The Red Room
Summery: After years of treatment, Lily meets up with her son. A study in obsession. AU.
Author's Note: A three part short.
Harry watched her from his perch, raising another glass to meet his lips. Leaning against him, Laila slurred in her stupor, her hands making her intentions clear. Weasley hollered her approval from amongst the gaggle, as another drunken couple decided to flaunt in the middle of the bar. Drinks were splashed and sprayed, and dumped over shrieking and laughing heads. A table drenched in alcohol was set on fire. And round it like savages they danced. Music blared from the wireless, an old racy song whose beat thrummed through the veins. Upon the dance floor two girls kissed. Wands were flashed and clothes disappeared. From an alcove behind him, explicit sounds colored a pretty picture of what was transpiring in the dark. And all along, Laila moved against him, twisted from the abdomen, the pricks of her breasts grating against his chest. But the moment his eyes had caught sight of Lily, they had not moved to acknowledge anything else.
She was dressed simply, in this blouse and old-style long skirt that accentuated her slim figure as she walked. The dim lighting made it hard for him to discern her features but he imagined her gaze was roving as she searched the ruckus for him, wondering perhaps which one of the pigs he was. She struck an odd picture in this nightlife, for while the world round her undulated to a lusty beat, she stood still, unmoved and unaffected.
He shrugged Laila off from himself, and watched her eyes snap wide for a terrified moment before her body lost all tension and draped itself over the chair.
He stared as she accepted a drink – who was that? Ah, Collins – and saw the glint of the glass as she brought it to her face. He leaned back against his seat, amused, as Collins put forth a hand, probably inviting her to dance, or if what he'd heard of Collins was accurate, to fuck. She made of course no effort to consent, and he could almost imagine her eyebrows arching, the lines of her mouth stretched into a mocking grin. He wondered if she would curse him. She had enjoyed doing that, before: a little twist of the hand to inflict some humiliating harm. James, she had once told him, had taught her that.
But she didn't. St. Mungo's, he imagined, had changed her.
When she sat down upon an adjoining chair, the lamp upon an adjoining table cast a flickering glance over her face. And the glass tipped over her lips, glinting, while the cords of her moved. Her hair framed her pale face in the most startling of ways.
He shook his head at the thought.
As the moments passed filled with this quiet non-activity, he began to wonder why she had come here. Surely it was to look for him, wasn't it? Could it be a coincidence? He leaned forward, eager to observe her every action. There could be other motives here, he thought. Perhaps she wanted him to come to her. Like a moth to a flame.
But unlike a flame she made no effort to move. Her glass moved to her lips and she drank, slowly, nursing her drink, and then calling for another. She was pretty enough to get served her, despite her age.
He couldn't understand this. She was there in front of him, real and solid for the first time in years and he didn't know whether to hate her for daring or to greet her.
But then, someone came up to him and whispered, like some dark terrible secret, "Hey man, is that, well, you know, her?" And his voice hardened, it had to, and he replied, "Yes." But then the fool whose acquaintance he knew he would not be keeping from now, blurted, "Damn she's hot," before beginning to splutter drunken apologies.
He waved him away and the music shifted to a slow, dry beat and protests rang loud.
He picked up Laila's half empty glass and eyed it, wondering if she'd been foolish enough to mix some 'funs' with her drink. Shrugging, he sipped.
And they made contact.
She shifted, and he could imagine the chair scraping against the floor as it moved, as her feet hit the ground, as she walked. She was just a couple of feet away now, by coincidence perhaps, but nevertheless in the same establishment where he was celebrating seven years of Hogwarts. Considering how much attention the place had received because the newest alumnus had chosen it instead of the traditional leaky Cauldron or NightRose Parlors for their party, it was unlikely that any court would accept her plea for ignorance should he care to try. And perhaps he should. Perhaps he would.
The drink swirled in his mouth. It was hot and bitter, like black coffee with a magical sting.
It would be so easy, he thought.
He was not aware that he had placed down Laila's glass until she came right up to him, stood immobile for a long moment and then picked it up and drowned the drink with a loud gulp. She stood close, closer than she had in years. And that old elation, and fear, tinged with inebriated arousal, came in waves.
"Hello Harry."
"Mother."
He couldn't help it: it was almost involuntary.
Mother.
They had warned him against that.
She was not a mother son – she was, not a bad woman either… but a sick one.
They had subjected him to so many counseling sessions, making him recollect their every moment, dissecting it, showing him undercurrents so deep it was hard to believe they existed at all.
Be careful Harry. She had told him once. People love to tear down edifices. It brings the world closer to their level.
From his perch he scrutinized her. She was a torn edifice: her face was furrowed in and the hollows of her eyes were dark. The smooth skin that he could almost remember had given way to age lines, and the hair that had seemed so lustrous in the effacing distance, now hung loose and uneven, as if cut by an inexperienced barber.
"You are not supposed to be here." He was finding it hard to stand, the drink was roaring through his body cutting off the full mobility of his arms.
"I know," she said. He was aware of her scrutiny and tried not to twitch beneath it.
"Aren't you supposed to be in St. Mungo's anyways?" Rehabilitation is a bitch, and psychologically, they had said, she might never have recovered from her husband's death.
"I was released last December." She tilted her head up to look him directly in the eye. "I am… surprised nobody told you."
It had been years since he'd heard her reproach but he could still decipher the inflections.
"They must have wished to spare me the pain." Take that, he thought. "We did not part on the best of terms, you know," he added, shrugging, expecting her to be, at least, contrite.
But her lips curled. "Then tell me Harry, exactly what terms did we part in?" She stepped close, her breath hot and angry.
He looked up, trying to calm himself. How could see ask that! How could see possibly… anger bubbled beneath his skin and his fists clenched, almost wanting to hit her for the nights he had later suffered for her sins. "How the fuck can you ask me that!" he moved against her, uncomfortably intimate, matching rage for anger. "After all you did, how the fuck can you ask me that?"
But she wouldn't back down. "And what did I do Harry? What have they told you I did? Rape you? Abuse?" The ring on her hand flashed and he caught her wrist before it could strike his face. "Hell, how many times have I even slapped you! If only James were here – "
The name incensed him. He had suffered beneath its weight all his childhood and damned he'd be if he'd suffer again. He didn't twist her arm as he wanted to, neither did he loosen the grip. The music was soft and slow and romantic, and the little of it that he could comprehend right now, calmed him enough not to hurt her.
"I am not James Potter."
She struggled against him and he noticed a hand snaking towards her back. For a wand? – but then she stilled, and her arm became limp in his grasp, the fury vanishing like daylight in December. "I know," she muttered and he had to strain to hear. "Oh Harry I know, I know." She repeated again and again, falling into him, letting his grip support her, his chest hold her straight, as if she would fall without him to define her. The sudden intimacy of the moment drenched him and let him spluttering.
But as much as he wanted to believe that he she need his help, that she was his mother and should get his support, the past few years had made him wary of her every action, made him distrustful of her every move. He had spent long night contemplating the life he had lead with her, wondering whether the abuse the councilors had spoken of had been true. He had long observed the interaction between the parents of his friends, the intimacy they shared and that and the thousand sympathies that had been showered upon him, as if words from petty strangers could wash away the stench, and that had gradually shaded his opinions of his childhood until he was in profound agreement with the tabloids that had sprayed his secret life to the world.
So as much as she wished his support, the reassuring feel of his warmth against her – he couldn't, and he shuddered in revulsion.
She backed up in confusion. "What, Harry, are you –"
He caught her gaze and she must have seen something upon his face because hers ignited in fiery anger that reminded him of the couple of times he had seen her defend herself in court. He had been innocent then, and she had been his mother, and he had cried desperately for her when they had taken her away.
The recollection reminded him of her betrayals and crushed all remaining sympathy. As she opened her mouth to speak he cut her off.
"I could put you in Azkaban for this." He intoned.
The music changed, and in the momentary silence he heard a thousand whispers.
He looked around and found a thousand stares, almost feeling shocked that he was not alone. Hushed voices, pinched faces, some disgusted, others curious – in the short instant when the music stops, and the man playing it changes, the hall is flooded with dim even light to provide some sense of bearing before the plunge back into horny depths.
And before that moment dissipated, he looked at her, her pale face, her red-black eyes, and her body frail beneath the dress – at the obvious signs that she too, had suffered he found himself unmoved.