Harry sat at the kitchen table, cup of tea in hand. He was feeling rather chipper that afternoon, he had been given the day off work so he had the whole day with James, Albus and Lily. Lils was upstairs having her afternoon nap while James and Al tore through the house playing cops and robbers: a game that Hermione had taught them ("fancy Hermione having a good idea for a boys' game!" Ron had exclaimed). So that was why Harry was having a mid-afternoon cup of tea at home for the first time in a month.
Little feet tore down the stairs and Al screamed. Harry heard James yelling
"Caught you robber! Now for jail!" he yelled and Harry heard a scuffle.
"Let me out! Let me out!" Albus screamed but James laughed and went to the kitchen for some food.
"Hi dad! I'm the police man and Al is the baddie. He's in jail now, I caught him!" James yelled over Al's pleas for freedom. Harry chuckled but stopped abruptly when the shouts from the hallway turned to sobs. He stood up and rushed over to the source of the cries.
A sense of dread crept over Harry as he stumbled into the hallway. A chair was propped up against the handle of the cupboard under the stairs, trapping the screams inside. With a speed Harry didn't remember ever possessing, he flung open the cupboard door. Albus was sitting on the floor, green eyes shiny with tears, curled up with the coats and shoes.
Harry felt like he had been doused with icy water. He remembered a little boy sitting in the dark, terrified of the spiders and the darkness itself. He remembered the little boy who used to cry at night in fear of the shadows lurking in his cupboard. He didn't want his son to ever look like that little boy. Albus wrapped his small arms around Harry's neck and wiped his face on his shirt.
"Daddy James locked me in the cupboard and it was dark and scary and a spider crawled over my hand." Albus sobbed into his father's reassuring chest.
"I promise you'll never ever have to go in the cupboard again, okay Al? Never ever." Harry fully intended to keep that promise.
"James!" he called loudly, anger seeping through his veins. James, obviously feeling the fury in his father's voice, rushed into the hallway.
"What is it dad?" he asked nervously, he hadn't done anything bad had he? He didn't remember being naughty. His dad obviously thought otherwise.
"James we never lock each other up in cupboards, understand? That was so dangerous! Little boys don't belong in cupboards. You really scared Al, apologise." Harry didn't usually discipline his children, he left the shouting to Ginny most of the time. The only time he had shouted at his children was when James and Teddy snuck into his office and fell in his pensieve (luckily they had only seen a memory of him turning Draco Malfoy's hair blue with muggle dye, nothing traumatic) but they had been terrified of him and he swore he would, much to Ginny's dismay, only be good cop. James was looking at him with a mix of fear and regret.
"Sorry Al, sorry Dad." He mumbled. Harry nodded in approval and they went to the kitchen. A few biscuits later and the incident was entirely forgotten by both boys.
Hours later Ginny came home rather flustered. It seemed she hadn't had a very good day, the Prophet had decided to temporarily replace her Quidditch column in favour of an article about a tell-all book about Lucius Malfoy's fall from grace by Rita Skeeter.
"It's bloody impossible! That stupid woman is back! Did you have a better day than me Harry?" she asked over a cup of tea (with a dash of Ogden's finest firewhisky for good measure)
"James locked Al in the cupboard under the stairs and Al found out he inherited the Weasley phobia of spiders." He sighed wearily "I don't know what's wrong with them sometimes." Ginny wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder.
"Darling they're just kids, it probably didn't mean anything to James. As for Al, you're the only one in the world not afraid of spiders. Remember that time in Grimmauld Place when Ron spotted a tarantula in the upstairs corridor? Even Sirius was screaming like a girl." She giggled and Harry smiled softly.
"Yeah I know, I just don't want them to ever feel trapped." He said quietly. Ginny nodded and kissed his head.
"Well they never will, because they have a lovely mummy that gives them cuddles and a lovely daddy that chases away the spiders." She said determinedly.
"How come you get the cuddles and I get the spiders?" Harry joked "If anything their daddy gets to fly with them. That would be fair."
"Yeah well who said this parenting thing was fair?" Ginny replied "Anyway it doesn't matter what we do. The only thing we have to do is be better than the people who raised us, and that will be significantly easier for you than it will be for me." She chuckled and Harry smiled back. He knew it would be easy to be better than the Dursleys, his children would never look like the boy in the cupboard.
Thank you for reading, reviews are greatly appreciated.
Lauren xo