muggles to gaze upon him anymore and walks quickly out of the shop. In the distance, he sees a flash of red hair disappear around the bend down the road with a loud pop, while the five children attempt to climb up the boot of a car to retrieve the ball. After all, he thinks, still rather pleased in a darkly amused way, it's rare to truly find a couple so foolishly brash, that there’s time to savour the chase, to string them along before he needs to dispose of the pair.
~ June 7, 1992 In the end, the letter takes three days to reach James. The school barn owl lands on the seat nosing with a confused hoot and a flutter of chaotic wings. His talons edge against the pages of Yael’s open Shavuot machzor as he descends, which causes John to draw his hand back quickly, not quite comfortable with magical mail delivery birds, despite his presence in the magical reform synagogue. “How did it get in here?” John asks, as he reaches up to steady his kippah on the top of his thinning dark brown hair, the small cap threatening to slide right off. Standing at the bimah, the cantor continues on, too used to random mail interpretations, despite the restrictions on bad news during festivals and Shabbat. Magical mail, it’s known, finds a way. The bird holds his leg out insistently for James to unbind the letter; it’s in a baronial envelope, with his exact location in a looped, calligraphic scrawl in bright red ink. The owl swivels his head, stares at the back of the de Sousas’ heads with his round, black eyes, then swivels back, as James carefully unties the twine, mindful not to pull at the downy feathers on the owl’s patella.
Dear Mr. James Alexander Potter,
I am writing to inform you that your son, Harry James Potter, was involved in an incident on the night of June 4, 1992. He is expected to make a full recovery but is now recuperating in the hospital wing from injuries sustained in the ensuing incident. Rest assured that we are undertaking a full investigation of the situation and will, of course, keep you abreast of our findings. However, it appears likely that your son has come into contact with an old enemy, one of which we are both familiar with and had hoped would never have to see again. This incident troubles me deeply, Mr. Potter, and I have no doubts you will undertake the right steps going forward with these unfortunate circumstances.
If you would like further details, do not hesitate to contact Madam Poppy Pomfrey with regards to your son’s health or the Deputy Headmistress, Professor Minerva McGonagall, Head of Gryffindor House.
We all hope for a speedy recovery.
All my best wishes,
Headmaster Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore,
Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards
P.S. I think you should know, James, that your son showed incredible courage.
Three days, he thinks.Three days, he thinks again, slightly hysterically, as his hands shake around the letter.Yael reaches forward to steady him as he sways, and his tallit swings right off his shoulders. His son has been unconscious for three days. He collapses backwards onto the bench. The de Sousas turn around, eyes filled with worry, and several others stop mid-prayer, too. He’s aware, at the peripheral edges of his consciousness, that he’s causing a scene. His eyes begin to blur, and it’s hard to focus on the letters of the words in front of him, both from Yael’s open machzor, which bleeds into gimels and nuns, cheits and hei’s, and reishs and dalets that become indistinguishable from one another, to the tight scrawl of Dumbledore’s tiny handwriting. His breath comes out in harsh pants, as he recalls the words on the parchment. An enemy of which we are both familiar. Voldemort.Ten, James thinks, as Rivka de Sousa puts down her own machzor and turns around on her knees on her respective bench, her arm outstretched towards him. “Are you okay, James?” Nine, he counts, as Yael sits down next to him and grabs his trembling hand. Through the corner of his eyes, he sees Rabbi Leah hover, brown eyes full of concern, next to John, at the edge of the congregation seating where there’s an opening to let them file in and sit down on the four benches on their side of the room. “James,” she, too, says. James puts his head in his clammy hands and tries to breathe as he folds his body downwards, blocking out the light and the people around him. His entire body feels like one bruised live wire, and the blueberry blintzes and black coffee from earlier swim in his churling gut and threaten to make a return trip out of his oesophagus and onto the floor. Eight. “Everyone, please clear some space,” he hears Rabbi Leah say. There’s some shuffling, and the mute sound of clothes brushing against the wooden benches, before she says, “Help him up, will you? That’s a boy.” Next to him, John wraps one burly arm around his shoulder, while the other holds his side to ensure he doesn’t slide to the carpet if he can’t walk on his own. James tries to concentrate on breathing, in and out, in and out, and counting, as Rabbi Leah leads them out of the temple into a room set aside for other purposes. In the entrance hall, several older women with wigs or tichels chat amiably while children run amok in their efforts to work off excess energy. As they pass, he sees Aunt Queenie glance over at them, Mischa held with one arm at her hip, one flap of his overalls unbuttoned and in a sad flop while his pudgy fists clutch a yellow squeeze ball. Through his narrow, blurry eyes, he just makes out Yael wave her off as they enter the all purpose function room. Seven, six, five. Chaim wraps a blanket that he finds in a cupboard around James’ trembling shoulders, and he gathers it close in his shaking hands, and screws his eyes shut as the room revolves around him. He collapses, sightlessly, into an uncomfortable chair with a rigid back. Four, three, two, he thinks, and breathes, and tries not to fixate on an old enemy, an old enemy. Voldemort’s still alive. Oh Lily, he thinks. I’m so sorry. One, he breathes, but it’s only a gasp.He opens his eyes to see Yael bent down in front of him, her knees pressed together, her heels off as she uses the balls of her feet for stability. Her toes curl under the seam of her dark hose. Her skirt travels down her thighs, till it pools underneath her crooked elbows, her hands held at a triangle near her mouth. “Jaime,” she says, her voice a faint whisper. Behind her, John putters around a long rubber table with leftover coffee in a silver canteen, a pile of napkins, and a half empty cheesecake left under a plastic cake lid. James watches through a filmy haze of tears, as his cousin’s husband pours the dark liquid into a styrofoam cup.Rivka comes into view, too. She kneels, her knees bent flat to the floor, but her tall updo of flyaway curls gives her an extra inch or two above the top of Yael’s head. “Do you need us to bring you somewhere?” she asks, her voice a soft, soothing whisper. Behind him, Chaim’s hands rub up and down his shoulders. “What do you need?” she continues. James shudders. Voldemort gone, he thinks, and my son here. “Sirius,” he says. “I’ll floo him,” Yael says, and falls back onto her arches before she lifts herself up from the floor. She rubs her hand over her husband’s forearm as he comes over, one dark hand outstretched to offer the coffee. “I can put some whiskey in it,” he tells James, and points to an unopened bottle of kosher firewhiskey in the cupboard as soon as Yael leaves. “If you want.” In the hallway, he hears Queenie sharply gasp, and the sound carries through the open door. He wonders what she’s thinking; is it her grandson David’s body, left out by the back garden where James’ father used to grow his herbs for all his potions and inventions, small body stiff and eyes glassy, open up towards the starry sky. Maybe it’s her son and his wife, corpses strewn on top of one another, left at the front door. “No,” James tells John, even if he really does want.Silence falls, as James stares listlessly at the cup of coffee in his hands. John sits down, too, over by the table, in a folding chair, and his fingers tip tap a rhythm on the rubber table, while Rivka stays where she is. Chaim casts a few warming charms on the blanket as James’ hands continue to shake, then ventures out, for what James doesn’t know, nor care. Eventually, John gets up, and pulls out a pack of cigarettes, holding the pack out in offer. Both James and Rivka take one. Harry had asked him to quit, James thinks, as he lights it, wordlessly, with his wand, and breathes in the foetid smoke through ragged breaths. He’d asked him to quit because a doctor on Take-Your-Parent to school day had told them that it caused lung rot, and heart disease, and he didn’t want either Sirius or him to die hacking up their own insides. In the synagogue, the prayers have come to a stop, and James hears Rabbi Leah’s enhanced voice directing the congregation to another, separate room that’s not this particular function room. He looks around, and wonders if they were supposed to come here, but there’s not enough food for noshing for the entire congregation, so he supposes not. It’s been twenty minutes, according to the clock. And Sirius isn’t here yet. There’s a knock at the door, and then Rabbi Leah stands there, with James’ tallit gently folded and held in her hands. On top, the letter rests, seemingly innocuous at a glance. He hadn’t even noticed leaving it behind. Rivka rises, the end of her lit cigarette a meagre snub, and she and John give him one last glance as they leave the room, and Rabbi Leah comes in. “Your aunt has taken baby Mischa home,” she tells him, as she hands him his belongings. He cradles them on his lap with one hand and holds the quivering coffee at an angle far away from them, his arm outstretched in a straight, wobbling line, and two fingers pressing the cigarette carcass to the side of the cup. Get a hold of yourself, he thinks, as he breathes in and out, air trying to force its way past his stomach knot and cramped lungs. She takes the coffee from him, and the cigarette, too. She snuffs it out in a napkin left on the rubber table, and says, “Yael called your Sirius. She’s on the floo to the schul in Boston right now, asking for Remus Lupin. Both should be here shortly.” He nods, and drops his arm bonelessly, as half his body slides into the uncomfortable chair. “Thank you,” he replies, voice a hoarse croak. “No need,” she tells him. She pulls over the folding chair, and sits, calm and patient, scant inches away. “May I ask what it says?” she asks, and points to the letter. James clears his throat. “Umm–” He looks away from her brown eyes to stare at a brown spot on the wall. “My son. He was in an accident. He’s–recovering.”He thinks that he’s stronger than this, falling apart in front of everyone though the floor seems to rip itself loose board by board out from underneath him, while he sits frozen and paralysed in this chair. An old enemy, his mind tells him, and he pictures his son, small and fragile, alone in his crib with his forehead a bloody river, his wife’s body cold on the floor where she fell, never to move again. He pictures Harry now, small and skinny, and entirely too bold. Like he’d once been, back then. He thinks that once upon a time, before that Halloween night, before Lily’s death, he would not have reacted like this. “We shall say a mi sheberach for him,” Rabbi Leah says. James nods. He clears his throat again. It’s still tight. “I need to–”He stops. Needs to what, he wonders, other than go straight to his son, the one action he can’t take unless he risks losing him. “— write a letter.” To Andromeda, to Minerva, to Harry. Harry, who will wake up. He has to. James had known for a while something was going on. His son had been acting far too cagey in his letters, secretive but overly inquisitive at the same time, with odd questions that just didn’t align with any possible assignments his professors would have given. He hadn’t pursued the matter, remembering his own first year at school and how much he hadn’t told his parents. Whatever this truly is though, whatever Dumbledore isn’t going to reveal about this matter, James intends to find out. “Of course,” she says, and nods her head. “But first you need to process. Sit here, talk if you need it. Let yourself breathe, fall apart here, so that you can be there for Harry.” He nods and closes his eyes again. Through the gasps and the trembling hands and the worry, his mind goes in every direction, and as he tries to focus on something, anything. So, he pictures his mother and the day he’d truly learned what death was. “There will be many more days like this, my love,” his mother had told him, when his grandmère passed. He’d stood there in a small cemetery of a small village in France, clad in stiff black mourning robes, and asked why she couldn’t just get back up again; just walk right out of that mahogany coffin as if she was just rising from bed. “And there will be many more people to miss. One day, you’ll miss me, too.” How right she’d been. “No, Mama,” he’d told her, as the procession carried the coffin across the graveyard. He’d clutched her hand in an impossibly tight grip. “I won’t lose you.” How wrong he’d been. In the small room off to the side of the synagogue, James says, “You know a man tried to kill my son,” as if Rabbi Leah is unaware, though she is not. Tried to kill him now, he thinks, not then. A man tried to kill my son, now. His son is eleven-years-old now; and then he was one, small and vulnerable and nappyless in his crib. She holds out her hand. He takes it, his palm a vibrating tremor against hers. His throat swallows up those words. Instead, mind still zig-zagging, he recalls something from his childhood, something from the Talmud his rabbi in London had once said. “Whoever kills one life kills the world entire,” he tells Rabbi Leah, not entirely sure why. Perhaps it is because his mind is full of death, either the fear of his son’s death or the memories of everyone else he’s ever lost. Voldemort had killed more than one life. So had he, in his time with the Order fighting against Voldemort and his followers, and sometimes, he still sees them behind his eyelids at night, the three men he’d seen no recourse other than to kill. No other way out, if he wanted to survive another day, during those long three-and-a-half years. Rabbi Leah nods. “And whoever saves one life saves the world entire,” she finishes. Once, a very long time ago, James had saved a boy’s life. He’d hated this boy, more than anyone else he’d ever met at the time–but he hadn’t hesitated. He’d run out into the frigid air that February night, with the moon full and luminous in the sky, through the tunnel underneath the base of the Whomping Willow. He didn’t transform, didn’t think to at all, moving on instinct as he’d been, and pulled the boy away seconds before the wolf came through the door. And that boy had grown up to become a killer, too. He’s not sure what that says, about him, about them. And he doesn’t ask. He breathes instead. Ten, he counts, and continues to count. Once, he’d been nothing more than a boy. They’d all been children then. He and Lily and Sirius and Remus; Marlene and Dorcas, and the third of his graduating class that didn’t live to see twenty-one. Regulus Black, too, he thinks, and him. Peter, James reluctantly recalls. Once, he’d been a kid, as well. The war had stolen their innocence, all their youthful, righteous fire. So confident, all of them signing up for covert, secret missions, going from one safe house to the other, never fully stopping or turning themselves off, always on guard. They could take on the entire world, they’d believed then, cresting along on righteous belief in their inherent rightness that they hadn’t contemplated the risks. Hadn’t cared about the deaths they’d been dancing with. They’d become killers and corpses all. He’d do it again, he knows, even while he thinks he wants nothing more than for Harry to remain a kid. To never know that first, unflinching step towards upheaving his own life. They’d wanted to make the world a better place for him, once. James hopes he still can.
Remus turns the corner on the street at a run, head still woozy from the post-apparition effects his body always undergoes, and skids on his heels as Sirius swings both legs off his bike hurriedly at the curb. Their eyes meet, and they both head to the door. “What did Yael tell you?” Sirius asks him, his entire face hard as stone, but his eyes are desperate. Remus has seen them like this before, each time more unsettling than the last. Remus shakes his head, wispy bangs falling in front of his face, as he struggles to keep pace with the other man. A few members of the congregation huddle on the steps, discussing the service, their long night studying, and other matters. Sirius doesn’t look at anyone, eyes fixed on his goal, and he nearly wrenches the doorknob off the door as he pulls it open. In the expansive front hall, Yael sits in wait. Her hand’s in her husband’s on his lap, knuckles colourless with the force of her grip. Above John’s shoulder, a barn owl rests with his claws a curl around the handle of a wall lantern, while the man tries to discreetly shift his wife further down the bench so that his shoulder is not directly underneath the bird’s tail feathers. She jumps up as Sirius strides determinedly up to her, and almost knocks into a table with a bin full of communal machzors, a handful of kippahs in a wicker basket, and monthly newsletters. Remus steadies the table with one hand, as Sirius asks, “Where is he?” “That way,” she says, and points to a room to the left, with a cracked door, right next to a smaller corridor that leads to the bathrooms. “Rabbi Leah just left to give him some space.” “Should we do anything?” John asks, standing too. Sirius ignores him, already half-way across the floor towards the room. Awkwardly, John looks at Remus. A thick patch of stubble peppered with sparse grey lines his jaw, and rings around his mouth. “We can–” He stops, at a loss with what to say. Yael steps forward, a soft look on her wan face. It’s rounder than it once was, Remus thinks. “We can put the kettle on in your flat. We’ll be there when you arrive.” “James!” Remus hears Sirius say, and then an incoherent outcry in reply. Out of all of them, James had always been the quickest to cry. Remus rather thinks it’s because he’d known how to, been allowed to, all his life. Tears come easily to him. Remus has never really known what to do with tears, too used to pushing down his pain because pain is always something he has to endure. Every day, he lives with his entire body always on edge with the knowledge that he can’t escape bearing pain. Sometimes, he doesn’t know what to do when James cries. Remus nods, though, and hands her his keys, their flat protected by various charms so that unlocking spells will never work. When he gets to the room, Sirius is circling the entire circumference with a heavy footed pace, a crumpled letter with a torn top that threatens to come to more disrepair under the pressure of his hands in the air. James sits on a chair, back bent in exhaustion, and his head in his hands. His messy hair spills in a blanket of curls, reaching towards the ground.“The right thing? The audacity of that man,” Sirius says, as soon as Remus puts his hand on James’ shoulder. “When it’s under his bloody watch Harry’s been harmed.” James looks up, his bottom eyelashes wet over a thick rim of red. His cheeks are blotchy, with the sheen of a leftover trail of former tears. He reaches up and puts his hand over Remus’, and they both squeeze. “He’s okay,” Remus says to him, to them all, though he doesn’t know much more than Yael, who’d only read a smattering of words in the letter before James had taken precedence. “He’ll be okay, and he’ll be home soon.” “Oh, he will be,” Sirius confirms, his anger a dark, dangerous thing. His slate grey eyes bleed into his pupils as they narrow, till there’s almost nothing but stark black. “Dumbledore better not try to interfere with that. Right thing, my arse. The balls on that man.” Sirius has always been rather like a spark taking a brief respite, forever ready to become a forest fire. Sometimes, Remus thinks it's how they all ended up here in the first place, on the opposite side of the ocean from Harry, all of them just stuck in wait. Sometimes, he remembers the last days of the war, when he’d learned of Lily’s death, and wanted nothing more than to give the rest of the people left he cared about a way out. “I’ve written to Minnie,” James says, and indicates another piece of paper Remus hadn’t noticed on his lap, a capped ballpoint pen in a sad plop by his feet. “To ask her if she can take Harry to the Ministry of Magic once term ends. To the international portkey office. Originally, Andromeda was going to meet him coming off the train but–” He trails off. Sirius stops his pace, and then he’s got his arms around James’ shoulders, and the sudden force of his embrace nearly barrels Remus out of the way. Only his hand still intertwined with their friend’s, and the pressure of Sirius’ own hands, keeps him from stumbling. Sirius rests his forehead on top of James’ head, their black hair caught together, the hues of each individual strand so close in tone that it’s hard for Remus to see where one begins and the other ends. He clears his throat, and says, “He won’t be anywhere near them. Even if I have to swim across the sodding Atlantic as Padfoot, I’ll find a way. He won’t be spending any time with the Dursleys. He’s coming home.” Remus nods, too, and squeezes James’ hand and shoulder, again. “The owl’s still out there,” he says, and reaches for the letter on James’ lap. “I’m just going to send this off. Knowing Minerva, she’ll have sent an owl of her own. It’s probably waiting for us at home.” James nods in thanks, and then Remus leaves them, fervently whispering to one another about three way communications mirrors and how Sirius is “this close to figuring out how to make them work over the distance.” Remus takes one last look to see that James’ hands no longer bear a tremble and closes the door. The large entrance hall is empty now, though he can still hear a few voices far off in a more distant room. The owl’s not moved from his post. Remus collapses just underneath him on the bench, his entire body a slump as muscles he didn’t even know were tense suddenly lose their intensive focus. The owl hoots, and flies downward in a rush of sporadically turning wings. Remus sighs and jerks his arm forward to stop the bird before he plummets, then offers his arm for support while he gives him the letter. Six more years, he thinks, six more years of wondering when the other shoe drops. Perhaps he should put in an application to Hogwarts, after all.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
~ April 2, 1978 Lily chugs down the last dregs of expensive champagne out of her glass like a champion, her head at a tilt. She feels her hair slide against her skull as her carefully arranged updo falls out of its pins. The thin bits of metal fall to the floor with a faint clitter-clatter, and she decides she’s not going to bother to pick them up. Let her hair be a mess, she thinks, angrily, and flips the two-fingered salute towards the red-faced best man over at the bridal table.Fuck you, you horny arsehole, she thinks, as the man grumbles underneath his handlebar moustache, face beet red from his exposed veins underneath his thin skin, as well as too many beers, evidenced by the stack of empty bottles near his bent elbow. There’s a large, wet spot slowly drying on his white shirt and tweed jacket, and she smirks as she gestures with her now empty glass towards him. Though she doubts that wine to the face will stop him from getting handsy with another woman’s arse, she still feels a sense of deep satisfaction at his soggy state, his hair sad and limp where the majority of the liquid splashed before it started to droop in sad plops down his ruddy cheeks. He turns with a sneer to Marge Dursley and leans over to whisper something undoubtedly derogatory in her ear.Vernon’s sister shoots her a venomous glance, and Lily rolls her eyes in response, as she angles her body away from them. Out on the dance floor of the only ballroom in the Railview Hotel, which is the only half-way decent venue in all of Cokeworth according to Tuney’s rather derisive pre-wedding panic planning, she spots James near the edge, his arms up in the air. Behind him, four round tables still have bunched up napkins and empty plates. He looks as if he’s in the middle of another attempt to dodge a pack of Dursley children. Five or six of them have been following him eagerly for most of the reception, all clambering with greedy pleas for the man with the “funny hair” to perform more of his “amateur magic tricks.” As he stands there, two of Petunia’s bridesmaids, a woman with a severe widow’s peak and glacial features and a prettier one with a bouffant, eye him up with a predatory gleam in their eyes Lily doesn’t care for. She’s never seen either of them before the wedding, as she hadn’t been invited to the hen-do. All she knows is that they’re both someone or other Tuney’d met in secretarial school, so unlike Yvonne, the maid-of-honour, who’s been a rather vapid, gossipy presence at more than one Sunday lunch most of Lily’s life, she can’t remember either of their names. “Give me another,” she says to the bartender as she turns around, a tall man with a bald patch, and reaches for her sister’s petite clasp purse she’d borrowed out of her room. It’s decorated with ostentatious daisies and feels practically empty as Lily searches for a tenner. Would it have killed Pet to spring for an open bar, she thinks, as the bartender hands her the long crystal flute and her change. Her stomach feels as if it might burst from the wedding dinner and pud, but her nerves are shot to hell from the long tedium of the day. The wedding had gone on a lot longer than she remembers weddings taking, and when the reverend had asked whether or not anyone had any objections, she’d had to turn her head into James’ shoulder before she spoke up and said something stupid. In the pew in front of her, Uncle Jack had actually had to put his hand over her grandmother’s mouth to keep her from speaking out, too.Lily has no doubt he’ll never hear the end of that from his mother in the car on the way home tonight. Not that anyone else in the family has any happy feelings about this. She knows for a fact that Fiona Evans had been hoping for months that Petunia might wake up and change her mind. That day unfortunately never came, and now they’re all stuck with the Dursleys as in-laws. Lily sighs and sips this new glass a tiny bit more sedate than the last two. She turns back around to face the dance floor. In the minute or two it's taken for the bartender to pour her order, James has begun to show the little Dursley girl who’d performed flower girl duties to the best of her eight-year-old abilities how to waltz, while the bouffant woman whose auburn hair clashes horrible with the bridesmaid’s salmon pink, ruffled gown with pointed, prominent shoulder lace, pouts in his direction from the edge of the dance floor. Lily smirks at the clearly disappointed look on her cherubic, overly made up face as the other woman’s eyes follow him on the floor. A few feet away, Petunia and Vernon sway more than they dance, neither daring to venture too far from their centre position; he’s got on a tux that must have cost an arm and a leg, while her long, taffeta gown with the bell sleeves and the long, starched collar moves stiffy around her bird-thin form. In Lily’s not entirely unbiased opinion, it’s not worth the thousand pounds Jonathan Evans had shelled out.Around the various tables with the trailing, starched tablecloths and pink runners, a few of Lily’s cousins attempt to hold small talk conversations with some of the posh Dursley adults in their frilly hats and tweed suits. The Dursleys look less than thrilled to be interacting with any of the bride’s family, and she watches as two of the Dursley men eye the cheaper made suits and the Oxfam gowns of her cousins with scorn in their eyes. Lily had passed more than one Dursley on her way to the bar who’d commented on the state of the Evans’ family, especially the most torrid detail about them in the groom’s family’s eyes. That is, the “horrid display between those two men.” The two men in question were her Uncle Sean and his partner, who were both extra-careful to stand a full ten feet away from each other at all times, per Petunia’s instructions, so as not to ‘offend’ the conservative Dursley family. Lily rather thinks any person breathing that’s different from them offends that family. Her eyes drift around the dance floor, and skirt past the drunk groomsmen who bumble with two left feet as they clutch at their plus ones, and the three bridesmaids all in a huddle, who she catches pointing between the newly hitched Dursleys and herself. She scowls at them and resists the urge to stick her tongue out childishly, before she looks to her father who sits in the middle of the bridal table, instead. Her poor father appears bulldozed into conversation with Vernon’s mother, a rather large woman with broad shoulders. Lily notes that his green eyes are glossed over with an expression not unlike a deer trapped under the harsh glare of a headlight. Fiona Evans is nowhere to be seen, and her youngest daughter reckons her mother’s made her escape from discussing cricket or drills with Mr. Dursley by begging off to the loo. At the end of the table, with her arms crossed underneath her large bosom, Lily’s grandmother, Saiorse, opens her mouth to snore. Her head threatens to tip back over the top of her chair, and there’s a large chocolate stain visible around her mouth from across the room. Next to her, Uncle Jack tries to poke her awake with a dessert fork, while another Dursley attempts to gain his attention. Lily waves to her father sympathetically as he catches her gaze and holds up his hands in a fruitless effort to motion her towards the table. She smooths down her salmon pink skirt with sticky hands, uncaring that it’s a rental, and starts to cross the dance floor with purpose. She passes Yvonne, and neither woman can help but toss each other mutual sneers of dislike. As Lily heads to James, who now has the little girl clasped securely around the waist as he spins her up in the air. Despite the loud music, she hears Yvonne whisper, “I can’t believe Petunia’s sister brought one of his sort here. What do they even have in common?” Lily prickles with anger as she realises what Yvonne means (which of course is rather different than Lily sometimes wondered back when they first started to date) given James’ earlier comment about “never having been in a church before,” right before they’d all filed into the building for the ceremony. “Screw off, Yvonne,” Lily yells sharply, to several guests' scandalised gasps, though Lily’s cousin Sammy holds his glass up in solidarity, as she spins on her heel and flips her sister’s friend off. Then, she starts back on her way. As she passes the woman with the widow’s peak, she stops and glares. “He’s eighteen,” Lily informs her, and shakes her head with disgust as the twenty-something woman shrugs without care. After another few seconds, she finally reaches him. “May I cut in?” Lily asks, lips curved into a smile as the little girl pouts, not pleased with being passed over for the other, bigger girl, or being back on the ground, for that matter. “He’s my dance partner,” she tries to insist, her feet stomping into the ground with all the force her shiny buckle shoes can muster. “You’ve exhausted me,” James says with a grin as he bends down to the little girl’s level. He puts a hand over his heart as he pretends to yawn. “I need to recuperate by dancing with someone far less good at it than you.” Face pink, the little girl giggles and runs off. Lily puts her hands on the smooth, pressed fabric of his suit jacket shoulders, as he grabs her around the waist. This close, she’s once again struck by how well he wears a muggle suit. He’s dressed to the nines, in by far the most expensive outfit in the entire place, and Lily had wondered whether it cost more than the entire venue more than once that night. Especially since even the posh Dursleys had eyed him with envy in their eyes. Sometimes, she forgets that James comes from money, and then it hits her abruptly in moments like this to highlight the differences between them. He’s shown up to her sister’s wedding in what he’d considers wedding appropriate attire he’d bought this morning with no scrimping; while she had spent a month and a half wondering if she could get away with springing for her dress at Primark, before Petunia reluctantly conceded to their mother’s demands to make her a bridesmaid. They begin to move as the song shifts to something classical. Beethoven, Lily thinks, though she’s no virtuoso. “I can’t believe you spent the last half hour performing tricks for a bunch of children,” Lily says to him as he spins her around. Her hair falls about her face in a wave of artificial curls. He steps back and draws her with him as they sway, her stomach flush against his hips, till he bends. “It wasn’t so bad,” he tells her, face contemplative, their hips sliding against one another as he leads them through a series of complicated foot movements. “Kind of fun, actually. Vernon’s face went all red when I pulled that rabbit out of his mother’s hat. I think that was the first smile I saw on your grandmother’s face all day. She told me she might hire me for her bridge club.” Lily stumbles slightly on the tip of her three-inch heel, whose strap is so thin it may as well not be there at all. He holds her steady as she rights herself and she thinks the dancing lessons she demanded out of Sirius over the last month might have paid off, since she manages to quickly fall back into the rhythm. “She knows you didn’t actually perform a trick right?” Lily asks with a laugh and turns around in his arms. His palms splay with his fingers open wide across her stomach, and she swears she feels every bit of sinew and bone underneath the thin material of her dress. “She knows where I go to school.” Plus, Lily can’t imagine him performing an actual muggle magic trick. Where, she thinks, would he have gotten the rabbit without her knowledge? No, he must have transfigured the fluffy creature out of a napkin or some other such object lying around. “Who says I didn’t?” James counters, voice a whisper as he leans forward, his lips just brushing the tip of her ear. “Perhaps I’m skilled in the muggle arts. Maybe I got that bunny from a bush in the park while you were still asleep. After all, I have to live up to my reputation here, don’t I?” Lily rolls her eyes and leans her head against his shoulder to gaze up at his twinkling eyes. “You know Vernon was insulting you, darling,” she points out, and lets a fair bit of the anger that’s been festering all day come out in her tone. She feels him shrug. “I don’t think that man knows how to talk in anything other than insults,” he replies, before a wicked smirk grows across his handsome face. “For my next trick–” he says, as he quickly spins her back around and catches her in a dip. Her heels slide, unbidden, out of her control, on the floor, and her neck falls smoothly backwards with the motion. The last little pin holding back a carefully heated curl lands on the floor with a plop. His palm is strong and steady at the small of her back as he holds her suspended there, mid-air, and she catches Petunia’s dark glare aimed in their direction as she stands next to a scowling Yvonne, all in the brief moments before he brings her up. “—I shall turn into a majestic stag.” She snorts an undignified laugh through the entire bridge of her nose. “My sister might actually murder you if that happens again,” she tells him. “Hmmm, I don’t doubt she’d try,” he replies, and kisses her softly, deeply, as the song ends and turns to another. It’s more violins than piano, she thinks and their dance moves to a faster pace. She begins to feel breathless as they spin, the exertion catching in her chest and the hollow of her throat as her heart beats in time with the steps. “Ahuvati,” he says, as he lifts her up around the waist. Her shoes dangle a centimetre or two away from the base of her foot, held there by sheer force of will. “I have something to confess to you.” Inwardly, she frowns, and wonders for a brief moment if he’s cursed Vernon into being a decent person or something. She wouldn’t put it past him. Instead, he kisses the tip of her chin as he lowers her, then puts his forehead close to hers and says, “This is a truly appalling dress. You pull it off, don’t get me wrong, but your sister’s got questionable taste. The rest of them look like raw trout.” Loudly, Lily giggles. Widow’s peak woman turns to look at them from where she’s dancing with a groomsman that’s got a dingy beard and large forehead, and her eyes trail up and down James’ back with that licentious gaze again. Annoyed, Lily tightens her grip on his shoulders, and bends her right hand to flip this woman off. By the end of the night, she’s sure she’ll make a name for herself among the wedding party. Then, she says, “I think Tuney loves this tone purely because it clashes with my hair.” She kisses him again, longer and slower this time, and then once more when they pull away to catch their breath.James jerks his head back, his face flushed. “Hmmm, well she failed,” he whispers in a ragged sounding gasp. His hair tickles her forehead, and then he says, “Don’t look now, but your sister’s got us in her sights. Looks right miffed, she does. Over there with that Tibby or something.” Lily turns her head at an awkward angle that pulls her muscles tight, and sure enough, Petunia’s fierce, hawklike glare pins her to the spot, as the bridesmaid with thin, limp blonde hair Lily vaguely recognises from summer holidays points to them with curled lips, and scowls with Yvonne. “Tish,” Lily corrects, though she’s honestly not sure. “Does it matter?” James says, just as Petunia starts to approach with a determined stride, an angry look in her brown eyes. “They’ve all got the same scrowly faces.” Lily groans. The brief, happy bubble she and James have been enjoying in this den of Tory-infested wedding hell is about to be popped by the bride. Suddenly, Lily feels as if she lacks the energy to deal with her family drama for any remaining portion of the night. “What do you say we leave?” she suggests to James, as she turns her head back. His eyes drift over the top of her head, and she thinks he may have caught Petunia’s intent. “How fast can you run in those heels?” he asks, before they’re off. Lily’s shoulder knocks into Petunia’s, who exclaims, “Lily, what do you think you’re doing?” in a shrill voice as they run past various guests who attempt to move out of their way with shocked gasps. Her heels finally give up the ghost and snap straight off her ankles, and she leaves them without a backwards glance on the dance floor. Actually, she rather hopes Yvonne trips on them and skins her kneecaps. As they round the bridal table, she hears her father ask where they’re going, at the same time that Marge Dursley snaps, “Well, I never! Heathens.”She blocks them all out, like she means to block out the entire world for just a night. She wants to block out the entire war and their classmates and the growing darkness wandering the halls at school in the eyes of their fellow students. She wants, for just one night, to not be consumed and sick with worry about each unpunished attack or assault on muggleborns. James nearly wrenches open the door as the man behind the hotel’s checkout counter yells at them and then they crash down the stairs. They right themselves in each other’s arms with breathless laughter and run down the green, all the way past the gate. Throughout, Lily’s bare feet roll over pebbles and poking sticks, but the slight irritation is a mere flicker. When they reach the end of the street, they stop to catch their breath on a stone gate by the post and James looks furtively around. Then, he bends down and grabs a discarded envelope on the ground, lost to whoever it’s meant to arrive to forever when he takes his wand out of his arm holster, mutters, and the envelope shifts, splits, and becomes two simple, flat shoes. “My lady,” he says, and bends down to help her slip her feet into them. They’re more comfortable than she would have assumed, soft and pillowy underneath her throbbing feet. They end just under the growing blister on her heel. They hold hands as they start to descend down the winding, long road, past the cheesemongers' closed shop that’s only open twice a week and past the pub, where she sees Tobias Snape stumble out the door to the front stoop to retch the entire contents of his stomach just off to the side. She avoids his eyes as he wipes his mouth on his sleeve. At the bottom of a hill, they run past identical terrace houses, down and up as the streets form themselves around the earth’s natural inclines and dips, until they taper off and head towards the park. They hop over the closed fence, and amble through the overgrown grass towards the solitary picnic table that’s still habitable for human activity. They sit on top of it, feet planted on the seat, and he shucks his suit jacket. It lands in the dirt. She puts her head on his chest, her breath a series of short, exhilarated gasps, and doesn’t mind the sharpness of his collarbones. “I swear,” she says, as her mind turns back to her sister’s scorn. “She was acting like we were dogging on the dance floor or something.” “The scandal,” James jokes with a short laugh. “When it was only couple of snogs.” She shivers as the cool, April breeze picks up and he summons his discarded jacket to put it on her shoulders. She wraps herself in it, and breathes in the smell of grass, and the tang of lingering champagne. “Chicken or beef,” he says in an imitation of the surly waiter during dinner. “Good thing I ate before we came to this thing.” “We knew you’d need to.” They lapse into silence, as dusk settles into night. The stars here are rare, not as bright or visible as they are from the Hogwarts grounds. There’s too much smoke in her small, industrial town. She plays with his fingers, brushing across his knobby knuckles, and says, “I don’t even know if she’ll be happy with him. She thinks he’s just going to give her all her material needs, but is there love there?” Petunia, who’d never been satisfied with their small existence in their dull Cokeworth town. Petunia, who eschewed their relatives and tried to leave more than one of them off the guest list for the wedding because they weren’t up to snuff enough in the Dursleys’ eyes. Petunia, who lives in London now, votes Tory while the rest of them vote Labour. Petunia who wants her bills always paid on time, with not a pence necessary from her to help with the household expenses, and a house with a garage or a drive. Vernon can give her that, Lily knows, and probably will, but she continues to dwell on her sister anyway. With this marriage, Lily thinks any hope for mending their relationship is long lost. The little girl is gone and the woman she’s grown up to be wants no reminder of the child that used to run through the wood in search of butterflies and look for the wonder in life. No, not this Petunia, who cringes at the reminder of where Lily goes to school. This Petunia hates everything about her. Petunia, Lily thinks with a sigh, who sacrificed her dreams for an attempt at a cookie-cutter, picket-fence life. “She never used to want to get married in a church,” Lily tells James, even though she’s not sure why. Perhaps it’s because she needs to talk, needs to let these uneasy feelings bleed out. She pictures two girls with candy floss running into foamy waves, and she thinks that was the last time they were truly sisters. “She used to talk about the beach because we so rarely ever saw it. Just the once–we went to Brighton on holiday. I was twelve. She loved it. But I guess that wasn’t proper enough for Vernon.” “Ours will be better. I promise.” Lily’s face scrunches, even as she ignores the butterflies that erupt into a pitter-patter in her stomach. “Ours?” she asks, heart in her throat. It skips a beat as she sits there, her eyes tracing all the lines of his face, and she knows she loves him. Loves him more than her first kiss with Michael Barnes, more than her fervid dalliance with Esme Belby in abandoned classrooms, and much more than her three month long relationship with Corky Renshaw, who she’d really been convinced she was head-over-heels for. “Who says I’m gonna marry you, Potter?” she teases. “It’ll disappoint Elvendork if we don’t,” James says, with a smile. His features are set with determination, gaze fixed on her and his hands comforting as they hold her close. “If they’ve got to explain to their friends why, despite their love, mummy and daddy never stood under the chuppah.” “We are not naming a child Elvendork, you arse.” And, suddenly, she wants this wedding, wants it more than she ever thought she could or would. She wants to marry this ridiculous, charming, overly confident boy. She imagines trying to tell her past self that one day she’ll sit on a picnic table in Cokeworth’s only park with James Potter, both of them trying to find the blurry stars and dreaming of their future together. In the dim light of the one blinking lamp post, she vows that they’ll be happier than all those who don’t want them to be, that they’ll live a life filled with more love than the hate of every single Slytherin she passes in the halls can possibly hold, and more than the vitriol that grows bolder each passing day in the Daily Prophet with its threats and remarks against muggleborns.One day, she promises them both silently, muggleborn Lily Evans from the small, dull and utterly nondescript town of Cokeworth is going to marry James Potter.
~ June 8, 1992 Despite himself, Harry falls asleep as quickly as Professor Dumbledore leaves. When he wakes, Ron and Hermione are there; Ron’s asleep with his head in his bent arms at the end of Harry’s hospital bed, but Hermione’s got a book propped open on her lap. She smiles when she sees that his eyes are open and closes her book with a decisive snap. Absurdly, Harry wonders if he might have interrupted her mid-paragraph. “Harry,” she says, as she sets the book down and comes to sit next to him on the bed. The white linen sheets shift underneath her and shift more when he props himself up against the backboard with the thin, pancake pillow. “I’m ever so pleased you’re awake. I’ve been so worried. It was rather trying to get Madam Pomfrey to let us stay, and at first she wasn’t going to, but Professor McGonagall showed up and insisted.” She pushes away a stray curl from her forehead as it falls out of her thick bun, the tie straining around the weight of it at the crown of her head. “I’m alright, Hermione,” he tells her, though he still feels tired. It’s strange, considering his long, unconscious state, but sometimes there’s no understanding the mysteries of the human body. “What about you? And Ron?” “Fine, yes, fine,” she says in a rush. Her hand absently pats the sheet. “I made it back through, and after Dumbledore showed up, we went straight here. Madam Pomfrey fixed Ron right up–I rather worried he might have a concussion, and I thought he would have to go to hospital proper, but she gave him a potion–oh, what was it?” “Rung Bell Solution?” Harry asks, remembering something for head injuries in Sirius’ store of medicinal potions, as well as the number of times he complained about drunks giving themselves injuries on purpose just to make his job harder when he’d still been a mediwizard. Hermione nods her head, and her bun bounces in sweeping flops. “Yes, quite.” She shrugs, and her two large front teeth scrape her bottom lip. “She gave me a pepper-up. For my nerves.” Pepper-up, Harry thinks, as his brows furrow. He doesn’t remember that one. “Oh, do you mean a pick-me-up?” he asks, thinking about the vile tasting orange solution Sirius shoves down his throat every time he feels a slight tickle. There’s cherry flavour, too, but that’s even worse. Sirius has to chase his father around the apartment and hold him down in order to get him to take those, and Uncle Remus is even more reluctant to take them. He prefers chocolate cures. Hermione shakes her head. “No, I’m quite sure she said pepper-up.” Harry shrugs and settles silently on the idea that this may just be one of those times where cultural naming differences are at play. His eyes drift back to the side table, where the mound of candy still sits, undisturbed, but he notices now that amidst the confectionaries there’s a number of get-well-cards, as well as a thick envelope with his father’s handwriting scrawled on the front. Hermione pushes the table closer, and they start to sift through its contents. As they do so, he cradles his father’s letter in his lap, and vows to read it when he’s alone. They leave the candy to the side, both in agreement to wait for Ron to wake up before partaking in the sugar. “Anthony Goldstein says I missed a rousing discussion during Shavuot. He managed to stay up till two,” Harry remarks as he sorts through the various cards from Hogwarts Hillel members. There’s fourteen of them, and a box of candied fruit slices, too. Hermione rolls her eyes. “Two minutes past eleven maybe,” she mutters. Harry shrugs and takes a sip of water from the glass he hadn’t previously noticed, given that five thick chocolate frogs stand at a height with it. “Oh,” he says, just as he gets to a card from Fred and George Weasley asking if he’d like a get-well-toilet-seat. “At least it’s not a get-well-fig-newton. My friend Abigail used to try to give me those. I think it’s actually because she hates fig newtons.” “Then why does she have them?” Hermione asks, her mouth scrunched into a sort of twisty pucker. “Her brother used to give them to her whenever she’d get a C on a test–” Harry jerks straight up with alarm and knocks his elbow on the side table. It rolls a little ways off to the side. “My exams!”He turns with wide, horrified eyes to his best friend. At the end of the bed, Ron starts with a “huh?” but doesn’t fully wake yet, and his head resnuffles into the burrow of his arms. Hermione, rather less worried than Harry thinks she’d be about her own exams, leans forward and says, “I’m sure they’ll have to let you make them up. They can’t not.” Harry nods, and hopes that he didn’t miss the potions exam, because he thinks that Snape might be spiteful enough to fail him regardless. Especially since–“And then your father did something Professor Snape could never forgive,” Professor Dumbledor had told him earlier that day. Stomach knotty with worry and thick with the feel of bile creeping up through his throat from more than a little bit of hunger, Harry had asked, “What’s that?” “He saved his life.” Harry doesn’t know why an act like saving someone’s life would then cause a man to resent a person for the rest of his days and finds it even stranger that the person would take that resentment out on that man’s son. He can’t help but wonder if there’s more to the story and thinks that there just has to be more that people aren’t telling him. He shakes himself out of the memory as Ron shouts, “What’s that?” and jumps up, fully awake, in his chair. “Harry!” he nearly shouts as soon as he sees Hermione and Harry in front of his open pile of get-wells. “You’re awake.” He reaches over the candy and the entire span of the white bed linen to grab Harry around the shoulders in a half-armed hug. The three of them soon fall into an amiable chat, as Hermione and Ron catch him up on all that’d he’s missed during his time asleep. “No,” Harry says, devastated, when he hears that Gryffindor had not managed to win the Quidditch Cup. “It’s all my fault,” he claims, and wonders how he’ll ever make it up to the team. Ron grimaces with sympathy, but Hermione scoffs and says, “I rather think they’ll survive.” Not for the first time, Harry thinks Hermione just doesn’t understand the serious business that is quidditch. “So it was You-Know-Who?” Ron asks fifteen minutes later, once Harry’s done relating what he’d seen in the final room, getting the stone from the mirror and what Dumbledore had told him about the Flamels. He doesn’t know why, but he keeps the secret of his mother’s protection to himself, as well as–He tries not to picture Quirrel’s flesh burning underneath his hands, and swallows back a rush of bile as it threatens to come up. He focuses on his friends, instead, even if he can still hear the man’s scream, and the sound of that cold, cruel laughter rings in his ears. “Like, on the back of Quirrel’s head? He was just hanging out in our Defence class the whole year?” Ron turns to Hermione, his face set in horror. “Were we learning from You-Know-Who the entire year?” Hermione goes pale, and she sways where she sits. Harry watches as she seems to swallow harshly, and then she says, “I–maybe he was asleep during our lessons? They might have been rather boring for a–well–a mass murderer and all.” She sounds more like she hopes that’s true more than she believes it is. Not wanting to dwell on these thoughts, Harry says, “Guess the garlic didn’t ward off everything.” It’s a feeble attempt at a joke, something he’s seen his father do more than once to cut through tension, and he’s not sure he quite pulls it off. He can still see his face–the flat nose, the red eyes, as it emerged from the back of Quirrel’s head. He can still hear him; his taunts about his mother, the threats against Harry and Harry’s father, the desperation that Harry’d felt trying to keep the stone away from him. Down there, face to face with the man who’d murdered his mother and tried to murder him, too, Harry became conscious of how much he doesn’t want to die. After they talk about the fact that the Flamels are now going to pass on and that Dumbledore had given him the Cloak, Ron starts forward as if he’s just realised something extremely alarming. With a quick shake of his head that causes his over long red hair to flick wildly about, Harry hears him say, “I hope he wasn’t doing the grades.” They stare at him. “What? I bet you he’d have a bias towards the Slytherins, right? And Snape’s bad enough with that,” Ron says with a slightly defensive tone. His shoulders stand as straight as a ruler. Inexplicably, Harry begins to laugh. He doesn’t know if he’s ever had more ridiculous friends, as he listens to Ron Weasley worry about the grading system before Hermione. As he sits there, his head bent forward with gasps, he realises how much he truly loves them. Hermione laughs, too. She breaks out into a giggle first, before it turns into a belly laugh, and then all three of them are cracking up, right there on Harry’s bed in the hospital wing, with all his get-well-cards and his mountain of candy he’ll never be able to finish off before he heads home. Their faces grow pink as they keep laughing until Ron starts to hiccup, which only sends Hermione and Harry into further fits. The door at the end of the room bursts open with a startling bang. “There’s a pigeon carrying a letter pecking incessantly at my window. I never!” Madam Pomfrey says as she sweeps into the main room of the hospital wing with a glare and a fat, ratty looking bird follows her with a flap of angry wings. “It seems to be here for you, Mr. Potter.” Harry eyes the pest with wings warily. Hermione shifts farther down the bed, while Ron looks fascinated with its sheer size. “I’ve never seen one so big,” he whispers to Hermione, as Harry gingerly takes the letter from the bird. It’s got an angry gleam in its black eyes. As soon as the post is in Harry’s hand it takes off and knocks the hat off the top of Madam Pomfrey’s head. She waves her arms above her frantically, and mutters something about “ordering a deep cleaning in here” as she disappears back into her office. “An actual carrier pigeon,” Hermione says in a tone of distinct bewilderment. Harry unrolls the note. It’s from Jesse de Sousa.
Did you die? Mom said that your dad like collapsed or something at temple the other day after getting some official looking letter. You better not be dead because I had to trade three quadpot cards to get enough money to ask Lullabelle Honeycut down at the post in town to charm this pigeon. I wrestled it off some man’s fence to get this note to you since, as usual, all the ravens at school were being used by other people. Honestly, it’s rather inconsiderate of them. Anyway, I twisted my ankle catching this feathered rat, so you better tell me if you’re still breathing man!
Let me know, asap!
Jesse
Harry puts the letter down, and he hears Hermione comment, “He seems–charming,” though she says the last word hesitantly, as if she meant to say something else. Ron says, “bit odd, you mean,” in response, but Harry’s more concerned about Jesse’s comment on his father’s reaction than joining their conversation. Collapsed, he thinks, and curls his arms around his midsection as he draws his knees up underneath his chin. He’s never seen his father collapse before, not even when he’d gotten dragonpox when Harry was four-years-old. Suddenly, the laughter from earlier seems premature, and right then, he wants nothing more than to be home. Home with his father and Sirius and Uncle Remus, home where he knows they’re still there–Still alive. Later that night, after Madam Pomfrey insists that he stay one more day for observational purposes, Harry opens his father’s letter. Harry, he reads, and his hand grips the paper tight, as a clamour of voices pass by the hall.
I’m sorry that I cannot be there when you wake up. Know that I want nothing more than for you to be healthy and home soon. Headmaster Dumbledore’s letter to me didn’t inform me of much, so I expect that you’ll tell me what happened? Sirius has been besides himself with worry, too, and we both love you very much. The Headmaster told us that you saw–
That you saw him. Know that I never wanted you to have to come into contact with that man. I’m sorry that you ever did. I promise that we’ll talk about whatever you need as soon as you’re home. I’ve attached the tickets for the international portkey in the envelope, as well as a gift. We’re not quite sure if the prototype will work yet, so try not to use it near anything you don’t want to lose. But know that we all love you very much.
Love, your father.
P.S. We’re proud of you, pup. ~ Sirius
Harry shakes out the rest of the envelope, and the tickets fall to the mattress, as something skitters against the floor, and then a round, smooth compact mirror falls out. “Oh,” Harry says, as he picks it up and runs his hands over the back. It's cheap and probably bought at a Dollar Tree or a bodega somewhere, nowhere near as elaborate as the ones Sirius and James have carried all his life. He knows those have a limited range; and that they’ve struggled with figuring out how to get them to work over extreme distances. He chews his bottom lip and figures he should probably write to his father anyway, in case the tiny device blows up. Near the railing at the end of the hospital bed, something skitters again, and sends a shiver down the entirety of his spine. It sounds like–Claws. Harry looks up from the mirror, and his eyes catch the small, beady ones of a rather startled looking rat, its fat body extended at a downward angle halfway towards the mattress. “Scabbers?” he asks, not quite sure what he’s seeing. For a moment, he thinks he’s imagining it, but no, it’s definitely Ron’s rat; he’s fat, and lazy and missing a toe on one of his front paws. “What? What are you doing here?” He thinks it’s rather unsanitary to have a rat near the medical care. The rat stares back at him for a long, still moment, front paws extended and in a curl, while his mouth twitches underneath his nose, and his long, wormy tail flicks back and forth. It’s odd, almost like they’re at a standstill, him and the rodent, before Scabbers opens his tiny, whiskered mouth and squeaks. Then, he runs off the railing and out through the door and disappears as quickly as he appeared. Harry stares at the door, his letter flat and open next to him on the bed, and wonders about the oddness his life has become over the last ten months.
~ June 17, 1992 Harry doesn’t know what Professor McGonagall said to Professor Snape to get him to concede to a make-up exam, but at the end of the year he’s pleasantly surprised to see his mark for that class come out a rather good E. “You’re third in the year,” Hermione comments. She’s of course come out with the top marks, and she’s looking at the list posted on the notice board just outside the Great Hall of the top students with an inquisitive frown. Harry looks too and sees Draco Malfoy’s name right above his own. “I’m so proud of you, Harry,” she says, and gives him a quick, glancing hug. Then, she turns to Ron, who looks rather pleased with his own exam results as he traces his fingers up and down the column of tiny letter grades on the piece of parchment in his hands. “You as well, Ron.” Around them, students rush past with their trunks in their arms, or at a hover behind them. There’s a flurry of activity, as everyone gets ready to head to the carriages by the lake and head towards the Hogsmeade train station, and a few say some quick, last minute goodbyes to their friends and acquaintances they don’t plan on sitting with on the train. Harry’s meant to be meeting his Aunt Andromeda in London, and then off to the Ministry of Magic with his ticket for home. He wonders if he can ask for bagels for dinner tonight. Harry hefts his trunk up with both hands despite the feather-light charm as they start to head out towards the entrance. Hermione’s trunk drags along on the floor behind them with a consistent thump, while Ron’s holding his with his right hand, his arms long enough to manage its length. Just at the edge of the grounds near the carriages, Harry hears someone call, “Mr Potter!” He turns to see a stern looking Professor McGonagall moving at a fast pace across the grounds, and the bottom of her robe flaps insistently against the side of her boots. “I’ll say you’re a hard boy to find,” she tells him once they’re within a few feet of each other. “You’ll not be going to the train, Mr. Potter.”“What?” Harry, Ron, and Hermione all exclaim at the same time. Harry’s stomach lurches with a sickening jolt, and for a terrifying second he wonders if his father doesn’t want him to come home. “I should have told you sooner, I apologise, I’ve been swamped with marking and the mail from parents regarding the–well, you know. Your father asked me to escort you to London myself. Something’s come up, and your aunt won’t be there.” Harry’s heard from his father twice since he woke up, but there’s only so many times Hedwig can travel across the Atlantic. Each time, the letters had been full of well wishes and suggestions for summer plans. As he’d dreaded, the mirror hadn’t managed to work. The second Harry had said his father’s name, it had sputtered a rather tinny, fuzzy connection that reminded him of a blank television station when the signal didn’t reach, lasted for about twenty seconds, and then promptly burst into flames. Harry had just been relieved he could chuck the thing into the lake, rather than try to stomp it out with his boot. “But, the train–” Ron protests, as Hermione blurts out, “It’s traditional for us to travel home together. It says in Hogwarts–”Professor McGongall silences them both with a stern look over her wire-rimmed glasses. “Yes, usually, but there are at times mitigating circumstances. I’ll wait over there–” she points to a shallow spot by the edge of the lake where it extends outwards in a seemingly endless expanse of space. “—while you say your farewells.” Harry turns to his best friends with an apologetic shrug. “Promise to write?” he says, as he hugs Ron and Hermione both, his skinny arms wrapped around their shoulders. “I’ll send Hedwig as often as I can. And you have my uncle’s work number, Hermione.” He thinks he’d remembered the right set of numbers and country code, at least. The phone at home isn’t equipped for international calls, and most of the time it usually stays up on the wall and acts as a cat toy for Galadriel to play with the dangling, curly cord. Hermione smiles, though it's a tiny bit wobbly, and nods. “I do. Though I don’t know how often my parents will let me use their office phone for international phone calls. It does cost rather a lot, you know.” Then, she hugs him again. “I’ll see you next term. Have a wonderful summer, Harry.” Ron nods. “Ask your dad about staying at mine for sometime this summer. I’m sure my parents will have no problem with it. I’ll miss you, mate.” Over by the carriages, Hagrid shouts a last call. They exchange one more quick hug, before they’re off, and Harry turns to Professor McGonagall, more than ready to head home. “Let’s be off,” she says, and holds her hand out, and then, with one last glimpse at the castle, they’re gone.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
~ June 18, 1992
Neither Sirius nor James sleep the night Harry comes home. After the hugs and the joyous exclamations of relief and more hugs, and the oh-so-polite request for a bagel dinner complete with big, pleading eyes, Harry’d succumbed to travel exhaustion, but neither man expects him to stay asleep long. Well aware of the effects of sudden timezone changes, they sit on the couch with tall coffee thermoses and bloodshot eyes, the television volume low, and wait for the tell-tale scuffle in the corridor. Despite the humid, sticky heat outside, the blanket is wrapped around both their knees, and Sirius’ legs are thrown across James’ lap. Their profiles are cast in the dim light of the room as they both pretend to be interested in reruns of I Love Lucy . “He looks healthy,” James whispers in a low voice that still sounds worried to Sirius’ ears.. He looks at him just as Lucille Ball ineffectually tries to keep a conveyor belt tidy on the screen. “Pomfrey healed him, alright. But–” James trails off. There are large, dark circles underneath his eyes, and stubble grows thick around his mouth and across his jawline, threatening to turn into a full on beard. Sirius doesn’t think he looks much better; in the mirror, he looks thinner, collarbones more prominent as they jut out near the hollow of his throat, and the blue of his veins stark against his pale skin. “He should never have been injured like that in the first place,” Sirius says through pressed lips. He lets some of his caustic, festering anger seep into his tone, and James’ hand settles on his knee. “Dumbledore’s lucky I can’t enter the country without risking arrest, or I’d give him a piece of my mind.” Once, back when he’d been a boy, he’d thought that every person his parents hated couldn’t possibly be a bad person because they were terrible, and so he’d thrown himself into idolising the headmaster. Once, he thought that just because someone held the same beliefs as him, fought the same battles, meant that they were his friend and had his best interests at heart. He’d been naive then; too naive not to see how people were simply just pawns to some men. “You’re good, but you’re not good enough to take down Dumbledore,” James says with a frown. Neither of us are , goes unspoken. “Who said anything about taking the old man down,” Sirius says in a low tone, low enough that James might barely be able to hear it over the television. “Just–having some words. Polite ones. Negotiations, as it were, to let Harry be a fucking kid.” James sighs, and puts his forehead on top of the hand on Sirius’ knee. Voice a tiny muffle, he says, “We don’t actually know he knew any of this would happen.” Any of this–as if they were just discussing whether or not he left a random board game in a forbidden wing of the school and not the actual powerful magical object that all manner of people would go looking for–those with no scruples, no morals, those with simply an overwhelming fear of death–in a school for children. Any of this–As if he were ignorant the whole time of the risks that may bring. Sirius doesn’t believe this. “You don’t believe that,” he says to James, as he begins to run his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know.” Then, there’s a stuttered breath of air, and Sirius feels his head move up and down underneath his hand as he watches the curve of James’ back bend. “No.” The sound of claws as they scuttle persistently across the floor echoes from in the dark distance of the flat and reaches Sirius’ human ears, and then a bushy tail rounds the doorway. Harry follows her, his blanket wrapped around his shoulders, fist drawn over his mouth in a yawn. “Dad? Sirius,” he says, as soon as he spots them on the couch. “It’s four-thirty in the morning.” Which means the mangy feline woke the kid up for her four am food call. “So it is,” Sirius answers with a smile at his godson. He’s missed that little face. “Meow,” the cat says, as if she can read his mind. Sirius wouldn’t put it past her. James lifts his head up and beckons Harry over. The kid practically sprints across the floor, and then the three of them reshuffle, until Harry’s burrowed between them on the couch, while Galadriel rolls ineffectively on James’ feet in a sneaky ploy for kibble, before she settles into a loaf with all two front paws pressed against his toes and an unceasing stare. The television is still on, but it’s mere background noise, as Harry says, “Dad–you know how you told me you knew Professor Snape?” Sirius’ nose wrinkles, and he resists the urge to scowl. Sort of. His mouth twists, but he can’t help it. Even with more than ten years since he’s laid eyes on that bastard, the sound of his name still makes him want to hurl. Even more so now, knowing that he’d been an arsehole to his godson. I should send him a rotten fruit basket , Sirius thinks, just as James says, “Yeah–you want to talk about this now?” He sounds hesitant. Sirius can’t blame him. Harry shrugs, and looks between them both with wide, green eyes. He’s still so young; he’s taller, an inch or two, but he looks no older than the day they’d dropped him off at JFK, all those months ago. He’s still a child. “No more secrets?” Harry asks, and Sirius winces. At Harry’s age, he’d never have thought to ask that. Not once. Secrets had kept him alive as a kid. His secrets, mostly–theirs, well, he’d never wanted to peek behind the curtains of his parents’ psyches, not more than he was unfortunately privy to already. Harry’s relationship with them is different, though, Sirius reminds himself. Healthy. It’s understandable that he wants this. And secrets had almost torn them all apart once before. James nods, but his brows scrunch until they’re just edging under the rim of his glasses. Sirius wonders what he’s thinking. “I told you we didn’t get along in school, and we didn’t. You could say he was–” “Our Malfoy,” Sirius says, thinking of Harry’s rivalry with Narcissa’s son. He wonders, for a moment, if the boy looks like her. “Of a sorts. But he and your mum–” Harry’s eyes widen, and he jerks his head to look at James. “They were friends. For a while. And then they weren’t. He did some things, some bad things, and Lily couldn’t accept what he was doing, couldn’t forgive him for it, so they stopped talking.”It’s a simple answer, for a rather complicated situation. Once, in the dying days of a long August during a rare week of Scottish sun, Sirius and Lily had stood outside Marlene McKinnon’s cottage. It had been the day Marlene finally mustered up the courage to tell Dorcas Meadows she thought she was really rather lovely. Inside, James and Marlene were huddled over the kitchen table, worrying over the proper wording of the letter over a glass of chilled pumpkin juice, while outside, Lily and Sirius had shared a cigarette back and forth between them and half a bottle of gin, under attack by a thousand pesky midges, while a highland cow grazed on some grass in the distance. It was their first real moment alone. “Forgiveness–it’s hard, you know?” she’d said to him, when he’d asked her why she kept forgiving Snape, all those times he showed who he really was. “You have to know that.” She’d stared at him with serious, knowing eyes, and taken a long drag. In and out, and then a thick puff of smoke. “I do,” he’d told her, because he had. “And eventually forgiveness runs out. You just–give up, you know?” “Yeah–I had to, after that day. I couldn’t keep pretending anymore that he was going to change if I just kept trying. Couldn’t keep up with the excuses.” It had been Lily speaking, but Sirius thought he heard himself in those words as he pictured Regulus , and then he’d told her, mouth twisted up in a half-smile, “You know, James says forgiveness is more about what we can do for ourselves than them.”She’d looked at him through squinting, narrow eyes, and laughed a short, sharp laugh that became a rasping cough through the smoke-filled lungs of a beginner, and Sirius never found out what’d she’d been thinking, whether she’d been amused by James Potter forgiving anyone or whether she’d been wondering about herself. Sirius lets the memory drift away. He watches as Harry nods and his teeth clench and then he says, “Professor Dumbledore told me you saved his life and that’s why he hates you so much. I don’t understand.” Instantly, Sirius feels his throat grow tight, and his hands start to shake, as he looks at James with wide eyes over the back of Harry’s head. James stares, his mouth pressed thin and Sirius thinks– No, no, he can’t know about that, not that , please let's never tell him about that night , as shame runs through him. Some secrets are better left staying buried. “Well, I don’t know if that’s the reason he hates me so much. I’m sure he has others,” James answers, deflecting from having to explain further. “Probably because he’s just a jerk,” Harry mutters, as Galadriel jumps onto his lap, and flicks her tail right in his face. Then, she settles, and curls up into a circle, while Harry shrugs again. “Enough about Professor Snape. Can Jesse stay over next weekend? I promise we won’t tear up my room this time.” Sirius sputters a laugh, as James pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’ve only been home for twelve hours and already you want guests? Do you think we’re running a bed-and-breakfast?” He shakes his head, all pretence of a serious adult and then a smirk grows on his face. “He’s coming over Sunday, so you’ll just have to wait a couple of days, not an entire week. But your Aunt Yael and baby Mischa are coming over first.” “Awesome!” Harry says, a huge smile on his face and a triumphant fist in the air. Galadriel swipes one paw forward, and then the four of them turn, a bundle on the cramped, small couch; James’ head is a lump on the back of the couch, his arm outstretched towards Sirius’, with Harry snuggled in-between them, his head on Sirius’ right knee and his legs thrown over his dad’s lap towards the arm of the couch. They stay there until they all eventually fall asleep, once the caffeine putters out of Sirius’ veins, just as the dawn begins to stream morning light through the blinds and the I Love Lucy reruns turn to Cheers .