Title: Waking up
Characters: Teddy/James II
Rating: PG 13
Summary: Sunshine.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters is to J.K. Rowling and associates.
Notes: The quotes in italics came from (you guessed it) Ray Bradbury's Farewell Summer. I wrote this as a companion piece to "Transitions", which is about Sirius and Remus after they got out of Hogwarts. Needless to say, Bradbury is again used shamelessly to tie this together.
For emilyia. I hope you like it.
*
Ever fallen in love
In love with someone
You shouldn't fall in love with?
The Buzzcocks, "Ever Fallen In Love?"
When Mr Potter entered the room, he noticed at once that something was different. Wrong, he had been about to say to himself, but to an extent, he liked this wrongness. Selfishly. Feeling somewhat guilty, he decided that 'wrong' was hardly the word to apply in simple matters like these.
And so, different. But what was it? He considered this for a second, and then realised it, like a slap in the face.
It was too quiet.
"Is something up, James?" he asked, closing the door behind him. Perhaps they should have let James go on ahead to visit the Burrow with Al and Lily. But Mrs Potter had been wary of leaving James and Al together with Mr and Mrs Weasley. They were both getting on in years, and James and Al can be a handful. "We'll be going to the Burrow in the weekend. I just hope there wouldn't be any more of those 'emergencies' at the Ministry."
James did not look away from his book, but his eyes have stopped moving. Mr Potter, who was perceptive about such things, guessed that James had not been reading at all for the last half hour that he had been sent to his room. Only staring at the words, for lack of anything else to look at.
"James?" he tried again, waving one hand in front of the boy's face.
"It's nothing, dad," said James. "Was just thinking."
"Nothing too illegal, I hope."
He was rewarded with a grin. "Why should it be?"
The rest of the sentence hung in the air between them: There are so many things people haven't thought of making illegal yet. Mr Potter sighed. Back then, naming the boy after his grandfather and Mr Potter's godfather seemed like such a brilliant idea.
*
Kissing Victoire.
Suddenly the town was full of girls, girls running here, walking there, going in doors…
Snogging.
…coming out, girls in the dime store, girls dangling their legs at the soda fountain…
Sodding.
…girls in mirrors or reflected in windows, stepping off curbs or stepping up…
Victoire.
…with wind blowing their hair and all with downcast eyes looking to see where their shoes might take them.
James buried his head between his knees, feeling as if he was going to be sick. He wanted to curl up in a tight ball on his bed, and at the same time wanted to get out of the house and run as fast, as hard, and as far away as he could. He wanted to be here and not here.
He wished girls had never been invented.
You're being unfair, he told himself. Not Victoire's fault at all. Cheers all around. If he was going to hate anyone, well, he might as well start with himself.
He snorted. He did not do 'I hate myself and I want to die' very well. It was not him.
So he did what he can do at the time, seeing as how it was pouring rain outside and his mum had taken it into her head to straighten out the house one week into the summer holidays (the mystery of mothers), which meant that he was stuck alone in his room until she was finished.
James went back to Farewell Summer and tried to make sense of each buggering word.
*
"When it first came out, I was about nine," Ted said, looking at James's book with a certain vague fondness. James just shrugged. He liked Bradbury in Farenheit 451 and A Graveyard for Lunatics. He wasn't sure about Farewell Summer. It had a different feeling to it, as if it had been written by a Bradbury he didn't know yet, which was probably the case.
"My father had that other one, see, Dandelion Wine, which is the first part," Ted went on, ignoring James's reaction. James always felt uncomfortable whenever Ted mentions his parents. It wasn't really guilt that he felt, because that would be stupid, but he felt that vague shame that kids who still have both their parents feel when orphans talk about the subject.
Ted, if he noticed at all, seemed to take it in stride. He spoke of his parents as one would talk about heroes from history books: fondly, admiringly, carelessly. He never really knew them, James reckoned, and so missed the idea, not the people themselves.
"First part," said James, because Ted seemed to be waiting for some response.
"We have a large trunk filled with father's books in the spare room. All sorts of books. I read them when I was a kid, and I think it's weird sometimes, the way that father would never know. That there's a sequel, you see. You have to wonder, what about all those things I'll miss when I'm dead?"
"Never mind that," said James, looking out the window. "What about all the things we'll miss now, if the rain never lets up?"
*
"Are you staying for dinner tonight, Teddy?" Mr Potter asked, popping his head inside the door again.
Ted grinned. "If that's all right, Harry."
"Oh, no problem at all." Mr Potter grinned back. "By now I think I've gotten used to thinking I have four children."
"How much longer till dinner then?" Ted asked. James noticed him exchange a quick glance with his father, which both included and excluded him. He felt a sharp flare of jealousy.
Well how about that, he thought. Jealous of my dad, too. What's the world coming to?
"A few hours yet," his dad was saying. "Ginny had a bit of an accident in the kitchen."
James rolled his eyes. "Don't go into the particulars, dad."
"Care to go to the cinema, James?" Ted said.
James looked at him in surprise. "In this weather?"
"We can take the bus," said Ted, laughing. "Grab your coat."
"Cinema?" Mr Potter shook his head. "Muggle is certainly in season nowadays, isn't it."
*
They ran, in the rain.
"I thought you said we'll take the bus," yelled James, over the sound of the rain against the pavement. There weren't a lot of cars in the wet-slick streets, and James felt the urge to run straight to the middle of it and do cartwheels.
"And spoil the fun?" Ted said. He ducked his head uselessly under the hood of his jacket and held out one hand. "Come on."
They ran, in the rain, holding hands.
*
"Thank you," James said, later, shivering in his wet clothes and tearing the paper cup that used to contain the popcorn into little strips. He thought Ted didn't hear him, half-hoped that he would.
If this is growing up, James thought, it can go bugger itself.
"You were looking too preoccupied," Ted whispered back. They did not look at each other. The main character was in a tight spot, fighting his way through several floors in a building filled with enemies wearing smart suits and dark-tinted eyeglasses. "Unnatural, that's what. You shouldn't be that quiet, no matter what your grandmum tells you."
James snorted. "Don't treat me like a kid."
He didn't know what he expected, or what he wanted Ted to say. It didn't matter. Ted said nothing.
*
Just lie there. You have two hearts now. Feel the pulse. One in your chest. And one below. Yes?
He shifted positions in his sleep. His dreams were half-formed, tentative. What did he want?
There was warmth, he was sure of that. A bony elbow nudging his back, deep breathing in a slightly different rhythm from his own. Slender hands; a curving, sarcastic mouth.
Eyes that changed colour. Cold, pale, grey eyes.
His sheets were wet when he woke up.
Do you actually feel the two hearts?
*
The next day, the sun shone.
James was smiling when he went down for breakfast. They were going to the Burrow tomorrow. He missed Al and Lily, although he would never admit that to anyone. When he arrived at the kitchen, he was not surprised to see Ted already there, sipping his tea in that slightly prissy way that he had.
"Morning," said Ted, not looking up from his copy of the Daily Prophet.
"Yeah," said James.
"Want to go for a walk later? It's a nice day."
"Don't go out too far," said Mrs Potter, pouring more tea into Ted's cup. "It looks like rain in the afternoon. Bacon, James?"
"Thanks, mum." James was already spreading marmalade on his third slice of toast.
"Hungry, aren't you?" said Ted. "Growing kids, I told you, Harry."
"You were like that yourself," said Mrs Potter, with a mock sniff. "Stayed unnaturally skinny, too. Like your father. Remus always looked like he was dying of consumption."
Ted shrugged. "The Romantic poet."
"Wait till you get kids of your own," Mr Potter put in. James chewed furiously on his bacon.
"Oh, I don't know about that. I guess I'll wait." Ted folded back the Daily Prophet neatly and placed it on the table next to his empty cup. "You ready, James?"
"Yes," said James.
*
Outside, Ted held out one hand again.