Chapter Text
1991
”We’re going to have so much fun, you and I. Aren’t we, Harry?” Their eyes met in the rear-view mirror. Harry nodded.
“Why couldn’t mum come with?” he asked quietly, and his uncle sighed.
“Because Maggie needs to work, now during the summer when everyone is on holiday, they need people more than ever, people like your mum.” His uncle turned his eyes back on the road.
“But when can mum go on holiday, then? If everyone else is away now?”
His uncle sat quiet for a moment, before a big smile appeared on his face.
“Weren’t you guys in Cardiff just last week? Saw that kids’ theatre thingy, what was it? Jack and the Beanstalk? Was it any good?”
“I suppose. But you don’t even spend the night when you go to Cardiff, just there and back. That’s not a holiday.”
“Maybe not, but fun, that’s what it is!” His uncle chuckled as he accelerated up unto the motorway in the direction marked ‘Dover’.
*
The summer crept by at a snail’s pace. Unbearably sunny days interlaced with unbearably rainy days. Uncle Jasper tried his best, and if Harry would be honest with himself, the summer wouldn’t have been half bad, if it wasn’t for his grandmother’s raving words about the place. He liked his grandmother, he did, really, but she didn’t seem to be able to give a complement without making her disapproval of something else all to vivid. Every word of praise towards her native land came with an implied insult, sharp as one of her sowing needles, against the rolling hills and lush forests Harry himself called home. And all the nice things she was able to do for him, that his mother wasn’t.
There was a small stream, barely more than a muddy puddle, at the end of the garden, and on the other side fields of bright yellow rapeseed flowers stretching on as far as the eye could see. The stream had burrowed itself down into the layers of dirt, far enough for Harry to disappear two times over when standing at the bottom. Uncle Jasper helped him to fashion little boats out of willow leaves, and they tried to sail them in the still water. In the end they abandoned the endeavour and started building a fleet instead, complete with a harbour, docks, even a shipyard. Until one day, when Harry came skipping down the bank, he found a boy, a few years his senior, standing over his ships, now scattered across the stream, mane of them capsized, absentmindedly rearranging the rocks with his foot. Harry stopped in his tracks and starred at the boy. He was not very tall for his age, but loomed a good head above Harry. On top of his head was an unruly mess of blond hair, with a pair of somewhat disinterested green eyes.
“Bonjour,” said Harry.
“You don’t sound French,” said the boy, his eyes narrowing.
“Neither do you,” tried Harry, wanting to match the boy’s snappy tone. “I’m Harry. I’m Welsh.”
“Clearly. I’m Edward, but you can call me Ed if you want. No one ever does, but I like how it sounds, so I am going to ask people to call me that from now on. You can be the first.”
The two boys stood quietly for a few moments, neither of them moving.
“Why have you destroyed my harbour?” Harry finally asked. The boy, Ed, laughed.
“What harbour? You mean the rubbish you and your dad have piled down here?”
“He’s not my dad, and it was all his idea. I didn’t even like it.”
“Good, because it looked awfully silly, you know. But who is he then?”
“My uncle.”
“Why are you here with your uncle? Do you have cousins? Where’s your dad?” The questions sputtered out of the boy’s mouth in rapid succession, and Harry barely had time to register them.
“My dad’s not here.”
“Mine neither. He’s back home, in London, working.”
“Mine’s dead.”
Edward fell quiet, clearly stunned.
“Sorry.”
“I never met him. Mum’s at home, though. She needs to work during the summer, it’s really important says Uncle Jasper.”
“What is it she does, then?”
“She helps old people when they can’t live by themselves anymore. She has extra work now since everyone else is on holiday.”
“Your mum works in an old people’s home? My dad does real important work.”
“And why is his work so important?”
“He’s a lawyer.”
“What do they do?”
“They tell wealthy people what they can and cannot do, and then they get paid loads of money.”
“Seems like a stupid job.”
“If it was stupid, then why does he get paid so much then?” Edward asked, before he turned on his heel and bolted up the bank on the other side of the stream.