Work Text:
“You‘re Warm”
Halloween 2018
Harry spends much of the day thinking about all the ways that Halloween feels the same.
When they were younger, sometimes Ginny asked him if he wanted to take the day off. And though Harry has thought a lot about that, too, and though the idea crosses his mind every year, he never has. He still doesn’t know if that makes the day sadder, or, in some strange way, a little more hopeful – that the gears keep turning, anyway. The world does not stop for Lily and James Potter.
But he has learned to avoid the Daily Prophet, knowing their names will leap at him from some double-digit page, somewhere, every year. He’s learned to make it to work ten minutes before everyone else, so he can hide out in his office and pretend he is the only person in the whole world who knows they ever existed.
When Ron was still there, he’d ruffle Harry’s hair in passing and pat his shoulder before sitting down at the desk opposite him. Around noon, he would get up, repeat the same ritual, and disappear in the cold October for ten minutes, and when he came back, he did it carrying two steaming take-away meals. Halfway through whatever he’d picked up for them this year, he would quietly prod Harry’s foot under the tables, and Harry would either look up and shrug, or shake his head.
But some years, he would talk. Not for long, not much – never demanding Ron to reply.
“I’ve been alive longer now.” That year, it was chicken, Harry remembers. He stuck his plastic fork in the dry meat and tested how far he could bend it before it snapped. “I’m older.”
The year after that: “They’ll never meet James, you know?”
“I was jealous.” Three years later. “Because you and Hermione got to get married with your parents. And I guess I’ve always known I won’t … but I didn’t really realise it until I watched you do it.”
And Ron would do his best.
“Oh. That sucks, mate.” Pause. “If you fancy distraction, I can tell you about this ridiculous thing Crookshanks did last night. Hermione’s still in shock.”
“They’d definitely love him. Reckon your Dad would like the name, yeah?”
“I’m sorry. You can have the last slice of pizza, if you want.”
But after that, they’d carry on like it was any other day, except Ron would deal with anyone who knocked on their office door; and Harry liked that best.
The first year in the house, Ginny asked if he wanted to put a Confundus Charm on the front door, so no trick-or-treating children would disturb them. Harry said he didn’t mind – and so, every year, they turn on the TV and watch a movie that doesn’t remind Harry of anything at all. But Ginny gets the door if he can’t force himself to smile, and Harry stays on the sofa until she comes back, and sometimes she nicks some candy from the bag in the hallway and sneaks it into his hand. She curls up next to him, and Harry buries his nose in her hair and waits for his chest to stop burning.
When their own children got old enough to go, they made it a habit to be back before the credits roll. They take off their coats and costumes and sit on the carpet in the living room; and without fail, each of them has brought back a piece of candy specifically for Harry. All three treats find their way into his hands silently, and then the five of them sit on the floor digging their way through the rest of it. Ginny tells Lily if the movie was any good at all, and Albus asks if his ironic wizard costume is still clever even though it’s the third time he’s worn it.
The graveyard is reserved for another time. Sometimes, when Halloween falls on a weekend, they’ll go during the day, before the streets fill up with gaggles of children cheering and nosily inquiring about their lack of costume. If not, there is always the first of November. Ginny holds his hand, the kids take turns carrying the flowers, and they don’t bicker the slightest bit until they’re back home.
But Ron is long gone from the Auror Department, and Harry doesn’t have the luxury of spending the day buried in mindless paperwork anymore. James and Al are at Hogwarts, and this time next year, Lily will be, too.
So it feels the same, for now, but it’s bound to change. Harry has gotten so used to the comforting noise around him, he doesn’t think he’ll know how to deal with the silence when it comes back.
Ron rings, now. Their conversations sound the same every year, echoing lunch breaks in their joint office, years ago.
“Hi. It’s me.” Ron is usually quite pleased with himself for using the Muggle contraption so effortlessly, but on Halloween night, he’s sure not to let it show too much.
“Thank you for calling.”
What comes next is a silence for Harry to take: It’s what’s left of Ron’s habit to stretch his leg under their office tables and bump his foot into Harry’s. There’s no obligation here: Some years, they just listen to each other breathe, and rustle around their respective houses, until Harry changes the subject and Ron takes the cue.
Some years, they talk the way they always have. Few words. Simple comfort.
“Alright. Well, call, if you need anything.”
“Sure. And thanks again. For checking in.”
“Yeah, of course, mate.”
Then, they stay on the line for a little longer, just in case. And when Harry hangs up, the burning in his chest has eased a little.
“Ready to go?” Ginny.
“Yeah.” Harry puts down the phone and makes sure to reach for her hand, if briefly, in passing. “I’ll go get the flowers.”
“I’ll tell Lily. See you in a second, babe.”
That is Ginny’s part.
Her first year playing for the Harpies, she was stuck at practice. They didn’t make plans – none apart from the usual, and still, when Harry came stumbling out of their fireplace that night, her Patronus was there, filling the living room with warm, silver light, waiting for him, and he somehow managed not to have a panic attack right there and then.
“I’ll be there by eight, and if I’m not, my Patronus will be and tell you when. Either way, you will know. I promise.”
She got home twenty past eight, exactly like Patronus number three had told him she would, and crawled onto the couch next to him.
Once she’d reached for his hand, she looked up at him and said: “I’m sorry for the wait, Harry. I didn’t know it would take so long.”
Even now, Harry remembers all the directions his emotions ran when he looked at her – how quietly baffled and yet, wildly, weirdly touched he was.
“It’s no big deal”, he said.
Ginny gently put her head on his shoulder, and Harry slouched into her, soaking up the warmth she radiated. “I didn’t want to worry you”, he heard her say. “I didn’t want you to come home and – find the house empty.”
Harry was so taken aback, so in awe of her, and so heavy with sadness, he couldn’t speak. After a minute or so, he said, with a tight throat: “Thanks – just … for thinking of that.”
“I just wanted you to know I’d be there.”
Lily holds on to a bouquet of bright yellow flowers with one hand and to Harry’s fingers with the other. She’s ten, going on eleven, and she walks by her parents’ side with steady steps as they make their way down the street that leads to Godric’s Hollow’s graveyard.
It has taken Harry a long time to learn to talk about them. The handful of people he talks to has grown over the years, slowly and steadily, but remains a handful, still. There’s Ron, and Ginny, and Hermione. There’s both Weasley parents, and Andromeda, and one Christmas, George. Harry asks Hagrid about his parents, and his children ask him about them. Harry has told them who they’re named after, and why they’re not there anymore.
What he hasn’t learned is how to talk to them. He stands in front of the tombstone, and despite all the years behind him – all the things he’s said to Ron and Ginny and everyone else – there is nothing he can say, now, here.
Outside of the graveyard, Lily and James Potter’s names are never far. They are mentioned over dinner and around the Christmas tree. Their faces are in photographs around the house. James, Al, and Lily walk past the graduation picture of Hogwarts’ 1978 class every morning when they come down the stairs.
Harry’s life is full of proof that his parents have lived and loved and fought and loved some more. The graveyard, somehow, feels so far away from all of that. Here, they are only dead. Only cold. Only rotting underground.
And for that, Harry has nothing; nothing but silence.
Lily Luna Potter kneels down, picks up a bundle of dried flowers from earlier in the month, and gently lays down the fresh ones she carried here.
“Dad, can you tell the story about the Snitch again?”, she asks. “The one grandpa drew.”
Her part.
“Well, it’s a bit embarassing for him”, says Harry, the same way he always tells the story, and Ginny softly chuckles next to him. “He was supposed to be taking an exam, see. Like you will, once you’re in Hogwarts. But he was already finished, because he was really smart, and so, to pass the time until everyone else was done, he started doodling this little Snitch. And he put your grandma’s initials in it, too.”
“L, and E”, says Lily promptly. “L for Lily, like me, and E for Evans, because her name was Evans before they got married.”
“Yeah. See, he already had a big crush on her, but he didn’t know what to do about it yet. He crossed it out when it was time to hand in the exam, so no one ever saw it except him.”
“And you”, Ginny says.
“And me.”
“I’m sure he drew more”, Lily says with all the confidence of a ten-year-old. “After they got together.”
“I’m sure he did”, Harry says, and Lily nods like that concludes the story.
The three of them fall silent. Chilly October wind tugs at them – Lily buries her nose deep in her scarf and steps closer to Harry, leaning against him.
Ginny does, too – her forehead is touching Harry’s chin, and she keeps one arm wrapped tightly around him. All three of them are looking at the tombstone, and Harry feels Ginny’s hand resting on back. When he finally swallows and tears his eyes away from his parents, she is already there and looking at him.
“Are you okay?”, she asks. “It’s freezing.”
“I’m okay”, Harry mutters. “You’re warm.”