Work Text:
Mom, I'm tired
Can I sleep in your house tonight?
Mom, is it alright
If I stay for a year or two?
Harry lays in bed in her parents’ house, and there are tears in her eyes. It’s odd how out of place she can feel in the house she grew up in. It seemed easier, somehow, to pretend to be happy here when she was already pretending so many other things. Now, though, it’s as if losing one secret has set all the rest of them at the door– birds she’d locked away desperate for a glimpse of sunlight. She’s tired, and her bed doesn’t feel like her own. She wishes it could. She wishes, for a moment, that she was seven years old, tucked under the sheets and waiting for her mother to come kiss her good night.
Mom, I'll be quiet
It would be just to sleep at night
And I'll leave once I figure out
How to pay for my own life too
Sometimes, Lily Potter misses her parents’ house. She doesn’t regret marrying James, of course, could never bring herself to be anything but grateful for the life she has with him, and she loves her family, loves her daughter more than she ever thought possible. No matter how happy she is, though, part of her will always consider the house in Cokeworth home. She’d moved out practically the second she graduated– James was already talking about marriage, and it was just more practical to move into Potter Manor with him than go back home and try to navigate around Petunia’s worsening attitude. Part of her wishes she’d stayed, though, even just for a year or two. Let herself sleep in the bedroom next to her sister’s, and help her dad in the kitchen. Let herself be young, just for a little longer, just long enough to ask her mom to brush her hair for her, one more time.
Mom, would you wash my back?
This once, and then we can forget
And I'll leave what I'm chasing
For the other girls to pursue
Once, when she was younger, Harry had knocked over a vase. It was an ugly vase, a gift from her mother’s sister Petunia, and it had shattered into a hundred pieces on the floor of the sitting room. When she’d seen it, Lily hadn’t yelled, just stared at the broken glass on the floor for a moment before beginning to sweep it up. Harry had stood in the doorway and watched her mother clean up the mess. She was quiet, red hair falling to hide her face from Harry’s view. Her wand remained on the table where she’d left it. That night, Harry went to bed feeling the sorriest she’d ever been, and woke the same way. She’d gone to Lily, thrown herself at her sobbing incoherent apologies, and her mother had held her tight, promising that she wasn’t angry at Harry, that she’d forgiven her the second the vase broke. It was an ugly vase, anyway, she’d said lightly, and then she’d drawn Harry a warm bath with extra bubbles, and brushed through her wet hair for her afterwards, just like her mom used to do for her.
Harry’s older, now, but she’s never forgotten that day. She wishes, ridiculously, that she’d never broken that vase that day, because then she would never know what it feels like to have her mother forgive her unconditionally. She wouldn’t know, and so she wouldn’t be missing it now.
Harry wants, more than anything else right now, a warm bath with extra bubbles, and gentle hands brushing through her hair, steady, steady, lulling her to sleep.
Mom, am I still young?
Can I dream for a few months more?
When she was a girl, Lily Evans soared from the height of the swingset and brought down branches on the heads of boys that were mean to her. She loved her sister who couldn’t love her back, and she loved the boy who called her a witch and showed her magic. She loved the boy who tormented him, and who tormented her, and she did it all fiercely, unapologetically. She dreamed, and what she dreamed, she made, conjuring spells from notions of need and the boundless magic that ran through her veins.
When she was a girl, Harry Potter brewed Potions till her palms ached from gripping the stirring rod and her skin bloomed red from the heat, then she brewed an hour more. Flame danced beneath her cauldron, mischievous, small and mighty. Careful hands coaxed the magic out of every ingredient, twined every spark into complex knots of power under the surface of each potion. She did it lovingly, unapologetically. She dreamed, and what she dreamed, she made, twisting and bending limitless power to her will, burying it in the spaces between atoms.
When she grew up, Lily Potter learned that Mudbloods do not get to fly from the swingset, not even Mudblood ladies of Noble Houses. She did not love with abandon any longer– she loved James, she loved Sirius and Diana and Remus, she loved her sister, still, from afar. She loved her daughter. She closed up her magic, capped the power line dripping lighting into her bloodstream. She watched her daughter grow up, dreamer, brewer, ferociously stubborn. She watched her daughter learn that this world would be no kinder to her than it had been to her mother, would be no more indulgent of her soul’s passion. She prepared to teach her daughter of the little victories– of carefully crafted spells, the rush of an autumn wind that felt like a glimpse of flying. She prepared, and she waited, and her heart broke every time Harry asked to go to Hogwarts.
When she grows up, Harry Potter learns that half-bloods do not get to attend Hogwarts, not even half-blood daughters of the House Potter. Not even half-bloods who switch places with their pure-blood cousins, who lie to everyone they love and all of Britain besides. Harry Potter returns home, home to her mother who is angry at her and with her and exactly like her. Her mother who taught her to fold up the magic that roars within her, showed her the motions with the ease of someone who has convinced themself that this is the way things are meant to be. Her mother’s magic is worn along the lines on which she pulls it in, but Harry’s magic is drawn tight, wild and willful as she was when she was a child.
Harry Potter is 16 years old. She has been sent away, the dream she has been dreaming since she was a little girl ripped from her grasp. There is no future for it now. She will keep it close, jammed up against the frenetic magic and coiled disappointment in her chest. She will go to her mother, who is more like her now than she has ever been. She will learn, painstakingly, how to make her dreams smaller. Her heart will break in her chest, and she will learn, eventually, how to hold it together.