A/N - As is usual for this series, I've changed some of the events of various races/F1 & F2 seasons...
"Dad?"
Harry turned around to see his oldest son in the doorway.
"Hey Jimmy." he asked, "Couldn't sleep?"
Heading over to the cupboard which he knew contained the jar of mini marshmallows, something with Hermione kept discouraging him from opening often, saying they "rot your teeth something…rotten.", he could see his son looked troubled.
Taking the jar out of the cupboard, he remembered how, whenever was bugging one of the kids, they would always open up to him with a mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows on top.
"I...I couldn't." Jimmy said, stepping into the kitchen. Grabbing his mug from the mug tree, he turned around to see his dad's eyes, despite the elder Potter wearing glasses, were sore. "I guess you couldn't either?"
"No son, I couldn't." Harry said, knowing what his son was going through. "Come into the living room. There's something I want to show you."
Jimmy followed his dad into the living room and sat down on the sofa, whilst Harry opened a draw that was underneath one of the trophy cabinets.
Pulling out a photo album, Harry flicked through it to find the page he wanted. Heading over to the sofa, he saw that his son was curious what photo he had.
Harry sat down next to Jimmy and smiled. "This was one of the proudest days of my life. My son, James Potter, winning the Formula 2 championship and his seat on the Formula 1 roster."
Jimmy looked at the photo of him on the podium at Jeddah holding the Formula 2 Drivers Championship trophy above his head, a title win that had come much to the shock of second placed Prema Racing driver Oscar Piastri, who had been the favourite until a difficult weekend at Monza had put his hopes on ice.
The young ART driver was in the cooldown room with Bent Viscal and Robert Shwartzman following an eventful sprint race which gained him another 15 points in the driver championship.
"That was a great win." Robert had said to him. "Winning the Driver Championship, a seat at Alfa Romeo next season and a chance to follow in your father's footsteps."
"Yeah, I bet Théo is going to miss having you as a teammate?" Bent asked him, standing by the door. "You ART guys have been doing well this season."
"Well, you know what they say… it's the Potter genes!" he had said, chuckling. "Seriously though, its not just the team, but you guys, all of you, being good competition."
Sighing, James straightened himself up in the chair he was sitting. "I'm going to miss teaming with Théo. He's been a good teammate, but I need to take this chance and grab it with both hands."
Jimmy looked at his dad , who had wiped a tear from his eye. "Dad?"
"I know son," Harry said, answering the unasked question. "You know you can talk to me."
"I…I know I can. Its…Its just that…"
"You're playing that moment back in your mind, aren't you?
"Y..yes. Yes I am. I… I know I've had a few small bumps already, and now this… I'm scared. I'm scared that I will make a mistake that will end things. I… had thought for a moment when I was going over that I'd never get to see you and mum again. That I'd never get to see Al, or Rosie, or Hugo." James said, crying. "And when I got in between the fences, and the marshals managed to get me out…If it wasn't for the halo…"
"You were relieved?"
"In a way, yeah. But at the same time, I was upset. I had let the team down. I'd let you down. I'd let Lis down." He said, as Crookshanks jumped onto sofa, curling up next to Harry. "I mean, I… I could have died and... I..."
Harry placed the photo album on the coffee table and moved closer to his son.
"I…I feel that maybe things would have been different if I could go back in time and made changes… if I'd have not had as good a start… or if I even if I hadn't got into karting and racing and had followed in mum's footsteps instead." Jimmy said.
"You know, time travel is only possible with a DeLorean… and then you need a McFly!"
"Dad!" Jimmy said, knowing the Back to the Future references that Harry would come out with, just as Crookshanks found himself being lifted up by the elder Potter. "That's as bad as your other jokes."
"Seriously though, I had those thoughts once when you were a toddler." Harry said, the memories coming back unbidden. "Brazil 2003. I'd got distracted, and without realising what was happening around me, I had ended up in the wreckage of Mark Webber's car.
"It had been a wet race, and with all the water coming onto the track at the Curva du Sol, people were aquaplaning. Juan, Ralph, Michael, all falling at that point. Rubens running out of fuel. I almost ended up going off at one stage at the Curva du Sol, Mark too. By time the later pit stops were coming around, there was only 10 of us left. Then Mark crashed on the straight."
19 Years Previously…
"And that's a big shock for Mark Webber, he's alright though, he's taken half the car off."
Despite the fans at the ground and those watching it at home knowing this, Harry Potter, wouldn't know as he was going through the Mergulho curve. He had overtaken his teammate a few laps earlier and was now in the position of seventh place, ten seconds behind the BAR-Honda of his friend and former teammate, Jacques Villeneuve.
"Am I having dry or wets?" he asked over the radio as he passed through Junção.
"Its wets." The response came through as he came up to the Subida dos Boxes.
"Understood" Harry responded, not noticing the yellow flags in the sector.
"Villeneuve has no doubt got to make his way through that mess, same with Potter who isn't far behind him"
Without realising, as he came up to the wreckage, he entered the area where Webber had crashed. Instead of taking evasive action, he hit one of the detached rear wheels of his teammate's car at 170 miles an hour, veering into the tire wall.
"Woah… and we've… we've got another car…"
"It's Potter
I think Potter has come around and…
"Race stopped… red flag, the race has stopped, and Harry Potter has had a…"
"He's obviously come through there, and he's either lost the car in the same place as his teammate, or suddenly realised there was a big incident and hit the brakes."
Harry climbed up from his seat and shook his head. Feeling some pain in his knee, he struggled out of the car. Looking round, he saw wreckage of Mark Webbers car.
"And he's limping away, and that's super high speeds, nowhere to go. He's chosen to sit down by the wall to get some oxygen in his lungs I'd imagine. You can see the front wing of his car, sitting there."
Harry saw the front of his car, and he realised that, in a way he was lucky.
"Are you ok?" one of the officials asked him, "The medics are coming."
Harry just looked at him in shock. He'd made a simple mistake, lost concentration, and didn't notice the wreckage of his teammate's car.
Like how the driver of the car that had ran into his grandparent's car on the day of his sister's birth.
How he been lucky then.
And then he had been lucky now.
He saw the medics come up to him, he realised that he had made a stupid mistake.
"I cannot believe with flags and radio, that he wasn't aware of the situation. Normally Harry is very 'zen' but I…I don't know…"
Sitting there, he could see the medics approach him. He had wanted to get up, but the medic told him to stay where he was, told him that he would need to go to hospital.
"How's Mark?" Harry asked, the pain in his knee still happening. "How is he?"
"Mark is alright, he's just… the medics checked him over and he's said that apart his knee taking some of the impact, he's fine." The official replied.
"I just hope Harry is ok. The FIA medical staff is attending to him."
Present Day…
Not realising the kettle had boiled, Harry pulled himself from the memory of that day.
"I ended up in hospital, just a precautionary measure they said, mainly because of the force of the collision and the bruises. Over the next couple of weeks, there had been an investigation by the FIA, I'd got a warning about what I had done, points on my Super Licence, and had to do physio to make sure I was fit.
"But what had helped me was being able to talk to Hermione. I'd flew back with your grandad the day after I had been released from hospital and, when I got home, I was in a grade A funk." Harry confessed, remembering how he had been. "I didn't want to eat, I didn't want sleep, I was having the crash playing on my mind."
"I'd gone to bed the night I'd got back from Brazil, and I tossed and turned, thinking about what would have happened had I not been on the team radio, had I not got distracted by the upcoming pitstop. I thought about quitting racing. And then I took one look into your mother's eyes, and I cried.
"I told her everything. About the lead up to the crash, about how I had been distracted. Everything. I even told her about how I had been worried about if things had been worse, if I didn't have the HANS device. And you know what she said?"
"What did mum say?" Jimmy asked.
"She said that she loved me, and that she would support me through whatever I decided. But the most important thing was, she listened to me, held me, and encouraged me." Harry said, looking at his son. "And I'm going to tell you one thing. I will support you, what ever you choose to do."
Jimmy looked at his dad and sighed. "I…I"
Standing up, he looked at the trophy cabinets, he looked at the photo of his family at Silverstone, he looked at his dad. Then he looked at his mobile phone, the selfie of him and Alison that they had taken whilst on the grid before the race had started.
Sitting back down, he snuggled into Harry. "I'm going to stay racing… I'm going to talk to Frédéric tomorrow and discuss the plan for the rest of the season, try and get some simulator time, and then when I get home, I'm gonna text Lis, I'm going to arrange a date with her."
Swiping to unlock his phone, he saw that he had had text messages and missed calls from his teammate, Valtteri, his Aunt, Athena, his friend and former ART teammate, Théo, along with several of the engineers and staff at Alfa Romeo. He'd even had a text from Alison!
"Listen kiddo, I'm glad you came down here." Harry said, putting his arm around Jimmy's shoulder as he sent replies to the texts he'd had. "You can talk to me any time, same with your mum, same with your grandad, gran or Aunt Athena. We're here for you."
Looking up from his phone, Jimmy moved slightly closer into Harry. "Thanks dad."
Harry smiled at his son as Crookshanks fell between the two of them. "You know son, I'm not going to be around much from next week. I've told the F1 TV management I'm leaving for a new job."
"Dad!" Jimmy exclaimed, "You're not going racing for Red Bull again, are you?"
"Nah," Harry said, smiling, "You'll see."
"Oh, and dad? Why did mum look at you a bit weird when that Weasley fellow came over to our table at the restaurant?"
"That kiddo, is a story in itself. It all begins before your mum and I met..."
Hermione came down the stairs as the morning light shone through the windows to see her husband and her son asleep on the sofa together, Harry with his arm around their eldest.
As she stepped into the kitchen to feed Crookshanks, she saw the two mugs on the countertop, still with the hot chocolate powder in them, the jar of mini marshmallows left next to them.
Heading back into the kitchen, she tipped the powder of the hot chocolate back into the jar, and placed the marshmallow jar back into the cupboard.
Heading back into the living room, she smiled, seeing how Jimmy was cuddled into Harry, both of them looking peaceful. Sitting on the other side of the younger Potter, she put her arm around him and her husband and sighed.
Hermione knew her son would bounce back, just Harry did. And she would do anything in her power to help him.