Panic

Harry awoke groggily early the next morning, vaguely aware somewhere in the back of his mind that he was colder than he should have been in his warm, four-poster bed. It took him a couple of minutes to realise he was definitely not in his bed in the warm, inviting dormitory - he was still sitting on the floor in that same dark, cold corridor, with Ginny by his side. He observed her closely for a long moment, surprised by the way the sight of her peaceful sleep was slowly breaking his heart. Eventually, however, he found himself murmuring her name in an effort to gently wake her.

"... What to do you want, Harry?" she said groggily, still very clearly not awake yet. "It's -" she lifted her wrist to check her watch "- five o'clock in the morning. Way too early for -"

"- Gin," he said kindly, knowing this conversation was about to take a wildly inappropriate turn and heading it off at the pass, "we're still in the corridor."

She was suddenly wide awake. The next word that came from her mouth was decidedly unladylike, but it still made him grin in that truly happy way only she ever could. She scowled at him, saying, "Why didn't you wake me?"

"Wake you?" he echoed, pulling himself up off the floor and reaching down to help her to her own feet. "You do remember last time I stole your attention in this corridor, right?"

She paused for a moment, looking around them with interest. With a flicker of recognition in her eyes, she said, "Yeah, I do. And then we had James."

"Best accident of your life."

"You wanna bet?" she grinned, walking by his side through the Castle back toward Gryffindor Tower. "You don't know my life!"

He rolled his eyes dramatically, very aware that to anyone else this would sound like an argument. To them, however, this was everyday banter. "I beg to differ, darling. I really do."


By the time they crept back into Gryffindor Tower and tiptoed back to their respective dormitories, the rest of the Castle inhabitants were beginning to wake. Harry was entirely unsurprised to find James sitting at the end of his bed, hurriedly scribbling something on parchment that was undoubtedly one of those essays he was supposed to have written the night before.

"Damn," Harry said at that realisation, rummaging through his own belongings now looking for a quill and parchment. He himself had not practised Vanishing Spells (though he knew he could do those in his sleep), had not written a single dream in his dream diary and had not finished the drawing of the Bowtruckle, nor had he written his essays. Suddenly he found himself joining James in skipping breakfast, scribbling down a couple of made-up dreams for Divination, their first lesson of the day.

"Remind me again why you didn't do this last night?" Ron asked, perching himself on the edge of his own bed with a piece of toast in his hand.

"I was in detention, remember?" Harry said, irritated. He paused, then added, "That is the most ridiculous sentence I have ever said in my life."

"No it's not," Ron shrugged. "And I was talking to the kid, not you."

"I was doing other stuff," James said evasively, not looking up from his essay.

Harry and Ron shared a look. Clearly worried about what this could possibly mean, Harry asked him, "This 'stuff' wouldn't have anything to do with your uncles, would it?"

James paused, glanced up, and then buried his head in his textbook again.

"I'm gonna take that as a yes," Ron said conversationally.

"No comment," James muttered, his quill still scratching across the parchment in front of him.

Eventually, Harry sighed and slammed the dream diary in his hands shut. "That'll have to do. Said something about buying a new pair of shoes. She can't make anything weird out of that, can she?"

Ron gave him an unconvinced look.

"Yeah," Harry sighed. "That's what I thought."


The three boys hurried off to the North Tower together not long after that, where they would find the uncomfortably warm Divination classroom.

"How was detention, anyway?" James asked his father conversationally, ducking out of the way of a first year racing around a corner. "What did she make you do?"

Harry glanced to Ron and said shortly, "Lines."

"That's not too bad, then."

"Sure," Harry said, his tone clearly not convincing his son.

James knew there was something up, but he couldn't quite place it. Instead, he said, "So ... did she let you off for Friday?"

His father shot him a look. "What do you think?"

"Make sure I'm not there when you tell Aunt Angelina," James said, shaking his head. "I'd like my eardrums to stay intact."


It was another bad day for Harry. Though he excelled at Vanishing Spells in Transfiguration, he had to give up his lunch hour to complete the picture of the Bowtruckle. Meanwhile, Professors McGonagall, Grubbly-Plank and Sinistra gave them yet more homework, which he had no prospect of finishing that evening because of his second detention with Umbridge. To cap it all off, Angelina Johnson tracked him down at dinner again and, on learning that he would not be able to attend Friday's Keeper tryouts, told him she was not at all impressed by his attitude and that she expected players who wished to remain on the team to put training before their other commitments.

"I'm in detention!" Harry yelled after her as she talked away. "D'you think I'd rather be stuck in a room with that old toad or playing Quidditch?!"

On the other side fo the table, the three kids sat opposite their father, all-but staring at him with their jaws dropped open. While Lily was muttering something about, "Who died and made her the God of Quidditch?", Scorpius said, "At least it's only lines."

At that, Harry opened his mouth, closed it again and nodded. He was not looking forward to the kids finding out exactly what was happening in his detentions - as far as he was concerned, the longer they could avoid that conversation, the better. Despite the decades that had passed between this time and his own, there was some stubborn part of his brain that felt this was a private battle of wills between himself and Umbridge; He was not going to give her the satisfaction of hearing that he had complained about it.

"I can't believe how much homework we've got," James moaned, his head dropping down against his chest dramatically.

"Well, why didn't you do any last night?"

James shot Hermione a look that, in literally any other situation, definitely would've got him hexed by his mother. Mercifully, however, Ginny was at the other end of their group, though unusually she was just about as far away from Harry as she could possibly get. "I was ... well, I was otherwise occupied."

Lily pulled a face. "Ew, Jamie! That's what you say when you've been out on a date!"

"I was not on a date," James said indignantly, flicking a couple of peas at his sister.

"Hey!" she objected, raising a spoon full of mashed potatoes.

Sitting between them, Scorpius shuddered and leaned back out of the line of fire.

"Hey, dingbats!" Ginny called from the end of the group, leaning around Neville to do so. "That's enough of that little display, thank you very much."

"Sorry," James and Lily muttered, both dropping their cutlery back onto their plates.

"Honestly, guys," Al said, sitting up a little straighter in his own seat, "it's childish crap like this that makes me ashamed to say we're related."

Ginny pointed her fork at him, saying warningly, "Language."


The second detention was just as bad as the previous one. The skin on the back of Harry's hand became irritated more quickly now and was soon red and inflamed; He knew it was unlikely that it would keep healing effectively much longer. Soon the cut would remain etched into his hand and he'd have to have that difficult conversation with the kids. He let no gasp of pain escape him, however, and from the moment of entering the room to the money of his dismissal, again past midnight, he said nothing but 'good evening' and 'good night.'

His homework situation, however, was now desperate. Though absolutely exhausted, he did not climb into his warm, inviting bed upon his return to Gryffindor Tower; Instead, he set himself up in his favourite armchair, opened his books and began working on Snape's moonstone essay. It was half past two by the time he had finished it. He knew he had done a poor job, but there was no help for it; unless he had something to give in he would be in detention with Snape next. He then dashed off answers to the questions Professor McGonagall had set them (thank God he knew enough about Transfiguration to do it in about five minutes), cobbled together something on the proper handling of Bowtruckles for Professor Grubbly-Plank (which definitely included a note of the instruction 'DO NOT SQUEEZE'), and staggered up to bed, where he fell fully clothed on top of the covers and fell asleep immediately.


Thursday passed in a haze of tiredness. James was very sleepy too, though no one could quite see why - and they all appeared to have silently agreed it was better not to ask questions. The day slipped away so quickly, Harry was soon suffering through his third detention - except today, after two hours the words 'I must not tell lies' did not fade from the back of his hand, but remained scratched there, oozing droplets of blood. The pause in the pointed quill's scratching made Professor Umbridge look up.

"Ah," she said softly, moving around her desk to examine his hand herself. "Good. That ought to serve as a reminder to you, oughtn't it? You may leave for tonight."

Harry picked up his schoolbag with his left hand rather than his smarting right one, very deliberately not saying anything to his torturer.

"And don't forget to come back tomorrow, Mr Potter," Professor Umbridge said, smiling as widely as before. "Yes, I think we can etch the message a little deeper with another evening's work."

It wasn't until he made his way through the corridors of the Castle that Harry stopped to consider he genuinely hated this woman more than he had ever hated anyone else in his life up to this point - and that included both Voldemort himself, and Delphini. She's evil, he thought, as he climbed a staircase to the seventh floor. She's an evil, twisted, mad old -

"James?"

He had reached the top fo the stairs, turned right and almost walked into his eldest, who was sitting beside a statue of Lachlan the Lanky, clutching at his chest with his hands. He gave a great leap of surprise when he saw Harry and attempted to sit himself up straight, but one look at his son had told Harry something was very, very wrong.

He crouched down beside his son, careful not to move his right hand, and said kindly, "Jamie? What's going on?"

For the first time in his life, Harry saw his son break right before his very eyes. Where he would usually see a bright grin and hear a sarcastic comment, he instead saw James gasping for breath. "I - I can't ... I can't -"

"- Hey, hey, hey," Harry said, sitting himself beside James now and wrapping an arm around his son's shoulders. "I want you to listen to me closely, okay? Take a breath in ... and let it out."

"But ... but I -"

"- You can, Jamie. You are okay," Harry said reassuringly. "You can breathe, bud, I promise you that. You need to slow your breathing down though, okay? So breathe with me now, ready? In ... and out ... and in ..."

Neither had any idea how long they sat there, Harry calmly repeating his instructions over and over again, and James doing everything in his power to follow the comforting rhythm of breathing his father was putting out before him. Eventually, James got to the point where he had slowed his breathing back down again, and that was the point where he broke down.

"I don't know what's happening, dad," James whispered, trying to stop the tears from falling and failing miserably. "I don't -"

"- It's okay, Jamie," Harry said, pulling him close into a tight hug. "There's nothing wrong with you, okay? I need you to hear that."

"Of course there's something wrong with me! This happens every night, dad! Every night I have to get out of the Common Room before I - I completely fall apart, and -"

"- Whoa, bud," Harry said, "you've gotta stay calm, okay? Please, please don't panic."

"There's something wrong with me, dad! I - I can't breathe, and then when I can I can't sleep, and -"

"- It's called a panic attack," Harry said in a tone of finality. "You are having panic attacks."

"Panic attacks?" James echoed. "But - but ... Wait a second, what do you now about panic attacks?"

Harry sighed. "Because I have them."

James frowned. "You?"

"Oh yeah," Harry said. "You're, uh ... well, you're about to see it all happen. All the things we didn't want you to have to know about."

"Is that really a bad thing, dad?"

"Knowing about it?" Harry said. "That's history. But seeing it happen right in front of you? Living through it? That's something I wouldn't wish on anyone. Ever."

James paused thoughtfully, then caught a glimpse of the one thing his father wished he wouldn't have. "What's wrong with your hand?"

Harry, who had just scratched his nose with his free right hand, tried to hide it, but he had about as much success as James when he was three, and had stolen his mother's prized Quaffle from the living room.

"It's just a cut. It's nothing."

But James had grabbed Harry's forearm and pulled the back of his hand up level with his eyes. There was a pause, during which he stared at the words carved into the skin, then, looking sick, he released Harry. It seemed to take James a moment to realise what he was looking at. He'd seen the scar before, of course, but it had faded so much over the years that James never knew that it had once been words, let alone what those words had actually said.

"I thought you said she was just giving you lines?"

Harry hesitated. Looking into his son's eyes, however, he knew he had to be honest with him. So, he took a deep breath and revealed the truth about the hours he had been spending in Umbridge's office.

"The old hag!" James said in a revolted whisper, walking alongside his father as they approached the portrait of the Fat Lady, who was dozing peacefully with her head against her frame. "She's sick! Sick, and twisted, and evil, and cruel! Go to McGonagall. You have to say something!"

"No," Harry said strongly. "I'm not giving her the satisfaction."

"The satisfaction?" James echoed disbelievingly. "You can't let her get away with this!"

"She's not about to get away with anything," Harry told James. "But I can't change the future, Jamie."

"You can't -" James began, but he was interrupted by the Fat Lady, who had been watching them sleepily and now burst out, "Are you going to give me the password or will I have to stay awake all night waiting for you to finish your conversation?"

When they finally made it inside and upstairs to their dormitory, Harry quietly passed James a small vial of potion.

"What's this?" James asked, frowning.

"It's a Calming Draught," Harry said quietly.

James raised the vial to his eye level, examining its blue contents closely. Eventually, he said, "This is your nighttime potion."

"It is," Harry confirmed.

James looked up to him now, a look of concern crossing his features. "You still take this, even now?"

Harry sat beside him on the edge of his bed. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

"And it helps?"

Harry smiled. "It does."

Without another word, James took the cork out of the vial and downed a gulp of the Calming Draught.

"Have a good night's sleep, bud," Harry said kindly. "I'll see you in the morning."