Reeling in the Wake - Part two
Harry blinked at the door to Neville's office. He had set out in the direction of Gryffindor tower, and was therefore distantly surprised to find himself here. It felt like he was walking in a daze, the world somehow shifting and not entirely substantial. Had this really all just happened?
"Harry?"
Neville's voice made Harry spin around. He was coming down the corridor carrying a stack of books and not looking all that surprised to see Harry standing like an out-of-place statue in front of his office. The blank stare he was getting, however, did seem to cloud Neville's expression with trepidation.
"Is everything alright with Al?" he asked tentatively.
A hysterical sort of grin crossed Harry's face as he turned away to brace himself against the wall. Things with Albus were about as far from alright as they got. Immediately concerned, Neville shoved his books onto a hastily-conjured shelf and put a hand on Harry's shoulder.
"What's wrong?"
My son might be dying. But Harry couldn't find the words to even begin explaining. He gaped at Neville for a moment or two before managing to pull himself together enough for a response.
"We don't know yet exactly."
Harry pivoted and took a few steps away, hands behind his head, thinking of where he had been intending to go. He let out a long breath, gathering himself for the one conversation he had to have today, and turned back to Neville.
"Listen, do you think you could track down James for me? Only I don't exactly fancy bursting into a packed Gryffindor common room…"
"Sure," Neville said at once, eyeing Harry closely.
"We're taking Al to London," Harry offered, because Neville deserved some kind of explanation from him. "To have some tests and things done. At a hospital."
"Oh," Neville said, eyes widening a little.
It looked like he wanted to say something else, but either didn't know what or decided against it. Either way, Harry was grateful. Instead, he clapped Harry on the shoulder and led the way down the corridor.
XxXxX
"This is Gryffindor tower, Rosie. He's not supposed to be in here," James said accusingly, eyeing the pale, blond boy his cousin had in tow.
"She made me," Scorpius said at once, looking like he expected to be dive-bombed at any moment.
Rose rolled her eyes at both of them. "Way to throw me under the bus, Scorp. Relax, it's only for a few seconds."
"He better not know our password," James said warningly.
"She made me plug my ears, turn around, and sing 'Odo the Hero' as loud as I could," Scorpius assured him.
Fred and the rest of James's friends snickered.
"Whipped," Fred whispered loudly.
Scorpius flushed and edged away from Rose, who turned a scorching look on her cousin. Fred and James took great pleasure in heckling Rose and her friend. Then she turned back to James.
"Have you been up to the hospital wing today?" she asked him, looking irritated, though for once it didn't seem to be with him.
"Um… why would I?" James said blankly.
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe because your brother's up there."
"Your point?"
Now she was starting to get irritated with him.
"Madam Pomfrey won't let us in to see Al," Scorpius explained.
"Why not?" Fred asked, looking surprised.
But at that moment Neville clambered through the portrait hole. He scanned the room, spotted James, and gestured for him to come over.
"Whatever it is, I didn't do it!" James called reflexively, earning some scattered laughter.
Neville forced a tight smile. "You're not in trouble," he called back.
Fred whistled. "You're witnessing a first here people!"
To the snickers and catcalls of his friends, James heaved himself out of his chair and crossed the common room.
XxX
"Dad. What are you doing here?" James asked, feeling fairly stunned as the Fat Lady swung shut behind him and he spotted his father leaning against the wall a few feet away.
"Hey, mate. Fancy going for a walk?"
James froze instinctively. There was something wrong. He could see it in the way his father was looking at him, feel it like a storm or the heavy, silent second before a towering wave crashes down.
"Why?" he asked.
Neville, who James now noticed was looking somber and anxious, mumbled something and excused himself, disappearing down the corridor.
"Dad, what's going on?" James tried to sound stubborn and not like dread was coiling like a lead chain inside him, but the moment he met his father's gaze, he was sure the scared little kid in him was shining through.
It's nothing bad, he tried telling himself. Just because Dad's here in the middle of the school year with no warning doesn't mean something bad…
"James…" Harry straightened, and for the first time in James's memory, it seemed to cost him a great effort to meet his eyes. "Your mum and I are taking Albus home for a little while. Madam Pomfrey thinks he could be pretty sick."
"No," James said slowly, shaking his head, even smiling slightly. He'd thought the worst. That his mother was in the hospital or Teddy had been arrested or something crazy like that. But it was just about his little brother, whom he had seen just last night and who was not sick at all. "Al's fine, Dad. It was just a bludger to the face. I mean, sure it left nasty bruise, but it was nothing to call you up to school for. He's probably already fixed up. He's not sick."
But Harry's expression – some conflicting mixture of emotion and blankness that James couldn't make sense of – didn't relax.
"It's a bruise Madam Pomfrey can't heal," he said quietly. "Do you know what Leukemia is?"
James shook his head very slowly.
"Come on, Jamie. Let's take a walk."
Harry held out an arm to him and James, despite being only a few inches shorter than his father and in the middle of the school where anyone could see them, walked right into it.
James listened numbly as his father talked about blood cells and bone marrow and platelets, but somehow he couldn't quite connect it all to Albus. He had played Quidditch with Albus just yesterday, after all. There hadn't been anything wrong with him then. How was it that he was suddenly sick enough to be taken home?
"So – so you think there's something wrong with Al's blood?" James asked when his father paused in his explanation.
Harry nodded.
"And you're taking him to London to have a bunch of Muggle doctors cut him up to tell you if you're right or not?"
Harry hesitated as the part of his brain not currently being numbed by the news of his son having cancer stirred at the phrasing James used. But he did not have the energy to lecture on open-mindedness and equality just now.
"Yes, James. Muggle doctors know more about this than the Healers at St. Mungo's. They'll be able to treat him."
"Treat him?" James questioned. "How long will it take for Al to get better?"
They had stopped beside one of the back staircases, hardly ever used by students outside class hours. James looked up at his father again, waiting for an answer.
"I – we don't know how long it will take," Harry admitted and James thought his voice sounded rather choked.
Something fluttered in James's stomach at these words. He pulled away from his father's comforting arm so that he could face him squarely.
"Dad?" he asked, voice shaking slightly. "Al is going to get better, isn't he? They can cure him, right?"
Harry raised his head to look into James's face. He thought about saying 'of course your brother will get better' if only to hear the words himself. But the truth was, Albus might not. And James ought to know about that chance from the start.
"They might be able to make him better…." he said.
James swallowed. "But they might not be able to?"
Harry nodded again.
"What happens if they can't cure him?" James demanded.
Harry looked away again, unwilling to say the words out loud.
"Dad," James said more insistently, pulling on Harry's arm as if he were a little kid again. "What happens if they can't make Albus better?"
"He'll die."
The words were barely a whisper, but they seemed to shake the very foundations of the earth.
James sank down onto the top step of the staircase beside them. Harry sat down next to him and put his arm back around James's shoulders, maybe needing to hold onto the son he was sure wasn't going anywhere. They sat in silence for a few minutes until Harry said he had to get back to the hospital wing to help Ginny get Albus home.
"No," James muttered when his father asked if he wanted to come and say goodbye. It was the saying goodbye part that James refused.
"You want me to walk you back to Gryffindor Tower?" Harry asked as he got to his feet.
James shook his head. He could not imagine walking back into the common room, back to the friends he had left less than half an hour ago, back before the world was spinning out. Harry nodded as if he understood.
He reached down to run a hand through James's messy hair. "We'll see you, Jamie."
"Dad?" James asked suddenly, looking up. "Write to me? When you know for sure. Write to me."
"Sure, Jamie. Promise."
Harry nodded one more time, rested his hand on James's shoulder for a moment, then headed back to the hospital wing.
James heaved himself up off the step and began to wander. He didn't have an exact idea of where he was, only that the afternoon sun falling through the high windows and pooling heavily on the floor didn't seem to have any warmth. His brain seemed to have been scrambled, and in the chaos a memory leapt forward.
Albus, no older than four or five, stood silhouetted in the doorway to James's bedroom, the hall light illuminating his dragon pajamas, his old stuffed lion clutched to his chest.
"James, there's a giant snake under my bed."
"So? What do you want me to do about it?"
"Spook it away like Teddy does!"
"Why can't Daddy spook it away?"
"He didn't see Teddy do it. He doesn't know how."
"Well neither do I."
"James, it's gonna get me!"
"Then I guess you'll get eated!"
"James!"
Albus was on the verge of wailing by this point. His eyes were huge green pools of fright.
"Alright, fine. I'll protect you."
XxXxX
"Can I get you anything?"
"No, really Mum. I'm fine," Albus insisted for what felt like the hundredth time that day.
His mother looked down, smoothing the sheets she had tucked around him. He saw her biting her lip and reached out a hand to put on her shoulder. Being told he might be dying had, ironically, not been the hardest part of that day. Seeing his parents being told he might be dying had been so much worse.
All the philosophical ponderings of death and life, pain and illness and facing mortality were still churning in a dark storm cloud above his head, the reality of the situation just waiting to crash down on him. But the sting of seeing his mother on the edge of… something, seeing his father afraid, was very, very real.
"Mum?" he said softly. "You know it's going to be okay, don't you? Even if something's wrong with me, it's going to be okay."
Ginny gave her son a watery smile and leaned forward to kiss his forehead.
"Look at me, being comforted by my bruised-up baby boy."
"I'm twelve, Mum," Albus told her in a long-suffering tone.
Ginny laughed just a little bit and slid onto the bed beside him, putting her arms around him.
"Haven't I told you lot enough times? You will always be my babies, even if I'm the one in diapers."
"Mum," Albus complained, embarrassed as always.
But he tucked his head on her shoulder anyway.
XxXxX
Standing outside the familiar gate, Harry wondered how he could walk into the Burrow and not crumble into a heap. He and Ginny had ended up flipping a coin to see who would pick up Lily. It seemed a year had passed since they had dropped her off with her grandparents that morning to go up to Hogwarts. The haze from earlier had lifted somewhat, but now he felt as though great cinders had been hefted onto his shoulders, keeping him staggering off balance.
Then suddenly the door to the Burrow burst open, and his daughter came flying at him, red hair streaming. And there was no more time to contemplate; he took a breath and pushed forward.
"Daddy!" Lily squealed, leaping up to fasten her arms around his neck for a quick peck on the cheek before dropping back to the ground and swinging off his arm as they made their way up to the house. "So, is Al in a lot of trouble?"
More than we'd ever imagined.
"No, bud, it wasn't like that."
"Oh," Lily sounded almost disappointed. "I thought he might be getting cool."
"You're spending too much time around James," Harry told her, climbing the back steps.
He could see Mrs. Weasley watching them from the window and Hugo hanging around the open door.
Ron, Hermione, and Mr. Weasley were sitting around the scrubbed kitchen table. Harry had hoped that the last lingerers from Sunday lunch would have gone home by now, but evidently Ron and Hermione had stuck around so that Hugo could play with Lily. And for one of the first times ever he was not happy to see them. If Harry had thought facing Mrs. Weasley after the events of that day would be difficult, it would be nothing compared to Ron and Hermione.
But he just could not face another discussion like the one he had had to have with James earlier. Not right then, anyway.
"How'd it go?" Ron asked the moment he saw Harry.
"Al's not even in trouble," Lily reported over her shoulder as she and Hugo scurried off to the sitting room.
"Well, that's good, isn't it?" Hermione said, smiling as she got up to get Harry some coffee.
Harry thought about taking it. About sitting down and making small-talk and pretending, even for just a little while, that everything was normal just a little bit longer. About putting off the moment when he would have to go home and face his probably-extremely-sick son and half-terrified wife.
But he couldn't. He knew that he could not keep that charade going, not when Albus was bobbing in the back of his mind, when just having him out of his sight long enough to pick Lily up had him scared something might happen while he was gone.
So he shook his head at Hermione. "Sorry, but I can't stay. I've got to get home." He crossed the kitchen and poked his head into the sitting room. "Hey, Bud. We've got to get going. Mum's waiting for us."
Lily crawled out from the makeshift fort she and Hugo had spent the afternoon constructing, looking perplexed. The adults always spent ages talking. She began gathering up her things into the red shoulder bag she had recently taken to hauling everywhere.
"So what's going on, then?" Ron asked from the table behind Harry.
He tried hard to keep his expression together as he turned back to them and mumbled, "Nothing."
All four of the others exchanged unconvinced looks.
"Come on, mate," Ron pressed. "You got called up to the school. Something must be going on."
But at that moment, Lily appeared at his side, pulling her ballerina slippers back on, bag slung over her shoulder, and Harry started to chivy her to the fireplace.
"Look, it's a long story and I haven't got much time," he mumbled.
Mrs. Weasley hugged both Lily and Harry, looking searchingly into his face before she let him go. He threw some floo powder into the fire.
"Listen, Lil, we've got to be extra quiet when we get home, alright? Albie's upstairs, probably trying to sleep," Harry muttered just before Lily stepped into the flames.
That stopped her in her tracks. She turned right around and looked straight up at him. "Why?"
Harry suddenly became aware of the whole kitchen listening. "Mum and I'll tell you when we get home," he told her.
But Lily wasn't satisfied that easily. "Dad, how come Al's home now? It's nowhere near the holidays. What's going on?"
The rest were watching him with similar expressions. Harry sighed and rubbed a hand over his face.
"Later," he said, casting a pleading look at Ron and Hermione and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. "I promise, I'll talk to you later, but I can't do this right now. Go on, Lily."
XxXxX
Albus stared at the glowing face of his alarm clock. It was nearly ten thirty. He was exhausted and sore, as if he'd spent the day running a marathon rather than lying in bed, and he had to get up in six and a half hours so that they could be in London for the appointment Healer Hart had made for him at the Cancer Center. But the last thing he felt like doing was sleeping.
Whatever he told his parents, his insides were squirming with a nervousness bordering on fear. He tried very hard to remind himself that the Muggle doctors knew what they were doing and their methods only seemed crude because they didn't have instant fixes with magic. But all he kept remembering were the needles and tubes that had been stuck in Dudley's daughter when they'd gone to visit her after she got her appendix cut out. It had given him nightmares.
And worse than trepidation over what might happen to him tomorrow, there was the trepidation over what would change tomorrow. Right now, all that was wrong with him was a nasty bruise. This time tomorrow, he would be really sick. For sure. No room left for doubt or hope.
The door to his bedroom creaked open, hall light pouring in and making him squint. A dark hump crawled over the threshold and shut the door again.
"Albie? Are you awake?" Lily's voice came uncertainly from where she was huddled beside his door, as if, perhaps, she didn't really believe he was there at all.
"Yeah, I'm awake," he told her after a minute.
Apparently his parents had told Lily not to disturb him because he'd barely known she was in the house all evening. Lily was not a naturally quiet person, and this was the first time in his memory that she had not flown at him the moment she found out he was home as if magnetic forces pulled them together.
Lily crawled across his bedroom floor and climbed up onto the end of his bed, light from under the door just enough for him to make out her hunched figure.
"Mum and Dad say you're sick," Lily whispered.
"Yeah, that's what they told us," Albus whispered back.
Lily paused, cocking her head. They could hear murmured voices from the sitting room below.
"They're talking to Ron and Hermione. And Teddy," Lily explained. "Trying to figure out what to do with me while they take you to London."
"Probably beam you back up to the alien planet you came from," Albus told her slyly, propping himself up against the headboard.
"Al!" Lily complained, giving the bottom of his foot a sharp poke through the covers. But she giggled. Albus thought she sounded relieved to find his sense of humor still intact.
"Mum and Dad say you'll be gone awhile," Lily went on, quiet again.
"Few days, a week," Albus shrugged. "Mum and Dad can apparate back to see you."
"Yeah, that's what they told me when they tucked me in. They both tucked me in. They haven't done that in ages…."
Lily crawled up to sit against Al's headboard beside him. For a long time neither one of them said anything, listening to the murmur of voices from the sitting room, pretending they could make out words.
"They're scared," Lily said at last.
Albus nodded, though she couldn't see.
"Are you scared?" her voice was little more than a breath.
You have no idea how much.
"Me? Scared? Psh, where do you get such foolishness?"
Lily giggled again as Albus flung an arm around her shoulders in the dark and messed up her hair.
"Promise you'll be okay, Albie."
Albus started to tell her he couldn't promise something like that. But something – maybe the big brother in him – stopped him.
"Promise. It'll be okay."
"Pinky promise?" Lily pressed, and even though he couldn't see her expression in the dark, Albus knew the earnest look she was giving him.
He rolled his eyes, but found her hand in the gloom and hooked his little finger around hers.
XxXxX
The hospital in London made Albus think of a monster. It was huge and cold and walking through the great electronic glass doors gave him the distinct impression of being swallowed up by a great mouth. The fffsss of the doors shutting seemed to reverberate like the snap of a jaw.
The atrium was high-ceilinged and shiny, with too-green plants stuck between waiting chairs and tables piled with old, Muggle magazines. Even at seven in the morning, people sat, looking tired and tense.
Harry led the way over to a woman sitting behind a long counter. Ginny fell a step behind, out of her element, and wrapped an arm around her son, pulling him closer to her side, as if unwilling to turn him over to the imposing building.
Harry cleared his throat awkwardly, but the woman didn't look up from her computer. Maybe it was the early hour or the nerves finally getting to him, but Albus found it very funny for some reason, to see his father being ignored by anyone. He did not think he'd ever been out in public without having every eye focused on them, and here this woman sat, unaware that she was ignoring the savior of the world. Albus had to bite his lip to stop form bursting out laughing, especially when he remembered the little plaque by the door proclaiming something along the lines of 'we save lives'. How ironic.
But Harry was unperturbed. Any anonymity was fine by him. At least he did not have to fear an article in the Prophet about this.
"Can I help you?" the receptionist asked, finally glancing at them.
"Yes. Er, we've got an appointment with Dr. Norton," Harry told her.
The woman finally turned to look at them properly. Her gaze slid to Albus and a brief look of sympathy flashed across her face.
"Pediatrics, fifth floor," she told them, gesturing down past the counter.
Albus wondered how many dying people she watched come in and out each day.
Harry mumbled a thank-you and ushered them in the direction the woman had pointed, towards a set of sliding silver doors. Elevator, Albus though, remembering pictures his grandfather had shown him, explaining the pulley system with excitement. Granddad would probably have a field day here…
The doors sprang open with a ding. The three of them stepped inside, and Harry pressed a button with the number five on it. The tiny box began to rise and Albus couldn't help but think down the monster's throat.
They repeated the same charade on the fifth floor, but this time the receptionist handed Harry a thick stack of papers and a clip-board and told them to have a seat. The chairs seemed to be designed like prison cells, hard, cold, uncomfortable and isolating. Albus sat between his parents, his father on one side, pouring over the paperwork, mouthing words now and again as if he were trying to read a foreign language, and his mother on the other side, her hands trying to find a way to reach him around the high, wooden armrest that separated them.
It seemed like the longest wait of his life. The receptionist clacked away at her computer, nurses in luridly cheery patterned scrubs squeaked across the tiled floors in their tennis shoes, and a TV put on mute showed some Muggle cartoon. There was only one other family in the waiting area with them, sitting at the far end. Albus watched the two little girls playing at their parents' feet and wondered which one had brought them here and which one had been dragged along for the ride.
XxXxX
It was the quiet that woke Lily. Or rather, the oppressive need for quiet, which in fact amplified every sound in ringing sharpness. It pressed down on the movements of the house, a ceiling on volume that the rest must belly-crawl under like soldiers beneath barbed wire, put in place, ironically, for the sole purpose of not waking her.
Knowing that she was not supposed to be awake, Lily curled into a tight, tight ball beneath her blankets and tried to hide from the sounds, but they found her anyway. The whispers from the kitchen, the swift movements in the hall, the trickle of water in the bathroom, the opening and closing of the back door, hum of a motor, crunch of gravel, and finally, loudest of all, the sticky, yawning silence.
She tried to fall back into sleep, perhaps half-hoping to convince herself the noises had been a dream and be able to forget them all together. But the sun had climbed into her room and gotten beneath her eyelids and poked and prodded until she was wide awake, lying beneath that heavy silence, feeling it press her flat into her mattress until she would be swallowed up into the feathers for ever and ever.
With a tremendous effort, Lily fought off the press and flung back the covers, leaping into the chilly air with a rush of satisfaction, rebelling against the comfort of her cocoon. The door was another challenge, mustering up the courage to venture out of her room and into this strange, changed new world. But the knowledge that it already existed beyond her bedroom door already contaminated the bubble of normalcy that was her room in this sudden flood of unknowns. It was already straining and would pop soon and fling her into the waves. Better to go prepared.
With a great breath, Lily flung open her door and peaked into the hall. It had changed already. Although it pretended to be exactly the same as yesterday morning, she could see quite plainly its alien nature and so moved cautiously. To try to prove it wrong, Lily hopped the squeaky boards in a pattern she knew to be utterly silent, testing for a slip-up, a squeak. But the pretender was flawless and did not yield noise.
Clinging to this silence, she swept down the stairs as lightly as a shadow, imagining her white nightdress to be spiritine, making her appear like an echo.
At the kitchen doorway, Lily stopped, half-hidden behind the wall. Hermione sat at their kitchen table, sipping coffee and pretending to read the paper, though her eyes were not moving along the print. She did not notice Lily watching her with owl eyes, and Lily did not make a peep, afraid of shattering the silence. For all its weight, it seemed strangely fragile, and it occurred to Lily that perhaps the silence was merely a sheet of glass holding back the flood bearing down on them.
Lily held her breath as she waited, playing a game with herself, standing on one foot then the other, not making a sound and sure that her aunt would notice her before she cracked and toppled sideways or let loose the breath trapped inside her.
Contrary to popular belief, Lily Luna Potter could be quiet. She could be very, very quiet if she were so inclined. It was just that she had never been so inclined before the Silence.
Just as Lily imagined all the air trapped in her lungs was making her rise off the ground like a balloon, Hermione noticed her standing there and nearly spilled her coffee all down her front in surprise.
"Lily! I didn't hear you get up."
She jumped to her feet, sending the paper sliding across the table top. She was flustered, as if suddenly she found herself grasping the air for words and finding none. More proof of the changed world.
"Do you want - ? I'll make you some breakfast."
Hermione ushered Lily across the cold, slidey linoleum and into a chair, then turned and began pulling things out of cupboards, half the time putting them back. Several times she glanced over at Lily like she wished she could say something, but those words were too thin in the air today. Lily wondered if that was a symptom of Leukemia as she fidgeted beneath the heavy Silence.
XxXxX
James felt like a groggy sea creature swimming up from the dark, weed-filled beds of the ocean floor. He had not fallen asleep until the moon had disappeared into the horizon some time very early that morning and had somehow stumbled through a shower still mostly asleep. Now he stood in the doorway to the Great Hall, surrounded by the clatter of breakfast and feeling all-of-a-sudden too hot and closed-in by people.
"Hey, Potter. Where'd you disappear to yesterday?"
James started at his cousin's voice and looked around. Fred had appeared behind him, grinning and carefree as ever, and James felt his stomach turn over.
It's not his fault.
But Fred was the one who put Albus in the hospital wing. And if that hadn't happened, Al would be sitting at the Gryffindor table, trying to finish his transfiguration homework in his lap so that Rose wouldn't notice.
It's not his fault.
But Fred was the one who plastered a bruise that couldn't be healed across his little brother's face.
It's not his fault.
But in a way, it was.
And suddenly James was shoving his way past Fred, past the rest of his friends, and running across the entrance hall, bursting out onto the frosty grounds. He couldn't sit down to breakfast. He couldn't stay in the castle surrounded by people who thought today was just an ordinary day like all the rest. There was something leaping inside him like flames, and it spurred James to run as fast as he could. Like maybe he could outrun everything that was closing in on him.