Chapter Text
There's Something Wrong With James
Chapter One
Coming Back Home
It was a chilly day that morning at Platform 9 ¾, so chilly in fact that Harry felt like his toes were about to break off from the frostbite. The frigid wind swept across Harry's flushed cheeks. His oversized puffer jacket made him look like a marshmallow gone off with its bile-green colour. He should've listened to Ginny when she'd told him that he looked like he'd been sick on his puffer jacket when he'd taken it out to wear that morning. He could've sworn that when he'd bought it, this sophisticated forest-green colour brought out the greens in his eyes—or so the shop assistant had said.
He didn't bother using an anti-fog charm on his glasses, suffering through the moody London weather. The sky may be a sad, cloudy grey, and he might need his feet amputated, but at least his boys and little girl were coming home. An afternoon freezing his arse off in King's Cross had to be worth it for those ungrateful runts.
They'd still be ungrateful, Ginny would tell him. They're ours, aren't they?
Just before he left, Ginny said she'd spend the day cooking them a hot pot to welcome them back. Harry made a quick mental note to buy them all takeaways before they headed home. He still hadn't gotten rid of the taste of the rancid onions and the soft potatoes from the last one. Traditional Lancashire fair it was not.
A smile immediately crept on his face as he noticed the silhouettes of Albus and Lily. The very same smile that started to disintegrate after he noticed that they were running towards him. His fifth-year son and fourth-year daughter, in their Slytherin and Gryffindor uniforms, with wide eyes. They were panting by the time they reached him. Until they spoke, Harry wouldn't know what got them riled up. Could be they just missed him. Could be that they managed to set he train on fire (though it looked fine from where he was standing, but he'd never been the kind of father that underestimated his children).
"Dad!" they both said in unison.
"It's really good to see you," Lily said, still recovering her breath.
"Swell. Real swell," Albus added on. "You're looking dapper in your…er…whatever you're wearing."
Harry knew he did not look dapper in 'whatever he was wearing.'
"Yeah," Lily said. Light green eyes twinkling. "Real good or dapper or whatever."
Albus' hair was an absolute mess, just like it always was, and Lily's strawberry-blonde braids looked frizzy from the vile weather. Albus looked so much like Harry that it almost terrified him at times. They both were beaming. Even in the middle of trying to be serious, they couldn't help looking like they were about to burst into laughter.
Harry's lips were pressed tightly as he said, "Alright. I'll bite. What have you two done? And do I need to let your mum know about it?"
Their pupils dilated.
"Us?" Albus said, squeaking.
"We didn't do anything," Lily said. "Why do you think we did anything?"
"We're just happy to see you," Albus said.
"Didn't you, like, miss us at all, Dad?" Lily asked, raising an eyebrow.
A likely story, Harry thought.
"So, there's nothing the matter at all?" Harry asked, amused. His eyes were shining. He missed being that age. Albus and Lily were so in sync sometimes they reminded him of the twins. He still felt a tug at his heartstrings when he thought of Fred and all the good memories that they had together. "Alright then. We'll wait for James, then go."
"No!" they both said in unison.
"I mean…" Albus said. "There's just this one thing."
Lily kept nodding her head. "This tiny thing."
"Itty bit."
"Not anything at all kind of thing."
"Just a passing remark kind of thing…" Albus trailed off. "Thing."
"You've not killed James, have you?" Harry said, not able to hold in his grin.
Lily scoffed. "He can do it himself with all the studying he does," she said. "No, it's not that."
"Yes?" Harry said.
Both Lily and Albus looked at each other. Any kind of humour that was on their faces was fast disappearing. Albus stiffened, and Lily started toying with the ends of one of her braids, a nervous habit she'd adopted over the years. Harry should've known then that something was wrong. Ginny had always said that he could be oblivious at times. But he just thought that they were just pulling his leg.
"It can't be that bad," Harry reassured. "You've not burned the castle down or anything like that, have you?"
"Dad!" Lily groaned.
Albus sighed as he rubbed his neck. He looked down as he spoke. "It's about Jamie."
"What about James?" Harry asked. He doubted that James had managed to get himself into trouble. He wasn't surprised he hadn't appeared yet. James took ages to get off the train because he'd spent at least a quarter of an hour ensuring he hadn't forgotten any of his things.
James was his overachieving son, who was always polite and thought criticism was the end of the world. He was exceedingly athletic but could obtain all twelve O.W.Ls without trying, unlike Albus and Lily, who reminded him of himself and Ginny at his age with their shenanigans. Sometimes, he didn't even know how to converse with James because it often felt like they had nothing in common.
Lily nodded her head, solemn-faced. "Yeah, Dad. James has…um…”
"Yes?" Harry's anxiety was rising.
"He's lost a bit of weight," Albus suddenly said.
Harry waited for Albus to say more, then realised there wasn't more.
"He's lost a bit of weight?" Harry echoed.
"Yeah," Lily said.
"That's…" Harry's voice trailed off. "That's it?"
Both Albus and Lily looked at each other and then nodded their heads. Harry felt relieved.
"Merlin, I'm going to kill you both when we get home," Harry warned. "You've given me a coronary! I thought that-that there was something seriously wrong with James."
"What's wrong with me?" Harry heard James say.
Well, what's wrong with you is that you have two absolutely rubbish younger siblings, Harry prepared himself to say.
He felt even more irritated when he caught sight of James. The way that Albus and Lily were acting—he'd thought that Jamie would look half-dead, but instead, he looked fine. He somehow had gotten the Weasley genes that had made him taller than anyone else in their little family at his six-foot-something frame.
James was standing by with his trunk. He smiled at his father, that awkward smile he gave him whenever he saw him after a long time. Despite being seventeen, he looked as young as Albus and Lily sometimes. It startled Harry whenever he thought James would be of age in a few short months and would have to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. He wasn't even sure if he could trust James to figure out what he wanted for dinner.
"Bloody hell," Harry said, shaking his head. "Good thing you've come round. Your brother and sister are freaking me out, making me think there's something wrong with you. You look as right as rain." He eyed him carefully, moving from his face to his hands. He scoffed. "Them telling me that you've lost weight—but the way they were acting, I was afraid you'd be a walking skeleton. But think you've put on weight. You look really good, Jamie."
James didn't say anything. He had a pained expression, which surprised Harry, but he supposed that James never did well with train rides, conversations or anything that couldn't be graded or given a number. Harry sometimes swore that just talking to people put James in agony.
"Miss you too, Dad," was all that James said.
"I can't believe it," Lily said to Albus as they stood outside their London house, which Harry tried to remind him cost that much more with the housing crisis. She didn't know what Harry wanted her to do with that information. But she supposed she felt bad that he had to pay so much to put a roof over her head. The Chosen One and I can barely pay for decent plumbing—magical or otherwise, she had heard Harry say before.
Albus shook his head. "I saw it too," he whispered to Lily.
"Right?" Lily said.
Just before they boarded the train, she and Albus remembered seeing James walking around, looking like he was about to collapse. He was so thin that Lily had to do a double-take, his jaw so sharp that it looked like it could cut paper. He looked like he could barely walk from how his knees wobbled. Like they couldn't carry his weight. James looked like a thing rather than a person. But right then, he stood beside them, looking like he always had before.
"Maybe it wasn't James," Albus said to Lily in a quiet tone.
"It was," Lily was sure. Well, mostly. "At least, I think it was."
"Yeah, but it wasn't. Look, if Jamie really looked the way we thought we saw him, then-then the teachers would've done something. And he wouldn't look so bloody normal now, would he?" Albus said. "Unless he took something. But James wouldn't just take things to look normal, would he? I mean…"
"Yeah, he would," Lily said.
They both recalled seeing James now and then throughout the year. Lily could barely catch him, even if she were looking for him. They didn't have any classes together because they were of different years, and in Albus' case, they were of a different House entirely. They rarely saw him at mealtimes because James had people to bring him food in his dorm room. He was obsessed with being constantly alone. But the bastard wouldn't stay in one place. They could find him anywhere from the dorm room to running around the Quidditch fields.
Albus had never met an antisocial person like James before. Everyone liked him around the school. Nobody would have said he was a dick. He would drop whatever he was doing to proofread someone else's assignments and to help him with their homework. He always looked approachable, but if he didn't have anyone pushing him out of bed, James would gladly sit in the same room for weeks reading textbooks and trying to finish assignments.
Lily and Albus looked over at James, standing by the door, as Harry tried to remember all the charms he had placed on their door. Their father cursed as he went through the protection charms.
"Jamie," Albus said loudly.
James didn't hear him. Lily pinched his arm, and he looked down at her. "Huh?" he looked confused.
"What did you take?" Lily asked slowly. But by then, Harry had managed to open the door and walked inside. James looked stunned. As if he couldn't figure out the question. "We both saw you, okay? You must've taken something. Because you didn't look like this. You…you looked…you looked…”
Lily expected James to deny it. But he was shit at lying, and everyone knew that.
"Don't tell mum and dad," James said.
"James—"
"Lils, I'm fine."
"Are you going to fix it?" Albus asked.
James nodded his head. But he always had this far-away look like he was on another planet. Lily was sure he meant it when he said he would fix it. But that didn't mean that was enough.
"Why?" Lily asked. "What happened? Is it cause of your migraines? Cause they've been getting worse?"
"I don't know," James said. "Maybe."
"You look terrifying," Lily said. "Like a monster. Like you're dying or something."
James' ears turned red. "It's not that bad," was all he said.
"It's worse," Albus tried to tell him. "You're fucking mental, Jamie. Always have been."
"You three!" Ginny's voice came from the living room. She was probably sitting in a Holyhead Harpies tracksuit with fuzzy, mismatched socks. The fact that their mum never bothered making sure that her socks matched bothered Harry. "You better come inside right now before you catch your death!"
They headed inside. None of them looked at one another as they did so.
James Sirius Potter had unpacked his trunk when he headed into his room. Within an hour, he was dressed in his black-and-white long-sleeved striped shirt and his favourite leather pants that Albus had always told him made him look like a bloody bender rather than their Uncle Bill. One day, he'd tell Albus that he was a bloody bender. A bloody bender with a boyfriend. Secret boyfriend, but more on that later.
He had so much on his mind that it left him paralysed. He closed his eyes, thinking of the vials of potions in his trunk that were supposed to last him the year. He thought that he was so careful. He hadn't expected anyone to catch sight of him without the potion in his system. Much less his brother and sister. This was a disaster. He didn't know what to do. He wanted to grab fistfuls of his hair, shout and scream, climb underneath his bed, and lie in the darkness for days, wishing he'd melt away. However, he had to admit that he had a penchant for the overdramatic. Not that, fortunately, anyone knew about this. He kept that part of him to himself.
James didn't know what was happening to him. Lily was right. His migraines had been getting worse.
There were days he could barely get up from bed, this throbbing, searing pain that felt like his head had been drilled into. They mostly went away after he'd thrown up enough and laid on his side. He was glad that they happened around five in the morning when he naturally woke up, and he felt marginally more human when he had to head to his classes. James was not stupid. He knew that something was wrong, but he couldn't tell anyone. If he had told Nurse Pomfrey about it, she'd have owled his parents. And that was something that James couldn't bear to think about happening.
He did still eat the same as he usually did. A little less, but not less, but his clothes seemed to get looser overnight. Then, one day, he woke up and realised that he looked awful, which was why he had made the potions. He had broken into the Potions' classroom and stole a few ingredients. Common, easily forgotten about ingredients. The potions were supposed to be his spellotape until he could figure out what he could do. Artificial weight gain, enough so that he looked like himself. The last time he'd taken the potion, he had to admit he didn't look slightly thinner. He looked scary. Like a monster. Like he was dying or something, just like Lily had said.
And maybe she was right. Maybe he was dying. And if he were, he had to do it alone because if something happened to him, his family would fall apart, and it would all be his fault. And he couldn't bear to think about that. That was why he was heading out tomorrow morning to see if he could book an appointment at St Mungo's so they could do their tests. He was glad that he'd already turned seventeen, which meant they didn't have to tell his parents anything. He had always saved his money for rainy days like this. Surely, they'd tell him that he was overdramatic. Then he could laugh until he cried, tell himself off for being an overdramatic arsehole and make plans to see Victoire like he'd promised last summer. Teddy, too, though he couldn't tell Victoire about that, or she'd hate him forever.
Up until then, he had to survive dinner with his family, which, in James' eyes, was a lot worse than dying.
His mum's hot pot looked even worse than the last one that she'd tried to make. James hadn't eaten a bite of meat since he'd turned ten years old when he'd met Abigail Abbott, who had told him all about the wonders of Herbology and the fact that the world was dying because they kept eating meat. After seeing Ginny's hot pot, he felt even more sure of his conviction. She'd somehow turned the potatoes into mush; the mince looked like it had gone off, and the peas had split open. It smelled foul, and James tried to hide the smile on his face when he saw his horrified siblings' expressions. His father looked like he was a minute away from announcing a divorce.
"Godric, Gin, this is shit. Why do you always do this?" his father, Harry, had learned that sugar-coating this with his mum never worked out. She could always tell when he was trying to be nice, and he never tried anymore.
"I don't see you trying," Ginny said. "You can at least try it before saying it looks looks vile. You've defeated Voldemort. Think you can at least pretend to be nice and have a mouthful of that."
Harry reached in to take a spoonful of the hot pot. The minute that he'd swallowed, he started coughing.
Ginny burst into laughter. "I can't believe you did that!"
"It's not fair; you've guilted me into it!" Harry said.
James felt like his parents would never grow up. Albus and Lily looked glad they weren't being made to eat their mum's cooking. James was glad he never had to. The worst was when his mum tried to make him taste the carrots she'd butchered in the oven.
"Chinese, Indian or fish and chips?" Ginny asked.
"Indian!" Albus said. At the same time, Lily piped up, "Chinese!"
"Suppose you want fish and chips?" Ginny asked Harry, who smirked at her. "Jamie, our tie-breaker."
James thought about it. He didn't want to eat anything. "Ice cream," he said. He wasn't the kind to eat sweets much, but he fixated on a cold pint of ice cream in front of the fire now and then, especially in the winter.
"Good lad," Harry said, slapping a hand on his shoulder.
And everyone else seemed to agree which was how they ended up in front of the living room. Lily was sitting in her fuzzy heart-patterned pyjamas, spooning her peanut butter cup ice cream. Albus and Harry had identical mint chocolate chip pints sitting between Ginny. She kept stealing their mouthfuls as she ate her raspberry chip, and Harry kept pretending to be bothered by it. James with his almond milk coffee chip concoction that tasted just the right amount of sweetness and crunch. They were all cuddling up in blankets, sitting in the same room, and even though they hadn't seen each other for ages, they didn't have to talk about anything.
James kept looking back at his family. He wanted it to stay this way forever. But he knew it wasn't possible, and that terrified him that everything could change in the blink of a moment. He had to be fine. He had to be.