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Previously in "Promises":
"You're a mother, Lex," I say. She smiles bitterly.
"You're not very observant, Harry," she says sheepishly, pointedly avoiding my gaze.
Chapter 6: Okay
"What do you mean?" I ask her. She sighs.
"Elena and Cyrus are yours," she says as quietly as she can.
I just stare at her.
"What?" I ask stupidly.
"You're the dad, Harry," she says, looking away from me.
This is the time where I'm supposed to say something smart and cutting. Something… anything that will tell exactly how shocked… and angry… and betrayed I feel all over again. But there's absolutely nothing. No words anywhere near strong enough to say what I'm actually feeling.
"What do you mean, I'm the dad?" I say, standing up.
"Keep your voice down," she says quietly, looking around at a few people who have started looking at us. "Please don't make a scene."
"Don't make a scene?" I shout. "You just told me I have two kids you never bothered to tell me about!"
I have so many other thoughts filling my head, and yet, I have nothing to say. So I walk out.
The next thing I know I'm out on the street, with Alex on my tail.
"Harry!" she yells after me. "Goddammit, Harry, stop!"
She jumps in front of me and I stop for fear of plowing her over. I'm perfectly capable of it, too, considering Alex is tiny. There are people filing around us, hustling and bustling here and there, and completely unaware of the current conflict unfolding in the middle of the walkway.
"Harry, you don't have to stay for me," she says, negotiating with me. "But they're your children! I don't need you, they do! So don't do it for me! Do it for them!"
I'm completely ready to tell her to fuck off and never contact me again. I'm ready to walk away and not care what happens when I do. I am. But… god, there's something in her eyes. Something in the way she's looking at me. Something in the way her eyes are begging me. Something that I absolutely can't say no to. Something I've never been able to say no to.
"Okay," I say quietly, unable to look her in the eye.
"Okay?" she says, half-surprised. I nod, still not looking at her. She grabs my chin and firmly turns my face so I look at her. It's one of the things I used to love about Alex, how no-nonsense she was. It's one of the things I've missed too.
"Okay?" she repeats, her eyes traveling from one of mine to the other and back again, wanting verification.
"Okay."
She lets go of my face and smiles.
"Okay," she says, setting her hands down at her sides. "So, do you want to meet them?"
"Erm," I say uncertainly, looking back at the store. "Not yet."
"Why?" she asks.
"Lex, I just found out I have two children that I know nothing about," I say, not snapping at her or yelling. "Give me a bit."
"Okay," she says slowly. "Well, how about this: you stay here, and I'll go in there and have Mora take them to the beach or the park or something. In the meantime, I'll have Alina take over for the rest of the day and I'll fill you in on everything, okay?"
I nod, and she returns it, going back into the store.
I stand out there, wondering what's going to happen. And how I'm gonna tell Emalie. Or just plain how I'm going to be a dad.
I wonder if it's wise to put so much faith in Alex. After what happened last time, should I really believe her?
I sigh to nobody but myself. I know that I've got no other choice but to trust her.
---
It turns out the twins were tired, so we had Mora take the two of them back to Alex's flat and give them a nap. So instead we decided to take a stroll in the park.
It's a beautiful day, the kind of summer day you only get here. The air is hot, but the breeze is cool and the sky is the most intense and unreal blue. The park is fairly picturesque: green, green grass with cherry trees that are suspiciously in bloom.
"They're bewitched," she explains, noticing my stares. "They're in bloom all year round, except for mid-winter. It adds a nice little flourish for the tourists."
"They're beautiful," I say.
"Yeah," she says slowly. "I guess I sort of take them for granted, since I'm so used to them. I'd probably appreciate them more if I had never seen them, like you."
"We are talking about the trees, right?" I ask her. She shoots me her trademark look, like, "Drop it." I smirk and oblige.
"Now," she says, donning a business-like tone. "What do you want to know?"
"Well, let's start off from the beginning," I say, thinking that would be a logical place to start. "Pregnancy, birth and such."
"Ah," she says, nodding. "Well then this is gonna take a while." She mysteriously pulls her wand out of her bra, and while I'm contemplating how on earth a wand could physically fit into a bra, she conjures up a blanket on which to sit on the grass.
"Sit," she says, taking a seat herself.
I lower myself onto the blanket, sitting with my legs crossed, like Alex. I look at Alex expectantly, but she's still looking to her right at the playground, watching the children run and play. Her eyes are squinted slightly, with her head cocked to the side, and I don't bother rushing her because I know her well enough to recognize her pre-story "gathering-of-thoughts" face.
I'm still just now recognizing some of the changes in her. She's filled out, no longer that rail-thin beanpole of a girl I knew five years ago, and her eyes are different, sadder. But she's still beautiful, that's for sure. The breeze is catching her bangs, causing them to flutter across her face. And her features are still impeccably proportioned: her wide eyes are positioned exactly the right distance apart, with a moderately shaped forehead, neither too tall nor so small that they might as well not be there at all, lips full and naturally the gentlest shade of pink, cheekbones that are neither sharp and jutting out nor non-existent, eyebrows that aren't thin or bushy and are arched in such a way that is irresistibly tantalizing, and a straight nose that, though it protruded from her face no more than would a normal one, is long and feminine at the same time. She's the kind of woman you saw on the cover of a magazine, so stunningly and hypnotically beautiful that you can scarcely imagine she's real. Every feature flowed so seamlessly into the next, perfectly arranging themselves into the exquisite result.
It's hard to believe, as I sit here waiting for Alex to gather her thoughts, that Alex and Emalie can both be so beautiful but at the same time so different. Emalie has the look of an angel, with her hair a light blonde wave, her eyes a pale blue-green that seem alight with a childlike and innocent, yet kind curiosity, her fair, rosy-cheeked complexion and her nose neither straight or hooked, reminding me reminiscently of a muggle ski-slope.
Here's the thing about Alex and Emalie:
Alex is the sultry and exotic, and irresistibly sexy; the kind of woman where you'd have to be blind or gay not to do a double-take. She's the girl you picture traveling the world with, sailing over calm, azure oceans, and getting lost in a romantic old city. You can picture snuggling with her in a hammock on a deserted beach, or letting a whole day pass without leaving bed for anything except food.
Emalie is angelic and innocent; the picture of everything that's right with the world. She's the girl you picture walking down the aisle with, the one you can see yourself having kids with, picking out wallpaper with, opening presents with her and the little ones on Christmas, and growing old with. You can picture yourself sitting on the porch with her, swaying in a seated swing and snuggling under a blanket as the kids run around in the front yard as the sun sets in the background, caught up in a moment of simplistic serenity.
To truly understand it the difference between the two, I have to explain it the way Emalie explained it to me (yes, Emalie is amazing enough to be secure in our relationship to allow us to talk about our exes. Well, my exes anyway. I'm not exactly amazing enough.). Emalie's favorite novel, Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights—it might just be the only similarity between Emalie and Alex, their mutual love of muggle literature over wizarding literature—has these two characters who are polar opposites. The whole difference can be summed up in the quote:
"He said the pleasantest manner of spending a hot July day was lying from morning till evening on a bank of heath in the middle of the moors, with the bees humming dreamily about among the bloom, and the larks singing high up overhead, and the blue sky and bright sun shining steadily and cloudlessly. … Mine was rocking in a rustling green tree, with a west wind blowing, and bright white clouds flitting rapidly above; and not only larks, but throstles, and blackbirds, and linnets, and cuckoos pouring out music on every side…and woods sounding water, and the whole world awake and wild with joy. He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee."
That's the difference. Emalie makes the world lie in an ecstasy of peace, and Alex makes everything sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. Alex lights the world on fire, and Emalie makes the whole world stop.
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