The Potters
KEYNOTE: My Dumbledore is not the cannon Dumbledore, I am not trying to make him so, I am not commenting on his actions in the books: this is an alternative universe.
P.s. From what I garnered from the books, unless you had experience with the mind arts, you shouldn't be able to decern if someone was skimming your mind. It is a rare thing.
Chapter 9 – The Potters
Harry didn't sleep well that night. It was one thing to dislike his birth parents because they meant to take him away from his mom, the only family he knew.
But they didn't want to take him away.
They just wanted to get to know him. Which, of course, was infinitely more terrifying.
For the first time since he discovered they were alive, he let himself wonder what he wanted from them, what he wanted to know…
The first question, oddly, that came to mind was what his extended family was like? What kind of upbringing had his father and Lily had?
He definitely didn't want to meet those people but he was…
He sat up, punched his pillow and laid back down to get comfy.
Of course, he finally admitted to himself, everyone wants to know where they came from.
But he felt guilty wanting that.
He liked his life. His life that was always in motion.
Harry just hadn't realized that in his every changing life that he would be frightened of a different type of change.
Of not motion, but holding ground.
And it was that fear, fear of anything, that disturbed him most.
The next morning he kept pace with Mom, he ran until he couldn't feel his legs. He ran so long and so hard that he ended up missing breakfast entirely.
Hermione and Padma were waiting for him in the common room. Hermione turned up her nose at his sweaty appearance. Padma seemed to have a much different reaction to his sticky T-shirt and loose running pants.
"Where were you?" Hermione asked.
He waved a hand down at himself, "Working out, like I do every morning."
"You have never missed breakfast before," she said, "and you always come down with the other guys."
"I get up early."
She frowned, "Before curfew?"
He shrugged, "I doubt they would expel me for running the grounds, I'm Hogwarts only champion after all."
She shook her head, "Shouldn't you at least, I don't know, where a sweater. It's November."
He shrugged, "It's not cold."
"Clearly," Padma said, "You're not from India."
"नहीं, लेकिन मैं भारत से प्यार करता हूं। खाना बहुत अच्छा है।"
Her mouth literally popped open and he grinned.
"Isn't there any languages you don't know?" Terry Boot asked, looking up from where he had been trying to read.
"Bulgarian," Harry answered flatly, "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go take a shower."
Something like heat flashed in Padma's eyes, and he gave her a wink before turning his back on her to head up the stairs.
Hermione whacked Padma's shoulder, "Stop looking at him like that."
Padma smiled sweetly at her, "You have to admit, he's cute."
"He's arrogant."
Padma's smile widened, "You're just jealous."
"What's there to be jealous of?"
Padma gave her a look.
Hermione waved it away, "Okay, okay, he's awesome, but I just don't trust him. No one is that perfect. And you saw what he did with the dragon. Padma, he's okay as a friend, but he might be a really dangerous person."
Padma leaned in to whisper in her friend's ear, "With those muscles, he ought to be."
She giggled at Hermione's perturbed face.
"Oh, come on, Mione, you're the one who started dating Viktor Krum. And you can barely hold a conversation with him."
Hermione tilted her chin up, "Well, I, unlike some people, am learning Bulgarian."
Padma smiled and sang under her breath, "Jeal-lous."
Harry didn't do much talking at lunch, though he ate about a pound of food more than usual.
Which did not work in his favour, as by the time Professor Flitwick came to get him, he felt like he was going to be sick.
Flitwick took him into an unused classroom that had been outfitted with potions supplies and a cauldron. The windows were big, and the light of the day made the room feel larger than it really was.
Mom and the Potters stood waiting for him. Mom looked at ease, his dad looked -happy if contained, and Lily looked, well, she looked about as nervous as he felt -except he was careful not to let it show.
"Hi, Harry," Lily said, her hands fidgeting, and Harry noted that she wore one plain gold band.
"Hi," he said back.
He wondered if they were poor or if she just liked simple jewellery. Her robes were a soft blue, and it was the first time he had seen her in colour, it brought out the vibrancy of her hair better than the grey robes had.
His dad still wore black, and Harry couldn't help but feel he was looking at an older reflection of himself. He hoped he would get taller though.
Mom hooped an arm with James' and tugged him to the door.
"Hey!" James exclaimed, trying and failing to tug his arm free.
Mom kissed Harry's cheek as they passed, "Have fun."
And the door shut behind them, James still protesting.
The silence in the room as Lily and he stared at each other felt painful to Harry. He swallowed the compulsion to fidget as she had done, or to show any signs of weakness on his face.
He could do this, he told himself. This couldn't be worse than the one time he had 'accidentally' set fire to two million dollars of meth on a ship headed for the United States. Mom had not been happy about that one, mostly because they had still been on the ship and the life boats had gone up with the meth. The 'party' boat hadn't been that big.
So, squaring his shoulders, he walked over to Lily and asked, "So, where do we start?"
Merlin, but he looked like James, aside from the eyes, her eyes. She was grateful Natasha had left, less grateful she had taken James with her.
Hardly knowing what to do or say, she motioned to the potions book, "You pick a potion."
She hated the warble in her voice. She had waited to have time with her son for thirteen years, and now that he was here she was so afraid she would chase him away.
Harry, on the other hand, looked… bored. He flipped the book with steady hands and confidence that not even James could rival. And it wasn't arrogance, but self assurity.
It made her feel like an emotional fool for being so agitated. She clasped her hands together and squeezed until her knuckles went white.
She could do better than this, she was Lily Potter, the finest female Auror in a century. She had never been given a case she couldn't solve, a bad guy she couldn't defeat, she and James were virtually unstoppable… except when it came to Harry.
He turned the book to her, and she smiled, "Pepperup Potion, perfect, it healing potion, complex to make but not extraordinarily difficult." She almost wished he had picked Draught of Peace, though she wasn't sure it was in this book and it would have been well beyond a novice's skill.
Going into instructor mood, she began to list each ingredient, having him line them up as she described the properties to each one.
As he was chopping up some stems he asked, "So was potions your best subject?"
"No," she said with a smile, "Charms was my best subject."
That got a smile out of him, a small one, but a real one.
Joy flooded her system and she decided that she would do just about anything in the world to get Harry to smile at her.
"I've always liked Charms best too," he said, his voice soft, and if he wasn't always so bold, she would have called his tone -sheepish.
"You were an early bloomer when it came to magic," she said, "both James and my parents spoiled you. You had a full mountain of stuffed animals, and there were a few mornings I would come into the nursery and you would be all but buried by them."
His smile fell and he focused back on the potion.
Realizing she had said the wrong thing, she hurriedly asked, "What was it like, um, I mean, when did you start purposely using your magic?"
He was quiet for a moment and then when he spoke it seemed as though he were picking his words carefully, "Forever, I think. It was funny, most of the time I was teaching Mom stuff. She's powerful, but we were so careful of the wizarding world that most of the time we were just making spells up. Sometimes I thought we would get in trouble, freak normal people out, but very few people believe in magic. And even those who do, are more likely to believe it's a trick or they talk themselves out of what they saw."
"What was the best thing you've ever done with magic?" she asked, hoping he would say something more personal.
His smile came back and he looked up to meet her gaze. "We were hiking in Ecuador, and you know when it rains sometimes but the clouds don't cover the sun?"
She nodded, scared to misspeak.
"Well, weren't exactly on the top of a mountain, but were a point that overlooked where the tree line meets the ocean, and I just thought it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen, and the rain slowed, even as the clouds grew closer. But they hadn't slowed, they had collected, little suspended water drops that reflected the sun- and well, it was cool. Completely accidental on my part, but really cool. I just figured out how to do it on purpose last year."
Lily blinked at him, "That sounds incredible." And powerful. It was also more -well more romantic than she thought he would be. It was the way James used to be. Even in his most obnoxious during their years at Hogwarts, he had always been sincere, always done things, that had she not been so stubborn, would have melted her heart. Whether with the cards -that she had secretly kept, with sometimes dorky, sometimes laughably sappy, or little gifts, like a polished white stone he transfigured to read Lily with little orange lily after the scripted 'y'.
Something in her settled with the knowledge that as much as Harry claimed to be a Romanoff, and as much as he was the Mysterious Natasha's son, he was still their son, too, still had pieces of them that had shaped him into the person he was today.
"So," Harry asked, "what was it like growing up in the magical world?"
She laughed, "You'll have to ask your father that one, I am a muggleborn. First and only witch in my family. My parents took it really well, my sister Petunia, not so much. She got so angry when she realized she couldn't transfer to Hogwarts too."
"Are you close with them all?"
She shook her head, "My father passed a few months after you were born, cancer, and my mother followed him a few months later. People say it was from a broken heart, I think it was more likely to a broken liver. She used to be an alcoholic, but she was sober for as long as I can remember, but she picked it back up after my father died, and her body simply couldn't handle it."
"I'm sorry," Harry said.
She winced, realizing she could have been more sensitive, they were his grandparents after all, "My sister blames me for not fixing him magically."
Harry paused in the next step in the potion, "Can magic cure cancer?"
She nodded, "Yes, but the potion that would cure a witch or wizard would kill a person without magic. I don't like the idea that blood counts much for magic, but even I can't argue that some healing potions would work, and glamour spells that wouldn't work, on pure blood, half blood, squib, or muggleborns, have the near opposite effect on muggles."
"What's a squib and what exactly is the definition of pureblood? I get that muggleborn means both your parents were non-magical but…"
"A squib is someone with a magical parent born with no magic. By definition, you would technically be a pureblood, as both James and I are magical, but others might refer to you as a half blood as my blood status is considered 'low.' Most true pureblood families can trace their lineage back hundreds, if not thousands of years."
Something crossed his face and she asked, "What is it?"
He shook his head, "Nothing."
"You can ask me anything, Harry."
He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, then ventured, "There aren't that many students at this school."
She smirked, "Are you asking if the British wizarding society is inbred?"
He didn't flush like she expected a boy his age to, he just nodded.
Her smile grew, "The Potters are known for marrying muggleborns, and rumour has it, the occasional muggle and squib. But Sirius's family, the Blacks, that's another story altogether."
"Kissing cousins?"
She turned on the heat for their cauldron, "I believe his parents shared the same last name."
He did make a face this time.
She laughed and the rest of their time together was both easier and went by to fast.
"How strong are you?" James asked Natasha who was sashaying her way down the halls.
He didn't know where she thought she was going but she seemed to be taking stock of everything around her, and not in that, 'Oh! Hogwarts! What a beautiful magical castle!' way but like she was counting the windows and portraits.
And if he hadn't been an Auror, he wouldn't have been able to discern even that, she was a very good actress.
She spun on her feet, but continued walking backwards, "Stronger than you, apparently."
He suddenly understood why Lily wanted to murder her most of the time.
"What were you, really, before Harry?" he asked.
"A ballerina," she said innocently and spun back around as if she was on a stage.
Well that explains somethings. Then abruptly he asked, "So, you like women."
She smiled suggestively over her shoulder at him, "I'm an equal opportunist."
He might have found her alluring if he wasn't starting to get the impression that she was more spider than witch.
"Right," he said, for once, feeling like he needed to defend Lily's honour, "my wife is straight."
"Is she?" she asked, her voice honeyed doubt.
He gritted his teeth, "She married me."
She paused, finally allowing him to catch up to her. She gave him a sympathetic look and patted his shoulder. "Marriage doesn't mean much."
He pulled back from her, definitely a spider. "What would you know? I doubt someone like you ever married."
There was no flirtation on her expression then, and he saw something cold and dark in her green-grey eyes, "I did marry, once."
"Bet you divorced," he said flippantly. Worry had ceased the filter between his words and thoughts. He didn't understand this woman at all. Where he had believed her from the beginning that something magical had truly screwed them all over, was even starting to make himself believe that perhaps Death was more than a storybook character, now though… He hadn't let himself think as Lily had from the very beginning that Natasha Romanoff was something altogether more sinister.
But her answer stalled his thoughts, "I was told my dear husband was dead, he showed up years later trying to kill me and my friends. My old boss killed him before he could finish the deed. It was… a rather unfortunate series of events."
Okay, James thought, maybe she's just- "Wait, your ballet boss murdered him?"
Her flirtatious smile returned, though this time it was bright and empty as a muggle lightbulb. "You don't think it is the dancers who own the ballet companies, do you?"
"This all happened before, Harry?"
She nodded, "Harry was never in danger of my past. I cut away from everyone who was a part of my old life."
"But you trained him to be as dangerous as you. Something tells me you didn't learn how to throw knives at the ballet."
Her smile softened to something warmer and vastly more beautiful, "Clearly you've never been to a circus. Harry will never be as dangerous as me, but he does know how to protect himself."
"Did you teach him how to be a ballerina?"
"Nope, I just taught him how to aim and how to perform parkour without injuring himself."
James didn't know what 'parkour' was, but he would be asking Lily about it later.
Harry was relieved when Mom and his dad entered the room.
Lily was very nice, but she was also fragile and expected more from him than he was prepared to give. He was sort of regretting that they would all be sharing Christmas Eve together.
The potion they had brewed, however, was perfect, and Lily hadn't looked at the book once. He had feared that he wasn't going to learn anything, but she was better at explaining and much more patient with him than either Hermione or Snape.
"Ready for some transfiguring?" his dad asked with a friendly grin.
Lily looked crestfallen but when Mom mentioned the time, she looked at her watch in disbelief.
"Come on," James said, "Let's go outside while it's still light out. Minerva mentioned you were having trouble with tiny objects, so maybe we'll try something bigger."
Harry nodded but internally he was thinking that he was just having trouble in general.
Mom and Lily were walking together behind them and the cool air felt very good on his face. The large field they approached had three tall hoops on either side of the field. Tall stands surrounded the pitch and Harry had a feeling it had something to do with flying. Lily and Mom went to go sit in one of those, and his father pulled rocks out of his pocket.
He tossed them outward, and with a graceful movement with his wand, they enlarged.
Harry waited expectantly.
"Right," his father said, "Transfiguration at its core, is creating something out of nothing."
Harry tilted his head, "Isn't its name misleading then?"
James shook his head, his hazel eyes bright, "No, because the furthest most people ever get is turning one thing into another thing. But even then, it isn't like muggle science, we're still creating something that wasn't there before. The easiest Transfiguration is transforming the actual shape or colour of something." He flicked his wand at a rock -boulder, and it reshaped itself into a square block, then it turned blue. "The hardest is using your imagination to shape your magic into a physical object or animal."
From thin air appeared a basin, that became a trickling, three tiered fountain, and then with another wand swish, James created living bluebirds from his wand.
Harry had to fight to keep his expression even, that was -as the British would say, bloody brilliant.
"Some say human Transfiguration is the most difficult, but it isn't, it is simply one of the more dangerous branches of magic because even the simplest of mistakes can have severe consequences."
Harry was more interested in the birds, "Are they actually alive?"
"Of course."
"But-" he paused trying to gather his words, "but how? They weren't born, can they die? Do they die like other living things or do they go poof?"
"Typically poof. Living creatures born from transfiguration, if performed by a competent wizard, survive until either they are destroyed or the caster who made them passes on. Our magic is alive, therefore, they are too. Animals or created by a charm work the same way."
"But, wait, okay but," Harry had too many questions.
His father smiled at him, "Ask away."
He took a deep breath, then exhaled, "Alright, so first, do they need to eat? How alike are they to real animals? And how far does that go, could you make a human? Also if conjuring is a form of Transfiguration than how can Charms do it too?"
"The animals are as real as the caster either has the ability and intention for. Creating a human, creating any creature with that much -life, would probably kill the caster. The magic to sustain such a thing would be immense, and as good as the imagination is, any human would be lacking. And I only know that from books. Don't ever try to create a human. In addition to being illegal, it is also certain suicide. As for Transfiguration and Charms accomplishing similar tasks, think of them less as separate magics, and more like separate schools. Different approaches to utilizing the same base magic."
Harry's mind was spinning, but this made so much more sense than what anyone or any book had explained to him. "But what about transforming a living thing into an inanimate thing? Do you kill the creature?"
"If you do it wrong, absolutely," James said, "but as like creating a living creature, it goes into a static position. Either when the spell is undone, falls apart because the caster's spell wasn't strong enough, or the caster dies -reverting the creature back to what it was, alive, unaged, and likely very confused. It is possible, but only with intention, to transform a living creature and have them be aware, while transformed. There are some pretty nasty Dark Art variants of that, but some wizards have used that type of transfiguration to hide, as a sort of living furniture. Which was problematic in the war, because the Killing Curse still worked on them."
"So they weren't really inanimate objects then?"
His father nodded, and pushed his glasses up his nose, which reflexively had Harry pushing up his own glasses.
Bad habit.
Smiling, James said, "Thinking of it as a sliding scale between alive and conscious versus-"
"Dead," Harry supplied, "so if you turned hedgehog into pincushion then back into a hedgehog, the original hedgehog would have died and you would be left with a magical hedgehog that would die with you?"
"If that's what you wanted, but if your desire was to turn the hedgehog into a pincushion that could be restored to or would naturally, after a time, revert back to a hedgehog would be completely up to the caster."
"So theoretically, you could kill someone by willing them to be an inanimate?"
"Yes, just as you could kill someone with a blasting charm. Magic is dangerous, Harry, the Killing Curse is just absolute."
"Until us."
James smiled sadly, "Yes, until the Potters."
For once, Harry didn't refute that, he was a Romanoff, but he had died once as a Potter.
They watched Harry and James from the stands, and from this distance, they looked even more alike.
After a time in silence, Natasha asked, "So, Lily Darling, how was your week?"
"Fuck off."
Natasha chuckled, "I like a woman with passion."
Emerald eyes turned to her, so much like Harry's, but sparking with so much fury that it fascinated her. "Have you ever been seduced by such lame and pathetic lines?"
Natasha leaned in closer to her, so that their shoulders pressed together, Lily didn't show weakness by pulling away, but she stiffened. "That would depend," her voice dropped, "if I wanted to be seduced."
Lily put a hand to Natasha's cheek and pushed her back.
Natasha laughed, still sitting close but at a socially acceptable distance away on the bench.
"Harry said you were in the military."
"A military unit of sorts, yes."
"For who?"
"The Russians and the Americans."
Lily frowned at Natasha, and she had to admit, the woman was adorable. Her anger made her beautiful, but her confusion made her face sweeter. She must have been something when she was happy. "They aren't allies, not recently. They were still in the Cold War with each other before you took Harry."
"I defected to the US side, I had friends who saved me, the Russians… used me."
"But yet you're proud of being Russian."
Natasha lifted her chin, "Despite what people are led to believe, a country is not their government, it's her people. She is the hopes and fears of those people."
Lily didn't back down, "Is Russia Harry's favourite country?"
Natasha shrugged, "I don't know that he has one. He likes travelling, but since we were never able to settle down, I don't think he ever allowed himself to get too attached."
"Stability would be good for him."
Natasha smiled, "I agree, and he isn't happy about the fact that I've decided he will finish school at Hogwarts. We will travel on holidays, of course. But for the next three years, Harry and I shall be settling in Scotland."
"You're staying?" Lily asked, voice hushed, "You're both staying?"
"Yes," she answered, "we are."
She had been correct, Lily was stunningly lovely when her fair face was alight with joy.
James was certain that once Harry got it, he would get it all. He could feel the magic radiating of his son like heat off a stove in winter.
"Harry, why don't we take a break?"
He shook his head stubbornly, just like Lily. Then he sighed, "It's almost time for dinner anyway, I guess."
James' heart clenched at the thought of parting, so he said, "We have a half an hour left. Do you have any other questions about the wizarding world?"
Harry looked up at him, "What was it like to grow up here? Is mundane stuff weird to you?"
He laughed, "Growing up with magic was pretty incredible, my parents were amazing people who spoiled me rotten. Sirius came to live with us when he was sixteen. His family were also pure blood, but they were a dark lot. But by then Sirius was already the closest thing I had to a brother."
"So your parents passed away too, and you don't have siblings."
Sadness, but not overwhelming sorrow tinged his words, "Yes, they both got sick from dragon pox, wizards and witches have different diseases than muggles. And no, no siblings, but lots, and lots, of cousins. Sirius and I are somehow related, but I never kept much track of the web of our family trees. As for the mundane world being strange, yes, and no, Sirius and I used to get into a lot of trouble out in the 'real world', and that was before Lily finally agreed to date me."
"She turned you down?" Harry asked.
James smirked, and puffed out his chest, "From the moment I saw her I knew she was the one for me."
"And when was that?"
"First year of Hogwarts."
"Isn't that creepy?"
He shrugged, "She was my first crush. I was just lucky enough to grow up enough to one day deserve her. How about you, who was your first crush?"
He flushed, and muttered, "Jamila Fairy."
James grinned, "And where was Ms. Jamila Fairy from?"
Cheeks still red but voice clearer, he answered, "The Bronx, New York. She kicked my ass at a mixed martial arts tournament. I was the only boy willing to spare with a girl. She was older than me by a year and a ring ahead. It was a hundred percent worth the bruises."
"Did you get to know her?"
"No, because some asshat named Yaxley blew a hole in our hotel room. I hate Death Eaters. They can't take a freaking hint. Mom pretended to sue the place for a 'gas' problem."
Cold fury filled James, not at Harry or Natasha, but at those who would dare to attack his son.
"Oh!" Harry exclaimed, "There is something I wanted to ask, I keep meaning to look it up in the library but Hermione shadows me most of the time. What the hell is Quidditch?"
James grinned, his fury melting away. He had missed everything with his son, but he wouldn't miss this.
"Quidditch is a sport we play on brooms," he said, and motioned to the field around them, "Have you ever flown a broom? I mean you had a toy one when you were with us, you nearly killed the cat, but have you since?"
He shook his head.
James turned and waved a hand up at Lily, she stood at once, looking at him for a signal, he flicked his wand and said, "Accio Lily's broom."
And a tiny, pocket sized broom, flew down to his hand.
He turned back to Harry, pulled his own broom out of his own pocket and charmed them both back to regular size. "No time like the present."
He laid both brooms on the ground. "First things first, hold your hand over the broom and say 'up.'"
Harry held his hand out to broom nearest him but didn't say up, the broom came to his hand anyway.
James smiled and did the same, "Now, once you're in the air, just hover for a bit before trying to get height, I'll be here if anything happens."
Harry rolled his emerald eyes at him, "I'm not afraid of heights." But Harry followed James' example after he mounted his broom.
As instructed, Harry stayed low to the ground.
He was a natural, and he picked up speed, that James was found himself pushing to keep up.
When James went up, Harry rocketed upwards, soaring past him. Smiling so hard his cheeks ached, James followed his son into the sky. The sun burst through the clouds as it neared the crest of the mountains.
Harry, as much an acrobat in the air as on the ground, began spinning, diving, and racing.
They didn't talk, they soared.
It was the happiest James had been in thirteen long years.
And then, when they were so high they were in the sunset touched clouds, Harry let go of his broom and plummeted downward.
"No! HARRY!" James screamed, but the wind stole his words, and dived downward, knowing and not caring that he would be too late.
Up in the stands, Lily shrieked, she raised her wand, but Natasha caught her hand and forcefully lowered it.
Lily turned to punch the other woman with her free hand, but Natasha caught her wrist and twisted her arms behind her back.
"I told you, Lily dear, no more free passes."
"Harry is falling!" She shrieked, "You damned bitch!"
"Look again," Natasha said soothingly, "He's diving."
Lily was staring, and all she could see was her son falling headfirst toward the ground, James diving after him on his broom.
James wasn't going to make it, and her only hope was that he could get his wand raised in time.
Lily sobbed, "He's going to die!"
"No, he's not," Natasha stated, "He's my son."
Lily watched in horror as an entity passed by, her heart breaking.
But something whizzed under him -his broom, and Harry swooped upward, rolling like a butterfly in the wind.
It was James who almost ate dirt. He slowed enough to fall gracelessly to his knees in the grass.
Natasha hugged her from behind, "See, he was just having fun."
Lily's mouth was dry, "It could have been an attack."
"He's gone skydiving before, if it had been attacked he would either be limp or facing outward to fend off an attacker."
Her knees were weak, and as much as she wanted to throw Natasha Romanoff over the freaking stand, in that moment, Lily needed the help to stay upright.
"How-" she tried to say, "How could you- How?"
"Trust," Natasha said, resting her chin on Lily's shoulder and hugging her closer so that Lily could feel the other woman's breasts against her back, "Harry is still a teenager. But he's also competent. You're going to have to learn to trust him, or you'll just be putting him in greater peril."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"When he opens up to you both, he'll try to protect you. You will have to learn how to work with him in a fight."
Lily twisted away from her, and Natasha let her do it. "This was not a fight!"
"No, it was training."
"It's a game!"
Natasha shook her head, "Harry is daring, competitive, and an athletic enthusiast. You can't give him the ability to fly and not expect him to push the limits."
"He could have died!"
"Harry knows what he's capable of, and you don't think we didn't find a charm for preventing impacts from steep heights? We may never have spent an extensive amount of time in the wizarding world, but there were some things we made a point to discover."
"And why not let me cast that Charm?"
"Because, Harry would have thought less of you."
Lily threw up her hands, "Why!? For Merlin's sake!"
"Because, it was something I would have done, and if you play the mom card too hard, in the beginning, he's never going to let you in."
"That isn't logical! Shouldn't he like me better the more like you I am?"
Natasha shook her head, "He's afraid, Lily."
"Afraid of what!? Why would a child be afraid of his own parents!? We didn't give him up. We didn't abandon him, we never, ever stopped looking for him! I never stopped loving him, I never stopped being his mother!"
"He's afraid of change. And part of him, a part of him that he isn't ready to face yet, is afraid you'll die on him again."
Lily turned her back on the Russian. Gripping the railing hard enough to feel the wood biting into her skin. She needed to get a handle on her emotions. A wash of shame cloaked her, in her own emotional turmoil, she had become nothing but rage, determination, and selfishness.
Heaven help her, she could do better than this, she had to.
James was on his damned hands in knees, his heart thundering in his chest, his head spinning. He was going to be sick. He was going to lose it on the pitch just like that one time a Slytherin bulger had got him square in the gut after a big breakfast.
He put a hand to his pounding heart trapped by the bones and muscles of his chest.
Harry landed in front of him, and James looked up to his son's concerned face, though his eyes were still bright from the 'fun' he had had diving without a damned broom.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
James couldn't answer, if he opened his mouth -it would be bad.
His pulse was still thundering when Harry knelt beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder, "Are you alright, Dad?"
Dad.
James was able to swallow.
Dad.
He hadn't ever expected to hear that from his son again in this lifetime, he hadn't expected to hear it in a Russian accent either but… looking at Harry now, here, alive.
Not a red splatter on the Quidditch pitch.
It was enough.
He straightened and pulled Harry into a hug, and Harry hugged him back.
"Please," James begged, "don't do that to me again."
Harry patted him on the back, "I'll give you a heads up next time. I do like Quidditch."
James pulled back, "That wasn't Quidditch, that was flying. We'll have to get Sirius out here and maybe Remus, so Lily and I can teach you and Natasha how to play."
Harry grinned, "Cool."
James pulled him into another hug, holding him tight and holding back the words, I love you, son.
Harry was grateful when the Potters left, leaving him and his mother alone for the walk back to the castle.
"Maybe I shouldn't have let go of the broom."
Natasha laughed, swung an arm over his shoulders, and pulled him in so she could kiss his temple. "Well, if they are going to be travelling with us, it's best we break them into our ways. But, yes, perhaps you could have been a bit gentler with their nerves."
James and Lily laid on their backs in bed, staring up at the ceiling, both lost in their own thoughts.
"My mum was right," Lily said, breaking the silence, "children are hard."
James sighed, putting his hand over his face, "So was mine." He let his hand drop and he looked at his wife whose emerald eyes were already focused on him. "Boys are walking heart attacks."
AN: Thoughts, reactions, or free falls? Pretty, pretty please?