Harry woke with a start. He sat up and looked at the clock. The glowing numbers showed 3:24 AM. He heard the noise that woke him again, and after grabbing his wand and kissing his sleeping wife on her shoulder, began to make his way to the kitchen.
The light was on and he heard music softly playing. He sighed as he heard the electric guitars and screaming singers. James.
Harry stopped in the threshold of the kitchen and watched his son eat right out of the Tupperware of leftover curry. Crossing his arms, he leaned on the doorjamb and chuckled softly as his son bobbed his head in time to the music playing from his phone. James took the Tupperware bowl into his hands and turned to lean against the counter.
As he lifted another forkful to his mouth, he noticed his father standing there watching him and froze. Harry chuckled again at his son.
"At least you're not eating with your hands," Harry walked to James, grabbed a fork from the silverware drawer, and joined him in eating the curry. "Is there a reason as to why you're up at this ungodly hour?" he asked around a mouthful.
James shrugged. "I couldn't sleep, I guess," he mumbled. Harry frowned at his son. He wasn't particularly observant, but he always knew when something was bothering one of his children. James was a teenager, granted, but he wasn't usually this sulky and to himself.
"You want to talk about it?" Harry asked gently. He watched James' eyes dart to his face then down to the curry again. That was the sign that James always did when he wanted to talk about something. Harry loaded his fork up as he waited for his son to say something. After a moment, he did.
"When you were sixteen, did you ever…" his voice trailed off.
"Did I ever what, James?" he prodded softly. James bit his lip and brought his watery eyes up to Harry's.
"Did you ever think about your guy friends…sexually?" James dropped his eyes to the food in his hands and dropped his fork into the bowl. Harry scratched his head with his free hand.
"Erm…to be honest, no, I didn't, but…I also didn't have the most normal of childhoods," he said with a small chuckle. The corner of James' mouth quirked a little, but fell. "Is that something you're doing?"
James bit his lip, and nodded, a tear going down his face. Harry hadn't seen his James cry since…well, he couldn't remember when. James was his big strong man, and hardly ever cried or got upset. Harry took the food out of his hands, and placed it on the counter, then wrapped his arms around his son.
"James, that is perfectly fine. You mother and I will love you no matter what. You are amazingly kind, and funny, and handsome, and you make wonderful cookies," James laughed at this, "and I couldn't be more proud to call you my son." He kissed the top of James' head.
"I love you, dad."
"I love you, too, James." He dropped his arms from around James, who had started to pull away.
"Is that all you needed to talk about?" Harry asked as he put the top on the curry and placed it in the refrigerator, and taking the carton of orange juice from the top shelf.
"Other than the fact that I'm gay and I don't really know how to go about it, yeah, that's it." James chuckled.
"You could owl Uncle Charlie in Romania. He may not be around much, but he's still family, and gay as well," Harry paused to take a swig of orange juice right from the carton, seeing James smirk at him and remembering all the times he yelled at his kids for drinking from the carton. "Don't tell your mother about that." He put the orange juice back, and went over to James and swung an arm around his shoulders.
"I think it's time for bed, bud." He kissed James temple and started towards the door.
"Hey, dad?" James called out, and Harry turned to him, pausing at the threshold. "Thanks." James smiled at him, and Harry beamed at his eldest son.
Harry waited at the door of his bedroom for the telltale click of James' door closing, before making his way to bed.
"Harry?" Ginny's sleepy voice called out as he slipped into bed and curled up behind her and kissing her hair.
"Its okay, Gin, go back to sleep. It was just James," Harry whispered to her.
"Is he alright?"
"He's perfect," Harry said as he smiled into the dark.
Author's Note: I don't mean to toot my own horn, but...I quite like this story...so toot, toot. I don't really know where the inspiration for this came from, but it just popped in my head, and I had to write it out. It's actually been sitting in my word document for a while, and I just remembered to put it up since I was updating my Schizo story.
I hope y'all like it, and as always, reviews are very welcome. Thanks, beautifuls.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, and I am actually really torn up about it.