I'm in a hurry, peeps, because I've got to clean up *ugh*. Anyway, last chapter I said this was my first HP story, and I was wrong. I apologize 'bout that, but then again it was two something in the morning, plus I was dealing with two toddlers. Been there, done that, ain't going back. This was very nearly late, but still good.
Anyway, here's the story. Credits to those who reviewed (etc) are at the bottom, for suspense. Dun, dun, dunnnn. =)
Do enjoy, and please review. =)
Harry inhaled luxuriously, savoring the moment as he rolled into the light streaming beautifully through the window on his right, the light breeze causing the drapes to flow around, landing on his face.
He grinned, despite the best ticklish attempts of cloth on his nose, and scooted away, throwing his furry deer blanket to his right, sitting up and putting on his glasses. Slowly, his brain woke and began working, allowing him to recognize Remus's jacket on the table from his line of view on his bed.
With a devious grin, mischief flashing in his emerald eyes, the wild-haired child slipped off his bed, sneaking around the corner and still out of Remus's view. He peaked in the mirror, saw that Remus and Lily were busy discussing something, but the sight of his mother's tears were enough to stop him in his tracks.
"Remus, I can't do anything! If he somehow decides he wants Harry, I can't do a thing! (1)" Lily cried, head in her hands, slumped on their wooden kitchen table. Normally Harry would rush to his mother and calm her down, but if he did she would shut up and not say another word about it.
Harry was old enough to know something was wrong.
"Earlier, Harry woke up and I put him back to bed, and I saw this!" She cried, gesturing to the dusty album beside her, and Harry realized, she must be talking about his father! He definitely wanted to know now.
Crouching flexibly by the corner that hid him from view, he absent-mindedly tugged Remus's jacket down by his side, fulfilling his plan, while listening to the conversation.
"I bet he already recognized James, it's not like they barely resemble each other!" She scoffed, head now tilted high so that Harry could see the glistening tears in her eyes. "I still love him, Remus…The only thing that's kept me from running back to James, the only thing that's keeping me from drinking, is Harry. And I'm still guilty, Remus. If I hadn't gone into labor with Harry in those early months before my due date, I would've got an abortion! I was planning on it, James wanted me to. And now I still feel so bad, I take care of the child who would die for me, and before his birth, I was intent on killing him!"
Lily slumped again, her sobs ringing anew as Harry turned back into his spot, thinking. So his mother wanted to kill him, and would have had she not gone into labor when she was five and half months pregnant? (Harry knew he was a miracle baby, Remus had shown him the newspaper clippings.) That stung a bit, but Harry couldn't help but forgive his guilty mother. It didn't seem right to get mad at someone for something they were already punishing themselves on.
"Lily, Harry won't think any less of you. He is your son, for Merlin's sake, and he is extremely intelligent. He'll make the right decision, Lily. On that same token, he'll also forgive James and Sirius. He'll forgive them, but he won't know what for until you tell him. He needs to know, unless he gets the idea that James was a drunk abusive boyfriend instead of a kind, scared man who tried not to show it.
"I don't think that Harry would enjoy those thoughts, love, so correct him before you have to." Remus finished, his hand resting assuredly on her quivering shoulder as her sobs dimmed. "Harry loves you, Lily, and he won't run away because he's scared, like his father did. He's too much like you there, he'll jump right in the fire if he's got to. He'll be a bit angry at the two of you, I suppose, but he is much more of a man than James, maybe even surpassing Dumbledore."
Remus smiled, patting her shoulder as she dried her tears, peering back at him lovingly with her emerald eyes, smiling as she gave her best friend a hug once they stood.
"Now, go tell him," Remus said, patting her in the right direction, and Harry froze, then quickly thawed with a grin. Running as quietly as possible, Harry placed Remus's jacket under the table, and ran for the bathroom.
He locked the door behind him, pulled back the tub's curtains (he always did it since he was little, to check for horror movie murderers), and turned the sink's knob slowly, watching a small stream of water flow from the faucet.
Deeming it enough to be mistaken for running urine, Harry sat down on the toilet seat and waited, preparing his best sleepy drawl.
"Harry?" Came his mother's voice after a minute, followed by the masculine, "Damn, I know I set that damn jacket right here!"
"What, Mama?" He said lazily, like he was dozing off while doing his business. He reached over to the knob and slowly decreased it, then stopping it after a small tinkling of water hitting water at a meager amount and slow pace. He very nearly giggled.
"Once you get finished, love, come in the kitchen. I'll cook you something to eat," said Lily through the door, while Remus swore in the back-ground, looking for his jacket.
Smiling, Harry pulled and released the elastic band of his underwear and pajama bottoms twice, just to get in character. He unlocked the door, refusing to pull back the curtain, and yawned as he exited, rubbing his eyes for emphasis.
His happy mood at not getting caught dropped playfully as Remus gave him a knowing glance, pulling his jacket from beneath the table, Lily issuing the same look to him as Remus clothed himself in the garment to Harry's whine of, "You always leave when I'm awake! Am I really the plague?"
Rolling his eyes and huffing, Remus once again removed his jacket, everyone taking a seat at the table, excluding Lily, who was cooking breakfast.
All too soon, she finished, leaving them to talk about a subject that hadn't ever been discussed in front of Harry so openly before, excluding the occasional, 'You're so much like James, Harry.' and so on.
Shaking his head clear of the idle thoughts that would never leave, Harry looked inquisitively at his nervous mother.
"How much did you hear?" Remus asked, and Harry definitely knew the gig was up.
"Went from me awake and the photo album to the end," Harry answered taking a bite from his egg, cheese, and ham omelet. He idly slathered a forkful of grits onto it, waiting for Remus or Lily to ask another question.
"Listen, Harry," his mother began softly, and Harry tilted his head upwards a bit, pushing back his glasses so he could see her better, "James wasn't a bad man."
"That I assumed when I saw the first picture in the album," Harry summed up idly, telling his mother while watching her reaction.
Lily smiled, and Remus soon followed once he flipped open the front cover.
"James was really sweet, he was great and followed me into nearly anything. Best I could ask for," Lily said softly, her eyes trained on photo-James, vision glazed over in memory.
"Then I came along?" Harry tried not to say it, but the disappointment drove it out of him.
Lily looked up, frowning at such a suggestion. "Harry, you were never a problem. I loved you before you were even put in my arms, baby. James was afraid of becoming a father. When James got afraid, he ran away from it. That was his way of dealing with it. James stuck with me for some of the time I was pregnant, but he got more distant. He wasn't afraid of you, Harry, I think he would've loved you if given the chance, but James was purely scared of taking care of a smaller tinier person, that by accident he could scar for life, or slip and kill.
"When you were born, still so tiny because you were premature, he visited you. He looked into your little oxygen tank, and saw tiny little you, with all those cords and machines hooked to your tiny little weakly breathing body, and he cried. James hardly ever cried, and I only saw him do so about three times.
"He sat beside your little tank and cried over you, and he told me that he didn't want you to die, that he was scared and he couldn't be here when you passed, so he told me he was leaving, and he wasn't coming back. He was so scared of you dying, that he didn't want to be near when you did and he left."
Lily looked at Harry with so much (cliché, Harry thought) love, Harry was sure he could die in it's sweetness. A small smile was on her face, and Harry's opinion of his parents lightened considerably, until he was certain they could almost be gods. (A/N: Almost, people, almost.) Her earlier opinion of his father seemed to alter drastically, from someone trying to take her child to someone who loved but was too scared to show it.
Remus smiled from beside Lily, "James was never a bad man, and though he did want Lily to get an abortion, he didn't want to hurt you. Back then, you were a little faceless, unconscious blob, and you were just a thing.
"When we first saw you, you were beautiful. You could almost fit in the palm of my hand, with a head full of black hair, and your eyes were taped shut so the light couldn't damage them, and you were a light pink. So tiny…the nurse came up to me once, and asked me if I wanted to feed you. I told her that I couldn't dare, for her to ask James. So James walked back there, and she handed him this baby-doll-like bottle, and she carefully picked up you and your tiny bundle, and laid you in James's arms, and handed him the bottle.
"He scared, but he put the bottle to your lips, and nearly dropped you when you let out this loud slurping noise that scared him, but all you did was start sucking on the bottle. James, Sirius, and I watched you slurp the whole bottle down greedily, burp up some milk on James's chest, then start snoozing, and you even snored. You were adorable, love."
Lily smiled, and Harry stretched, smiling.
"Well," Harry began, still smiling, "I'll go make my bed and get dressed quickly. Be back in a minute."
Harry half-hopped, half-ran to his bedroom, and began straightening the mess of his bed, when a certain shine of book-cover stopped him. Pausing deliberately, he slowly reached out the book, gently grabbed it, and slowly pulled it back into vision. Harry smiled.
It was his old, partially-damaged dictionary, Merriam-Webster blue dictionary from 5th grade. He used to read it in class when he was bored and had nothing else to do. Flipping it open to a random page, Harry's eyes landed on:
Anathema: 1 syn ABOMINATION, bete noire, bugbear 2 syn CURSE, malediction, imprecation, rel denunciation, condemnation, reprobation, censure, criticism
And suddenly, an idea popped in his head. With a sharp scream, Harry dashed for his mother.
"MAMA, I GOT IT, I GOT IT!" Harry screamed, coming around the corner, book in hand, only to collide with a warm large person.
With a grunt, Harry fell on his bottom, and with another groan, he massaged his bottom, pouting.
Harry looked up, seeing his older, slightly different mirror image, who was way buffer and way taller.
"No wonder my butt hurts," Harry whined, massaging the soft tissue, wrinkling his nose at the taller man, who looked down at him with raised eyebrows.
"Well, hello," the man said. Harry looked around, spotting hi dumbstruck mother.
"Mama!" Harry called, making the man freeze dead in his spot, not that Harry noticed, "I found an idea for my new book!" Harry raised up the old care-worn dictionary, then pulled it back to read out anathema and it's definition.
"I can theme each chapter with word, use that word in the chapter, also make it an autobiography," Harry couldn't stop the flow of ideas that ran from his smiling mouth.
He rushed from the room to go for his laptop, dashing off around the corner, soon followed by several loud thudding and clanking sounds, a surprised wail, and a final, "I-I'm okay!"
Lily sighed, slightly exasperated at her son's clumsiness, running a hand over her cheek.
"That was him, James. That's Harry, the brainless lunatic, Boy-Who-Never-Grew-A-Brain. Now you saw him, and you know that he's alive and well, you can go. Now, leave."
"No," said James, turning around, smiling slightly, "I know it's sort of stupid, but I want to do something with the two of you. I've got an idea in mind."
(1) Lily is a single mother with a premature son, who is a famous writer. She is allowed to have mixed emotions and fears like any normal human being.
Thank you Friends:
Reviewers for Ch 1:
Rori Potter
.fanfics
Story Alerts for Ch 1:
Rori Potter
cosmopolitian
panther73110
Thank you all, but special thanks to Rori Potter, for both reviewing and story alerting. Dear friend, take a fresh cyber cookie of your choice! =)
Btw, .fanfics, to answer your question, on 4th of July in the U.S., it's the day when in 1776, the U.S. gained independence from Britain on July 4, 1776. It's known as Independence Day, more commonly as the 4th of July. Mostly, we treat it like a holiday (cause it is), but also shoot off fireworks. =)
Please review, hope you enjoyed it!
