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i. 31 july, 1980
He has her eyes.
James stares at the miracle in his arms, his own flesh and blood, his son, and feels a prickling at the back of his eyes.
Harry is perfect. His Prongslet looks exactly like him, except for those beautiful eyes. They’re all Lily’s.
He holds out his finger in front of his son’s face, and Harry grips it tightly with that strength that only babies can have. He isn’t sure why, but that’s what causes the torrent of tears to fall.
“I don’t know why I’m crying,” he tells the room, currently occupied by Lily, Sirius and Remus, but they all do.
So far, their lives have been filled with nothing but misery. Friend after friend have fallen by Voldemort’s hand, but here, they have hope. Not in the prophecy that now no doubt applies to them, but in the fact that happiness can be found in the darkest of times.
And Harry? Harry is a bright light in the dense night, leading James — leading them all — home.
“Welcome to the world, Harry James,” James whispers, and Harry giggles.
***
ii. 31 october, 1981
His return to consciousness is slow and painful. His arms and legs all reconnect to his body one at a time, and after a while, he registers that he is lying in a very uncomfortable position on the stairs.
His brain feels as wrong-footed as he probably looks, considering the flakes of dust that settled on him as he slept. Standing and brushing the dirt away, he scans his memories for any recollection of the previous night.
Playing with Harry, shooting rings of smoke from his wand and Harry trying to grab the particles in his chubby fists —
The door imploding, wind rushing behind him as he makes his way to the door, wand in hand —
The flash of green he barely dodges —
Another ray of light, this time red, and his world goes dark.
James’s eyes widen as he remembers the night before, he remembers Voldemort —
He remembers that in the second before losing consciousness, Voldemort swept by him and went up the stairs.
To where his wife and son were.
Dashing up the steps, James’ mind is like a tornado. All the worse scenarios circle around until they reach the center, the ideas planting themselves permanently onto his brain.
He reaches the landing, and stops.
The door to the nursery is blown in, and he can see the tips of crimson hair fanning out on the ground. His legs pull him forward without his input, and soon he finds himself kneeling next to his beautiful Lily, hoping against hope that she’s still alive.
She looks so still there, her arm outstretched as if she had thrown it out a second before the end. But — wait —
A beat, and her chest rises, and James feels like he could cry.
Suddenly, someone does cry, and James looks up to see his son, bawling his eyes out in his crib. James crosses over to him and picks him up almost reverently, cradling the small child in his arms. Thats when he notices the cut, a network of lines covering his forehead like lightning had struck.
Where, he realized, it had struck just about an hour before.
“No,” James mumbles, and sinks to the dusty floor, holding Harry all the way.
There, in between the singed crib and the unconscious body of his wife, James sobs.
Harry will never be safe.
***
iii. 1 september, 1991
“Dad!” Harry exclaimed, ducking away from his father’s hand. “Stop doing that!”
“Sorry,” James says, not really sorry at all. “Force of habit.”
“You’re embarrassing me,” Harry sulks as he crosses his arms. Lily rolls her eyes at his theatrics.
“We have ten minutes,” she says, checking the time on her wristwatch. “We’ll have to be quick. Alright, Harry, you know the basics. Don’t sneak around at night —“
“— Unless you don’t get caught,” James intervenes.
She forges on. “Don’t get detention —“
“But if you do, say hi to Minnie for me —“
“— and don’t do anything your father would do,” she finishes.
“Hey!”
By the end, Harry is giggling, but he sobers when he sees the stern look on his mother’s face.
“But, honestly, Harry,” Lily says, laying a hand on his shoulder and looking him in the eye, green to green. “You know this year will be harder for you than for other first years. People will stare, and people will gape, and they might even ask annoying or insensitive questions, but you have to treat them all with respect, okay?” At Harry’s nod, she smiles again and drops her hands. He snorts a little when Lily’s hands card through his curls.
Then and there, It hits James all at once — after eleven years of having Harry all to themselves, he’ll suddenly be away for most of the year.
Behind his glasses, his eyes start to water, and he tries to discreetly rub them without either Harry or Lily noticing. He is unsuccessful.
“I told you Dad would cry before I got on the train!” Harry says, grinning. “You owe me a Galleon, Mum.” Lily looks a little sulkily at Harry’s smug face, but hands the Galleon over anyhow.
“You were betting on me?” He says, his voice deceivingly thick. “The betrayal!”
“You bet on me all the time, Dad!” Harry says. At that moment, the whistle for the train goes off.
Sensing the end is near, James pulls Harry into a hug. “You’ll make me proud, Harry, I know it.”
“Even…” Harry’s voice is unnaturally timid, but he stops and tries again. “Even if I’m in Slytherin?”
“Even if you’re in Slytherin,” he says reassuringly, and Harry beams.
His face is so small, nearly exactly how James looked in his first year, and he just can’t contain the tears any longer. They flow out of him like a floodgate’s been opened.
“Dad!” Harry mutters, but James just squeezes him once before letting go.
“Have fun, okay?” Harry gives him one last smile, and at the prompting of the last warning whistle, rushes off to climb onto the train.
The train begins to move, and Harry pokes his head out of a window to excitedly wave goodbye. It turns the corner, and he’s gone.
“Sap,” Lily says, bumping his hip.
“Unfeeling,” he sobs back, bumping her in turn. Lily just kisses him on the cheek before Apparating them both home.
***
iv. 24 june, 1995
He’s never seen Harry look so empty.
His green eyes, usually so full of light, are dim, leaving him as a shell of the fourteen-year-old boy he had been just a few hours before.
Lily says that he’s in shock, but nothing can stop him from worrying about his baby boy.
Ever since he appeared in front of the crowd with a dead body, James has been uncomfortably watching over Harry’s every move, often earning him snaps and snarls in return.
It’s the first time he has no idea how to talk to his son.
According to everyone else, they are practically carbon copies, not only by how they look but the way they act. He knows Harry all the way down to his bones, so even if he doesn’t know what to say, he knows what to do to start to repair the damage.
It will take years, and even then, Harry may never be truly healed, but James will be damned if he doesn’t try. So, while Harry is still near-comatose in his hospital bed, James come up to him and wraps his arms around him.
It’s like a dam breaks. Harry leans into his touch as he sobs all his feeling out, every unsaid word and every aborted action. He lets it all out, and James does too.
It shouldn’t be like this. What kind of world is this, that a fourteen-year-old is expected to save them all? Who decided it was fair, that Harry may have to give his life for people who would sooner ridicule him that treat him like a human being?
As his tears stream down his face and intermingle with Harry’s, James pulls him closer, as if he’s protecting him from the world.
It’s too late, though. The world has already left its mark on his son, and all he can do is be there to support him.
***
v. 31 july, 1997
“No,” James says, his face stony, “No. There is no way I’m letting you go on this death trip!”
“Don’t you see?” Harry asks, his face just as hardened and his tone just as sharp. “I have to! Dumbledore left me a mission —“
“You’re seventeen!” James yells out. “You can’t just make these decisions —“
“Watch me!” Harry screams, the wand in his hand emitting red sparks. With an angry huff and a rough shove, Harry storms out of the living room of the Burrow and up the stairs.
His paternal instincts tell him to follow Harry and demand that he stay at the Burrow, but he knows, first of all, that Harry would never listen, and even if he did, their fight would be so explosive they may not speak to each other for weeks. They are both fiercely loyal, James knew — James, to his family, but Harry was loyal to the world, all because he was made to be.
The pressure of their world hanging in the balance should never be placed on a child.
Harry is the pride of James’ life. Honestly, if he didn’t exist, James is quite sure that he would be dead by now. Harry gives him someone to live for, but for him to throw all their protection away? He can’t fathom it.
But fate has chosen Harry, for whatever godforsaken reason. Harry has been marked by Voldemort, and James knows firsthand that the monster will not rest until he has completely destroyed him. And if he did that…
James doesn’t want to think about the consequences. Their world is barely recognizable as it is — anything else would send them into fully-fledged anarchy.
Harry is like the glue holding them all together. It has to be him to destroy Voldemort, just as it has to be him to hunt down… whatever he was hunting down.
James can’t even begin to imagine the idea of losing Harry, but day after day, the possibility becomes more and more likely.
He knows Harry has to do something soon. It pains him to let him go, and he knows he may never see him again. But he still knows that his son is the key to all this, whether he liked it or not.
Steeling his resolve, James creeps up all five staircase to Ron’s room where Harry was no doubt sulking.
Knocking lightly on the door, James waits until Harry responds. He does, making a small grunt, and James opens the door.
In the corner, there’s huge piles of books. James has no idea how they plan to carry them all, but he knows Hermione will find a way somehow.
Harry was lying in the cot that had been set up for him, facing away from him. Harry was no doubt still mad — he had some right to be — but James wanted to at least talk it through before Harry leaves on a bad note.
And in case he never sees his son again, he doesn’t want their last interaction to be harsh words and shrill tones. James will never forgive himself.
“Harry?” He tries, discouraged when Harry stiffens in the cot. “I’m not here to fight.”
“Then what are you here to do?” Harry asks sharply, not even turning around. “I have nothing to say to you. I’m leaving, whether you like it or not.”
“I know.” James drags his hand through his greying hair. “I know you will. I just — I wanted to tell you —“
Merlin, when had it become so hard to speak to his son? He knows that Harry is his own person — the best mixture of himself and Lily, he’d say — but he had never been at a loss for words before. What had happened to their family over the years, that they could barely talk to each other now?
“I wanted to say,” James starts again, “that I know you. And I know that you wouldn’t be my son if you didn’t go.”
Harry stays silent.
“And — well —“ James once again runs his hand through his hair, which is quickly becoming a nervous tic. He can already feel the tears bubbling in his eyes, but he wants to get this off his chest before he starts blubbering. “I want you to be — you. I don’t want you to go — I never want to see you head into danger — but I won’t stop you. Just — Merlin, Harry — be safe. For me, for your mum. Please.”
A beat of silence passes, in which James thinks that he’s failed to connect with his son. But then, Harry rises, finally looking at him for the first time.
So much has changed since that Halloween night sixteen years ago. He’s seen Harry grow from a baby to a boy to a man, but to him, Harry will always be his baby boy.
And it pains him to see Harry go through so much, and he won’t even be there to protect him from more.
Harry stands to hug him, and James bursts into tears. Harry’s practically his height, now, and he pulls his father in.
“I’m scared too,” Harry whispers, and the tears in his voice are clear. “But I have to do this, y’know? I wish I didn’t have to, but I do. And — I — I want to say I’ll see you again, but I don’t know if I will.”
James pulls away to wipe his tears and to stare into those green eyes that belong to the two most important people in his life, and sees only determination and bottomless love.
He knows that Harry will see it through to the end, whether it’s his or Voldemort’s. He just isn’t ready to see his son go.
“I love you, Dad,” Harry whispers. “I promise I’ll try my best to come home.”
“I love you too, Prongslet.” Harry starts a little at the use of his childhood nickname, but soon relaxes into his father’s hold.
Harry’s always been a bit of a mama’s boy, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t connect with his father.
James just hopes that this isn’t the last time.
***
i. 2 may, 1998
“Harry Potter is dead!”
Lily’s brain grinds to a halt. Almost immediately, she seeks out James, and he’s there, across the room, his eyes wide and skin ashen.
Lily’s sure she looks much like that herself. Her son, her Harry, cannot be dead. It was as impossible as the sun being out at night — it just wasn’t an option.
But as Voldemort’s laughs ring in her ears, she knows she must see for herself. She dashes out of the Great Hall, barely registering that her husband is right behind her. She throws open the doors to the grounds, and —
Her whole world stops.
Harry looks so small in Hagrid’s arms, almost how he looked when he was a baby. He’s so still, and probably cold, and —
He’s dead.
Her son is dead.
Lily drops to the ground, only caught at the last second by James. She turns to look at him, and takes in his devastated face, his shaking frame.
The tears that Lily has come to expect are absent, only to be replaced with such endless grief that tears cannot even begin to express it. Instead, she feels them growing in her own eyes. It’s such a foreign feeling that she starts, picking up a tear that escapes with her finger. It’s soon joined by others.
Lily doesn’t cry. She doesn’t know why, but she just doesn’t. But as her baby is placed onto the ground, limp and still and dead, she can’t help the sob that escapes.
She’s sure that Bellatrix is bathing in her misery, but Lily can’t bring herself to care.
Nothing matters.
Her son is dead. Nothing matters.
***
i. 20 may, 2003
“Care for a dance?” James asks, one eyebrow lifted in what he thinks is an attractive look.
Lily, despite herself, giggles and takes his hand. She may be forty-three, but she’ll be damned if she doesn’t enjoy herself at her son’s wedding.
In the middle of the room, Harry spins around with Ginny, his dark hair and skin perfectly contrasting Ginny’s fiery hair and pale complexion. If James and Lily are honest, they look almost exactly like they did on their own wedding day.
James spins Lily like a dime, and she nearly yelps in surprise. The next second, they are pressed against each other, James’ chin resting on top of her head.
“You know I hate it when you do that,” she tells him, and he smiles. He knows it’s a lie as much as she does. Still, he moves to press a kiss onto her greying hair, slowly moving them around in a circle all the while.
If you told them twenty-five years ago that they’d be here, able to watch their son get married, they would probably hex you. Neither of them expected to make it this far, through not only one war but two. They lost dear friends along the way, but they know that they’re watching them all, wherever they happen to be.
Here on Earth, though, they can watch their son and their new daughter-in-law dance circles around the guests, periodically pressing their lips together. They look to be in pure bliss.
“James,” Lily says, blinking rapidly, “how did we get so lucky?”
“I don’t know, Lils,” James says, his voice barely a whisper. She turns to look at him, and spots the rivulets pouring from his eyes. She kisses him, and as she closes her eyes, tears escape.
Then they stand there, crying, watching their son have the time of his life. He’s gone through so much — he’s died and come back to life, even — most of it things that his parents can’t even imagine, but the fact that he’s here, able to enjoy himself — able to live — is a miracle in itself.
“I don’t know,” James croaks again, as Harry’s laugh reverberates through the room.
***