Thank you for the reviews, they were, as always, very appreciated :D

This chapter was inspired from the scene in PoA film, the one with Harry and Lupin on the bridge, and I've stolen a couple of lines from it. I like to think a similar scene could have happened in the books.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The Smallest Details

I felt bad for being so short with Harry when he had mentioned Sirius and James. After all, it was only natural for him to be curious, and he couldn't possibly know how much the mere mention of any of my old friends affected me. Even so, I was relieved that the subject of Sirius did not come up again during our next lesson. In the third, however, after his final successful attempt at keeping the boggart-dementor at bay, he said quietly, "I didn't hear her that time."

I nodded, looking at him with understanding, but could think of nothing to say. His face was set with determination, but unless I was very much mistaken I had detected the tiniest hint of regret in his tone as he'd said it, and wondered if a small part of him had relished hearing Lily's last words echo in his mind. As morbid as it seemed, I could just about understand the fascination behind that sentiment, the desire to hear the voices of the parents he had never known, the voices he could not otherwise remember and never would hear again.

"Professor, were you friends with my Mum as well?" Harry asked suddenly, as I began searching in my bag for yet another bar of chocolate to give him so that Madame Pomfrey didn't come after me and berate me for damaging her students' health. I turned back to face him, initially very surprised at the question, for how could I have been friends with James and not been friends with Lily, when their Hogwarts lives had been so completely intertwined? But then there was no reason why Harry would know how and when they had got together, of course, and I immediately felt guilty for my presumption, hoping that my astonishment had not shown on my face.

"Yes," I said simply. "I knew her well. She was in Gryffindor with myself and James."

Harry merely nodded.

"You didn't know that?" I asked gently, suddenly intrigued as to how much Harry did know about his parents, particularly their time at Hogwarts.

Harry shrugged. "I knew they were both in Gryffindor," he said. "Hagrid told me they were Head Boy and Girl and then Hermione found their names on an old record a while back, so I knew they were in the same year..." he trailed off and a wave of sadness flooded over me. So that was all that remained of their time at Hogwarts. Two inked names among hundreds of others on a faded piece of parchment. No reminder of their deeds, their strengths, their weaknesses, their personal journeys through the school. No memory of the warmth and laughter they had shared with their friends, with each other.

"People often think I know more about them than I actually do," Harry said, and I felt another stab of guilt, because of course that was precisely what I had just done, assumed that the memories that were so ingrained in my own mind were shared by their son. But how could they possibly be, when there was hardly anyone still around who had known them during their school days, and fewer still who would have had contact with Harry himself?

"All I really know is that my Dad played quidditch at Hogwarts too." Harry gave a small laugh but he sounded rueful, and was eyeing me with a slightly hopeful expression in his eyes. Suddenly I knew where this conversation was headed, understood that Harry had realised, after our first conversation about James, that he may have found a link to his parents in me, and was wondering if I could tell him something more.

I was aware that this would be by far the most personal conversation we had ever had, that we were now venturing into uncharted territory, our relationship bordering for the first time on something more than that of student and teacher, and I hesitated. Was it wise to breach that particular boundary at this point in time? Perhaps not, but then hadn't that been one of my reasons for wanting to get to know Harry in the first place, so I could tell him about the parents he had loved so briefly and then lost forever? And he looked so hopeful, so hungry for information. How could I refuse him what so few others had the ability to give him?

"Yes indeed, he was a chaser," I replied with a smile. "An extremely talented one at that. We won the cup five out of the six seasons he played for Gryffindor. And James would tell you it certainly wasn't his fault that we didn't win all six! He was fairly confident in his quidditch ability! Well, in his ability for pretty much everything actually," I added, smiling warmly as the memory of his assertiveness came into my mind. "Including his talent for trouble! And I understand that is a trait you have inherited too."

Harry grinned back, looking a lot more cheerful than he had at the end of any of our patronus lessons so far.

"And my Mum?" I couldn't help but notice the eagerness behind his would-be casual tone.

"Well, your mum was generally the well-behaved one," I said slowly, thinking fondly of Lily as well. "Extremely conscientious. Kind. Sensible. Studious. Not unlike Hermione as it happens, although she landed herself in the odd detention as well over the years. Generally when she got caught sneaking down to the kitchens to steal food. She had a severe weakness for treacle tart!"

A strange expression flitted over Harry's face, but he didn't say anything, and I pressed on.

"She wasn't a bad flyer herself actually. James used to pester her about training more and trying out for the Gryffindor team, but she preferred to stick to the Charms club."

"Mr. Ollivander told me her wand was good for Charms," Harry broke in abruptly. "When Hagrid took me to Diagon Alley."

"Yes, well Charms was definitely her best subject," I acknowledged. "Closely followed by Potions, believe it or not!" I grinned as Harry looked vaguely incredulous. "Well, I was never much of a potion brewer either, like I told you before," I chuckled. "But your Mother was, and she was a very helpful companion to have in Potions class, I can assure you. She excelled at most subjects actually, although she struggled with Transfiguration and she absolutely detested Astronomy. Said she could never see the point of studying something that was millions of miles away when there was so much happening on Earth."

I swallowed, suddenly losing myself in the memories. I remembered that being one of the first things Lily had ever said to me, in her matter-of-fact way, as we sat side by side preparing our telescopes for our first midnight lesson up in the Astronomy tower. "Stupid, pointless subject," had been her frequent refrain, and she had not been in the least bit bothered when she had received a Dreadful in her Astronomy OWL, despite Sirius and James' fairly frequently taunts about it. They themselves had not received less than Exceeds Expectations in any of their exams.

"What else?" Harry persisted quietly. I paused. I knew that this was a rare chance to talk to him about Lily and James, one that might not present itself again for a long while, but suddenly, ridiculously, I had absolutely no idea what else to say. After all that time spent with them, and all that time thinking about what I could tell Harry should the opportunity ever arise, now all that was coming to mind were the most stupid and unimportant of facts about them. Nothing meaningful or significant, aside from their kindness and acceptance regarding my condition, which I obviously couldn't reveal to Harry, and the many ups and downs of their own relationship, which I felt were both a little too personal and too complicated to go into. So I continued with the random pieces of information that kept popping into my head, hoping that he wouldn't begrudge me for their triviality.

"She had an owl called Aurora, named after a character from her favourite film as a child I think. She also had a strange fascination for frogs, kept a load of them in a tank in her dormitory. James let them all escape once and she was not happy!"

Harry laughed, and I felt heartened, hoping that maybe the information wasn't so useless after all.

"It took her a while to forgive him for that, and I think he learned his lesson! Your mother had a bit of a temper." I smiled. "It didn't often show but you did not want to be around when it did. Our divination teacher used to tell her it was the red hair."

Harry's eyes - Lily's eyes - never left my face as I blurted out several more disjointed facts about her. About James. About them both. They weren't the deep, meaningful words that I had always imagined I would one day say to Harry. I wasn't going into great lengths about his parents' courage, their strength of character, their love for their only son, but as I persevered, I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps the information I was relaying was even more valuable to him, because it was proof of the intricacies of their personalities, their likes and dislikes, their habits and idiosyncrasies, all the smallest details which had been almost completely eclipsed by their famously tragic and heroic death in Godric's Hollow.

"She was an early riser, always getting up to go to the library and read before breakfast. You'd often find her asleep on the sofa in the common room by ten o'clock in the evening though. James was the opposite, could sleep all day and spend all night causing trouble. That particular difference came in useful when you were a baby!"

I gave him another smile, which he returned hesitantly. There was a wistful look in his eyes, but he was also looking curious, and I suddenly wished I hadn't brought up the subject of him as a baby, reluctant to reveal how much time I myself had spent with him during that first year of his life, because I knew that may lead to awkward questions about their home, where they had lived, how Voldemort had managed to find them, and I certainly didn't want to have to mention Sirius myself. I hastily took the conversation in a different direction.

"Now, of course, you look extraordinarily like James, but you've inherited something else from Lily."

"Her eyes?" Harry suggested dutifully, and I didn't miss the resigned tone of voice as he said it. Evidently he had heard that one a few too many times.

"Well, yes," I conceded with a laugh. "But that's not what I was going to say."

"Oh," Harry said, seeming both surprised and pleased. "Good. I get a bit fed up with hearing that to be honest."

"I expect you do, although you should know that people only say it out of the fondest of memories and greatest respect for your Mother," I said sincerely. "But you have inherited more than her eyes, Harry. You have something of her way of seeing the world through them, a similar way of perceiving and understanding." Harry looked a little confused.

"What do you mean?" he asked at once. I hesitated yet again. There wasn't really a good way to put into words how much of Lily I saw in Harry, and how in my opinion, aside from his quidditch talent and unquestionable disregard for the rules, he wasn't really like James at all. Certainly not how James had been in his third year at school, at any rate. I thought back to my time spent with my friend, recalled his brash, sometimes unkind behaviour towards other students, his confident assertiveness that he could do anything and everything, the arrogance that had expertly concealed his good heart and caring personality for many a year.

No, much as I had loved my oldest and best friend, Harry was very different to him. But there was no easy way to clarify why, not without putting James in unfavourable light. No good way to explain to Harry that James, adored and spoiled every day of his childhood by his doting parents, had considered himself one of the most important people in the school, and had wasted no opportunity to try and prove it, whereas it was clear that Harry just wanted to get away from the attention that he received wherever he went. That James' worst fear at thirteen years old had been no more complex than losing the Quidditch cup to Slytherin, and that even then he would have claimed he wasn't scared of anything at all. That if Colin Creevey had followed James down the corridor, chattering in his ear without so much as taking a breath, as I had seen him doing with Harry only the week before, James would have probably hexed him in irritation, rather than listen patiently until he could tactfully shake him off. I knew instinctively, even though I had spent considerably less time with Harry than I had with either of his parents, that if he were to witness some of the more confrontational scenes that we had all been involved in during our years at Hogwarts, he would be far more likely to share Lily's principled disapproval than he would James' gleeful triumph.

James had grown out of such behaviour, of course, and he had had no end of decent qualities, but I was still very unwilling to talk to Harry about the more negative traits his father had possessed as an adolescent, and so I chose the easy way out, the vague but hopefully complimentary remark that Harry could chose to interpret as he liked. "I just mean that you are much more like your mother than people would think when they first look at you, Harry," I finished quietly. "In time, you will come to see just how much."

There was a pause, an almost embarrassed one in which I sensed the dynamic of our relationship shifting again, and I decided it was time to return the subject of the patronus lessons. A barrier had been temporarily broken, but I was still his teacher, he was still my student, and I knew that we were not about to strike up the informal, familiar relationship that, during the first year of his life, I had automatically assumed we would have as he grew up. One day, perhaps, we might, but it was not going to happen now.

"You did extremely well today," I said. "We'll try and do another lesson before your quidditch match. Next Tuesday?"

Harry nodded, his mouth set in a grim line, and I suppressed a smile. He may lack James' arrogance, but he had no shortage of either his or Lily's fierce determination, and I could only hope that he wasn't too hard on himself if he didn't manage to produce a corporeal patronus in the following lesson.

"Thank you, Professor," Harry said, as he left the room, and I found that I was still smiling as I packed up, knowing that the thanks referred to far more than the bar of chocolate that I had presented to him just moments before.

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