Bittersweet
Harry didn’t think he had ever seen Fred or George speechless like that. He felt kind of proud.
But after a few seconds or so, it got kind of weird.
“Okay, you gotta say something.”
“’m not sure what though”, George said . “Yeah, that’s not something you hear every day”, Fred agreed.
“So that’s a no”, Harry said. “Oh no no no!”, the twins immediately interrupted him. “We didn’t say no.” “We were just… surprised”, George finished.
“How the hell did you think of that?”, Fred asked and Harry grinned. “I’ll explain some other time. But for now, I need someone skilled, that can brew the potion. I don’t think I have any hope of being able to do that.”
“Yeah, no shit, you’re a first year”, Fred said eloquently.
“Good observation.”
“You’ll never be able to do the transformation”, George said confusedly. “Even if it was us brewing the potion correctly and I’m not entirely sure we’d be able to do it…”
“Of course you will”, Harry argued immediately. “You’re one of the most skilled potioneers I know. I’d get you help, of course. You don’t need to do it on your own. – You don’t need to do it at all, it’s just something I have to do and I thought you might be interested.”
The twins shared a glance.
“You’re weird.” “And crazy.” They finished in unison: “When do we start?”
««»»
There were about three months left until the end of the school year. They would need to keep the mandrake leaf in their mouth for a month at least and then they would have to wait for a lightning storm. Harry couldn’t even remember if there had been one in that specific period of time. His memories were kind of fuzzy regarding the specific weather conditions in his first school year, so there wasn’t even a guarantee that they would be able to complete the potion, let alone the transformation, before the summer holidays.
Which wasn’t bad perse, but he did plan on doing it as fast as possible, to get an edge on wandless magic and – in turn – occlumency. He wasn’t even sure if it would work like that, but also didn’t have a better option for now, so he would just go with it. At least his father was flipping and his enthusiasm was quite contagious.
It was even more exciting though, to do it together with the twins. To his relief the potion wasn’t supposed to be done in a cauldron, so there would be no need to follow the specific patterns of stirring or heating it, but he was glad nonetheless, that they would help him.
In turn they were absolutely stunned when Harry showed them his invisibility cloak to sneak into the greenhouses and steal a few mandrake leaves.
“Imagine what we could do with that!” “How could you not tell us!” “Did we tell you, you’re kind of like a little brother? And brothers share, don’t they?”
He knew they said it as a joke, but it made him feel warm all over anyway.
What neither of them had accounted for though, was the difficulties of walking around with a mandrake leaf in your mouth. Apart from the fact that it made anything he ate taste oily and bitter, it was especially challenging to talk with it.
After two days alone his father had taken pity on him and explained how they had done it: “You simply don’t talk to anyone.”
Then he had laughed at him some more, much to Harry’s chagrin. He couldn’t even ask any of the other marauders, because he could only call on the dead and – luckily – neither of the men he wanted to talk to were currently dead, but it left him with very limited options.
Part of what made this ordeal so challenging was the dorm rooms. His father had told him that the marauders had shared a dorm during their time at school, but both Harry and Fred and George were in a dorm with uninitiated people. And while it probably wouldn’t be as bad if the Gryffindors knew – Lee would probably keep quiet about it, but he wasn’t so sure with Zakir, their other dorm mate – Harry absolutely didn’t want the Slytherins to find out. While sharing a dorm with Malfoy and his goonies was surprisingly manageable, he didn’t want them to be able to hold that kind of information over him in any way.
Which bore some problems…
“Come on, Blaise! A mudblood could do it!”, Malfoy taunted. Harry bits back his anger like he had gotten used to over the last months.
Zabini whisked his wand again in a futile attempt to transfigure the quill in front of him into a bird.
Malfoy snorted when he failed again and Zabini glared at him. “Oh, get off your high horse, Draco. It was a blackbird feather in class, this one is a peacock’s. It’s harder.”
“Whatever. I bet I can do it with this one”, Malfoy said and whipped out his wand. He did the motion and pronunciation exactly. Harry would have been impressed if he wasn’t so pissed off. But it didn’t work anyway and Nott snorted – silently laughing at both of them.
Malfoy whipped around. “Oh, I see. Then you do it, Theo. Go on!”, Nott rolled his eyes and buried his nose in his book again, not acknowledging the challenge. “Would anyone else like to try, as we’re holding a competition apparently? Potter?”
Harry hadn’t expected to be addressed and looked up to see Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle and Zabini looking at him expectantly.
He shook his head and back on his book. It was one his father had recommended to him, to get a head start on wandless magic, which he had transfigured the cover of.
“What’s the matter with you anyway?”, Zabini asked. “You barely talked the past days. I mean, even less than usual.”
Harry looked up once, but then decided that it was best to ignore them.
Malfoy snorted disparagingly. “Forget it. Precious Potter doesn’t talk to us anymore. I guess the mudbloods and bloodtraitors have finally gotten into his head.”
Oh, how Harry would have loved to voice his opinion. Instead he decided to shut them up in another way and jumped up, walked over to Zabini’s bed and transformed the feather easily into a chirpy blackbird. He nodded once at them and then went back to his own bed.
Had he been thinking rationally, he probably would have noticed his mistake earlier…
“You just did that wordlessly”, Malfoy said with an odd tint of admiration in his voice.
Harry thought about going into the chamber and letting that stupid basilisk swallow him whole.
««»»
One would think, that an afternoon tea with the groundkeeper, discussing magical beasts, would be relaxing.
It would be, if the groundkeeper wasn’t absolutely mad and the magical beast wasn’t a baby dragon about to hatch in one week’s time, but – miraculously – it was actually one of Harry’s least worries. At least he could convince Hagrid to talk about his parents, effectively reducing the amount of time he had to speak with that stupid leaf in his mouth. But everything came together quite nicely after all.
He had sent Charlie a letter a few days ago, explaining the situation, and got a response immediately. It was amazing, how easy it was to solve these problems if you remembered them happening. The even bigger challenge presented itself this time as convincing Hagrid, that it was the right thing to do, because he was even more reluctant to let Norberta go when she wasn’t even hatched – and Harry couldn’t talk properly, but apparently his expression said enough most of the time, and even if it didn’t – Harry didn’t care. He wouldn’t risk the dragon burning the school – or even Hagrid’s hut down. He had seen once, how fast she grows and he wouldn’t let Hagrid keep it.
Now, let it be said that an egg is much easier to transport than a baby dragon, because it tends to stay quiet and try to bite your hand off. So he had a quick (slurred) chat with Charlie and his friends, who probably thought he had some kind of condition, sent them off, and sneaked back down the Astronomy Tower with his Invisibility Cloak – with students, prefects, teachers or even ghosts being none the wiser.
««»»
“Lumos.”
There was nothing more than a pathetic flicker in the palm of his hand and Harry fought off a frustrated groan.
He had done this before! So why was this so difficult now?
“Try to stay calm. Don’t ask the spell to work, just expect it to.” “I’m trying!”, Harry said. “No, don’t try. Do it!”, James said and then smirked when Harry caught on the reference.
“How do you know Star Wars?” James’ smirk widened. “When Lily was pregnant with you, there was a time she couldn’t stand my breathing. So me and Sirius went to a near muggle theatre and watched whatever new movie was on – which just so happened to be Empire Strikes Back.”
Harry snorted. “I can’t believe you’re a first generation Star Wars fan. How did you even know what movies were?”
James puffed out his chest. “Excuse me? I’m a very cultured man!”, Harry raised his eyebrows and James caved. “… And it was our one source of entertainment when we were confined to our houses. – Also it didn’t set off any alarm spells, ‘cause it’s muggle technology.”
Harry chuckled. “So, let me guess: Han Solo is your favourite?”
“Of course he is! He is so cool, blasting Stormtroopers left and right, and- do you know the scene where Leia confesses to him? ‘I know’, so badass!”
“Oh, give it a break and just admit that you imagined Leia to be me”, Lily materialized next to Harry with an expression of mild amusement and James squeaked unmanly. “How did you –“, he looked at Harry and glowered. “Traitor.”
Harry grinned. “Who am I to deny her access when she asks for it?” James pointed at Harry accusingly. “We’ll be having a word. You don’t embarrass your father in front of your mother, that’s, like, the first rule of being a son.”
“Did I ever tell you how your Dad made a fool of himself while trying to woo me?”, Lily said and Harry grinned, when James turned beet red. “He doesn’t need to know that!”
“No, he absolutely does”, Harry said and James gawked at him darkly. Harry grinned – and almost lost his mandrake leaf in the process.
“I hope you choke on that stupid leaf”, James said darkly and Harry and his mum laughed. “I love you too”, Harry said with a smirk.
James smiled softly.
««»»
“You never saw the third movie, did you?”
James didn’t answer.
“I’m not an expert by all means, I only managed to catch glimpses of it when Dudley watched Star Wars, but… it came after – that, didn’t it?”
“I don’t care”, James said – stoically, although a bit melancholy. “There’s no use in wondering what could have been. ‘Cause it’s no use, right? Apparently, nothing can prevent our… death.”
I can’t change James and Lily Potter’s death.
“I guess you’re right.”
Heavy silence laid between them for a few moments.
“Luke is saved by his father.” James’ head snapped at Harry, who was staring at the ground. “Luke was right believe there is still good in him and he saves him from the Emperor. Vader dies, but in death he is reunited with Yoda and Obi-Wan. I think it’s kind of bittersweet. He wasn’t a good person, but he did the right thing in the end.”
James studied Harry from the side. “I don’t think anyone can be a good person all the time. There are things – people – that bring out the best and the worst in us. It’s only our choice what we do about it – which people we surround us with and how we go on about it”, when Harry gave him a sideways glance, their eyes met for a moment. James sighed. “I know what you’re thinking. And I can understand what kind of image you must have of me. But let me just say… I was a boy. I was a spoiled, rich, entitled boy, who thought himself above anything and anyone”, James took a deep breath. “I think death puts things kind of in a new perspective. I don’t know if I regret what I did to Snape… maybe there is just too much bad blood for that. But… I pity him. And if I imagine myself in front of that eleven year old boy, I’d like to think I wouldn’t behave like that again.”
Harry clenched his fists.
“Did you know… when I found out, in Snape’s memories, I confronted Remus and Sirius about what I saw, and I was- I was so angry, because all this time people had told me how great you were and now I’d seen…”
“Reality?”, James offered weakly and Harry didn’t argue.
“You were my hero”, he said softly, unsure if this was a good idea. His relationship with his dad was still pretty fragile and this was a difficult topic. “I strived to be like you – or the you I had heard about from others. But when I saw that… I don’t know if you can understand, but if you weren’t my dad and if we had met on the Hogwarts Express instead…”
“… I would have bullied you just like I bullied Snape”, James finished lamely.
Harry looked up at him and James grimaced. “I know. Like I told you, I was a git back then and I’m not proud about what I did. But this is where you’re a better man than me.”
“Am I though?”, Harry asked depressed. “I don’t exactly know how the afterlife works, but I guess you’ve seen what I did to Malfoy –“
“And how you regretted it immediately and ensured that you are no longer under the bad influence that was Snape’s book.”
Harry felt himself getting angry. “I almost killed him! If Snape hadn’t been there –“ “But he was”, James said calmly, “He was and he helped Draco and was fine in a matter of hours. What you did was wrong, but from that you also learned an important lesson and never used another spell you didn’t know the effect of, did you?”
Harry nodded numbly.
“Like I said, circumstance can bring out the best and the worst in us. For me, it was just my own stupidity that brought out the worst in me. For you, it was the war, which is – in my opinion – far more admirable than my case. Anyone can make bad decisions or act badly. But it doesn’t make them bad persons, I think. At least I don’t think you’re a bad person, for all it’s worth.”
««»»
“I understand why you thought that”, his mother said thoughtfully. “I can’t tell you, when exactly I stopped to hate James. It was more of a gradual thing – and believe me, I did everything I could to ignore it, but at some point I just accepted it”, she grinned and Harry chuckled. “I think you know the feeling actually.”
Harry frowned. “I do?”
His mum smiled. “Tell me, when did you start to see more in Ginny than just Ron’s little sister?”
Harry felt his cheeks heat up. “I can’t tell really”, he said thoughtfully. “Probably after Mister Weasley was attacked and we talked about the time she’d been possessed… I was such an insensitive prick.”
His mum chuckled. “Sometimes it takes one of you to grow first, for you to be truly compatible. After all, that’s what being in a relationship truly is, don’t you think? Growing together. It’s what it was for James and me. And I’ll admit that I hated his guts at first, but when I really got to know him and he matured – we both matured, actually –, we just… clicked.”
Harry smiled. Somehow it felt like a huge weight was lifted off his shoulders. “I appreciate, that you worried if we were happy”, she said kindly and squeezed his shoulder softly. “It tells of character strength and empathy. And I’m very proud of you.”
Harry blinked away tears. A lump formed in his throat. “Why do you keep saying that?”
His mum smiled sadly, cupping his face. “Because I am. I am so proud of you. And I hate, that I could never tell you before”, Harry pulled her into a hug, which muffled his hiccups. “You are brave and strong and the whole wizarding world can count itself lucky, that you are here to protect them. I love you.”
“I love you too.”