Chapter Text
Lily doesn’t receive word back from her elusive baby daddy till the end of the September, and by then she’s nearly talked herself out of the visit all together. Perhaps it’d be best to leave these sorts of things in the past where they should stay. But when the letter flew through her living room window, she still caught it between her fingers like she’d expecting it to come all along and wasn’t worrying herself sick over the matter.
She unfolds the piece of parchment carefully, taking note of the fact that the paper is crumpled and stained slightly with what she hopes is tea or coffee. Bringing the parchment to her nose invites the smell of sweet herbs and something slightly fruity in a way that reminds her of the artificial taste of strawberry candy.
Dear Lily,
I apologize for the time it’s taken to get back to you. There’s been some things coming up here in Penzance that well– I’m sure you don’t want to hear about that right now.
Oh but she would, she really would, but he doesn’t give any more details. Lily frowns and goes on reading.
But if you’d like to visit, the flat should be empty by next week. Although I’d understand if you want to stay in a hotel or a B&B. Whatever you’re more comfortable with. Harry is going to start nursery school by November though, so I think October is the month for you to pop in to meet him. If you do, I need you to promise me something.
Lily stops breathing.
Please don’t forget him. Don’t– leave Penzance and leave him behind. Write to him, call. I’ll set up a landline or something to make it happen. Maybe it’s foolish of me but I’ve been telling him about you his whole life and I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t care if you’ll never remember me again, I can live with that. But Lily, you can’t forget Harry.
She has to stop reading. The tears blur her vision when they come, hot and heavy as they trail down her cheeks and leave wet droplets on the cream colored parchment. She rubs her eyes with her forearm and takes a shaking breath in. It’s the latent undertone of fear in the letter, she thinks, or maybe it’s the mention of her son’s name.
Harry.
Over and over again his name runs through her mind like a scratched record. Harry whispered between patients. Harry whenever the shower water runs cold. Harry when she’s cooking dinner. Harry, Harry, Harry.
Lily won’t hurt him. She could never hurt her baby. She’s never hurt anyone’s baby before but she especially thinks she won’t hurt her baby. She hates that whoever she chose to have a child with thinks that she might, that he somehow believes that it’s something she’s capable of. A fire briefly rages within her to the point that she considers just burning the letter and showing up to Penzance on her own time. He got to have two whole years with Harry, she apparently only got one.
Instead, she does the reasonable thing. She summons a piece of parchment and her self inking quill and moves to sit at her dining room table, one leg folded under herself as she writes out her reply. Yes, she’ll come to Penzance in October. She’ll tell Mary that this is something she has to do alone because this is something she knows has to be done by herself. She’ll stay in his apartment, she’ll learn about the gaps between the years before his letters flew into her home. She read them. Of course she read them. But there’s a difference between reading someone’s letters and hearing their voice. When Mary wrote to her in school, she could always picture her voice in her mind.
She cannot picture her son’s father’s voice whatsoever. His words are that of a ghost, nothing more, and everything less.
Lily doesn’t want to just know her son. She wants to know the man she had him with too. Petunia used to get on her case about the things she wanted. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Everyone has to make choices, everyone sacrifices something. Petunia’s sacrifice had been settling for Vernon Dursley. Lily always hoped her sister would do better but she wasn’t surprised when she didn’t. The wedding was a horrible affair of conservative baby blue bridesmaid’s gowns that pinched everyone in the waist and ruffles. Vernon wore a velvet suit of the same color that only served to make his red face even redder.
She folds the parchment up when she’s done with it and sends it the way all of the letters came– right through her fireplace. She stands in front of the mantle with her arms folded across her chest. There’d been someone with her at her sister’s wedding– she remembers that she hadn’t gone alone. When she received the invitation in the post at Hogwarts, she’d felt immediate dread because she knew if she didn’t bring a plus one, Petunia would never let her hear the end of it.
The pictures have to be somewhere. For the first time in two years Lily ventures over to her landline and punches in the phone number her mother forced her to memorize in case of an emergency.
October 10th, 1983.
Lily Evans spends the train ride to Penzance absorbed in her own thoughts. Petunia told her very blankly that she’d had all of her wedding photos put in storage after Duddykins was born. When Lily suggested meeting her nephew, Petunia’s response was a very swift: absolutely not. And she’d hung up the phone just like that.
At least Mary understood why she needed to go Penzance on her own. When Lily broke the news, Mary just smiled at her and told her to enjoy her vacation time and to take lots of pictures.
Of Harry and Baby Daddy. Oh, how she wishes she could come up with a different name for him that wasn’t so… cruel. Baby Daddy stuck though. Even Lily thinks of him with that title even though she knows it’s unfair to think of him in that way. Her mind has not left the very idea of him. She traces the rivers of his letters and follows the trails of years gone by; of his getting used to living in the real world and every single one of Harry’s milestones. She wonders if she can convince him to give her the memories so she could use a pensieve and see them with her own eyes.
That may be asking for too much.
When the train pulls into the station, it’s storming. This suits her mood quite fine and she did remember to pack her umbrella. She pops it open on her way out, slinging her luggage over her shoulder as she walks down a little street. From here, she can see the ocean. The gray, foamy water rages, crashing against the cliffs and licking up the broken shoreline. She stops and stares for a moment. This is where her son has been. She closes her eyes and breathes in the salt air and the petrichor storm above her head but there’s something else– something irony and almost sweet.
Magic. A lot of it. It tingles down to her very bones, reminding her exactly what she is. She is a witch. She is also a mother and a nurse, a partner. Lily Evans is so many things all at once. If you asked her who she thought she’d be ten years ago, she wouldn’t have had an answer. The world was so much smaller then. Waves did not lick up her cliffsides.
She walks along, her boots making loud clacking noises against the old cobblestone streets as she hunts down the cafe she and Baby Daddy agreed to meet at. It felt like the most neutral location possible. Harry would not be there, which sucked but she understood his hesitation to allow her to see him so soon. If she was in his situation, she can’t imagine handling things much differently.
The cafe is small and nearly deserted due to the weather. When Lily enters, she rings some of the water out of her hair and leaves her umbrella propped against the wall. With a deep, nerve gathering breath, she casts her eyes about the cafe.
There’s a man sitting at a corner table with a big black dog curled up by his feet wearing a mobility support harness. Lily’s known wizards to use canes in all sorts of fashions; decorative ones encrusted in jewels, simple wooden ones carved from trees older than nations, fashionable sticks that match their robes– she’s never seen a wizard with a support dog. The dog cracks one gray eye open and merely watches her from his place on the floor before bumping the man’s leg with his snout.
She gathers herself quickly, smiling before she realizes what she’s doing. The man’s gaze shifts before his head does, a mere darting of his black eyes. Her breath gets caught in her throat when his head turns.
At Hogwarts, she once saw a stag run out of the Forbidden Forest in the middle of the night. She’d been on her prefect patrols when it happened. It was winter, and she got stuck with the worst rounds before the winter holidays. She had to walk out of the castle to the Black Lake and then go through the courtyard before she could go inside. When she started down towards the Lake, the deer darted out from between the trees. White, brilliant, and magical. She held her breath when he approached, his velvet antlers catching in the light of the full moon, his breath puffing in front of his angled face in great, heaving clouds. His eyes were so dark that Lily could see herself in them. Her red hair, her pudgy, ruddy cheeks.
Then he lowered his head as if bowing to her, his prongs nearly hitting the blanket of snow he treaded so carefully upon. Lily tried to touch him, but a branch snapped in the forest and he ran away before her fingers could brush against his strange, almost luminous fur.
The man reminds her very much of that stag. Although his hair isn’t white– it’s curly and blacker than the onyx earrings Mary wears when she goes out. His skin is a beautiful warm brown that speaks of a summer spent under the Cornwall sun. This is him. This is the man she fell in love with; the man she chose to have a child with. He’s lovely, lovelier than she could’ve ever imagined from the sharp cut of his cheekbones to the doe-like fullness of his lashes behind his gold-wire glasses.
He cradles a cup between his hands. He smiles at her.
“Hi, Lily.”
A whisper of a memory floods through her. A boy’s sharp, obnoxious laughter, jealousy sharp enough to send pins and needles through her whole body, the smell of sweet tobacco and citrus oil lingering in cotton sheets, a hand made for hers.
She tucks her hair behind her ears, “Hi– that’s me, I mean you already know that but still. God, this is uncomfortable, isn’t it? O-or maybe it’s just awkward. I’m being awkward, aren’t I? Here, let’s start over,” she sits in the chair across from him, tucking her toes beneath the seat as she stretches her hand across the table, “I’m Lily Evans.”
The man smiles. It’s a mere quirk of his mouth. His cheeks dimple. His teeth are perfect and white. He has the kind of smile any girl could fall in love with, but when did she fall in love with it?
“I’m James Potter,” he catches her hand in his, still warm from cradling his hot drink. Her hand fits in his like a missing puzzle piece. She squeezes his fingers together before letting go. “You look happy, I’m glad.”
She smiles at him, “I am happy.” But she wishes she could say the same for him. He looks tired in that exhausted way. This close to him she can see the dark circles beneath the hollows of his eyes and the gray hairs peppering through his temples. They’re the same age. She keeps reminding herself that they’re both 23 years old, barely even adults and yet… here they are. “Can I ask who the dog is?”
“His name is Padfoot.”
Padfoot
.
“Funny,” she says with a laugh, “I used to have this friend in school– I mean, I’m sure you knew him too. Everyone knew him. But his friends all called him that. Padfoot, Pads… I haven’t heard that name in years. His actual name was Sirius Black, he was kind of a prick, to be honest.”
James laughs. It’s a sudden noise that comes out more like a startled snort than an actual laugh. He wheezes and holds his chest, his smile returning to his face as his shoulders shake, “Godric help me,” he says between giggles, “I’m sorry– I shouldn’t laugh like this.”
“You have a good laugh,” she tells him, “I don’t mind.”
His cheeks warm. Yes. She can see exactly why she fell in love with this man. James Potter. He’s beautiful but not in the usual way men are beautiful. No, James is beautiful the same way that stag was beautiful. There’s something innately brilliant about him that she wants more of.
Beneath the table, Padfoot sighs.
James bursts into another fit of laughter. Lily starts to laugh too. She ducks her head down to hide her face with her hair.
“Don’t do that,” he says, “You look beautiful when you laugh.”
“I have a partner,” she tells him, although not very seriously because she’s still laughing.
But he laughs with her and says, “Me too.”
Then they both stop and look at each other. Lily meets James’ eyes and sees herself reflected back. The fire red of her hair, the emerald of her eyes.
“I’m glad.”
James smiles at her and shrugs, “Hey, me too. Are you ready to walk to my flat?”
Lily nods. She’s been ready since she first started getting those letters. James pushes his drink over to her with a little head tilt. It’s for her. She takes it gingerly and takes an experimental sip– it’s tea with three sugars and one cream, just the way she likes it. He’d been keeping it warm for her.
He slips out of the table. Padfoot lumbers up to his feet, shaking himself off before dutifully returning to James’ side. James takes hold of the handle and keeps his eyes shut for a moment… two moments. Then he opens them.
“Alright, let's go.”
Ever since Lily found out she was a witch, she’s been full of questions. She thought this would go away when she became an adult but if there’s anything she’s learned about aging, it’s that questions never ever stop. Sometimes she floods with them. She is flooding with them when she walks into James’ flat. It’s nothing like she ever would have imagined. There’s a squashy floral couch that’s been recently slept on, a fireplace against an odd wall, and little floating balls of light sparkle above their heads.
He closes the door behind her and takes her coat for her. She hugs herself as she walks into the kitchen with the linoleum floors and humming refrigerator. There’s children’s drawings stuck to the door with magnets. Bright doodles of the sea, scribbles of people she can’t quite make out. The kitchen smells like tea and maple syrup, a strange combination.
“Where is your partner?” Lily asks as she brushes her fingers against what’s clearly a drawing of James.
“He’s with Harry right now.”
A he. Interesting. She looks over her shoulder to find James sitting down on the couch. Padfoot sits between his legs with his large head resting against his stomach, eyes turned upwards so he doesn’t miss a thing.
“You’re sick.”
Not a question, a statement. James shrugs his shoulders and doesn’t look at her, “Yeah. I mean– not in a contagious way, it's just… yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Padfoot helps with that?”
James smiles a little. He looks so tired. “He’s only recently been figuring out the job, but he’s pretty good at it, I’d say.”
“Where’d you get him?”
“He wandered in one day.”
“A stray?”
“Something like that,” James kisses the top of Padfoot’s head. Padfoot’s tail thumps happily against the floor.
“May I pet him?”
He nods. It’s permission enough for her to bend down and scratch Padfoot between the ears. The second her fingers make contact with his wiry fur, another memory bursts through her mind. It’s summer and they’re at a lake. Remus is throwing a stick and Padfoot– this Padfoot is chasing. Mary sits on the shore, watching them with her hand shading her eyes. Lily looks up. She’s laying against James’ chest and he’s smiling down at her like she’s his whole world. He kisses her and his lips taste like somebody’s strawberry chapstick- hers.
Lily closes her eyes against the memory. Padfoot licks her face in one go from her chin all the way to her hair. She laughs and hugs him, wrapping her arms tightly around his shoulders. He rests his head against her, his tail still wagging on the floor.
“You know he’s–” James begins.
“I know.”
But she doesn’t stop hugging him, and Padfoot does not become Sirius again. He wiggles out of her arms and leaps up onto the couch to curl up next to James. Somehow, he makes himself small.
“Are you ready to meet him?” James asks.
Lily’s heart thunders alongside the clouds outside, “Yes.”
He looks at her seriously, his expression solemn and strange, “I meant what I said in my letter. You can’t hurt him.”
“I won’t, but–” But what. She doesn’t know what should come after the but. Part of her wants to know what James will do if she does. How can she explain that she won’t hurt Harry on purpose but what if an accident happens? What if he’s afraid of her? “I wouldn’t, not on purpose, not– ever.”
He looks away. She misses his eyes being on her, misses the oddness of them and the way they remind her so much of that winter stag.
“He’s my world,” James says in a quiet voice. “I need you to know that.”
All she can do is nod. His gaze stays locked elsewhere in front of him, not quite… present. In another lifetime, Harry would’ve been her world too. Lily stops and kneels in front of him. His hair is longer than it is in her scattered memories. She could probably get half of it in a ponytail and then some.
“I know he is. I need you to know that I would never do anything to hurt him. He’s our son.”
James squeezes his eyes shut, “Okay.”
She squeezes his knee and stands when he does. His hand lingers on the arm of the couch for a moment before he goes down a hallway, his fingers skimming the wall as he goes. Lily stands awkwardly in the living room, waiting. She presses her fingers together while she waits, a nervous habit she developed as a child. Does Harry have any nervous habits or is he still too young for those? He’s only three. She hopes he never develops nervous habits. She hopes he never has a reason to be nervous. Not her son.
Down the hall, a door clicks open and shut. She hears quiet, hushed whispers in a language she doesn’t understand. Lily straightens and waits– and god, the wait is worth it when James comes down the hallway with Harry in his arms.
Harry looks like a carbon copy of his father from his beautiful dark curls all the way to the warmth of his skin and his glasses. But when his eyes meet Lily’s, she knows he’s his. James sets him down on the living room floor and crouches next to him.
“This is your mother, Lily.”
Lily opens her arms up, tears already blurring her vision. Harry looks at her and then at James.
And he runs into her arms.