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Heat comes in many forms; Lily knows several of them. She knows the pleasant tingle against her skin when the sun peaks in through the window. She knows the wonderful fire when James touches her in just the right way, when his breath brushes against the skin of her neck – she blissfully burns then. She knows the sharp sting of hot metal or water against her skin, striking her like a whip. And she knows the dense, merciless heat of an August night.
A heat that is a thief, stealing the air and leaving nothing but a heavy fog that presses down onto chests so that even the last gush of a breath escapes. Such a heat knows no escape, only endurance. And Lily endures.
She is propped up against the headboard of her - their, her’s and James’ – bed, starring into the blueish grey darkness. James’ old t-shirt sticks to her body like a second skin and her hair feels damp.
Lily wants to get up, drink some water, wet her face but she can’t. She can’t because there’s a sniffling baby, her son, lying on her chest.
Harry’s been fussy all night, waking up crying every few hours. The first two or so times James had gotten up before Lily could even stir. He had taken their son out of the crib at the foot of their bed, bounced him gently, whispering to him until his cries stopped and he fell back asleep.
And then, when Lily was awoken by Harry’s cries again James, wasn’t there anymore.
She crawled out of the bed, scooped Harry up and settled back down with him in her arms. Harry’s cries were shrill, his angry red mouth opened grotesquely. With her eyes squeezed shut and her jaw clenched Lily fed Harry, her nipples aching under the demanding suckling.
Now, Harry’s been asleep for some time and Lily feels stiff and hot. Where is James?
Recently James has been getting up at night. Lily knows from their time at Hogwarts that James is no stranger to nighttime. He spent hours roaming the Hogwarts grounds in the darkness. The mischief in his eyes and those of his friends and their giggles lit up the night just enough.
So maybe, Lily thinks, getting up at night is James’ way of seeking comfort, searching for reassurance in something he’s always done. So far though, Lily doubts that James has found any comfort. Just like her, he is scared, afraid, wary at all times.
On her chest Harry sniffles. Even in his sleep, he is distressed, he must sense the anxiousness that has mingled so perfectly with the heat.
Lily presses her nose into Harry’s hair. For a one-month-old baby, Harry has a lot of hair; it’s unruly and curly just like his father’s.
James was so delighted when he first saw it. With a smile that was so bright Lily almost had to close her eyes, hadn’t it been for the euphoria coursing through her veins, James brushed through the soft hair and said: “Seeing that he got the good looks from me, let’s hope he got your brains, love.”
Mesmerized by the baby, her baby in her arms Lily just smiled. She still remembers how she felt that day: like she could fly, like nothing could ever hurt this beautiful baby in her arms as long as she was there, like she would always be happy because Harry was alive.
Inhaling the soft smell of Harry’s head Lily tries to recapture this feeling. It’s there for a second, but the heat crushes it right out of her. So, Lily just sits there, with her nose nestled into her son’s hair, afraid and sore.
Where is James? Why won’t he come back to bed?
The bliss of Harry’s arrival in the world vanished as soon Dumbledore’s letter came.
Your efforts to keep Harry’s birth a secret, however earnest, were unsuccessful. Voldemort knows.
The flight Lily had taken when Harry had been born, the assurance of invincibility that had manifested within her all came crashing down with those two sentences.
As though a drain to Lily’s spirit had opened her courage and her happiness gushed out like blood from a wound, leaving her with hollow fear. Fear for her son. Fear for her husband. Fear for tomorrow. Fear for a future.
Lily can’t stay in bed any longer.
Carefully she leans forward and rests Harry in her arm, he is still small enough to fit on the length of her forearm.
Lily’s feet meet the floorboards, and her feet stick to them with every step as she pads across the room to the door.
Harry lets out a little whine but remains asleep.
Lily enters the bathroom. The baby bathtub is leaning against the wall of the big bathtub to dry from the bath Harry had earlier. The yellow tiles on the walls are blue at night.
Still balancing Harry on one arm, Lily turns on the faucet, greeting the stream of cold water in her invitingly cupped palm. Doing her best, but not quite succeeding to not get Harry wet, Lily splashes the water onto her face and rubs it into her neck. She can’t bend down low enough to drink from the faucet without dropping Harry, so she laps some water from her palm, unsatisfactorily so.
Making no effort to dry her face – the heat will boil the water right off her anyway – Lily heads for the staircase.
Dim orange light floods the hallway; James must be in the kitchen.
He is sitting at the kitchen table, his head in his hands bent over a book on the table. His hunched form is that of a man much older than James.
Lily steps into the kitchen, heading straight for the freezer. She embraces the huff of cold air that hits her and inhales deeply. She finds the silicon tray of flower-shaped ice cubes with ease and pulls it out before shutting the freezer again.
When Lily turns towards the room again, James has abandoned his book and is looking at her. His hazel eyes are tired behind his glasses.
“Why are you up?” he asks, watching closely as Lily tries to squeeze an ice cube out of the casing and land it on her mouth one-handedly. “Do you need some help there?”
The ice cube plops into Lily’s waiting mouth, and she flashes James a triumphant grin. He returns it half-heartedly. Lily can’t really blame him, as of late there’s not much room for smiles on her face either.
“Couldn’t sleep because of the bloody heat. Felt like I was suffocating.” Lily says, the ice cube pressing against the inside of her cheek. “Harry seems to not get any rest either, and…” she pauses, clears her tone of any accusation it could behold. “I was wondering where you were.” Lily can’t help the hint of a glare in her green eyes as she fixes James with her glance. “I don’t like it when I wake up and you’re not there.”
James’ shoulders fall even farther, and he stares down at the open book in front of him on the table.
“I’m sorry.” James swallows visibly, as though he was forcing an embodiment of his fear that wants to escape through his mouth, back into his heart. Lily wishes he would just speak to her.
“I couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t want to bother you with all my tossing and turning, so I figured I best get up. I didn’t think you’d notice.”
“I noticed. I always do.” Lily cuts in. The ice cube on her tongue has molten already.
Lily doesn’t know whether she is touched that James wants to shelter her or angry that he underestimates her like that.
“I’d rather you toss and turn next to me than you leave. I’d rather you talk to me…” Lily pushes another ice cube out of the casing, into her mouth as she slides down against the refrigerator, careful as to not bump Harry against anything or worse, wake him.
James sighs in resignation.
Lily and James haven’t really talked since the letter arrived. Both retreated into their shells, harbouring their fears by themselves, not wanting to burden the other. There have been empty conversations, some smiles about what Harry was doing, some quick kisses and some slow ones even, but nothing that rang true to what they were feeling.
“I’m sorry, Lily” James pushes the book in front of him away and buries his face in his arms on the table. “This is just more than I anticipated…I don’t know if I can handle it.” James’ voice is small and throaty like he might cry, and Lily feels terrible. Before she can say something, anything to comfort the man she loves he speaks again.
“I feel so fucking useless, you understand? It’s – our friends, they’re out there, they’re fighting, fighting him. And we are stuck here, waiting for the day he comes, like lambs for the slaughter…And I know we’re doing this for Harry,” James is still mumbling into his arms so Lily can’t see his face, but she can practically hear the tears of frustration.
“And I would stay here for the rest of my life if it meant Harry would be safe, but I’m just – I feel like I’m not doing enough. Compared to you – you’re taking care of Harry so well, you’re doing so much – hell – “James looks up, his cheeks are glistening with the wetness of his salty tears and his bottom lip is quivering. He jerks his head in the direction of the tray of ice cubes. “You need those ice cubes to soothe your nipples because you’re bleeding from taking care of our son, and I’m on the sideline and I can’t do anything to help you…” James pauses for a shaky breath and searches Lily’s gaze. “I was looking for a spell that would soothe Harry in the heat, but I can’t find one. I can’t even do that…”
“James-“ Lily croaks, and she hopes she’s not sounding too patronising. She wants to touch James. She wants to hold his face in her hands and kiss the tears away. She wants to make the terrible fear go away, if just for a moment. “I – but” she’s at a loss for words, she blames James’ desperate eyes that are searching her face for answers. How can she think, when he’s looking at her like that?
“Do you want to come here?” she says finally. Lily stretches her legs to their full length and pats her bare thighs with her free hand. Harry is still slumbering in her arm.
With a deep inhale, not unlike Harry’s sniffles, James nods. Sliding off the chair he crosses the room to where Lily is sitting.
“Wait, let me take Harry, your arm must be falling off…”
Now that James’ said it, Lily feels how heavy her arm has become, a sharp prickle throbs all the way from her fingertips to her shoulder.
“Alright, hang on,” she says, twisting to face James.
Slowly, she pushes out her arm towards James’ waiting hands. She sighs in relief as the weight lifts of her arm.
As though Harry was made of glass, James holds him to his chest, before lying down himself, resting his head on Lily’s thighs.
It’s hot. Hot enough to avoid physical contact, but at this moment Lily is just so happy to be close to James again, she doesn’t feel the heat James’ head spreads on her skin. James’ eyes are trained onto Harry’s sleeping form. His eyelashes throw shadows onto his wet cheeks, his lips are parted ever so slightly.
As James is lying there, with his head on Lily’s lap he looks just like the boy she once knew at school. The boy whose mocking, golden eyes were always searching for trouble. The boy who stole her nights of sleep with his infuriating confidence. The boy she had to get to know to love.
James’ youth is pouring out of his every pore as he’s lying on their kitchen floor with their son on his chest and Lily is so in love with him.
“Your ice cubes are melting, love,” James says after some minutes of silence.
“That’s alright, I’ll make new ones tomorrow.” Lily smiles, and she can’t resist the urge to touch James any longer. With gentle strokes, Lily brushes through James’ messy hair, the hair he passed on to their son. James closes his eyes like their cat purrs when it rubs up against their legs.
“You know, James, I’m scared all the time. I wake up at night because I can’t sleep unless I check on Harry every few hours or so. And then, when I see that Harry is fine, that he’s in his bed I feel like a fucking idiot. And I hate it, that you-know-who gets to me. I don’t want to give him that space in my life, I don’t want to look at my son and think of Vol- of him…” James’ eyes are still closed, but they're squeezed shut, and Lily’s hand in his hair aren’t stoking anymore, it’s holding on for dear life.
“And then-“ the corners of Lily’s mouth pull towards her chin and hot tears are welling up in her eyes. “I look at you. I look at you, next to me in our bed, and then sometimes I think, that even though our baby is in danger, even though I’m so scared, I think that I wouldn’t want to be in this situation with anybody but you. Jesus, I sound like an idiot…” Lily huffs and lets her head drop against the refrigerator door behind her.
James has opened his eyes, looking up at Lily. He inhales to speak but Lily cuts him op before he can.
“Look, I wish I could show you how much you are needed, how ridiculous it sounds to me when you’re saying you’re useless.”
Lily’s hand has abandoned James’ hair and is running down the side of his face instead. The slight stubble on his cheek tickles against the skin of Lily’s hand and she lets her hand pause, only her index finger continues to draw little nothings on James’ cheekbone.
Lily’s voice is steady but gentle when she speaks, like a majestic tree with a firm trunk and soft leaves.
“You’re doing the only job that’s important right now – protecting our son. And that’s enough. I need you, James, and Harry does too. We love you, isn’t that enough? There’s no glory in hiding, I get that, but there’s no glory in death either.”
James leans into Lily’s hand, his lips are pressing against her palm, and he kisses it gently.
“I feel like such a prick now…” he chuckles dryly. “So stupid for complaining like this, when you’re right; this is no time to be glorious.”
“There’s no need to feel stupid for being human and scared,” Lily says. “Nobody should ever be in the situation we’re in now. It’s okay to be angry about it, I know I am…But-“ Lily exhales sharply and James kisses her palm again. “I think we need to remind ourselves, that we have things to be happy about as well. I mean, we have a beautiful, healthy child, friends that protect us, we have each other. There’s so much love in our lives and nobody can take that away from us.”
At this point, they are both looking into each other’s eyes – green melting into brown. James’ tears have dried, and Lily’s hand is cupping his face gently. In the face of all the fear and uncertainty in their life, they both know in that moment, that they’ll pull through whatever is ahead of them together. It’s going to be Lily and James until the end, whatever that end may be.
In the glimmering heat of the August night, it is clear that their family is worth fighting for.
“Whatever did I do to end up with such a brilliant wife?” James grins into Lily’s palm.
“Well, you’re not too bad yourself, love,” Lily rolls her eyes but can’t hide the smile on her face. “But I think it’s the ice cubes, really. They cleared all the heat out of my brain – because I’m just realising all these things as I’m saying them.”
James cocks his eyebrows, and he looks just like he did back at Hogwarts when Lily would tell him off for his pranks – amused but earnest.
“Maybe I should have an ice cube then…” he says.
“Maybe you should.” Lily agrees, pulling the tray of ice cubes towards her. “Open up.” She instructs James and he follows.
He is looking up at her in anticipation, his red lips parted invitingly and who is Lily to resist that image?
Instead of plopping the ice cube into James’ waiting mouth, she pushes it into her own.
“Hey –“ James utters in protest, but he has no chance to continue because Lily bends down and kisses James’ mouth. She feels him hum or chuckle beneath her as she gently tugs at his bottom lip with her teeth. And then she kisses him deeply, letting her tongue and the ice cube invade James’ sweet mouth, his cheek resting steady in her palm.
Lily draws back when her neck starts hurting, by then the ice cube has long molten. James flashes her the cockiest grin, even daring to bite his lip.
“Well, there you go,” she pants “your mind feel any clearer yet?”
“Oh, I’m not quite sure, I might need another ice cube…”
“Of course you do.”