James’s brown eyes gazed down at the swaddled creature in his arms. His little hands and feet squirming, eyes always looking over to him curiously.
As soon as James laid eyes upon Harry, he was in love. He just somehow knew this vulnerable being was utterly, and entirely his as soon as he heard the first wailing cries from the delivery room. His boy. His Harry.
Domestic life was never quite James’s style, being the wild teenager he was. Or so that’s how James was raised. He had a thirst for thrills, and the adrenaline rush of escaping the scene of a prank, well, crime scenes, sometimes, James loathe admit. Was the best times of his life.
So to say Sirius and Remus were surprised when the joys of simple household chores came easy for James, was an extreme understatement. The new father stopped begging his wife to go and have a pint with his mates, and instead found a peaceful routine that fell into place as if he’d been a parent his whole life.
Doing the laundry, washing Harry, cooking and cleaning…It came easy, every new thing he learned from his lovely Lily, he loved doing. Of course he’d get burned out sometimes, but nothing Remus and Sirius couldn't help with. Albeit with books for new Mums and a lot of chaos. And an exasperated Lily overlooking everything after an overnight shift.
James glowed with warmth when with Harry. Nursing, burping, feeding, playing, James found a newfound goal. And that was to always protect Harry. And raise him happily.
Every one of baby Harry's little burps and gurgles, every photo and milestone James promised to store in his mind's eye forever. Harry’s squeals and grins were brighter than the sun itself, and James still remembers how heavy Harry was when he last held him. Harry was sixteen and he’d won a soccer match against one of the leading sports teams in town. A tipsy Sirius was slurring his words, beckoning his godson to drink and interrogating him on who the tall handsome bloke chatting him up after the game was…To which James new it was the same teenager Harry was sneaking out to see at the time, but James didn’t say anything. Remus and Lily were talking about politics and some book or the other, Ron told Sirius the boy’s name, Tom Riddle, and Hermione tagged along, congratulating her friend. Harry smelled of an unfamiliar cologne, and his eyes were as green as anything. So when James crushed him in a hug, lifting him slightly off the ground and telling him how proud he was of his little soccer star, he’d acknowledged that this was the beginning of Harry drifting away into young adulthood, and his own desires as a young man.
James is older now, and gravity is his sculptor. Smile lines and grey hairs frame his face, and he’s reminded of Harry’s weight now, and how much heavier he is since then.
~~~
They dug him up from a flower bed of Lilies in late spring. Not far from the Weasley cemetery. Throat slit to the bone and naked from the waist down. It was messy and rushed. And his body was sexually stimulated after death. He was buried deep, his killer wanted to preserve his body.
James had to be dragged away from the crime scene kicking and screaming, disbelieving. He had even drawn his gun on Sirius, and Frank Longbottom in his mental breakdown. James had scoured little Hangleton for his son for three months, in hopes that, maybe, he just ran away. Maybe his Harry wasn’t doing alright and just needed space. Or perhaps he hit his rebellious phase late at the age of almost eighteen.
But no. Harry was really gone. His body suffered blunt trauma to the head before dying of blood loss from the laceration across his neck. His body was defiled after his death, and his round spectacles were gently fixed on his face in a mock pretence of normalcy.
James had to see the body, if it was really his boy. His Harry. Everyone told him it was, Lily slapped his face when he was still hopeful, face scrunched in anger and grief and she could not handle James's denial. To accept what happened. Moody even made sure he wasn’t involved in the case whatsoever. But James needed to know.
And oh, he broke and just crumbled before Harry's body. Jesus, no. Please, this can’t be- This isn’t his Harry, his boy. So still and stiff and unmoving. This isn't Harry. The Harry that loves soccer and homemade meals. The Harry that learned guitar from Sirius, developing calloused fingertips. The Harry that insisted he go to the closest university, because he'd miss us if he were too far. The Harry that confessed that he loved a man, so trusting, yet anxious, and I wasn't even mad at all. The Harry that ran to me everyday after school, eagerly, blabbering about his day, or down about the boys at soccer practice. Who tried to hide the smell of weed, his red eyes and how high he was at the age of sixteen. When he was scared and cried in my arms when he was laced with something stronger and didn't know what to do, but cry to his Dad? The flawed, reckless teenage boy with a heart of gold, and sass to match it- and green eyes- now lifeless. He can’t see him anymore. I can’t see my baby anymore. James’s clammy hands hovered over Harry's frozen face as if he could do something- anything. Emerald green eyes staring, but unseeing. And he was dragged away from Harry again.
James can’t remember much after that, but he remembers someone screaming in the distance.
Now he realises that it was him. He was the one screaming and scared, and so utterly robbed too soon.
There are some cases time and words can't reach.
Time moves slowly for the Potters.
James could never look at a soccer ball again. He couldn't even find peace in his reflection either. All he saw was the lifeless face with the same nose, same cheek bones, and same everything that he'll only ever see in pictures for the rest of his life. Remus had to put all of Harrys pictures away, otherwise James would be a drunken mess by the end of the day. Muttering broken sentences to messy hair and green eyes through a picture frame.
James stopped grocery shopping after the funeral too. He kept buying food for three. And he'd be wracked with chocked sobs halfway through sorting the food when remembering that's too much for him and Lily now.
Lily rarely stopped working, because when she came home, she could no longer see the warm light through Harry’s room shine through his curtains. And they always shone through. Every night for almost eighteen years after a hard days work, she would enter the house quietly and walk up to Harry's room, flicking it off for him. Most nights he was half asleep over his desk. Sometimes he'd be fast asleep. But now. . . .
Now the lights were always off.
If she's buried in work, it's easier to think Harry's still home, with James.
They learn to live without Harry.