Chapter 7
James doesn’t manage to sleep the first night Harry spends at Hogwarts. It’s the first time since Harry was born that James is attempting to sleep without his son in a room down the hall. He wonders if all parents struggle with this, or if it’s just specific to their whole separated-by-near-death-for-nine-whole-years situation.
Once he realizes sleep is not an option, he leaves his bed to head into his dad’s old study, which James has taken for himself. He’s already been spending his days here in this room for a year now, busying himself with tackling the legal clauses surrounding the Black family seats. And yet, James still can’t quite believe that this is his study now. For as far back as he can remember, this was always Fleamont Potter’s room, a safe space kindled by warmth and the comfort of a reliable figure. James is constantly feeling out of his depth here, because try as he might, he can’t imagine that he’ll ever get around to filling his dad’s shoes. He doesn’t know what he’s doing with himself half the time. He’s trying his best, he wants to be for the world what his parents were to it because they remain to this day the greatest people he has ever known, but without them here to guide him through it, he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to go about carrying on their legacy.
And then there’s the fact that, the more James thinks along these lines, the more the pressure grows to be every bit the dad that Fleamont was. He wants Harry to be proud of him, to think him admirable and courageous and strong just as James himself thinks of his own dad. Harry deserves everything and more. And James wishes so, so desperately that he can be the one to give him that.
He stays up the whole night long.
At least James hasn’t yet royally fucked anything up so far. Harry likes him. He liked what they did for his birthday together. He had a fun time shopping with James in Diagon in preparation for school. This is the mantra that James keeps repeating to himself like a madman when morning comes and noon is approaching and still no letter has arrived from his son. Harry promised he would write. He promised he would write, so why are there no owls at the windows? Has something happened to Harry? Is he hurt? Did someone steal Hedwig from him? Are they bullying him? Have they shut him up in a closet somewhere and is that why Harry can’t reach James?
Or maybe, you’re spiraling because you don’t want to accept the likeliest truth , says Sirius’s voice, but this time, it sounds an awful lot like Sirius’s eleven year-old self, the boy who was still trying to push his new friend away by adopting a classic condescending posh nobility sneer. Harry simply doesn’t want you anymore.
Harry will have been exposed to more wixen last evening than ever before in his life. He’ll have seen things he’s never seen before, and heard things he’s never heard. Maybe he’s been swapping stories about his home life with his newfound friends, and he’s at last realized just how incompetent James is as a father.
An owl does come, a little past noon, and James snatches the poor creature out of the air in desperation. But it’s only a missive from Amelia informing him that his year-long effort to install Dora as the legitimate head to the House of Black have paid off at last-
For the first time since Harry’s departure, James’s thoughts are not solely focused on Harry. He gapes openly at the letter from his long-time acquaintance and friend, who just so happens to be the Head of the DMLE, which means there’s no chance she’s misinformed on the matter. James did it . He pulled it off. Malfoy won’t be the unofficial owner of the Wizengamot any longer.
The earliest meeting of the Wizengamot is only eight days away, but James has been coaching Dora all summer long, from the moment of her graduation. It was Andromeda- Who did come around to the idea of Dora being a politician in the end, if only because using the Black name for the equality of Muggleborns is the biggest fuck you imaginable to the long line of her ancestors- Who proposed that Dora use her Metamorphmagus abilities to take on some of the classic Black traits. High cheekbones, a sharp nose, gray eyes, and for the cherry on top, a cascading wave of elegant curls that will remind every wizened old purist fool of the days when Walburga Black was raining hell down on them.
The reason for the dramatic appearance change has to do with their main goal, which is not just to keep the purists from passing their prejudiced laws, but to sway a few to their side so that some laws promoting equality can be passed as well. The moment a purple-haired upstart half-blood starts doing with the Black seats as she pleases, every single purist in the Wizengamot will vote against Dora’s proposals no matter what. Should she go in looking like she belongs , however, Dora’s newly crowned title of Head to the House of Black will do its job, and she will be able to stretch her Noble and Most Ancient influence over them and subtly push them into taking her side.
The Wizengamot meeting goes just about as well as James could have hoped. Heads turned when the new Head of House Black was announced, and eyes grew wide at her appearance. Dora looked so much the part of a Black that James, who’d entered the room minutes before Dora, could even hear concerned mutterings from people with the same political inclinations as him.
Carrow, who was undoubtedly working under Malfoy’s orders, gave a long presentation about how the age limit for electoral eligibility for Muggleborns ought to be changed, under the ridiculous excuse that they didn’t have as deep of an understanding of the magical community as wixen-raised citizens did. Were Lucius still controlling the Black seats, with the combined power of the sixteen Malfoy seats and the twenty-four Black seats, votes for those in favor of the proposed law would’ve outnumbered those against it by far. As it is, however, Carrow’s proposal is narrowly turned down, and James gets the extra satisfaction of seeing Malfoy’s face turn an unseemly shade of purple.
Other matters are discussed, and it goes more or less the same, with Dora conducting herself with the perfect amount of elegance and authority. Soon enough, the meeting has adjourned and the members are dispersing. It’s when James finds himself in the unfortunate position of being stuck in a lift with fucking Malfoy that the two owls bearing the Hogwarts crest come hurtling straight for them.
The innocent Ministry workers moving about in the Atrium are then made to witness a mini-duel between two very esteemed gentlemen of society as they each fight to be the one to reach the Floos first.
“Hogwarts School!” Malfoy says, reaching the fireplaces the fastest, and it’s with a scowl that James immediately follows suit.
They march into the Hospital Wing together, which is entirely empty save for two boys, one of them stomping around furiously, and the other lying asleep in bed.
“What happened, Poppy?” James asks the matron, shoving past Malfoy to do so. “Is Harry unconscious? Is he sleeping? Is it a spell?”
For several seconds, Madam Pomfrey does nothing but stare at James. James is pretty sure those are tears glistening in her eyes. Yes, yes, this is all very heartfelt, he’s had similar reactions from the people he’s recently reacquainted himself with in the past year, all of whom thought he would never rise from that coma. And of course, James has missed Poppy, but his son appears to have fallen ill, so could they save the waterworks for later, please?
“I don’t know which of them started it,” Pomfrey begins at last, “But Mr Malfoy and Mr Potter got themselves into a Muggle-style brawl. Mr Malfoy decided it would be a wonderful idea to wield his wand itself as a weapon rather than weaponize the spells shot from it- Not that such an option would have been a well-advised one either, but at least in that case, the worst that could have happened was a Jelly-Legs Jinx or two. But the repetitive jabbing of his wand, coupled with Mr Malfoy’s heightened emotions, brought about an episode of accidental magic that ended up afflicting Mr Potter with a terrible bout of fever. As the precise spell used is unknown to us, I thought it might be a risk to prescribe Mr Potter the usual fever potions, and so I’ve asked that he sleep it off for the time being.”
Both James and Malfoy are fuming by the end of this, and surprisingly enough, the source of their ire is the one and the same. Mini Malfoy, who was still stomping up a storm until a few seconds ago, has turned awfully quiet at the force of their combined glowers.
“Using the essential wizard’s tool as a Muggle prop , Draco?” Malfoy seethes, completely missing the point of the lesson that should be taught here. “Must you humiliate me so?”
“B-But father ,” Mini-Malfoy whines, “Potter was insulting my honor! No, he was insulting our honor! I had to do something!”
“So you decided to show off to your classmates the art of Muggle dueling, did you?”
“Potter punched me first!”
Malfoy looks like he wants to say more, but at Mini-Malfoy’s words, he hesitates. “This conversation is not over, Draco,” he says, and then, turning on James, “Well? How do you expect to compensate for this, Potter? That brat of yours decided to lay his hands on my son, the heir to the families both Malfoy and Black!”
As if James needed reminding that while the position of the Head of House Black is Dora’s, Mini-Malfoy is still technically its heir.
“Only because the heir to the two most inbred families in Britain must have done something stupid enough to deserve it!” James snaps back childishly, being generous enough to speak on the same mental level as Malfoy.
“You may have unjustly stolen my son’s birthright from him for the time being, but I remain a member of the Hogwarts’s Board of Governors, and I have half the mind to push for your brat’s expulsion!”
“And I have half the mind to start up a correspondence with Rita Skeeter to tell her all about the way your son went about attacking Harry!” The underlying threat here is, of course, James revealing to the purists that the Heir of House Malfoy and Black, the boy whom their greatest hopes are riding on, has a tendency to approach conflicts the Muggle way. James maintains that, while punching someone in the face certainly is something that should be shamed- Unless the victim in question really deserved it, of course- Calling it Muggle when it’s just a human urge everyone gets sometimes, then shaming someone for that reason specifically, is very stupid. But it works against Malfoy, so James will use it.
As expected, Malfoy blanches on the spot, sputters for a bit, and then, “Come, Draco! I will not have either of us associating with such lowly and morally corrupt people!”
Morally corrupt, his arse. James watches them leave, at least content in the knowledge that Malfoy won’t be doing something like pressing charges or anything like that. Not that James wouldn’t be able to or willing to handle something like that for Harry of course, but he doubts the stress of it would be good for Harry. James is still not quite willing to believe that Harry was the one who started the physical portion of the fight, because Harry has an absurdly gentle soul, which is nothing short of a miracle considering Lily’s hot temper and James’s own habits from his youth. Whatever. If it turns out Mini-Malfoy was lying and it was actually him who started the fight, James can consult with Harry then and take the matter to court if Harry wants it.
“What exactly happened, anyway? Do you know?” James asks Poppy.
“Godric knows,” Poppy sighs. “I gave up trying to keep track of you Potters years ago. But from what Minerva told me, it would seem that Mr Malfoy’s pride took a hit when his attempts to make Mr Potter look like a fool in the sky failed.”
“The sky?” James asks confusedly.
“Yes, they took their first Flying lessons today. Mr Potter was allegedly a natural- More than a natural, actually, but that’s certainly expected, isn’t it?” jokes Pomfrey, and James doesn’t doubt that she’s taken aback by James’s stunned impression. Flying lessons ? Why was Harry attending those? James made sure to send a letter through the Hogwarts faculty system, asking that Minnie excuse Harry from Flying lessons. He could’ve sent a letter to Minnie directly, but he purposely went through the whole official process of addressing Harry’s Head of House so that Harry wouldn’t be caught up in allegations about favoritism or something.
He explains as much to Pomfrey, who suddenly seems to find the mirror on the wall the most interesting piece of furniture in the world.
“Poppy? Is there something I should know?” James asks slowly.
“Well, it’s only that- I assumed you’d already heard- In fact, I don’t even know if it’s my place to say…” Her eyes dart over at Harry’s sleeping form. “James, sweetheart, Harry was sorted into Slytherin House.”
Oh. That’s… Certainly a surprise.
But more confusing than that, Poppy is looking at James like he’s a prematurely timed bombarda maximus about to explode. James doesn’t understand this. Certainly, he’s disappointed that he’s hearing this from her instead of from Harry himself, but he’s not planning to freak out over it. Unless- Oh .
She’s worried James will react badly to the fact that his son is a Slytherin and not a Gryffindor. Which- Fine, he can understand why she might think that, but it’s still not a fair assumption to make! James grew up and out of the old Hogwarts rivalry thing years ago- Many years ago, actually. What, did she think he was going to disown his own son over the matter of something so trivial as a school house or something?
Fuck.
That’s probably what Harry thought.
That’s the reason he hasn’t sent a single letter, that’s why the few inquiries of Harry’s school life that James worked up the bravery to send never received any responses. Oh, he feels terrible. He feels like he’s failed as a parent. He just naturally assumed that Harry would be a Gryffindor, and so of course all of their conversations kept leading down that path, and so the pressure for Harry to become a Gryffindor would’ve grown greater and greater and therefore the panic he would’ve felt when the hat called out Slytherin would’ve been a staggeringly huge amount and it’s all James’s fault.
“Okay,” James swallows, trying to calm his thoughts. “Okay, but that still doesn’t explain why Slughorn let Harry fly after I specifically asked that he be kept out of the lessons.”
If James thought Pomfrey looked uncomfortable before, it’s nothing compared to the awkwardness she’s radiating now. “James… You have to remember that it hasn’t been only four years since your graduation for the rest of us. It’s been over twelve years. A lot has changed in that time.”
“Fine, well, you’re obviously telling me that Slughorn isn’t the Head of Slytherin anymore. Who’s taken his place, then?”
Poppy’s answer comes with a heavy wince. “Snape… Severus Snape.”
“Snape!” James roars at the top of his lungs, too angry to appreciate the humor in how he managed to anticipate exactly where Snape would be: Snooping around in the shadowed halls surrounding the courtyard like the creepy fucking vampire that he is.
Students startle first at the sound of James’s loud voice, then at the shock that someone would dare speak to their precious Potions professor that way. Professor Snape , it’s fucking ridiculous. That man is the last person equipped to handle the nurturing of young schoolchildren. What the hell was Dumbledore thinking when he hired him? And how the fuck , just how the fuck did Snape manage to avoid getting chucked into Azkaban after the end of the war?
It’s the question that James has been turning inside out in his head the whole walk here, because really, there’s no plausible explanation for it. James wasn’t really surprised Lucius Malfoy walked free, considering his wealth and his cemented status in society, but Snape ? Who did he have standing up for him that he not only managed to avoid Azkaban, but managed to obtain a respectable profession as well?
Snape’s wand is already in his hand by the time he’s turning around, and James almost laughs. Either the slimy git is instinctively apprehensive of James, which is a delightful surprise, or this whole time, the bastard has been counting down the days he could confront James again. It doesn’t really matter which is the truth. Both options tell James that Snape has been pathetically living in the past for Godric knows how many years, and this is saying something, coming from the man who woke up from a near decade-long coma.
“Why was I informed my son suffered an injury from being knocked off a broom, Professor Snape?” James asks, making it clear by his tone just what he thinks of Snape’s fancy title.
“You must be more delusional than I believed if you actually thought I would offer special treatment to your son,” Snape spits out.
“So Harry is collateral damage to our adolescent rivalry, is that it? If I’d known you’d grow to be this spiteful, pathetic enough to be holding onto decades-long grudges, I would’ve let the wolf snap you up that night!” James wouldn’t have, of course, but for Moony, not for Snape. “Regardless, I wasn’t asking for special treatment, I asked it as a safety precaution!”
“Oh, but of course the only student whose safety you care for would be the walking talking miniature clone of you!”
“Save me the theatrics. Who the fuck was stupid enough to let you out of Azkaban, anyway?”
“That far behind, are you? You’ve been awake for an entire year, but of course, rather than catch up on what you missed like anyone else in your position would’ve done, your first priority was to snatch away as much political power as you could because Salazar forbid James Potter not have all the spotlight shining down on him for once!”
“Was it Malfoy? Wouldn’t have imagined he’d think something like you worth saving. What did you have to do to convince him? Grovel at his feet and lick his fucking boots?”
And then, when, despite the jibe at his pride, Snape’s face twists up into something awfully victorious, James knows whatever he’s about to hear next won’t be good. “It was your own precious hero, actually. Dumbledore told the whole court that I’d seen the error of my ways, that I’d turned spy for him at great personal risk for myself.”
That makes no sense. Dumbledore wouldn’t… He wouldn’t… Would he? What on earth could Snape possibly have done to convince Dumbledore that he was on his side? Spout some drivel about how he was always in love with Lily or something?
Actually… Yeah. Yeah, that seems like the sort of shit Dumbledore would fall for.
James knows Dumbledore had a few spies planted within the Death Eaters, the identities of whom James is unaware of to this day. He does know, however, that most of them weren’t of high enough rank to be able to feed the Order anything more than trivial information. Was Snape one of those spies, then? But what could he have accomplished that was so important that Dumbledore saw fit to offer him a spot at Hogwarts after everything? Or is it that Dumbledore wanted to keep an eye on him? In both cases, it must have been something significant that Snape reported back for Dumbledore to have maintained a special interest in him…
James’s heart plummets the moment he makes the connection. Dumbledore came to them one night, to James and Lily at Potter Cottage as they were making plans to cast the Fidelius. He spoke of a spy who had passed along information of the prophecy to Voldemort before regretting it entirely. Dumbledore worded it like the spy in question was devastated that an infant child, a pure, sinless thing, would be the target of the murder. That was the point Dumbledore had focused on, rambling on and on about how even a Death Eater had seen the horror in killing a baby, trying to offer them whatever shred of hope he could. But if Dumbledore was lying… If, in between his words of comfort, he’d been lying for the sake of protecting the spy’s identity…
James knows the last thing Snape expected when he started fucking gloating was for tears to start flooding James’s eyes; Angry, hot, boiling tears that are clearly unnerving the shit out of the bastard. “You killed her,” James trembles, feeling more hatred for this man than he has ever felt for anyone in his life, more than for Malfoy, for Lestrange, even more than for fucking Voldemort himself. And if Snape thinks he knows the intensity burning up in James’s eyes, he is sorely mistaken. The vengeful loathing James feels now is nothing like what he felt for Snape back then, during their school years.
At least Snape has the decency to freeze in place at James’s words, appearing stunned, like he’s just taken a Bludger to the head. “That’s not… I didn’t…”
“ Fulmencio !” James screams, the first spell to pop into his head that isn’t an Unforgivable. A bolt of lightning smites the place Snape was standing just a second ago, sending the stone slab up in smoke. “ Incendio ! Diffindo ! SECTUMSEMPRA !”
Make a quip about how it’s your own fucking spell that I’m using against you, you sick piece of shit , James thinks furiously. I’ll cut out your tongue before you can get the words out.
To his immense frustration, Snape deflects each and every one of his spells, but only barely, meaning he isn’t allowed any time to return with attacks of his own. James is vaguely aware of the students that have stopped with whatever they were doing to watch the duel whose intensity is unmatched by anything they’ve ever seen in their lives, James is sure. He takes care not to be reckless enough to hit any of the students, but that’s just about the extent to which he holds back. One curse after the other, and if it weren’t for the several dozen witnesses present, he’d just cast a fucking Unforgivable and be done with it.
He killed her. He fucking killed her he killed her he killed her he killed her. Peter may have been the one to spill the secret to Voldemort, but Voldemort never would have known to target them in the first place had it not been for Snape. And besides, it’s so much easier, so much easier , to hate Snape than it is to hate the other two. James still can’t bring himself to think of Peter as an enemy in his head. Peter was his friend . And as for Voldemort- Well, James wouldn’t even know how to begin hating the Dark Lord as a man rather than as an all-powerful abstract entity. But hating Snape? Now that is something James knows to do well.
He killed Lily. Now, James wants to kill him.