Chapter 3
Pt. 1 James
James slept like absolute shit. He thought that madame Pomfrey waking him up every bloody hour wouldn´t be so bad.
He thought wrong.
He hadn´t slept this bad since Harry was a baby and didn´t sleep through the night yet. It felt like he partied four days straight and drank like there was no tomorrow.
James thinks back to the time when he actually did that. Okay, maybe he didn´t sleep that bad but still.
He sits up in the bed and stretches his arms. He looks at his side table and sees that it´s 7:30.
At that moment he hears his curtains open. Madame Pomfrey is at the other side with a tray which must be his breakfast.
“Good morning Mr Potter, I hope you slept kind of okay with me and the night nurse checking up on you every hour. This is your breakfast, I hope you like it. I also have The Daily Prophet for you if you’d like. If there is anything I can do for you or anything I can help you with, just push the help button.”
“Thank you madame and please, call me James. I slept fine, thank you. At the moment there isn’t anything you can help me with but I will call you if there is.”
“Okay James, I will come to collect your tray when you're done.” She places the tray on the side table and starts to walk away.
“Madame wait, I do have one question, would you be so kind to call Mr Lupin and Mr Lupin-Black to tell them that they can come to visit me today? Only if it isn’t too much trouble and if the visiting hours aren’t completely full already.”
“I will call them as soon as possible James and I’ll let you know when I come and pick up your tray and it really isn’t any trouble.” She walks out of James’ area and closes his blinds after her.
James eats his breakfast, which is a bit bland but overall pretty okay considering that it´s hospital food. He looks at the Daily Prophet that madame Pomfrey gave him and he starts reading.
On the front page, there is an article about the ballet `Romeo and Julio´. Regulus, the younger brother of Sirius, apparently dances in it and had an accident yesterday.
James never really knew Regulus but he does know that Regulus didn´t do anything to the abuse that Sirius had to endure. While Sirius stood up to his parents to protect Regulus, Regulus never helped Sirius in any way and he broke off all forms of contact when Sirius came to live with James.
´Too bad that the precious Black heir fell during his stupid ballet´, James thinks.
Even though James couldn´t care less about what happened to Regulus he keeps reading the article, to see what they say about him, maybe there is something in the article to laugh about with Sirius.
But then James reads something remarkable, it says that Mr Crouch Jr. is Regulus´ fiance, he didn´t even know that Regulus was engaged. That engagement is probably arranged, the Black family does that a lot. Arrange marriages with wealthy families that serve their organisation or that help them with it.
But now that James thinks about it, the name Crouch sounds pretty familiar. He tries to think about where he had heard it before, outside of school of course.
That´s it, madame Pomfrey talked to the man yesterday when he was visiting his partner.
But that means that Reg-
“Good morning Hunny, I was so worried about you that I just couldn’t wait on Remus, Sirius and Harry to go with them for the visit.”
James looks up from his newspaper and immediately forgets his train of thoughts.
The person that is standing at the end of his bed is Mary.
“Mary, what the hell are you doing with the whole ‘wife’ act? You know you can just come and visit me during visiting hours right?” James says very confused.
“Oh I know darling”, Mary says very loudly and walks closer to him, “You and I are going to have a very serious talk about what happened Potter”, she says with a very serious expression.
She sits down on one of the chairs that are next to his bed and looks if madame Pomfrey is close by, she isn’t.
“Okay? say what you want to say I guess.”
“First of all”, Mary begins, “sorry that I pretended to be your wife, the head nurse wouldn´t let me in if I wasn't direct family of you and I was despread okay?! Second of all, how dare you?”
“How dare I what?”
“How dare you do things that can kill you, It’s not okay James. I know you miss Lily, we all do, but you can’t keep doing life treating things for the thrill of it. It must be hard to keep moving forward after she passed but you also have to accept that time keeps moving on and that you can’t risk your life to be with her way too soon. If you can’t live for yourself, live for Harry. That beautiful boy needs his father more than anything in the entire world. And it would just be heartbreaking for him to lose both his parents before he turns five years old. I know that you don’t have your family anymore but you have to remember that we are your family too. Maybe not by blood, but by bond. And I am here as one of your best friends and sister to tell you that you can’t keep going like this James. I know that you love surfing a lot but if you can’t do it safely, you should maybe find something else to do. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mary I understand. I wasn’t trying to kill myself yesterday you know? I just wanted to see if I could surf those waves, nothing more. I also have realised that I need to keep going for Harry even though it’s hard. Maybe one day I will live for myself again.”
“I hope that that day is very soon prongs, I really do. Anyways, I’m happy that we cleared some things up with this lovely chat, but I really can’t leave my bakery any longer so I’m going to leave again.”
“I get that Mar, do you by any chance know if Remus and Sirius and coming soon with Harry?”
“If I’m right they will be here soon, Remus was getting Harry ready when I asked them at what time they would be here. I hope you feel better soon and I’ll come by in the next couple of days with some baked goods if you’re still here. I saw what they feed you here and I pity you, hun.”
“That would be great! It honestly isn’t THAT bad but some homemade things from you always help of course.” James says while smiling at Mary.
She stands up and hugs James.
She smells really lovely, like vanilla and strawberries. She is probably making strawberry macarons at the bakery.
“Okay Hunny, I’ll be back soon,” Mary says extra loud.
“Bye James, you got this, get better soon.” She says way quieter and as she walks out of his area she closes the curtains behind her.
Just before the blinds are completely closed James looks at where he heard the conversation from last night, but the bed is gone.
“I probably imagined it because of the medication”, he thinks.
Pt 2. Regulus
“Mr-”
“Mr Black-”
'Some maid probably wants to talk to me', Regulus thinks. He rolls over in bed and feels for Barty but he notices that the bed is way too slim for Barty to fit next to him.
“Mr Black, please wake up so you can eat your breakfast.”
Regulus opens his eyes and sees that he isn’t in his bedroom but in the hospital.
Then he remembers the night before, how he fell and ended up in the hospital, how Barty was super unreasonable and rude and how he couldn’t sleep.
“Good to see you awake sir, how did you sleep?” madame Pomfrey asks him while placing a tray with his breakfast on the bedside table.
“I slept fine, thank you,” Regulus says while rubbing his eyes.
He didn’t sleep fine, not even close. He slept bloody horrible, it was probably the hospital bed and the amount of sleep medication that he took yesterday night.
“Sorry that I woke you so early but you have your scan in fifteen minutes. I was bringing breakfast to the room and I saw that you weren’t awake yet and it’s very important to eat before doing your scan.”
“It’s fine madame, thank you for waking me on time.”
Madame Pomfrey leaves and Regulus picks up the tray, he sees that it’s 7:45. Way too early for him.
While eating his breakfast, Regulus sees that Madame Pomfrey didn’t close his curtains entirely. He starts to stand up to close them but at that moment he hears something in the hallway and he quickly sits back down.
“I don’t care that the visiting hours are at 8:30! I just want to see my husband for a second before going to work!” The voice of a very angry sounding woman is coming through the door.
“Miss I understand but there is also another patient in the room who needs his rest.” He can hear madame Pomfrey talking about who he assumes to be himself.
“I get that madame but I have a very time-consuming job and I will only be there a few minutes, so could I please just go and say hello?”
“Okay miss but only for a few minutes. And no hard noises, please! The other patient just woke up.” Madame Pomfrey says before opening the door.
‘Hopefully, the woman will be a little quiet, I really just woke up and I really don’t care that she just has to make out with her husband or something like that,’ Regulus thinks.
But as the woman is starting to walk towards the other bed, Regulus notices that he could see her because madame Pomfrey didn’t entirely close his curtains.
Regulus isn’t nosy or anything. Not at all.
And because of that, he isn’t going to look at the woman because he doesn’t care that the man on the other side of the room has a loving wife.
So naturally, Regulus twists his head as far to the right as humanly possible and looks at where the woman will appear in a few seconds.
And the woman that walks by is absolutely gorgeous. Her hair has twist outs and they come to her shoulders. She is wearing a light pink top with flared sleeves and a red mini skirt. Her makeup is probably pink as well but because the woman is walking pretty fast she is out of Regulus’ sight already. Even though Regulus is gay he can see that this woman is very beautiful.
After Regulus has finished his breakfast. Madame Pomfrey comes back into his area.
“Okay Mr Black, it is time for your scan. With this scan, we will be able to see if you have any permanent damage and if you have sensitive places.” She explained.
“Do you know how long it will take, madame?” Regulus asks her. Not that he needs to be somewhere or anything but he does think that it’s nice to know how long they will take for the scan.
“It will probably take around half an hour or so.” She answers him.
After she says that, more nurses come into the room and begin to roll Regulus to the room where they will scan his entire body.
Pt. 3 Remus
“Yeah Mary, I’m getting Harry ready right now, we will probably be there around 8:35. Yes, have a lovely day too and if you don’t sell some of the macarons you know you can always bring them to us right? Kidding, kidding, I know you will sell them all today. Well anyway, we better get going now, I will say hi to James from you.” Remus hangs up the phone and puts it back into his pocket.
Remus already knew that it wouldn’t be a good idea for James to go surfing. But once James formed an idea in his head, it was almost impossible to get it out of there.
He doesn't think that Harry knows why he had a sleepover at his godparent's place, but that is probably for the best.
“Pads hurry up, we don’t want to be late at the hospital! You can also finish your hair in the car if you have to.” Remus screams upstairs.
Remus loves his husband. He really does.
But he gets ready so slow every morning. Remus knows he isn’t exaggerating because in the time that Sirius gets ready, he got ready himself and he even washed his hair, he made new coffee because he had drunk all of the first pot. He even got Harry ready, which consisted of around 20 minutes of choosing what to wear, Harry never knew, in that way he looked a lot like his uncle, Sirius.
“Moony, why does Padfoot take so long to get ready in the morning?” Harry asks while drinking the last sips of his orange juice.
“It’s because I always want to look my absolute best Haz,” Sirius says while running down the stairs.
‘He isn’t wrong.’ Remus thinks
‘Sirius always looks very beautiful, even if they are working at home that day, he still looks like an angel that came down to earth just for him.’
“Looking at your expression Remus, I look great,” Sirius says while kissing Remus on his cheek.
“Come on Harry, we have to be on time to see dad, wanna race to the car?” Sirius asks Harry.
Because Harry never turns down a challenge, he starts running like crazy. Sirius quickly starts jogging behind him to the car.
Remus grabs two to-go cups and fills them with coffee and also walks to the car.
After about a twenty-minute drive, they arrive at the hospital.
St. Mungo’s is the biggest hospital in the region and it is specialized in most things. After a few minutes, they find a spot to park in and walk to the entrance.
“Can we buy balloons for dad?” Harry asks while pointing to one of the hospital shops.
“Of course, we can Haz, go pick the most beautiful ones,” Sirius says.
They walk to the shop together and after a few minutes, Harry had picked three balloons: one with confetti in it, one with ‘get well soon’ on it and one that is shaped like a rainbow.
“Those really are the most beautiful Haz,” Remus says and he takes them from Harry to pay for them.
After asking the front desk on which department and floor James was, they took an elevator and walked to the desk in the hallway where the nurse had told them James would be.
“Hello gentlemen, how can I help you?” a nurse behind the desk asks them.
“We are here to visit James Fleamont Potter, our names are Remus Lupin, Sirius Lupin-Black and Harry Potter, James’ son.
“Black, you say? Interesting.”
“Why is that interesting miss?” Sirius asks, irritated. He hated that his last name gave him this kind of attention. He would have changed his name to ‘Lupin’ when he married Remus but because of his parents, he wasn’t allowed.
“Oh nothing sir, you guys were called by Madame Pomfrey right?”
“Yes we were miss,” Remus says.
“Okay you are on the schedule, you can just walk through those doors and then to the bed with the curtains around it.”
“Thank you, have a lovely day,” Remus says as they walk to the door.
“I didn’t like that woman,” Sirius says.
“Because she said something about your last name? You know that that name doesn’t define you, right love?”
“Yeah yeah I know, but it still sucks that Walburga and Orion didn’t let me change it. In case I ever accomplish ‘something great’, even though they deemed it highly unlikely.
As they walk through the door they see that the only person in the room is James, the other beds don’t have closed curtains.
Harry starts running to the curtains and opens them very quickly.
“Daaaaaaddddd, I missed you!” Harry sounds very excited to see his dad. But when Sirius and Remus arrive at the area that is for James, Harry asks something.
“Why does your face look like that dad?”
Now that Remus can see James, it didn’t sound like such a weird question. James’ entire head is covered in bruises and he has a black eye.
“That bad huh,” James says laughing.
“Well Haz, yesterday when you went to school, I went surfing. But yesterday there was a very bad storm going on so the waves were bigger than usual. After a while, I wanted to get back to the beach but a wave knocked me off my surfboard and dragged me underwater.”
“Oh. Well, are you okay now dad?”
“I am fine right now Haz, I just broke some bones, nothing too bad.”
“Does that mean that you will be getting casts?”
“Yes Haz I will be getting casts, one on my entire left leg and one on my left wrist.”
“Are you getting a rainbow cast if you can dad?”
“Yeah Harry, I will get a rainbow cast if I can,” James says laughing.
It always amazes Remus how James can make topics that are pretty serious, lighthearted for Harry.
“Haz, do you wanna show dad what you got him?” Sirius asks Harry
“Oh! Yeah! Dad Moony, Padfoot and I got you balloons.” Harry says as Sirius hands him the balloons.
“Oh wow Haz, these are beautiful! Thank you very much love!”
“James, can I talk to you for a moment?” Remus asks him.
“Oh you don’t have to, my wife Mary stopped by this morning and she already did the lecturing.”
“Your wife Mary?”
“Yeah, she said that Madame Pomfrey wouldn’t let her go in if she wasn’t direct family so she told her that she is my wife.”
“Ohh, that’s why she called this morning so that we wouldn’t run into her. But just so you know James,” Remus got a little closer to James so that Harry couldn’t hear what he was going to say. “I really love Harry but I would hate to raise him with Sirius, so make sure we don’t have to okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll make sure Moony.”