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It was nearing the end of summer which meant that it was time for James and Harry’s second annual camping trip. A fun thing to do before school started back up. He’d be starting year 2 at his muggle primary school in just a couple weeks.
Harry excitedly got out of the car and dashed over to a patch of flowers, declaring that he was going to pick some for his mum.
“Haz, don’t pick them yet. We’ll pick a couple before we leave that way they don’t die before we get them home, okay?”
Harry nodded and told his dad which ones he wanted to bring home.
“Do you want to help hammer the stakes for the tent?” James asked and Harry rushed over to grab the mallet as his dad started pulling out the tent from the car.
“Why don’t we just use magic?” Harry asked curiously, sitting on the ground.
James pulled out the tarp and put the poles together, feeding them through the tent. “Because it’s more fun this way, to do things the muggle way every once in a while.”
He pushed the stakes in the ground and let Harry hammer them in fully.
After the tent was set up and James had moved their bags inside, Harry was eager to go down to the lake. It was one of his favorite parts of the trip last year, a pretty rock he'd found still sat on his windowsill.
They walked the narrow path down to the lake and Harry excitedly began looking through the rocks.
“You don’t want to keep this one, do you Haz?” James asked, holding up a boring, plain rock. Harry shook his head and James threw it out into the water, watching it skip across the lake.
“I thought this was a no magic trip,” Harry chastised his dad slightly.
James laughed. “Not magic. Aunt Mary is the one who taught me when we first started Hogwarts.”
Harry watched closely as his dad skipped another rock. He picked one up of his own and despite James trying to give him instructions, he ignored them and chucked the rock, getting upset when it simply sank.
“You need a smooth rock,” James said, looking through the rocks to find a few. Before handing one to Harry he showed him how to hold it and explained how to throw it. James threw another one and Harry excitedly watched it bounce across the water. He took a rock from his dad and tried to mimic his form but still the rock didn’t skip.
“It’s okay. Try again,” James said, handing him another one.
Harry tried again and again with no luck. He huffed, growing more and more frustrated.
“Take a deep breath and try again, prongslet.”
He followed his dad’s instructions, taking a deep breath and trying again, making sure to do everything his dad had said - keeping his arm low, finger wrapped around the rock, and letting it spin off. And this time the rock skipped a couple times before sinking.
“Dad, did you see that?!” He asked excitedly, jumping into his dad’s arms.
James picked him up and hugged him. “I did! Soon you’ll be skipping boulders.”
Harry wiggled his way down, determined to do it again and getting excited every time one bounced. He scanned through the rocks, picking up the smooth ones to skip and the pretty ones went in his pocket.
The sun fell lower in the sky and it was time to get the fire started. Harry was in charge of grabbing the twigs and dead leaves while James found some kindling and firewood, dragging a large branch over to their campsite.
“Harry, I want you to sit over there while I chop this, okay? I’m serious. I don’t want you to accidentally get hurt.” He set up everything.
“You’re not Uncle Sirius,” Harry said with a smile, taking a seat where his dad told him.
James rolled his eyes. It had been fifteen years of that joke since he’d met his best friend. James ensured his son was a safe distance away before pulling out the ax and carefully swinging at the wood, splitting it. Harry craned his neck to be as close as possible without getting up and moving from where his dad made him sit. He remembered last year when his dad had made him sit in the car after he’d gotten up.
“What if I just tried it?” Harry asked.
“No,” James said, tossing the cut wood to the side and moving on to the next piece.
Harry sighed and kept watching as his dad made his way through the wood.
James safely tucked the ax back into the car and only then was Harry allowed to get up.
Harry helped carry over the tinder to his dad so he could start arranging the fire. He helped put the leaves and twigs into the circle. Then they moved into the smaller sticks and branches, leaning them against each other.
“Let’s bring over some of the wood.”
Harry was eager to help, carrying as much as he could of the large splits of wood and setting them down near the unlit campfire.
“Merlin, someone’s getting strong,” James said as the wood toppled from Harry’s arms.
Harry made another trip but this when he set down the wood his finger hurt. “Ow,” he yelped, pulling his finger close to face to find a big splinter sticking out of it.
“Oo that’s quite the splinter, Haz. Let me grab my wand from the car and I can get it out.”
“No!” Harry yelled. “Mum always does it.”
“Harry, mum’s not here. I promise I can do it, just let me grab my wand.”
“No! You don’t know how mum does it. It’ll hurt when you do it,” he said, beginning to sniffle.
“It’s just a splinter. I might not be a healer like mum but I can pull out a splinter.”
Harry shook his head.
“Prongslet,” James tried but he continued to shake his head. “Why don’t we call mum, okay? And you can ask her if she thinks I can do it.”
“Okay.”
James went to the car and grabbed his wand and the two way mirror from the center console.
“Hi, love,” James said into the mirror, walking back over to Harry who pulled it from his dad with his left hand.
“Is everything okay?” They both heard Lily ask, worriedly.
“Mum, I got a splinter,” Harry whined, holding his finger up to the mirror. “And dad wants to fix it but you always do it because you know how.”
Lily pursed her lips, trying not to smile. “It’s okay, love. I promise dad knows how to do it.”
Harry sniffled. “You promise it won’t hurt?”
“I promise,” she told him.
Harry held out his finger to his dad and kept the mirror close with his other hand. He closed his eyes as his dad tapped it with his wand and the splinter disappeared.
“See. I told you I could do it, prongslet.”
“Now just spray it with a bit of antiseptic and give him a plaster,” Lily said through the mirror.
“Lils, I can deal with a splinter,” James laughed.
With his finger bandaged up and his dad lighting the fire, Harry showed his mum the pretty rocks he’d found and told her all about skipping stones.
James cooked dinner over the fire and eventually managed to get Harry to finish talking with Lily. They stayed out by the fire for a long time.
“It’s Sirius!” Harry said, excitedly pointing up at the sky. “And Regulus!” Uncle Sirius had always told him those were the two most important stars in the sky.
James smiled, looking up and pointing out a few others that Harry cared much less about.
Eventually Harry began yawning and James sent him to bed. “I’ll be there in a minute. I just need to put out the fire.”
James smiled as he walked into the tent to see the sleeping bags had been pushed right next to each other and Harry was snuggled up, waiting for his dad. James kissed him on the forehead before taking his glasses and setting them safely off to the side and climbing into his own sleeping bag.
“Goodnight Prongslet.”
“Goodnight dad,” Harry said with a yawn.
James set his own glasses off to the side with Harry's and laid down. He wouldn’t trade this for anything.