Fugitive: fleeting, transitory, elusive

March 30, 2016

Ginny set the stack of dishes down in the sink so hard the plates cracked. Swearing under her breath, she pulled out her wand to repair them, then turned on the faucet. The spray ricocheted off the dishes and soaked the front of her robes in a spray of scalding-hot water.

"Oh for Merlin's sake!" she sputtered. Could nothing go right today?

"Mum?"

With a strong breath through her nose, Ginny turned to face the kitchen. Streamers dripped down the walls in damp, charred rivers of multicolored crepe paper. A yellow balloon – a lonely survivor – hung limply in the corner. And standing amid the destruction was – who else but her eldest son?

"Yes, James?" she asked tightly.

"Are we still going to London tomorrow?" he asked in an uncharacteristically small voice.

"Your father and I will talk about it."

She turned back to the dishes.

"Um… would it help if I said I was sorry?"

"It would help if you were sorry, James." Ginny threw her dish rag into the sink and whirled to face her son, who stepped back involuntarily. "For once, James, it would be wonderful to have a nice party. No gag gifts. No trick candles. No" – she picked up a blackened metal pan – "exploding cakes. It would be nice to go more than a few days without Lily finding all her shoes tied together or Al getting a garden snake in his bed. I would like to see you out of your room when I'm not yelling at you for something, and I would love to take you to London tomorrow and not worry about what you're going to hide in your coat pocket. But we can't always get what we want, can we?"

James shrank back against the table, eyes wide. Upstairs, the sounds of Harry getting the other two to bed had stilled, and Ginny realized that she'd been shouting.

"So… is that a no?" James finally asked, barely above a whisper.

"Just because it was your birthday today doesn't mean you can get away with everything under the sun!" Ginny exclaimed. "And just because you're eleven now and going away to school in a few months doesn't mean you're all grown up, either. Especially if you keep acting like this. James, sometimes I just don't know what we're going to do with you."

As Ginny turned back to the dishes so she didn't have to see the look on her son's face, she thought of the little toddler who had brought her bouquets of dandelions, who had wanted his mother's hugs every day before he got on the bus that took him to the Muggle primary school in the village. It seemed like that sweet little boy had disappeared altogether, and she missed him terribly.

She didn't want his birthday to go this way, but she couldn't wave aside misbehavior like this. James was lucky none of them had gotten hurt. She'd seen flying sparks glance off Al's glasses and Harry had had to stamp out the hem of Lily's dress. It was downright dangerous.

Something nudged Ginny's side. She looked around to see James trying to get at the trash can under the sink. His arms were full of soaked streamers. She stepped out of the way so he could dump them in the bin. Then he straightened and looked up at her. His lip trembled just the slightest bit.

And suddenly she could see the sweet little boy again, a fleeting glimpse of him coming through.

"Oh, sweetheart," she sighed, putting her arms around him.

Instead of pulling away, proclaiming she was smothering him, James buried his head in her shoulder. "I really am sorry," he snuffled.

His mother ran her hand through his hair and kissed the top of his head. "I hope so."

He squeezed her tightly around the middle and then fled up the stairs to hid bedroom, and her little boy was gone again.

A/N: Oh, just a touch sad. But children get older…. I think once he hits about seventeen, Ginny might find a little more of his sweetness again. But that's a long six years…. And James isn't such a terror, after all. He just likes to make his parents think he is most of the time.