Reunion
Lily paces the room for what feels like the hundredth time, her eyes flickering nervously to the clock hanging on the mint coloured wall at least every other minute. “Ugh, this is torture.” she groans.
“Time won’t move any faster, love, no matter how many times you check the clock.” James tells her from where he’s busy scouring the lost and found box nurse Renata had brought in earlier.
The selection is moderate at best, and even that would be kindly put if you asked Lily. But it would have to do for the few days they had to remain here for observation.
Honestly, she would wear that mot eaten jumper she’d unfortunately touched earlier for the rest of the week, if it meant she’d get to finally see her son.
“Whatever you pull out of there, we’ll have to use a few good cleaning charms on.” she says, eyeing the piled pieces of clothing warily.
“Oh, come on, there’s a few dresses that could fit you. Look.” he holds up a bright orange dress to her, where the frills are already falling off the seam.
She frowns at him. “James,” she sighs, not entirely sure whether she should be offended or amused. “It’s…” she struggles to find the right words to kindly describe this disastrous dress. “It doesn’t really go with my hair.”
James rolls his eyes, though he had already thrown it aside onto the “won’t keep” pile before she even said anything.
“Fine then,” he plucks out another dress. “How about this one?”
He’s holding up a light blue dress, looking to be about knee long with little white flowers printed on.
Lily takes the dress from him to hold it against her, turning around to glance at herself in the full body mirror across their beds. “It’s actually quite nice.” she confesses.
“You should wear it now,” James suggests. “You’ll look great in it. For when Harry gets here.”
Lily’s smile falters. She looks at the dress again, running her fingers gently along the soft fabric. “If he gets here. It’s already pretty late…” she looks out the window, where the sun is slowly fading into a soft orange colour, foreboding the end of this sunny afternoon. “He might not come.”
“He’ll come, love.”
She spins around to shoot him a stern look. “Seriously,” she huffs. “How can you be so calm?”
“Because if I’m not, then I’d have been on my way to Hogwarts hours ago.” James replies, causing Lily’s momentary anger to subside almost instantly.
“I’m nervous too, Lil,” he confesses softly, “But that won’t do us any good, right? I really hope Harry’ll come, but if he doesn’t then…we’ll have to respect that.”
Lily exhales a lengthy sigh, slumping down onto her bed. “I don’t know if I can.” she admits. Her gaze is captured by an imaginary spot on the ceiling. “I just want to see he’s alright.”
“I know.”
What does he look like now? she wonders. Does he still look like James? Was he outgoing too?
Or maybe he’d be nothing like them.
What if he is nothing like them? Would he still want to be with them?
She has so many questions to ask her son, and she knows James does as well.
It feels like all these questions might start eating her from the inside out soon, the longer she mulls them over in her head.
“Alright,” she sighs, sitting back up to grab the dress. “I’ll put it on.”
James’s lips tug into a smile. “Great!” he exclaims happily.
He jumps to his feet at once, holding up a pair of dark blue jeans and a black and white Beatles shirt. “Look what I found,” he grins. “You think it’s cool or embarrassing if I wear this?”
Lily snorts at his hopeful display of excitement. “Definitely cool.” she assures him.
“Cool.” James hurries to get out of his joggers. “Harry’d seriously miss out if he didn’t come,” he says whilst pulling the shirt over his head. “I wish I’d gotten my Dad to wear a band shirt when I was—“
But whatever he’s wanted to say seems to stick to his tongue the second he’s managed to pull the shirt down over his head, leaving him to stare at her with wide eyes.
She feels her cheeks heating up, quickly reaching down to straighten any possibly existing wrinkles on the dress. “Is it that terrible?”
“What— no!” James blurts, his hand coming up to scratch the back of his neck. “You look beautiful.”
She smiles brightly. “Thanks. You look quite handsome yourself.” she replies as she walks up to him to wrap her arms around his shoulders. “I like that shirt on you, Mr. Potter.”
James’s cheeks redden ever so slightly, causing Lily’s stomach to flutter as though there were teenagers again. “Not as much as I like this dress on you, Mrs. Potter.”
He leans closer, a mere breath away from her lips, his own perfectly kissable as always—
But just then the door to their room creaks open, startling them both enough to pull away from each other as though caught doing something they shouldn’t. Quite ridiculous, but Lily supposes habits really do die hard.
They turn their heads towards the door, where Dumbledore greets them with a much too knowing look.
“Professor,” James greets their former Headmaster a bit too hurriedly.
Lily could swear she saw their former Headmaster smirk for just a second.
“You two are no longer my students,” he waves his hand dismissively. “Please, do call me Albus.”
“Oh, alright. Thank you Prof— Albus.” James replies charmingly.
Lily though doesn’t have any patience left in her to wait even a second longer. She glances past Albus, hoping to see any sign that he hasn’t come by himself, but much to her dismay it seems her son truly hasn’t come.
“I gather that Harry isn’t….?” she asks, unable to muster the effort to hide her gaping disappointment.
But just then, another person does enter the room after all. A skinny, pale boy with messy black curls and bright green eyes.
Lily’s breath catches in her throat as she gazes into those eyes — her eyes.
Her brain is fuzzy, seemingly unable to form even a simple sentence in the presence of their young visitor.
Her son. Her Harry.
“Harry?” she hears James say.
Luckily it seems at least one of them didn’t loose the ability to talk.
Harry glances up at Dumbledore unsurely, causing Lily’s chest to ache knowing that it should be her, her and James, he should be looking to for comfort.
Thankfully Albus is quick to assure him, putting a hand to Harry’s back to lightly push him towards James and her. “Harry, these are Lily and James,” he introduces, albeit unnecessarily. “Your parents.”
Lily side eyes James just shortly, assuring herself that they were really doing this. That they were really meeting their son.
Harry takes another step closer, on his own accord this time, before he raises his hand in a shy wave. “Hello.”
Of all the things that could have finally made her tear up, Lily hadn’t expected it to be his voice.
The way it sounds so different, so grown up, and yet she can still hear it all the same. That this is the same voice she remembers. Of the little boy babbling incoherent words to her as she’d sat with him at the breakfast table, and giggling happily every time James’d played with him, conjuring sparkly shapes with his wand as they lay sprawled out on the carpet in Harry’s nursery.
“Hi Harry.”
It is James who speaks up first. His voice is thick with emotion about as much as hers would be, were she able to actually use it.
Instead she can only take in the sight of her son in front of her, trying to make out every little thing about him.
He does really look so much like James, that hasn’t changed. If anything, she thinks it’s even more prominent now, how much they resemble each other. Though she can see herself in him too.
Those are her freckles sprayed along his cheeks and nose. He’s got her ears too, she notices, and, most importantly of course, Harry’s got her eyes.
Seeing James and herself in him like this lessens the worry she’d held about not being able to connect with her son, if only slightly. Enough so to break the spell, allowing her to speak up, at last.
“Hi sweetheart.” she says, countering his wave.
“I will leave you to it.” Albus, who has been standing by the door this whole time, says as he steps into the hallway.
Lily had completely forgotten of him still being here. She blushes thinking of how he just witnessed this, a bit awkward, reunion.
“Harry, I trust you to remember the way to the floo?” Albus asks. “It will transport you directly into my office if you use the password I told you.” he looks up to meet her eyes then. “I’m afraid I have to expect him back by curfew. I am not sure Minerva would be pleased to find one of her students wandering the halls after hours.”
She nods, though she knows she’ll want to curse herself for it by the time they’d have to say goodbye.
“Yes, sir.” Harry agrees.
“Very well,” Albus winks at Harry through his half moon glasses. “I wish you three a wonderfulevening.”
Lily waits until the door falls into its hinges, before she turns her attention back to her son. “We’re so happy you came.” she tells him earnestly.
James takes her hand, squeezing her fingers comfortingly.
Harry looks a bit out of his depth, but that’s probably to be expected, Lily reminds herself, trying to push down her worries.
She can’t expect him to just run into their arms, can she?
“Is it okay if I’d give you a hug, Harry?” James asks straight ahead, completely blind to any boundaries Lily’d thought up in her head.
Maybe it’s a good thing. Harry seems to be a bit shy, at least right now, and Lily is much to worried to mess things up if she’d say or do something wrong, but James, well, he’s always been very open with his feelings.
Maybe Harry needs that right now, because if Lily had to guess, she’d say he might just be a bit more like her in this regard. Keeping his feelings carefully guarded.
It takes Harry a second, truly it mustn’t have been longer, but god help her, she hadn’t dared to as much as breathe waiting.
“Yeah.” he says, causing both James and her to break out into relieved smiles as they look at each other, before James crouches down in front of Harry, enclosing him in a hug.
The tears in her eyes are welling dangerously as she watches the two people she loves most.
“Blimey you’ve grown.” James states as they pull back. He turns to look at her as he gets back to his feet, measuring where the crown of Harry’s head reaches his upper stomach. “Look at him, Lil.”
Lily chuckles, glad to have James with her, who is so much better at looping his way around awkward situations. “You look just like your Dad when he was your age.” she complies.
Harry blushes. “Yeah, except my eyes.” he replies as if on autopilot. “I’ve got my— your eyes.”
Her stomach flutters with a million wild butterflies at the way he’s now smiling at her.
It’s like that glass wall she’d formed in her head to make sure not to overstep just shattered away with that one, simple smile.
“You do.” she agrees softly.
She’s kneeling in front of him now, spreading her arms as she searches his eyes for approval.
Harry’s lip tug into a smile, and a moment later, he’s in her arms.
Lily’s tears fall freely down her cheeks in the matter of a second, but she couldn’t care less. She hugs him tightly, closing her eyes to try and imprint the feeling of him, like this, perfectly fitted against her.
Her heart finally feels complete again, with its missing puzzle piece returned to her.
“I’ve missed you.” she whispers into his hair.
“I’ve missed you too, Mum.”
She laughs, or sobs, maybe a bit of both, for her baby who’s evidently grown up enough to call her Mum now.
She won’t be Mama anymore, and a small part of her can’t help but mourn that, but she’ll still be Harry’s Mum.
Harry, who is now a preteen. She can’t wait to see what that’s like.
“Alright, now I feel left out.” James teases after watching them hug for a good minute.
Lily and Harry both laugh. “What do you think, Harry?” she asks. “Can your Dad join?”
“Hmm, I dunno…”
Harry’s sarcastic reply is so unexpected, yet he sounds so much like her in that moment, that she can’t help but crack up laughing.
“Oh, I see how it is,” James mocks a serious frown, right before he picks Harry up and out of Lily’s arms to lock him beneath his arm, ruffling his curls. “You’re cheeky, huh?”
Harry lets out a startled noise. “No,” he laughs, pushing away James’s hand. “I’d—never,” he breathes between their shared huffs of laughter.
Lily watches them with sparkling eyes, until she feels enough pity for the struggling boy to step in. “Let him breathe, James.” she tells her husband, who lets go of Harry instantly.
“You good, kid?” James asks, his former amusement gone as if a switch had been pulled, and replaced with genuine concern.
Harry takes a breath, but smiles up at his Dad all the same. “Yeah,” he huffs. “Fine.”
James wraps an arm around Harry’s shoulders, grinning from ear to ear as he turns them towards her. “Come on,” he takes her hand, tugging her closer. “I think we’re overdue for a really corny family hug.”
She laughs, mostly because of Harry’s muffled groan as he gets squished between James and her, but also because she is just so incredibly happy.