Look How They Shine for You
The stars were a bright yellow. Harry could see them from where he sat in his flat. Inside his flat was dark. The floors were dirty. Mice scurried behind the broken radiator that gave no heat to the freezing cold room. The refrigerator had rusty handle. The shower head was broken and the bath tap gave no hot water. The bed sagged. But Harry didn't mind all of that because in the middle of the room there was a huge window. Grimy from years of exposure to the London smog, but he could see outside if he opened it wide. So every night before he surrendered to a restless sleep full of bad memories coming back to haunt him, he opened the window. He sat on the floor in his old coat, the cruel, icy December wind on his face, and looked at the stars. And he remembered someone who he will never see again.
A muggle radio was playing in a car outside, a beat up blue Chevy Nova, where a mother had stopped to get some McDonalds' for her three children, who were lying in the car, awake because they were too hungry to sleep. An old lady with no family and no one who cared for her walked by the window, bent over and clutching a bottle of Advil in her arthritic, twisted hand. It was late now, and the apartment building except for the crying of the lonely woman next door whose husband had died in the hospital when she could no longer afford to pay for his medicine, and the moans of the children upstairs, who were beat by their father. It was to this world that Harry now belonged; the world of the lonely.
A snatch of the radio song reached his ears, gray from the soot and dirt he no longer cared enough to wash away. Just skin, Oh you are skin and bones, turned in to something beautiful! For you I'd bleed myself dry. Harry shivered. He was skin and bones. He had bled himself dry for someone who had been taken away from him. And he was no longer something beautiful. Look at the stars, persisted the radio, Look how they shine for you… He hauled his aching body off the floor, walked over to the window, and shut out the world with a bang of the closing window. He could no longer see the stars. He headed over to the bed and resigned himself to painful dreams of her. Of a time when someone had thought he was beautiful. Of a time when the stars had shone for him. His hacking cough settled into a rhythmic, rattling breathing which would fill the flat until six o'clock when screaming noise of his neighbors would disturb his dreams, and his conscience would drive him into the streets in search of a job so he could pay the rent and maybe eat a meal at the McDonalds with the others whom the world had treated unkindly.
Ginny couldn't sleep. Tomorrow night was Christmas Eve and her son had his heart set on getting a puppy. Which was not going to happen. Ginny had no money to buy a puppy. She had no money to feed a puppy. She had no space in her flat to keep a puppy. She had to fight tooth and nail to keep the flat in the first place, working six days a week as a secretary in the Misuse of Magic office at the Ministry of Magic, she came home exhausted every day and often had to pay the rent late when she gave away money to friends and family who didn't deserve it. Ginny went into the kitchen and turned on the light. She made herself a cup of cocoa and sat at the small kitchen table sipping quietly, listening to the sound of her son's breathing. James was in second grade now, at a muggle public school. Of course, wizards didn't have to attend any school before Hogwarts, but what else was she supposed to do with him all day while she was at work? She didn't like the idea of leaving him on his own in Diagon Alley all day. Diagon Alley would never be the same afterwards. A smile played at her lips as she thought of this. James, like his father, had a certain disregard for rules. But am I to blame if your son is a delinquent? she thought. And if he was left to his own devices in the flat (which was located above Eyelop's Owl Emporium) they would be thrown out for sure. Ginny shuddered at the idea. She had worked so hard for this place and they had nowhere else to go. After the death of her parents when James was five, she had felt like a burden staying in one or another of her brothers' houses and didn't want to intrude on their lives. The image of the Dark Mark hovering over the Burrow as it was engulfed with flames still haunted her dreams and she didn't want to be reminded of it. Specifically she never wanted to see anyone with red hair and freckles again. Ever. It made her feel guilty thinking she was not there to save Arthur and Molly and Charlie that fateful night when Voldemort came to call. She rented the cheapest flat she could find in Wizard London, and was all ready to start a new life. Her heart fell when she opened the door. The place was a mess. The floor was dirty and uneven. The window was filthy with soot and smog. The paint was stained and peeling. The door hinges were rusty as were all of the kitchen appliances. The bath and shower head looked as though they could infect her with some rare disease. The walls were thin and she could hear the neighbors, as they could hear her. There was no privacy. The naked light bulb in the center of the room flickered and went out, along with her hopes. But it only took a few minutes to find them again. She sent James out to play with the other children in the back streets of Diagon Alley, dirty faces with worn clothing playing with a maypole that was probably infested with lice and contaminated with every childhood disease imaginable. It pained her to think that James thought himself as one of them. So Ginny set about proving that they weren't that low yet, dirty and louse ridden and living on what little money some good-for-nothing husband hadn't yet drunk away. Ginny had done away with the good-for-nothing man in her life. She went out and bought paint, clean sheets, a bucket, a mop, a package of steel wool sponges, and an industrial sized jar of Mrs. Scour's All Purpose Magical Mess remover. She scrubbed the rust from the hinges and kitchen appliances and shined them with a charm Hermione had taught her years before. She mopped and scrubbed and replaced light bulbs and changed sheets and made everything fully functional and sparking clean through a combination of spells and manual labor. The last thing she set to were the walls. She scraped of the old paint with another spell and began to paint. Even strokes painted all of her pain onto the walls. It wasn't until she was finished and stood back to admire her word that she realized what color she had painted the walls. Suddenly she was surrounded by green, the same brilliant green of his eyes. Then she cried.
Now, sitting in her kitchen three years later, the tears fell again. Christmas time always reminded her of him. How he had left her for years in pursuit of Voldemort, tore her heart out and left it out in the cold, bleeding, for all to see. And how he had come home on Christmas eve, half dead and only a shadow of the man he had been, and she had chased him out, not knowing where he had been, not knowing that he was fighting for her the whole time, not knowing that he would never come back and she would never see him again.
Harry woke up the next morning with the irrepressible feeling that he was forgetting something. He got up, splashed some tap water on his face, and went outside into the cold to look for a job. It was snowing out. The city was blanketed in white that was quickly turning to gray. There were several laughing children having a snowball fight in the empty street. All cars were covered in snow, so it didn't look like anyone would run them over. And Harry doubted he'd be able to use the bus on a day like this. It was only then that he realized what he was forgetting. Tonight is Christmas Eve! he thought. Although Harry's life had turned into a depressing nightmare, he still retained a child-like Christmas spirit that put him in a good mood every year. Happy memories of Hogwarts, friends, and the uplifting story of the birth of Christ managed to break through his depression every Christmas and put him in high spirits for a few hours. He always resolved on Christmas to turn his sorry life around, but the vow was broken annually when Christmas spirits were trampled by the realization that he could never return to Hogwarts, many of his friends were dead, and those who weren't were too disappointed in him to ever want him back. And yet the Christmas magic had taken hold of him once again. He dashed back into his flat and began frantically searching for something in the dark closet. His efforts were rewarded when his hand closed around a thin, cool, dust-covered object on the closet floor. His wand. He sat smiling at it for a moment before he set to work. He set cleaning spells on the flat, which couldn't completely rid it of the years of neglect, but made it slightly prettier at least. He repaired everything in sight, getting a wonderful feeling every time he gave new life to an object.
"The chair, the bed, the shower head," he chanted as he repaired each thing. Then he paused. "Hey, that rhymes!" He let out a boyish laugh and continued on his crusade against the filth in which he lived. When the place was clean and in good repair, he conjured fairies and holly and little gold bells to make it look like Christmas. The last improvement Harry made was on himself. He stripped down and stepped into the newly repaired shower and turned on the water. A shock of cold rendered him speechless as the hot water still wasn't working, but it was just as well. The cold water seemed to bring him energy and served as a rude awakening from his depression. When he stepped out he shivered for a minute before performing a drying spell. Then, teeth still chattering, he set to work cleaning and repairing his clothes by magic. After he dressed he attempted to comb his hair with his fingers, but gave up eventually and once more left the apartment. He strolled out of the squalor of his neighborhood, drunk on Christmas.
Ginny got home from work at six thirty and was immediately attacked by her son. James was full of energy. His Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione had taken James for a rare visit at their house and taken him out every day for three days. Ginny was now stuck with a loud boisterous second grade boy full of butterbeeer and candy canes whose mind had been taken over by all of the stories Ron and Hermione had told him. She'd be lucky to get thirty seconds of rest. She smiled at James.
"It's Christmas Eve," he sang. "Uncle Ron told me all the bad things you did when you were at school. And he took me to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and taught me all of Uncle Fred and George's old pranks and showed me how to ride a broomstick and I got to ride a carousel and we set of fireworks in his backyard and I got to travel home by Floo Powder…"
Ginny went into the kitchen, and began to pull together some sort of a Christmas dinner, aided by Witch Weekly. She spent a very frantic but happy hour listening to James tell her all about his weekend with Ron and Hermione as he completely covered the flat with Christmas decorations, hanging a sprig of mistletoe just next to the coat closet. Ginny smiled. He was probably hoping to get a kiss from Adelaide Milgavie, a friend of his. She and her twin brother lived across the hall from them and traditionally came over to Ginny and James's flat on Christmas Day for lunch. After they had eaten their Christmas dinner Ginny insisted that they go to church. James was in far too good a mood to put up much of a fight and they left the warmth of the flat into the ice-cold snow covered Diagon Alley.
It was late at night now. Harry had spent all day wondering around London, looking in windows until he had finally made his way to the Leaky Cauldron, where he concealed his scar beneath a hood and ordered a drink before entering Diagon Alley. He had had a snowball fight with several boys, spent the better part of an hour hunting around Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and entered just about every shop to look around. He made his way toward church now, snow gently falling around the church spire as children in coats and mittens entered through the heavy doors. Harry felt as though he were walking into a Christmas card. He entered quietly and stood in the back, half listening to the service and half watching the impatient children squirm in their seats, anxious to get home and maybe catch Santa coming down the chimney this year. His favorite was one particularly squirmy one with black, messy hair who kept leaning out into the aisle to whisper to a blond girl and boy who appeared to be twins and seemed to be friends of his. For the thousandth time that night it seemed, his mother pulled him back into the pew and Harry suppressed a laugh as he saw the expression on her face, turned back to look at the priest and did a perfect double take. The woman had gorgeous long, red hair and was wearing a long coat. He waited for her to turn so he could see her face again. His patience was rewarded when the woman yanked her son into the pew once more and began to whisper fervently to him, probably lecturing him on appropriate behavior. Harry was almost knocked out by the onslaught of emotions and memories that that face awoke; they hit him with ten times the force of a tsunami crashing into a solid rock cliff. It was her. He spent the rest of the service staring at her. She's just as beautiful as ever, he thought, but she looks so much sadder. The world has not treated her kindly. He studied the way her long red hair looked like a mix of gold and strawberries in the dim lighting of the church. When she turned he could catch a glimpse of her bright blue eyes and the reflection of the candles in them. Her face was thin and delicate, with very defined features. The splash of freckles across her nose and cheeks had begun to fade. One of her perfect hands was clasped around a pair of brown gloves, the other firmly holding her son's shoulder. As his eyes ran along her body, remembering more every second, he became distracted by the little boy. Was it a coincidence that his hair was just like Harry's? That his face was the exact same shape? That he had the same funny grin? It can't be, she would have told me, he assured himself, No matter how angry with me she was she would have told me if I had a son. He watched as once more Ginny had to yank the boy into the pew once more. Wouldn't she? He waited until the service was over, and then began to look for Ginny and the boy in the throng of churchgoers. He had to ask her, just to be sure. But the crowd began to thin and Ginny wasn't there. He had let her slip by him once again. He had lost a chance in a million.
[A/N: I want to end it here, but Katie would murder me. So if you want it to be a good story stop reading now. If you want some Christmas fluff read on.]
Ginny's Christmas spirit had been somewhat dampened by James's despicable behavior during mass. He had now run off with the Milgavie twins and they were chasing each other around the street and throwing snowballs. Ginny hurried to catch up with them. She accidentally bumped into a man in a long black coat.
"Excuse me!" she said. "I'm so sorry!" She backed away from the man and accidentally tripped on someone's foot and fell towards the church gate behind her. The man in the long black coat quickly moved forward and caught her by the wrists, pulling her upright. She looked up to thank him and almost drowned in a pair of brilliant emerald green eyes. [A/N: Is this making anyone else sick?] They were so painfully familiar.
"Harry?" she said incredulously.
"Hello Ginny," he said stiffly. There was an awkward pause in which Ginny became very aware the fact that she was barely inches away from him and his cold, thin hands were still clasped around her wrists. She quickly stepped back and began to walk away, when she heard him call after her.
"Do I have a son, by any chance?" She froze; a feeling of guilt began to spread from her fingertips until it had consumed her, turning her cheeks and the tips of her ears brilliant pink. She slowly turned to look at him and followed his gaze to where James was playing in the street with the Milgavie twins. They had now been joined by several other children and were having quite a snowball war. She trudged back to Harry, her boots crunching in the snow.
She stood beside him for a few minutes, just watching the little boy she had been too selfish to share with Harry, before she said, "His name is James." She saw his eyes glint with a mixture of anger, sorrow, and longing.
He finally spoke, his voice quivering and breaking, "Do you mean to tell me I have had a son, for what? Seven years? And you didn't even tell me?"
"I'm sorry," she said. She was, really, but there was no way he could know that.
"Damn it, Ginny!" he said, raising his voice, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?"
"I'm sorry."
"I have a son, and I missed everything."
"I'm sorry."
"YOU KEPT HIM ALL TO YOURSELF AND LEFT ME WITH NOTHING?"
"I'M SORRY!"
"CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, GINNY, I HAVE FEELINGS, TOO! I'M NOT AN ANIMAL!"
"I JUST SAID I'M SORRY! WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME?"
He was silent for a moment. A bitter, tense silence. Then he said, "Well I'm sorry, too, Ginny, but an apology just isn't going to cut it this time." He started to walk away from her, eyes glinting.
"Where are you going?" she called after him.
"To get my son." His voice was full of hate.
"You can't just walk up to him like that! He doesn't even know you!"
"And whose fault is that?"
Each one of his bitter words stabbed her in the heart. She had dreamed of meeting him again, but always in her mind he had been forgiving, the dream had always ended in a kiss before she awoke and was all alone. But all her dreams were being squashed at the moment.
"Well you know it seemed like the right thing at the time, keeping James away from you." Harry stopped. She could see his own guilt rising in him. "If you want to meet him you can come to my flat and I'll introduce you properly." Ginny called to her son and the three began a very tense walk home, with Ginny giving very abbreviated answers to all of James's millions of questions, James staring at Harry and Harry silently glaring and fuming.
Harry could not remember ever being so angry. His insides felt on fire as he walked towards Ginny's flat. Ginny had taken away from him what would have been the best years of his life. He had been cold, lonely, depressed, hungry and very, very alone while she had their beautiful son all to herself. He was walking close to his mother now, asking questions and looking at her expecting satisfactory answers but getting only bits and pieces of the story he wanted. He kept glancing at Harry, amazed that Fates had actually brought him the one Christmas present he'd always wanted and never gotten. The pain in the pit of Harry's stomach was growing at an alarming rate. His only son and he'd missed everything. Birthdays, first word, first steps, school Parents Days, playing football in the park, snowball fights, the list went on. But is what Ginny did to you so much worse than what you did to her? a voice in his head demanded. He began to remember things he'd rather forget. The last weeks of their relationship had been filled with lies, rows, a bit of flying furniture as Ginny demonstrated her command of the banishing charm with Harry as the target, and in general, Harry being an asshole. He had eventually walked out on her leaving her lonely and heartbroken and, as he had just learned, young, unmarried, and pregnant with the son of a man she wanted nothing more to do with. And you still love her, continued the voice, This is the girl of your dreams, is this how you want to end it all? With a blazing row and perhaps joint custody of a boy you don't even know? That wasn't how he wanted to end it. He watched her as she unlocked the door to her flat, and saw how beautiful she still looked, the tracks of an angry tear glistening on her face.
"Let me take your coat," she said with forced manners. He handed her the cloak and followed her to the coat closet, trying to think up ways to end their row. He glanced about the room, briefly noting that it was painted brilliant green before spotting the sprig of mistletoe hanging directly above their heads.
"Ginny." She looked at him, her eyes flashing still, and he pointed at the mistletoe. He saw the surprised expression on her face for barely a second before leaning in to kiss her. [A/N: This is making me sick.] She was still angry and tried to fight him, but gave in after just a few seconds and kissed him back. Harry was barely aware of his son's "oohing" as he kissed away all the pain and anger that had haunted them for the past few years. He couldn't have asked for a better Christmas present.