A/N:

This is the FOURTH chapter today! We are absolutely shocked.

This is the third part of The Aftermath and won't be too important in the long run as it's really just a bit of interesting family trauma for you to enjoy :)

As always, please review.

Disclaimer: Anything recognisable belongs to JK Rowling.

26/10/23

xXxDoubleKxXx

DavidoDaVinci

Chapter 11: A Father's Troubles

As he was pondering these questions, there came a knock at the door. Liam, thinking that it had been an eventful day as is, opened the door onto the figure of, not his mother, but his father, who smiled broadly down at him.

"Hello, Liam! How are you d-"

"I was wondering about Harry," Liam said, very quickly.

The effect was immediate.

"H- Harry, as in… as in your brother?" At the word 'brother', his voice cracked spectacularly.

Liam nodded vigorously, shutting the door behind him.

"Ho-ow did you find that out?"

"Mum told me," he said, in his best casual voice.

"I- right, that's um… good." he gave a weak laugh and walked into the living room. "Oh! You've been busy, haven't you?"

James then bent down and looked at each of the pictures in turn.

He laughed heartily at the one where he and Sirius were chasing the squirrel.

"That bloody squirrel! We never did catch it…"

He laughed also at the picture of Harry on the broomstick, and the one where he showed his distaste for carrots.

However, he had almost the same reaction to the picture of the ugly man as Lily.

"Dad?"

"Yes, Liam,"

"Could you tell me everything that happened, and everything that happened before… um… well… that night?"

James nodded, and took a deep breath in.

"Liam, have you ever heard… of the Fidelius Charm?"

"No, I haven't."

"OK, well, Dumbledore received a… prophecy from the Divination teacher at Hogwarts, which basically said, 'either You Know Who dies, or Harry does,"

Liam jumped.

"Right. Cheery."

James nodded. "Isn't it just? Anyway, Dumbledore decided to protect us by putting the Fidelius Charm over our house."

Liam nodded. He was not being given all the details, just enough to understand.

"Now, the Fidelius Charm can be put over houses and they make it impossible for anyone to find the house unless they're told its location by the secret keeper. So the question was, who was trustworthy enough not to tell?"

Liam saw the problem.

"Now, we seriously considered Sirius," James explained. "But eventually, we decided on another one of my school friends, Peter Pettigrew. He could transform into a rat, so we nicknamed him 'Wormtail'.

"Anyway, the reason we were being protected at all was because it turned out that You know who knew. It also turned out that Wormtail had become a Death Eater, which was how he found us.

"The person in that picture is Wormtail."

Liam processed this information.

"Okay… but… the prophecy… Why didn't You Know Who kill Harry?"

"Well, for a long time, we thought he had… Now it turns out he didn't…"

James Shrugged.

"I dunno."

"I- could you give me more detail? Maybe?"

"Well… before he took Harry, Voldemort stunned me and tortured your mother… The Divination teacher is Professor Trelawney and she still works there… Anything more specific?"

Liam blushed.

"No."

Liam thought about all the terrible things he had heard Lord Voldemort had done to people.

He imagined those things happening to his parents. He felt sick.

And suddenly he was filled with blazing anger again.

"Liam? 'You OK?"

"Yes." he said, defiantly.

"You don't sound OK… is something wrong?"

"No! Why would you think that?" He returned, voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Well, because you're not acting yourself." James stated calmly. "Usually, you're a very pleasant person who doesn't get into trouble nearly as much as I did when I was your age."

It was a joke and Liam didn't like it.

"Well, now I'm not. So."

James knew that Liam would talk eventually, so he waited silently. And sure enough after twenty minutes, the raven-haired boy spoke.

"So?"

"So what?"

"So what are you doing, other than being annoying?"

James looked at him very seriously. Then said, almost silently,

"That's no way to talk to your father."

And the monster inside Liam finally found its way out, after groping and groping, and as it tasted freedom, it roared and ran a victory lap.

"Well, what if I don't CARE? What if I don't CARE how I talk to YOU? For NINE YEARS, you NEVER told me I had a brother! You acted like YOU THOUGHT I wouldn't CARE! Well, I DO CARE! WHY did you NEVER tell me I had a brother? WHY was it that you NEVER thought: 'Hmm… time to tell Liam he has a brother'? WHY DID YOU NEVER BOTHER? WHY? WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY?"

James looked at him. His black hair, his blue eyes, the tears in his eyes…

"I'm sorry, Liam,"

"I KNEW YOU WOULD- wait, what?"

"I'm sorry. I should have told you years ago. It was selfish of me not to. I was a bad father."

Liam looked at him, shocked. He realised he was standing up. He sat down immediately, feeling embarrassed.

"So… why didn't you?"

James breathed in.

"Well, part of it was because I didn't want to make you sad. Part of me wanted you never to know. But to be honest, it was only because I was scared. Scared to tell you. Scared to face it. Scared of everything." He buried his face in his hands. "Liam. I'm so, so, so sorry."

Liam felt his face getting red.

"Well, I mean, I…"

And then, inside of him, something took hold.

"I don't CARE! I WISH you weren't my Father! I WISH you would GO AWAY FOREVER and leave me ALONE!"

James stared at him, astonished.

"Go to your room. Now."

Liam stopped still, shocked at what he had just done, before turning and running from the room, tears streaming down his face.