Disclaimer; I only own Harry and the Potterverse in book form.
Too Close for Comfort
Professor Remus Lupin had had a perfectly ordinary day; several things had exploded in the class with Fred and George Weasley, a fifth year had been slashed by the Grindylow and Draco Malfoy had insulted him no fewer than twenty times. Lupin checked the things off on his fingers as he shifted the Hinkypunk's box to open his office door - yes, everything that should have happened had done. Anything else was now an added surprise. He almost dropped the Hinkypunk as, on entering his office, he was greeted by one of these surprises. Lily and James Potter were hovering by his desk - or at least their outlines were. They were less than ghosts, but still unmistakable.
"Sorry to give you a shock," said James, his voice was faint and he sounded like he was struggling for breath.
"This is impossible," said Remus, "You were never ghosts, how are you-"
"The Prior Incantatem," croaked James, "When we were expelled from Voldemort's wand, a little of us lingered on. And we have a favour to ask of you."
"I do, really," said Lily, stepping forward, Lupin had to strain to hear her, she flickered as she spoke, "We won't be here long, we're fading. But, but- I- I, w..w..wanted-" she had burst into tears. James put an arm across her shoulders,
"Don't," he said, panic in his voice, "Don't cry, you haven't got the energy." Taking a deep breath, he turned to Lupin, "We want to see Harry," he said. It was a good thing that Lupin had put the Hinkypunk down, because this time he definitely would have dropped it. Lily saw his face.
"I know it's selfish," she sobbed, "But- but I just have to, we left him all alone and now, if there's the slimmest chance I have to take it, even though he wouldn't get to see us, but.... he has pictures, I know that's not the same but, this is the only way we could ever..." she broke off again, James doing his best to comfort her.
"I take it you are referring to the Spectral Charm," said Lupin heavily. They nodded. "You know that Harry will not be allowed to know of this - and you will be subjected to the strictest punishments if you try to contact him directly, or anyone else for that matter." Once again they nodded. The Spectral Charm was a powerful piece of magic, which allowed a soul to take immortal ghost form. However, if you had no reason to stay - i.e. would not normally become a ghost - then you could not have contact with the living, it was like changing history. Especially in the Potters' case, fifteen years later, thought Lupin. He sighed.
"I will have to consult Dumbledore. It is his building you will be haunting." Crossing to the fireplace he took up some glittering dust and tossed into the flames, Dumbledore's face appeared and Lupin crouched before it. There was a hurried consultation.
"He has agreed," he said, as though acting against his own better judgement, "Lily first - she is weakest." The broken form of Lily Potter juttered forward. Lupin raised his wand, "Spectracia!" he bellowed. Silver sprang from the end of his wand and shot to Lily's finger. Where it touched she turned silvery, and it began to spread, rippling up her arms, across her body and over every feature of her delicate face. Then there she stood, looking and feeling solid and stable, she glowed supernaturally bright for a moment, then lapsed into a regular ghostly shimmer. She watched as the same happened to her husband. The light flickered at the end of his last toe, before returning to Lupin's wand.
"Thank you Remus!" she cried, going to throw her arms around him, but checking herself in time. He stared at her with grave concern.
"You must never, NEVER, have physical contact with your son," he warned, "Or it will be the worst and last thing you will ever do."
"I swear," said Lily, her green eyes shadowing. They sat in tense silence until midnight.
"He should be asleep by now," said Remus, "But who knows when he and Weasley are sneaking about under your old cloak - and with our old map." He smiled at James for the first time since they'd entered his office. James chuckled.
"Weasley?" he said ponderously, "As in Arthur's son?" Remus nodded,
"One of seven children. You'll also be pleased to know that Harry has struck up a strong dislike for Lucius Malfoy's child and Professor Snape."
"Snape became a professor?" asked James in disbelief, "Someone married Malfoy?"
Lupin nodded. "I'll check if he's in bed for you." He disappeared into the fireplace, shouting "Gryffindor Common Room."
***
Less than an hour later, the ghosts of Lily and James Potter were hovering in a small chamber beside their son's bedroom. Lily had been waiting for this moment, and she still wanted nothing more than to see her son, but now it had come to the taking the plunge she was uncertain.
"What if he wakes up?" she asked James in a whisper, "What if something, I don't know, goes... wrong, somehow. The last thing I would ever want to do would be to hurt him."
"I know," replied James, putting a ghostly arm around her and holding her tight, "And now we have forever, but if you don't do this tonight, then you'll spend all of tomorrow pining and wishing you hadn't lost these few hours."
"You're right," she said, stiffening her resolve she glided through the wall. She drifted over to the bed Remus had told her was Harry's - the bed his father had had when he was at Hogwarts. She slipped through the curtains.
"He looks just like him," she thought. She sat down very gently beside her son and began to cry. She turned her head away from him - even if a tear touched him, that could be enough to trigger, whatever it was - she bit her fingers to silence her sobs for fear of waking him. Regaining control, she was able to turn back to him. She reached out a ghostly hand and smoothed the air a few inches above his head, a few centimetres above it, a few millimetres. She was as close as she could get, she could almost feel him. She sat not quite stroking his hair for hours, whispering all the things she would have loved to tell him out loud on a daily basis. Oh, why had he been taken away from her? She paused, realising it was the other way round.
"My poor baby," she whispered, "I'm so sorry, sorry that I had to leave you all alone like this." It was growing light outside, "I have to go," she whispered, "But I'll come back, every night, I promise... I love you." She was on her feet, leaning over, she gave him the ghost of a kiss, before gliding back to her sleeping husband.
***
"What?" said Harry at breakfast.
"Honestly Harry!" said Hermione irritably, "Have you been listening to a word I've said?"
"Not really," said Harry, "I'm sorry." Hermione's voice was a lot gentler when she next spoke.
"What's wrong?" she asked, "You're not yourself this morning."
"It's nothing, really," said Harry, "Just thinking about a dream I had, that's all." He didn't really want to talk about it in front of Ron.
"Go on," said Hermione. Harry shifted uncomfortably, he knew she wouldn't drop it.
"It was... weird," he said, "My Mum was in it, I think my Dad was too, but it was mainly about her." He looked up at Hermione, who merely nodded at him to continue.
"She was here... or at least, I think she was. I don't really remember. All I know is we were both somewhere together. I was just trying to remember what she said." He had to stare at the floor for a few moments before he could look Hermione in the eyes again. She was searching him.
"That's it," he told her.
"I know." she said, "I just don't know what to say." Breakfast finished, they all slouched off to Transfiguration.
They were supposed to be transfiguring a toad into a toadstool, but whatever he did, Harry's kept turning into a lily.
"You're still thinking about her, aren't you?" Hermione asked as they packed up. Harry nodded.
"I haven't thought about anything else since I woke up," he said, "Am I going mad?"
"No!" said Hermione earnestly, "It's just, probably, because," she paused, then continued with a sigh, "because you never knew her. Now it feels like you have, this is the nearest thing to a memory you have of her, so you're desperate to cling onto it."
"Is everything alright, Potter?" asked Professor McGonagall, sweeping over, they were the last ones left, "Only you seemed a little distracted today," she continued, sweeping up the bunch of lilies on Harry's desk. Her voice was softer than usual - he was fairly sure she'd made some sort of connection.
"Fine," he choked, stumbling out the room and heading back to his dormitory.
He spent all of break alone, flicking through his photo album and crying a little. He knew it was unhealthy but he didn't care. Hermione came in a few minutes before the bell.
"Here," she said passing him a tissue, Ron was hovering in the doorway. Harry respected how well Ron knew him - he was there for him but was standing in the wrong place to see that Harry had been crying, which would have embarrassed him. "I know a good dereddening spell I can use on your eyes, no-one will know that, you know," Hermione whispered. Harry nodded. "And we've got Professor Lupin next - I mean he knew her, if you need someone to talk to." Harry nodded again and they set off for class as the bell went.
Harry wasn't himself in Defence Against the Dark Arts - it was one of the few classes he normally contributed to, but he didn't even look as if he was paying any attention. Lupin watched him worriedly out of the corner of his eye. Had something happened? It could be completely unrelated of course - Harry was a teenager after all, they have problems (or at least what they think are problems). But Lupin still felt uneasy, Harry was normally cheery, even though he had so many reasons to be unhappy, how could this just be coincidence? Lupin had been fretting all night - he hadn't really wanted to consent and had been regretting it ever since he'd done it. He decided it would be easier not to talk to Harry - if this wasn't what was wrong it would just make everything awkward. Instead he just let Harry slip away at the end of the lesson and flopped forward onto his desk. What had he done?
***
"There he is!" whispered Lily, leading James through the sleeping dormitory to their son's bedside, "He looks so like you."
James smiled proudly, "He does, doesn't he," he laughed, watching Harry, "I wonder what he's dreaming about."
"Do you think he dreams about us?" asked Lily, her eyes flicking off Harry to watch for James' response. He simply shrugged. Deep in his sleep, in his dream, Harry Potter wanted more than anything to be able to call out to his parents, to tell them that he dreamt about them all the time.
***
"Both of them?" asked Hermione at breakfast the next morning. Harry nodded, he could remember the dream more clearly this time.
"Yeah, they were standing watching me, I don't remember where, but I couldn't reach back to them. They were talking.... about me," he decided not to tell Hermione and Ron everything they'd said, he knew it was only a dream, but still it seemed personal, "My mum was wondering what I dreamt about - if it was them. I wanted to tell her it was, but I could only watch, I couldn't interact or anything." Hermione and Ron were watching, as if they were waiting for him to continue, "I guess I've been thinking about them or something, that must be why," he began reasoning out loud, "but without realising... subconsciously. It can't be anything else. They can't be here." He'd almost asked, "Can they?" but he knew he didn't want to hear anyone telling him, yet again, that his parents were dead.
"You're probably right," mumbled Hermione. Any other time Harry would have thought it was very funny hearing Hermione say that to him.
The dreams went on all week, each one getting more vivid, but without Harry ever quite being able to work out what was going on in it. He stopped talking about it. He also found he was thinking less obsessively about it; before he'd clung to each dream before it could fade away with the moonlight, but now he was sure he'd be seeing his parents every night, so he could stop worrying about each one individually. Lupin was worrying less as well - Harry seemed fine, it must just have been a coincidence. He was less worried, but unlike Harry, not relieved of worry all together. He was sure that this was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.
Lily Potter glided to her usual place, it was becoming a routine, or maybe an addiction. Every night, waiting behind the wall, arguments chased round her head;
"This is selfish... Why? This isn't selfish, this is making up for fifteen years of being apart..... How is it making up for it when he doesn't even know you're here? It's one sided, which makes it selfish..... I died for him, I have the right to see him.... how can you have 'the right' to mess with his life like this, mothers are supposed to put their children first..... I did put him first, and I'm not messing with his life, because nothing's gone wrong... yet." She always suppressed the yet, suppressed the cons generally, because when she was beside him she knew they didn't matter. It was just the moment before - like a game of Quidditch, when you're standing on the pitch waiting to go, you worry, worry about the Bludgers, worry about... about missing the Quaffle or the Snitch, but once you're up... once you're up, soaring, with the wind whipping through your hair, you forget all of those things because it just feels right. She got so used to suppressing these doubts that she soon forgot to voice them to herself at all. Harry's trunk was lying open, his mother peered in, tutting fondly at the state of his things. She noticed a scarlet set of robes on top and a broomstick leaning against the wall.
"You are just like your father," she whispered, casting her eye over his wand, his Pocket Sneakoscope and (with some revulsion), what looked like a pair of the sort of socks her brother-in-law would wear. James followed her out, he too noted the robes and broomstick.
"Looks like he just came from training," he whispered, as they sat by Harry's bedside, "I wonder if he's a Seeker too." James Potter enjoyed the moments he spent with his son, he didn't go every night, it just didn't feel right, partly because it had been Lily's idea and he felt she deserved some time just for her and Harry, and partly because of something he couldn't quite put his finger on. He thought it probably had to do with Remus's warning, some sort of doubt? Or that the more time he spent with Harry the higher the risk he ran of hurting him. Something like that.
The next night saw Lily Potter gliding over to her son's bedside alone. Had she been more observant and less purely intent on seeing Harry, she would have noticed that the dormitory was quieter than usual. She may not have been able to place exactly the sound that was missing - a snore was such an everyday part of sleeping - but its absence may have made her more cautious. As it was, she simply went to Harry and began her usual activity of not quite stroking his hair.
Neville Longbottom was making his way back up to the dormitory. It was the middle of the night, but he had always been allowed to leave the hospital wing whenever he was sufficiently well recovered. The staff had made an exception for him, on account of his phobia like reactions to hospitals. It wasn't really a phobia, he was too used to being in hospitals to be afraid, they just upset him. He couldn't enter a hospital - or anything that resembled one - without thinking of his parents. He furiously tried to blink back the tears as he stumbled back to Gryffindor Tower.
"Venomous Tentacula," he mumbled to the Fat Lady. He scrambled into the deserted common room and up the spiral staircase. He opened the first door and made his way over to the fifth years' door. He twisted it, why was it always so bloody stiff? You had to turn it just right...
Inside the dormitory, Lily Potter had been so consumed in her own thoughts that she had been deaf to Neville stumbling up the stairs, she hadn't even noticed the click of the first door as shut. That was one of the reasons the seemingly sudden rattling of the door knob was such a shock. She jumped, putting one of her hands back to regain her balance, she accidentally put it straight through Harry's heart. Lily gave a small gasp and tried to wrench free, but she was stuck like this. Remus's words shrieked round her head, she wondered what she was doing to her son.
But behind closed eyelids, Harry Potter was in bliss. When his mother's hand (although he did not know that's what it was yet) had touched him it had felt like a bucket of ice, his immediate reaction was to open his eyes, but they seemed to be glued shut, and someone was playing a movie in his head. He was so glad he hadn't opened his eyes, he was seeing his parents... and him, but not him as a baby, him now, or at the most a few years younger. He watched as they applauded his first bit of magic, watched them hug him as an owl flew in with a Hogwarts letter, he watched them on his birthday, he watched his Godfather calling round.... With a sudden jolt, he realised what he was seeing. This was what his life would have been. This was his life if Voldemort hadn't killed his parents. With this realisation, the visions became both the most wonderful and most terrible thing Harry had ever seen. He knew, somehow, instinctively, that they were true and not a dream, no dream could show this, he clung on trying to make each snapshot impress itself on his mind, this could have been his life... Then the other half of his mind began to cry with the most unbearable anguish, he knew this wasn't real, could never be real, and when he got out of this swirling vision, he would be back to being orphan Harry Potter, his parents were dead, he couldn't have that life, and the realisation of this - now he knew how it all could have been - made what he had, his life with the Dursleys, seem even more intolerable than it had been. The last memory flashed before his eyes.
Lily Potter had been straining to let go, and suddenly her hand was able to come free, at the same moment Harry was suddenly able to open his eyes. His eyelids snapped up. Lily was still standing at his bedside; there was a look of the utmost horror on her face.
"M-Mum?" breathed Harry, hardly daring to believe it. She turned and fled toward the wall, "Mum!" he called after her, "Wait, don't go, Mum." But it was too late, Lily Potter had disappeared through the bricks. "Mum!" He was out of bed now, following her. "Mum, wait! Wait for me," he had reached the wall and he threw himself against it. Solid. He beat his fists against it, "MUM!" he screamed, tears coursing down his cheeks, "MUM!" Neville had burst in by now and everyone else was waking up.
"Harry, wos goin on?" asked Ron sleepily.
"My Mum," said Harry, running his hands along the cracks in the stone work, as if searching for a way through, "My Mum, she was here but-" he stopped, he wasn't sure he could bare to say it, "but," he took a deep breath, "but she ran away.... from me."
"Are, are you sure you weren't, you know, dreaming?" asked Ron.
"No, I wasn't," screamed Harry, he'd grabbed a wand and was now tapping the wall frantically, he knew because of the things he'd seen, but he didn't feel like sharing those yet, "MUM!" he railed, "MU-UM, MUM! MUM, COME BACK! Ple-ease, COME BA-A-ACK!" Every word was a drawn out sob. "MU-UM! MUM!... Mum?" He'd sunk to the floor and was beating the wall feebly with one fist. She had gone. And he knew it. He'd been too preoccupied to think about what he'd seen, but now, now she'd gone, he realised almost for the first time what it had been. He was left with nothing but the bitterest stinging feeling, that would have been his, but no, he would be going back to Privet Drive this summer.
On the other side Lily Potter was crying. What had she done? How could she have? She glanced at the hand that had touched him; the ghostly form that Remus had bound round it was unravelling before her eyes. She was returning to nothing. James was staring at her, and back at the wall, he didn't need to ask what had happened. They could hear Harry's screams and cries.
"I touched him, I touched him, I didn't mean to but-"
"It's alright," James comforted, even though it wasn't.
"No, look I'm going,"
"Don't talk like that."
"BUT IT'S TRUE - you can see it for yourself, now - no listen to me - Harry doesn't know why, he thinks I've run away from him. I don't know but, I just... feel somehow he can hear us, in his sleep. Don't ask me how - I just know. You have to explain to him James, you have to, please, promise-"
"But what about you? I love Harry, but I love you too, I want to be with you too."
"You can't," sobbed Lily, "The only way was is to hurt him more, I've already done too much damage. You have to stay for him."
"BUT I LOVE YOU!"
"I love you t-" The ghostliness had gradually been unwinding itself while they had been talking. Lily had gone. James could still hear his son screaming from the other side of the wall. If he reached out a centimetre or two, he could join Lily, he wanted that more than anything, but he'd hurt his son more than he could bear, he wanted to avoid that at all costs. If he stayed, would Harry be able to understand? If he went, Lily would hate him. He stood between his son's anguish and the place where the ghost of his wife had been, with tears streaming down his cheeks and one hand half raised.