Note: Hello all! This is a re-upload of the first chapter of Kids That I Once Knew, an HP fan-fiction depicting moments throughout the childhoods of various second generation characters (some courtesy of JK Rowling and some original). New chapters will be uploaded sporadically, as each acts as its own one-shot rather than an ongoing story. Hope you enjoy reading and please review if you can!
-Hailey
1 - Scar
(Albus Severus Potter, 2011)
'Tell me everything that happened. Tell me everything you saw.'
-"Dead Hearts" (Stars)
There was something about a bedtime story. James and Lily had always liked them, but not in the way that Al did. In fact, Albus almost always stayed up until the very end of the story, his younger sister, Lily, falling asleep at 'Once upon a time', and older brother James following suit soon afterward. One night when Al was a mere five years old (Lily was three; James was six), he and his siblings had all piled atop the living room couch together, their ears wide open as their father read them The Tale of the Three Brothers.
Harry was in the middle of the couch with his legs outstretched, Ginny beside him, her arm locked around his. James was lying perpendicular to his mum with the back of his head on her knee; Lily was curled up in Ginny's lap. Al was on the opposite side, hiding under Harry's shoulder where he had a clear view of the book's pictures.
"The oldest brother," Harry read, "Who was a combative man, asked for a wand more powerful than any in existence." Al was the only one still awake at this point (even Ginny had fallen asleep), but Harry continued to read nonetheless.
When the story was finished, Harry closed the book and looked down at his youngest son. Al stared back at him, and his eyes instinctively wandered directly toward Harry's forehead, in the middle of which sat a very prominent, lightning bolt-shaped scar. Al had never seen anybody else with such a scar, and so he had always associated it with his father.
Upon noticing where Al's perfect, green eyes were aimed, Harry asked, "What is it, Al?"
Al took a moment to register that he was meant to reply, but eventually he did, pointing to the scar and asking, "What's that red?"
"This?" Harry asked, holding up a hand to his head and brushing his fingers over the crooked line, which had plagued him for so many years, yet so many years ago.
Al nodded, his head rocking as far forward as it would go before he brought it back upright. It took a lot of energy to give such a nod, and Al was already exhausted, but he was too curious to fall asleep without an answer.
"It's a scar," Harry replied tentatively.
Al thought carefully about the word: scar. He didn't know what it meant, but he understood that it could be a red mark on the surface of a person's skin. Still, he wondered how someone would get such a thing. After all, he had seen plenty of red marks on his siblings, and even on himself, over the years, but they had never been permanent. As far as Al knew, Harry had always had his.
"How it happen?" Al asked, his eyes wide with interest and flecked with a small amount of fear.
Harry chuckled lightly before leaning down toward Al and answering, "Magic!"
Al's face immediately lit up with excitement, but when Harry smiled a half-smile, curled only at the corner of his mouth, Albus knew that there was something Harry wasn't telling him. He didn't like it when his father failed to make eye contact with him, and so as Harry looked away for a split second, Al was struck with another worry.
He reached up one of his arms, which was covered in a hand-made, green sweater (the letter 'A' embroidered on the front), and put his hand on Harry's chin, turning his father back to him. Al then asked yet another question, full of as much concern as a five year-old could possibly have. "It hurt?"
Two sets of green eyes were locked on each other now, and Al noticed that Harry's were sparkling. Tiny drops of water were forming beside them, and they confused Albus. Unlike Harry's scar, Al had never seen tears float atop his father's skin. He had seen them on many other people, his mother and siblings included, but never on his father.
Breaking Al's focus, Harry put a hand on his son's own forehead and said seriously, "No. Not anymore."
"You promise?" Al asked. He had never asked for such a thing, but Lily's whining was bound to have rubbed off on him eventually.
"I promise," Harry responded, this time with a nod of his own, but one much less enthusiastic than Al's previous nod had been.
Reaching his arm out to Harry's face, this time Al sat up on his knees so that he could touch the mark. As he did so, he watched his father's expression carefully, making sure that it showed no sign of pain. Harry didn't wince, not even the slightest.
Sitting back down, Al brought his hand back to his lap and said to his father, "Okay."
For a moment, Harry just looked back at Al in silence. Then, after looking around him and noticing three sleeping bodies dangling themselves over him, he said to Al, "I think it may be time to go to bed."
Al yawned. He was tired, but he still didn't want to sleep just yet. "No," he said. "Another story."
Harry laughed and said, "Fine. But I have to get rid of these zombies first." He then stood up from the couch, using the shoulder that had been around Al to wrap itself around Lily. "Stay here," he ordered Al before carrying the smallest Potter upstairs to her bedroom, her long, stunningly red hair hanging down beside Harry's waist. After Lily was tucked in, Harry returned to get James, and finally Ginny, who was only pretending to be asleep so that she could be carried up the stairs. He then came back to Al, who was in the exact same spot Harry had left him in.
"All right," Harry said as he sat down, putting his arm back around Al. "Which story now? Babbity Rabbity or Cinderella?"
Al furrowed his eyebrows as if in deep thought before suggesting adamantly, "No Rabbity. You say it."
"I tell one?" Harry asked. "About me?"
Al nodded, trying his best to make it smaller this time, like Harry's had been. "About you."
Harry complied, telling Al all about a horrendously disgusting potion he had brewed as a kid, to which Al listened intently. Eventually, Harry did manage to get Al to close his eyes, but it took a while. And every night after that one, once James and Lily were already asleep, Albus would ask his father to tell him another story of his own. For Al, there was something about a bedtime story; it was a part of life that he never had to question, so long as his father was telling it.
Note: Did you like it? Let me know in a review! Also, if you enjoyed this, make sure to take a look at my on-going second generation story, Blood of the Birds. Thanks so much!
-Hailey