Note:

Feelings.

You've been warned...

"Angus, meet our new employee, Hope, and her son Harry."

Harry watched as Hope, Dot and Angus talked, shaking hands and smiling. Her son. And Hope didn't correct them. She had never used the term herself, but he'd noticed she never corrected people if they assumed a familial connection. Even when the assumption made people turn their noses up at her. 'so young, and the boy already seven or eight, my goodness!' 'another young single mother, what is this world coming to?' 'at least she gave the boy his fathers name, even if the rogue isn't in the picture.'

No, Hope would smile her coldest polite smile and put a hand on Harry's shoulder protectively, as though she were proud to be known as the mother of such a son.

TyleR W.

That one scrawled name was the reason Harry wouldn't dream of using those special words for himself. Hope hadn't said anything more about the half-used workbooks, but he guessed enough. She'd had a boy before, a real son. And Harry had had a real mother and father, even if he couldn't remember them beyond the nightmare flash of green light.

It seemed wrong, to want to have a mother again. Hope hadn't asked to be his mum, she'd just found him on the road. He'd been thinking about a jacket, blindly following that need to wherever the little warm thing in his chest told him to go. But it wasn't just the jacket he'd been wanting that night.

In the glowing lights of other houses, he'd seen families together, sitting and playing, a mother gently ruffling a boy's hair and laughing at something the kind-looking man said.

And the want in Harry's heart had throbbed painfully, bringing him to stumble onto the road in front of her car.

Hope was uncommonly kind as it was, Harry thought: looking after him, tucking him in every night under her nice blanket, making sure he never left the table with the hunger unsatisfied.

He couldn't ask for more.

Shouldn't.

But that didn't stop the throb in his heart when she smiled at him from across the hall, carrying another box into the periwinkle room that was now to be hers.

Harry's room, no longer violently violet, was painted a warm cream, the bed covered in Hope's thick blue comforter and the old wardrobe in the corner had been polished back to its original rich brown with a little guidance and wax from Joseph. The window overlooked the backyard and had a brilliant view of the forest rising up beyond the back fence.

He sat on a doily covered stool and set a scrap of paper on the windowsill. Putting pencil to paper, Harry followed Hope's example and wrote a list.

Good things:

New paint

Nice people- Salty Dot Joseph

Sharp pencils

Fresh bread

Trees

Hope : )

Sticking the paper to the inside of his wardrobe with a tack he'd found there, Harry went about unpacking the rest of his things.

He hung his sweater at the very front of the wardrobe, so he'd see it every time the door opened. It was too warm to wear just now, but he liked to brush his hand over the soft fuzzy fabric. When every last pair of socks had been carefully tucked into a drawer, Harry looked around his room, proud and not just a little astonished. All this, was his.

The bookbag leaned against the wall near the door, ready for his next outing. There was only one thing left. The grubby pillowcase from the Dursleys.

He made a pile of the few ragged shirts and drawstring pants he'd 'inherited' from Dudley, eager to be rid of them. The pillowcase wasn't quite empty though and he dumped a wad of papers onto the floor.

Birth certificate: Harry James Potter, mother: Lily Jane Potter (nee: Evans) Father: James Potter

Harry traced their names with his fingers; whispered them aloud. "Lily and James Potter."

"You alright in there Harry?" Hope's voice preceded her down the hall and she popped her head in at his door to see Harry staring at a stack of papers, tears streaming silently down his face. "What's this?" she asked, sitting down beside him with her back against the foot of his bed.

He showed her the paper, still staring at the names. "Lily, and… James… I didn't. I didn't remember." And he broke down again as she rescued the pages from his lap.

Hope wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. She didn't speak and Harry was grateful for the silence. She didn't tell him to stop crying, didn't tell him it shouldn't hurt like it did, just held him close. The way he imagined his mother might once have done. This idea brought on another bout of sobbing and he wrung his heart out on her sleeve.

When he'd wiped the snot from his face with the clean handkerchief Hope offered him, he straightened up and shifted the birth certificate to one side. There was a report card from his kindergarten year, the negative report of his unfinished first year, several bits and pieces of envelopes and papers regarding previous hospital visits and an eye exam from the previous year when a teacher had requested it.

Hope read that one carefully, seeming to grow stiffer as she made it to the bottom. "Harry, have you ever had glasses?"

"No."

The low growl in her throat made Harry look up. She noticed his anxiety and smiled calmly down, ruffling his hair affectionately. "It's alright Harry, we'll set it right."

At the very bottom of the stack were two pieces of paper that Harry had not anticipated.

Death certificate of: Lily Jane Potter (nee: Evans), October 31st 1981, Cause: gas leak.

Death certificate of: James Potter, October 31st 1981, Cause: gas leak.

He expected the tears to come, but he seemed to have run dry. Instead, he whispered his question to the thin, creased papers, "I thought they died in a car crash."

Hope kissed the top of his head again and he thought he felt a drop of water land on his shoulder as she drew back.

Harry remained grimly contemplative as Hope made space in a drawer of his wardrobe for his papers, and barely cracked a smile as she binned the horrid worn-out old clothes. The reheated roast and carrots didn't seem to taste as good and he pushed them around the plate for a long time before seeing Hope's worried look and beginning to chew deliberately.

It wasn't until Hope was tucking him into his bed that night that he finally asked her about the thing that had been playing on his mind. It was safer somehow, to say difficult things in the dim light of the lamp at his bedside.

"Do, do you think it hurt?"

Hope sat still for a minute, rubbing little circles on his back. "No, Harry, I don't think it hurt."

"Where they scared? Do you think they knew?"

"I don't know, Harry. I really don't know."

"How come I didn't die too? I was just a baby." Harry whispered to the night.

"Can I tell you what I think?"

He nodded, nestling deeper into the blanket that smelled like Hope's shampoo.

"I think life wasn't done with you yet, and I think your mum and dad loved you. And… I think they are still thinking about you, loving you, smiling and crying and laughing with you from the other side."

"The other side… Is that where Tyler is?"

Hope paused, her fingers forgetting to make the little circles that were steadily putting Harry to sleep. "Yeah."

"So, it's kind of like a trade… my mum and dad can look after Tyler and you'll look after me?" His voice was slurring now, eyelids too heavy to open.

"I suppose it is." Hope said, tucking the blanket up around his ears the way he liked it and again kissing the top of his head as she whispered, "sweet dreams Harry."

Hope and Harry walked to the bookstore most days, strolling through the sleepy village in the morning with keener appreciation for the old oak trees then ever before with Harry's new glasses. Hope had put off painting her room again to afford them, and though he wanted to refuse at first, seeing the leaves so high up, fluttering in the summer breeze had filled him with so much wonder he quickly forgot.

Hand in hand, with a bookbag over his shoulder and Hope's purse and umbrella on her arm, waving at the neighbors as they passed.

Not everyone was as quickly won over as old Joseph next door, and Harry gave dirty looks to anyone who dared mutter behind their hands at Hope, dismissing their patronizing complements to himself out of loyalty to her.

The Williams-Potter family was changing stubborn opinions, though they might not know it yet. One small kindness at a time.

With a woman who seemed perfectly inflexible -prim and poised from her fastidious buttons to her stiff steely curls- Hope chatted about her extensive flower garden, offering to weed for her and asking all sorts of questions about growing vegetables. Hanging on her every word, making notes as the old woman warmed to teaching. Harry followed Hope's example and asked how she made the lilies and roses grow so pretty, and wishing aloud that he could someday grow such beautiful, nice smelling things.

Ophelia gave him an old pill bottle of seeds she'd saved. Zinnias and sunflowers and cosmos, "might not get anything on them this year, but that there's a good mix of cutting flowers for next spring," and promised him a few cuttings in the fall. "We'll see if we can't make a green thumb out of you yet, young man."

Harry seeded a few of each in the little plot in the backyard, and tucking the rest carefully away in his 'important papers and things' drawer.

Mary and Peter across the road where openly skeptical of the pair, but softened when Hope asked for her recipe for scones and praised the bramble-berry jam they'd brought over as an excuse to 'meet the new neighbors.'

They got the recipe and Peter talked long about all the wonderful fruit foraging opportunities in the area, how back in the war all the hedges were picked clean of berries, but now so much seemed to just go to waste. "Shame, that; more young folks like yourselves ought to take up with the old traditions."

Many a Sunday afternoon found Hope and Harry walking home with a bounty of blackberries, damson plums and currents, fingers and lips stained. One of the many frugalities they were more than happy to practice, the exercise stretching and straining Harry's growing frame, brightening his complexion and giving him a wealth of precious new memories.

Laughing and picking berries and whistling at birds and stirring a fresh batch of jam as Hope prepared the jars. Harry was convinced the bright, sweet preserves he spread on his toast were far tastier than any confection Dudley had ever stolen from him.

When they ventured back to see the Doctor, he was impressed by the change in Harry. He'd gained nearly a stone, and was well on his way to an extra two centimetres in height. Not to mention the colour and energy of the boy, gone was the lethargy and pale skin. Harry was sun-browned, his only injuries: the small scrapes and callouses of a boy who climbed trees, dug in the dirt and spent hours each day sketching, doing sums and practicing his letters.

Hope's job at the bookstore was quiet enough, there weren't many customers, though quite enough for a village of that size. Her duties were to keep the shop clean, sort the books and look over ordering lists. Mail order had become more ubiquitous and every afternoon Hope and Harry ventured to the post office with books wrapped carefully in brown paper and returned with more orders to fulfil for the next day.

When the day's tasks had been done, in the long breaks between customers, they went over Harry's workbooks together. Hope was thrilled with Harry's rapid progress, and Harry was pleased to be praised for doing well, without having to worry if he'd done better than his cousin. There would be no punishment for a job well done, and Hope's form of discipline for poor work was simply to do it again until he mastered it.

A tide had turned that night that Harry had asked about his parents, the guilt he'd felt, replaced by a new sense of generosity. He could share his parents with a boy he'd never met, and he'd look after Hope too.

With the pressure and terror of the Dursleys removed, Harry found a new hunger. A yearning to know. To read and understand and draw and create. He traveled from the safety of the lumpy armchair in the back corner of the shop, to worlds and mysteries untold within the pages of his surroundings.

No longer consumed with survival, Harry was learning to live.

Not that all worry had evaporated, fears he'd thought he'd forgotten would still rear their heads when he least expected.

August was drawing to an end and Hope, Harry noticed, was becoming more withdrawn. She still smiled over his practiced letters, but it was thin and crooked and he wondered why tears seemed to gather in her eyes. She watched him toil away at his little flower garden, pretending to read a book but forgetting to turn the pages.

"Are you sick?" Harry confronted her, dirty hands turned to fists on his hips.

Hope startled, sniffed and wiped her face quickly before attempting a smile. "What? of course not, why do you ask?"

"You've been looking all pale and sad for days now. If you're ill, or tired, or you just want to be rid of me, I need to know!" without realizing it Harry's voice had risen to a shout in his spiralling panic.

Hope pulled him, dirt and all into her arms. "That is never going to happen, Harry. I promised I'd look after you always, and I don't break my promises."

"Then why are you sad?" he asked in a whimper of mingled worry and relief.

"It's a long story." Hope said, releasing him gently. "But I think it's time I told you."

Harry looked at her, nodded once and sat beside her on the back step, with his arm around her back.

"You see, it's coming up on the anniversary of my baby brother's passing." Hope said softly, ruffling his hair mindlessly.

"Your brother?"

"Tyler. You remind me of him sometimes." She said wistfully.

"I'm sorry." Harry said, fidgeting uncomfortably. There was a strange sense of relief with the revelation that Tyler had been her brother, but being relieved seemed wrong and his stomach churned horribly with guilt.

"Don't be sorry. He was sick, always sick, a blood disease, no cure. But he had a spark too, just like you, used to make me laugh with all of his stories." Hope sighed again, putting her arm around Harry. "I wish I could have done this for him too." She gestured across the backyard. "I wish that you could grow up together, healthy and happy with dirt under your nails and grass stains on your jeans."

"Didn't you have a house and a mum and dad?" Harry asked, surprised by the suggestion.

Hope shook her head. "For a while, but they passed shortly after Ty was born. No one wanted to take in a sick baby and a teenager, but I wouldn't let them take him away, so we got sent to a group home."

Harry's eyebrows were raised, wrinkling the lightning bolt scar into a squiggle on his forehead.

"The day I turned sixteen I applied to take him. I got a job, moved us into that flat." Hope continued, her voice subdued but still rough with emotion, "but he didn't get better. I did everything the doctors told me to, but…"

"Is he still sick? In that other place?" Harry asked quietly.

"No. He's all better now." Hope said, half laughing to hide the lump in her throat. "But I still miss him, I used to go visit his grave, talk to him, tell him about my life."

Harry considered it for a minute, twirling a piece of grass between his fingers. "But he's not there, 'cause he's… on the other side with my mum and dad, right?"

"That's right. It was just a place I used to go to remember."

"We could go, talk to him." Harry suggested hesitantly, leaning into her side. "I don't know where my parents are… are buried. But I'd like to someday… to visit- tell them, about everything."

"We'll go together."

O

OOOOO

O

O

Harry picked the very first of his baby flowers, a barely out of the bud zinnia, to add to Hope's collection of wildflowers. Together they lay the bundle on the grass, just under the small wooden cross.

Tyler John Williams

1977-1983

"Hey Ty, buddy." Hope said, her voice thick as she rested a palm on the rough wood, tracing the letters and rubbing off a bit of dirt covering the T. "There's someone I'd like you to meet."

Harry stood a little to one side, shifting from one foot to the other, afraid he'd mess this up. The Dursleys had never taken him to a funeral, and this was the first cemetery he'd ever even been in.

"Harry is my ward now, just like you were. We've got a nice little house, and Harry grew this pretty little flower all by himself… In the spring we're going to plant a vegetable plot, just like nan used to." Hope paused, swallowing heavily and bowing her head.

Harry stepped up to her shoulder, put one small hand on her arm, and patting the top of the cross with the other. "It's nice to meet you, Tyler… Hope is nice, she let me have the nice blanket without that terrible itchy lace. I wish you could taste the brambleberry jam we made last week, its better than candy!" he hesitated again, his confidence fading with his ideas. "Hope misses you but you probably know that. Do you think… do you think you could tell my mum and dad, that I miss them? And that I'm not scared anymore… do, could you, maybe, give them a hug for me?"

Harry's voice broke and Hope gathered him into her lap. Together they mourned. Unashamed and honest in their grief. When Harry's shuddering sobs subsided, they sat for a long time - Harry still in Hope's lap - looking across the peaceful churchyard and letting the breeze cool their flushed cheeks and dry the last of their tears.

A bell tolled in the distance and Hope lifted Harry from her lap to his feet, gathering herself up stiffly and taking his hand. She faced the cross one last time and spoke softly.

"Love you, Ty."

"Thanks." Harry started, paused with a blush, then decided he didn't need to be embarrassed for saying anything to someone he couldn't even see. "Thanks for letting me share Hope with you, I'll take good care of her, promise."

Note: You were warned...

Is that? a... tear? are there onions? dust? no? Allergies... must be allergies. your allergic to good stories aren't you