JAMES S. POTTER
…and the Daddy of Light
"When you're young, you think your dad is Superman. Then you grow up, and you realize he's just a regular guy who wears a cape."
—Dave Attell
Two snippets from James Sirius Potter's diary featuring him and Harry playing a video game together for some father-son bonding moments. Continuation of the previous chapter, "James S. Potter and the Birthday Surprise".
31st July, 2019
Dad's Birthday
How many ordinary people are there in this world, Muggle and wizarding alike, whose birthday is a national holiday? My dad, the oh-so-famous Harry Potter—A.K.A the Hero Who Vanquished the Dark Lord, now the Head Auror at the Ministry of Magic—is one of them. 'Twas Harry Potter Day today, and my family wasted no time decking out the house in red and green decorations. Mum kept screaming at me to stop messing with the banners. (I wanted to tweak the 'r' in Dad's name into an 'i', so that it would spell 'Hairy Potter' instead.)
Being all alone in my bedroom was pretty boring; none of the adults would trust me to help them out with the party preparations after Albus the Little Tyke told Mum that I had spiked the fruit punch with Puking Pastilles. I tried to amuse myself with the stash of Muggle entertainment products that I had bought during my Japan trip. I was halfway through a video game when Lily knocked on my door, informing me that Dad would be coming home at any moment. I picked up the nicely wrapped box on my bed and went down to the living room.
After a throaty birthday song (Albus and Lily weren't even singing; they were practically screaming themselves hoarse), Dad blew the candles and cut up the cakes for everyone. My relatives from Mum's side of the family all came, and there was barely enough space for anybody to move around in the house. Although Dad was smiling at the decorations around the room, his face fell when his eyes paused on Aunt Hermione (A.K.A. the current Minister of Magic). Even a supposed kid like me could tell that it was probably something work-related, and I was reminded again that being an adult was sometimes a pain.
Of course, a birthday party wasn't complete without the presents. We were ushered into a long queue—according to our age—to pass our gifts to Dad one by one, starting with Grandma Molly. By the time it was my turn (well, I have more cousins than fingers on my hands), an hour had already passed on the cuckoo clock in the living room.
Dad seemed tired; I could see dark circles around his eyes, which were comically accentuated by the round glasses he was wearing. I glanced at the colourful pyramid of presents behind his armchair, then looked down at the box in my arms.
"Something you've got for me from your Japan trip? I'm glad that you've enjoyed yourself there."
I nodded. I happened to come across a newly released video game, Kingdom Barts III, when my penpal, Miyu, brought me to shop around Akihabara before I flew back home from Tokyo. It was my favourite game series ever since I had begged my parents to buy the first edition from a shopping centre in the neighbouring Muggle town. (That was on my ninth birthday… so about five years ago.)
Anyway, I dropped the gift box into his open hands; I didn't even give Dad a chance to say another word before I ran straight up to my own room. I didn't want Albus to laugh at my blushing face—he had been breathing down my neck the whole time while we were queuing for our turn just now.
4th August, 2019
Rainy
Mum cancelled the family Quidditch match due to the bad weather, so there wasn't much I could do at home except to shut myself in the room and play more video games. Then, someone knocked on my door when I had just beaten the final boss; I turned off my computer screen the moment I heard Dad's voice.
"James? I need a little help here."
I pulled open the door slowly, making a crack small enough to peek through with one eye at the awkward figure outside. I raised an eyebrow at the game controller in Dad's hand, then glanced up at the sheepish look on his face. "Uh… did you break it or something?"
"No, I didn't." Dad shook his head, then raised a hand to scratch the back of his neck. "It's just… the game you gave me as a present a few days ago. I don't know how to play it."
I pulled open the door wider, staring at Dad in disbelief. "Hang on, I thought you had PlayStation One in your generation. Don't tell me you've never played a single video game before?"
"Well… the home console belonged to my cousin, Dudley. I couldn't even touch it, much less play anything on it. Then Dudley chucked it out of the window during the summer holidays before my fifth year."
It was weird to see Dad, the dashingly famous Harry Potter, looking absolutely nothing like the photogenic headshots on the Daily Prophet's front page. (By the way, Mum bloody hates Rita Skeeter. She would complain about how she'd hex that old hag the next time Rita spread dirty rumours about Dad.) Right now, he was a man in his forties with grey specks colouring his dark hair, and his rough, weather-beaten face filled with wrinkles and scars.
Not to mention, he was dressed in dishevelled pyjamas while holding the game controller the wrong way.
I swallowed down the urge to burst out laughing at the ridiculousness before me, but I couldn't stop the corner of my lips pulling back into a wide grin.
"I know. Even that Skeeter cow knows about your private life before Hogwarts, and it's all over the papers." I closed the door behind my back. "I'll help you set up the game in the living room."
I had to reinstall the game because Dad accidentally overwrote the data of another game, causing both game files in the system to be corrupted. (My condolences to Albus, especially when he was boasting about his perfect score to me two days ago.) I sat down on the carpeted floor with Dad before the tea table so that we were closer to the television screen, and I tried to show him how to hold and use the controller. Dad merely nodded as I talked with an expression of awe on his face, like a five-year-old who had discovered something new and interesting.
Dad's first attempt at the game's tutorial was hilariously terrible. You wouldn't believe that my father, the Head Auror at the Ministry of Magic and the hero who had emerged victorious in the wizarding war against Big Bad Voldemort, couldn't put his real-life skills and experiences into a video game with a similar premise to his own life. It took Dad five tries (not counting a demo run I did to show him the button combinations) to clear the tutorial stage and begin the first chapter of the game story properly.
We lost track of the time as we passed the controller back and forth while progressing the plot in Kingdom Barts III. Laughing at the funny moments, yelping when we were almost dying from a mini-boss fight. Dad even shed a tear at the climactic scene where the main character, Saxor, realized that he was destined to die because he wasn't supposed to exist—he was only a shadow created in the image of another character, who was in a long slumber somewhere deep in the dark, labyrinthine castle. It wasn't until Mum yelled at us about dinner that we finally noticed the time.
Albus got into a heated argument with Dad when we told him that his game data had been accidentally deleted because of Dad's blunder, though by the end of dinnertime he had reluctantly forgiven Dad on the condition that he would join us for the family Quidditch game next week at the Burrow.
"Will you teach me how to play video games again?"
My only answer to Dad's rueful whisper was a winning smile that could put the Joker from the Batman franchise a run for his money.
Author's Notes:
* Title and story idea are loosely inspired by the Japanese drama series, "Final Fantasy XIV: Daddy of Light".
* "Kingdom Barts III" is a pun on the Japanese action role-playing game, "Kingdom Hearts III", developed by Disney and Square Enix.
* On the same note, "Bart" is a shortened form of Baronet, a British title used by those in the lowest hereditary order (equal status as a commoner), but they are able to use the prefix 'Sir'.
* The game character, Saxor, is a pun on the name "Roxas" when spelled backward. Roxas is an actual character in the Kingdom Hearts franchise.
* In canon, Dudley did chuck his PlayStation out of the window in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" when he was throwing a tantrum about the diet regime his school nurse had forced upon him, which emptied his eating habits of all the junk food he enjoyed.
Forum: The Houses Competition
Year/Round: Year 4, Round 5
House/Position: Ravenclaw, Year 5 (stand-in)
Category: Standard
Prompt: [Action] Playing a video game for the first time
Rating: K+
Word Count: 1322 (G-Doc, story only; excluding title/sub-titles, A/N, summary/quote)
Betas: Viola, Holly, Newt, Elaine
