Keywords: goldfish, a locked box that holds some significance (but isn't opened), ink stains, a purple door, and hair pulling.
:ONE FISH, TWO FISH, RED FISH, BLUE FISH:
Written by: Slice
It is sunny, bright and cloudless blue. Wind whispers through trees full of summer's emerald, the exact same shade of Harry's eyes.
He stands in the park by the lake, absently throwing pieces of bread out to the squawking ducks, one of his children by his side - solemn and wary-eyed even though the war is over. In the distance there are people in paddleboats, and lovers giggling beneath sweetly flowering trees.
There are, he reluctantly admits, some places in America that are beautiful.
The sky shifts and clouds like will-o-wisps wreathe the sun, casting everything in shadow for a sudden, timeless moment and Harry feels the gloom resonate deep within his soul. He mourns the loss of light.
Laughter sounds and he looks to see Zacharias Smith, the often foul-tempered, blunt spoken Hufflepuff who has, despite his dry, insulting remarks, followed him to hell and beyond.
Must be that damned Hufflepuff loyalty showing up for once.
Harry watches him chase around two of their children, an exasperated look on his face as he attempts to reclaim his silly muggle hat. Finally, he tackles them to the ground amidst squeals and shouts.
Zacharias allows himself to chuckle, and Harry realizes that the sun is shining again.
Harry wakes with the dawn, a remainder from his childhood of working at the Dursley's and the meticulous habits of a soldier at war. He ambles quietly to the kitchen, starts the coffee and puts on the kettle.
Muggle sounds saturate the air and he listens silently: the air conditioner, the noise maker in the children's room; the dog barking across the street and the cars beginning to claim the roadways.
Harry packs three lunches. One, two, three packages of goldfish. One, two, three boxes of juice. One, two, three peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches. One, two, three tears falling down his cheeks.
One, two, three the years have gone by. Harry wonders when Dumbledore will finally say it's okay to return home. He misses being a wizard, he misses what's left of the Weasley clan, misses Hogwarts and the excitable House Elfs and the addiction of flight, the moving portraits and the owls flapping over head.
The magic of the most basic, most human kind as the bricks move like the Red Sea parting and Diagon Alley is unveiled. The magic of stepping through that walkway and into another world, taking a deep breath of brimstone and magic, cool alleys and butterbeer and knowing, knowing you're home.
Misses the strangest, oddest most wonderful things that can only be found in that hidden world.
He hears Zacharias come in the kitchen door, stumble to the coffee pot and yawn. Harry wipes away the tears and smiles for his husband (by magic, not Muggle law). He knows he shouldn't fuss because, after all, he's not the only one who's given up so much.
And with everything he's lost, at least he still has his love.
They are playing an American video game.
tappa tappa clicka clicka clack
"Shit!" Zacharias curses when Harry takes away one more of his lives. The children are at a friend's house, and they are glad of this with the bone-deep relief and quiet worry only a parent can understand.
Harry grins and sticks his tongue out at the blonde, reveling in the competition. "Hah!" he mocks, "you think you can defeat the great Boy-Who-Lived with that puny sword! I think not!"
It is a joke between them, the whole Boy-Who-Lived nonsense. Harry knows that Zacharias thinks it's ridiculous and Zacharias knows that Harry hates it.
That is why they find it ironic that, if not for the intrinsic stupidity of teenage boys and nonsense titles, they would never have come together otherwise. For that reason only Zacharias will whisper it with awe as he maps out the scarred planes of an exiled hero's body, one that he can call 'mine'.
For that, Harry will happily deal with the fame and the press and the baggage that's plagued his life so that he can crawl into his mate's lap and chase away the world with hot kisses.
"Oh yes," Zacharias murmurs, lips quirking in amusement. "I'm quaking in fear. Because, like, you're so strong and invincible. Which is, of course, why I'm about to kill you."
Harry gasps and wails dramatically as his player is defeated in a retina frying, spiderweb of blue-purple electricity. Zacharias snorts and pounces on the slighter, narrower frame of his love, and they tumble off the couch, wincing as they roll over controllers and laughing as their wicked fingers hit just there.
Sometimes - and this is when Harry's heart is rawest - he can't help but slip into the attic, creep through the dust and pry open the old trunk with the odd engraving on it's lock. His fingers always tremble as he pulls out a box, locked and glossy smooth, and kisses the top and breathes in the imaginary odor of magic and spells and swish and flicks.
It makes his hand twitch and his eyes itch. It makes him wonder if he's a masochist, wandering up here and looking, remembering - wanting - when he knows he can't have.
And then Zacharias calls him from the bottom of the stairs, and Harry puts the slender box back down, never once opened in all these years, and closes the old trunk with the elaborately inscribed 'H' upon it's shiny silver lock and shuffles his way through the dust and out of the attic and into his husband's arms.
Zacharias knows of other ways to keep his hands – and his heart - occupied.
There are days, also, when Harry is startled awake sometime in the middle of the night at his desk, where he's been half-heartedly writing the most godawful ryhmes. The house is dark, the children sleeping and his lover snoring soundly in bed. He stumbles into the downstairs bathroom and stares into the mirror. He has inkstains across his nose and along his jaw; a black smudge on his forehead where his scar used to be.
He flinches away from the mirror and the garish memories of late nights in libraries, spilled ink and bushy hair; of intelligent eyes not quite so bright in death.
Of slender fingers affectionately rubbing a freckled nose, once whole and hale, free of dirt. Of chocolate smears around a mouth that once opened in a laugh and not a scream.
He washes his face quickly, roughly, the stiff muggle washcloth harsh on his skin. And then he runs up the stairs – silently as a cat, war verteran that he is - and falls into bed, where Zacharias welcomes him with a sleepy scowl and warm arms around his waist.
Zacharias knows how to keep the nightmares away.
"Don't you think it's odd? You know, that we ended up together?" Harry mumbles into Zacharias' chest. The blonde stretches, making Harry growl low in his throat at being moved from his warm perch.
"Not really," he says, sounding distant and not very concerned. "Why?"
Harry sighs and furrows his brow, shrugging and fiddling with the frayed edge of his lover's sleep wear. "Dunno, just- well, you were awfully rude to me. Either saying something disparaging or ignoring me. You know?"
Zacharias hums, strokes the knobs of Harry's spine absently and tries not to fall asleep during his husband's latest bout of insecurity and depression. Midnight angst-fests, he's gotten well used to them. "Hmmm, rather like pulling pigtails isn't it?"
Harry blinks up at him, staring incredulously into hazy eyes. "What on earth does hair pulling have to do with it?"
Zacharias rolls his eyes. "Like the schoolyard bully picking on the little girl he likes. Muggle psychology or some rubbish. Least, so says Susan. Said that was how she knew we were "destined to be"."
Harry snorts and kisses his nose. "Next she'll be expecting doves, rose arbours and fancy red and yellow fireworks. Hufflepuff lunacy that is."
Zacharias wrinkles his nose, mumbles "not as loony as you are" , rolls Harry over and proceeds to kiss him into the matress.
Harry's listening to the children's recital of their day at school, with Zacharias making dinner and humming Dr. Suess to the tune of an innocuous bar song he remembers from their Hogwarts' years providing a comfortable background. Their youngest (orphaned in the third major battle of the second war against Dark Wizard Voldemort) is showing him a drawing she made in art class.
It's a piece of manila paper with colored wax scrilbbles on it, that's all. But for some reason the one-dimensional, two window home with the green smoke and purple door and the family ranged out across the lopsided lawn strike a chord within his heart.
He smiles and tacks it onto the wall, eyes lingering on the two adults, one with scruffy black hair, the other sporting curly gold, holding hands and a silly, childishly romantic pink heart blossoming between them.
Harry turns around, hands on his hips, and asks what's for dinner.