james potter (mrlilyevans) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2013-10-22 18:13:00 |
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Entry tags: | james potter, lily evans |
Who: James & Lily Potter
What: James arrives, and gets the lowdown on his future.
When: Sunday night (October 20)
Where: their unit.
Warnings: sads and talking about character death/betrayal/etc. You know the drill.
Mere inches from death, James had looked up to see the strangest thing above his head. A bright white and blue light, not like the green light he had been expecting, the flash of the Killing Curse. But there it was. He reached up to touch it, thinking that maybe somehow it could save his life, and then-- oh, that had been painful. The Killing Curse wasn’t supposed to be that painful. It was an awful curse, but at least it was supposed to be a quick, clean death.
Except… he didn’t seem to be dead. His ears had been ringing when he’d come out the other side of the tesseract, and he’d barely been able to comprehend what was going on, much less understand what they were saying. Finally, a single word had broken through the cloud of fuzz and disbelief that had surrounded his mind: Lily. They were telling him that Lily was here. He didn’t entirely believe it, not until he’d figured out the weird technophone thing that they’d given him, enough to see Lily’s face and her writing. So she was alive.
Which meant he was still alive, presumably, and they had gotten away somehow. How, he didn’t know, but maybe Dumbledore had put some weird back-up measure into the Fidelius Charm, to zap them out of the house. If that was the case, he intended to have a few words with the older wizard about forewarning, particularly about the painfulness of it, and about the part where he’d been terrified that he was going to die. Not that it had stopped him, of course, but that wasn’t the point.
But he hadn’t seen Dumbledore, and Lily had told him to stay put, so he sat down on the couch in the front room and waited, twiddling with the phone-thing. It wasn’t anything like the phones he’d seen in Muggle Studies, or that Lily had shown him, so he didn’t have the faintest idea what he was doing, but little numbers and symbols occasionally flashed at him when he pressed buttons, and once he even got it to talk, reading out the time in a robotic voice. He’d have to figure out how to make it do that again.
Before he could manage it, though, the door opened. He got to his feet, both excited and wary, but the wariness disappeared almost immediately when he saw Lily. He moved in, intending to throw his arms around her, but then stopped suddenly-- he’d realized that something was missing. “Lily,” he said, dread rising inside him, “Where’s Harry?”
---
Lily had left the flat earlier to go get a coffee - to be specific a caramel salted mocha steamed milk with a touch of espresso glass of yum something she had discovered that she really, truly loved. She’d been standing in line at the Starbucks, browsing the network, when she’d seen James’ picture. She’d hardly stopped to think about whether or not it was really him - yes there were doppelgangers, but was a doppelganger of James very likely to use the word ‘muggle’? No. Definitely not. Decidedly not.
She’d told him to stay put and she’d practically ran back to the tower. At least as much as one could run with a mocha - which, really wasn’t very much - or in New York City, also not very much considering all of the traffic, and had she not had the cup of coffee in her hand she’d have apparated to her floor, but as it was she decided that wasn’t wise. So she was slightly out of breath when she opened the door to her flat.
Surely SHIELD would have put him with her, surely.
And there he was - James, in all of his James-y-ness, and he looked precisely the same as she remembered him, even, she registered briefly, the same shirt she’d seen him in last. She opened her mouth to say something when he asked about Harry and she hesitated - a pained look crossing her face.
“James, it really is you,” she had no idea what to say about Harry, no idea what SHIELD had told him - probably precious little because they had told her precious little really. “Harry -” she stopped again and she realized she desperately needed a hug and she couldn’t actually go any further without one. The fact that James had asked about Harry was proof enough that they were married when he came from. She stepped forward, stupid mocha still in her hand and she wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his chest. “Harry isn’t here, James,” she managed to say - mostly without too much emotional waver to her voice.
---
Too many scenarios ran through James’s mind, each one of them terrible. Harry dead. Harry captured and taken by Voldemort. Harry abandoned, in his crib, wailing for his parents who were somewhere else, while that horrible excuse for a wizard approached him, even at this very moment. Harry--
Harry wasn’t here. He didn’t quite know how to process that. But his arms went automatically around Lily as she pressed against him, holding her tight. He didn’t care about the coffee; he wasn’t sure he’d even have felt it if she spilled it on him. He felt numb, despite having been overjoyed a few moments ago when he’d thought they had all gotten away. That they were all safe. He was still grateful that Lily was safe, that he was alive, but Harry-- he’d rather have died than have to deal with his son being dead. He’d been ready to do just that.
“What do you mean, not here?” he asked. “He’s alive, isn’t he? Is he safe?” He had to be. Otherwise Lily would be a right mess, or rather, much more of a mess than she was. She’d seemed happy, almost, until he’d asked. So there was hope. He held onto that tightly, curling his fingers into her lovely red hair, and waited for answers.
---
Lily melted into James’ embrace. It had been weeks since she’d arrived, and it had been so long since she’d been held by anyone other than Dorcas hugging her, but it wasn’t the same as James. It wasn’t the same as Harry’s little arms, or his infectious giggle when he got swirled around, and it wasn’t family. This was family and she’d missed it so dreadfully much. She took a moment to recompose herself and then she pulled herself back slightly to look up at James’ face.
“He’s - Well, he’s safe, I mean - what did they tell you James? I mean, besides that I was here, and bringing you here. Did they tell you anything about the books?” Lily had no idea where to begin and then she realized that she probably ought to ask the obvious question. “What’s the last thing you remember? Before coming here?”
---
Harry was safe. James remembered how to breathe again, how to relax enough that his lungs could draw in air and his heart could slow down. Living with the fear of Harry being in danger hadn’t been easy, and the fact that he’d gotten out of imminent danger was still more than a little bit surreal.
“I told you to run,” he said. “To take Harry and run, and I--” He didn’t want to tell her how close he’d come to dying, that the spell had practically hit him, but the other light had gotten to him first. “When I saw you were here, I thought he’d be with you. He didn’t… come through?”
He didn’t know if those were the right words for what had just happened to him, or for what hadn’t happened to Harry, but he didn’t have any better ones. As for the rest, he just looked at her blankly. “Books? What books?”
---
“Oh.”
Lily had no idea what to say. She moistened her lips and she stepped back and she looked at the sofa and she tugged James’ hand to pull him over with her. She sat the coffee down on the table and looked over at her husband. A moment ago she’d been so grateful that he was here, but now she had no idea what to say or where to begin.
“Books,” she pushed a smile onto her face and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Um, there are seven of them, they’re about Harry, actually. He’s the hero,” she smiled a little. “And anyway, um, I guess let me start over - first, and most important, we actually seem to be here from the same night. But I’ve been here - in this place, for over a month. I know that’s not going to make any sense to you because you just saw me. But I remember you telling me that - I went to find Harry, and I didn’t actually get to him. I was just brought here.
“When I got here I found out about the books. We’re not the only people here either, Dorcas is here - from before she died - and Professor Dumbledore is here as well, but he’s from a long time ago, he looks so young. And basically the point is that the books are fiction here ,and we’re fictional characters to this world.” Lily wrinkled up her nose. “I’m not certain if that’s going to make any sense at all.”
---
Books written about Harry. That made James feel enormously confused and slightly proud, all at once. Of course their son would be the heroic sort-- already was, in James's utterly biased opinion. But although he could have written seven books about how awesome his son already was, he didn't think they'd have actually been published.
And then what Ginny Weasley had said actually sunk in. "Time travel," he said, a little wonderingly. "We both traveled from the same night into the future, but we landed a couple months off." That part was fairly simple, at least. The rest of it, about Dumbledore being younger and Ginny being from a future in which she knew Harry, was a little harder to wrap his mind around. He wasn't even going to try to comprehend the fictional thing just yet; there were more important things to understand. "Well, that explains how we got away, but what about Harry?"
It was a relief to know that his son was alive and had a future, even if he wasn't here. What James didn't understand was how that was possible. Voldemort had been in their house, he had gotten past the Fidelius Charm-- which meant something horrible had happened to Peter, too, but James couldn't yet spare any emotional resources for dealing with that part-- and without his parents to protect him, Harry would be even more vulnerable. "Just tell me what happened, Lily. Please."
---
Waiting was really only going to make it worse, Lily realized. Like trying to pull a band-aid off slowly and instead just drawing out the process indefinitely. And she couldn’t not tell James. He was as persistent and determined as she was, and if she tried to hem and haw, he’d know and he’d demand answers - as she had, ultimately leading to her reading the books so that she would know the whole story. Besides which, drawing it out was only going to make her likely to cry - again - and miss Harry all the more.
“Voldemort found us that night,” Lily said as evenly as she could manage and she reached for James’ hand. “You tried to fight him off, but you couldn’t. He found Harry and I, and he tried to get me to step aside, but I wouldn’t. So he kills me. I mean, he will. But when he tries to kill Harry he can’t - the curse rebounds on him and Harry survives. The short version is that because he gave me the opportunity to save myself, but I won’t - means that Harry is protected by that sacrificial love, so Voldemort can’t touch him and he survives.” Her voice sounded painfully odd to her ears. Not exactly her own, and while she wasn’t certain exactly how James was going to take this - she knew how she had taken it, and ‘not entirely well’ would be an understatement.
“I don’t - there’s more, I mean, there’s details in the books - all sorts of details, about the what and the why, but it all centers around that event, more or less,” her eyes filled with tears. “Harry was here apparently. Before I was here. I keep hoping that he’ll come back because I just want to hold him again.”
---
They hadn’t gotten away. Well, that explained it. James had expected that he’d die, had been more surprised to find himself alive, and yet he’d had just long enough to be glad about living-- when he’d thought that Lily and Harry were safe, as well-- that it still hit him hard. He realized suddenly that she’d intended for him to sit down, and he sat down on the sofa, physically and emotionally deflating.
He didn’t like the idea of his own death, but Lily’s was worse. Even when he’d known he was going to die, he’d had hope that she would get away. But she’d chosen to die for Harry; he supposed he couldn’t have expected her to do anything less. He’d have done the same, if he’d been given the choice. And somehow that had saved their son.
“So the prophecy was right,” he said, looking at Lily. He saw the tears in her eyes, and that jolted him out of getting too lost inside his own head. He reached for her again, pulling her into a tight hug. Being here hadn’t saved them, not entirely. Even if they went back, it wasn’t as if either of them would change their minds about sacrificing their lives for Harry’s. And that was going to work-- Harry was going to have a life. He had to hold on to that part.
Soon enough, James knew, his curiosity was going to get the better of him, and he’d start asking questions about his son’s future without them, but not quite yet. It was easiest to concern himself with the events of the time he’d just come from, not with a future that seemed utterly surreal. The present, his present, was already quite a bit to handle, and there was still more he didn’t understand. “Voldemort got hit by his own curse, so he’s dead, right? He’s gone?” He paused, and then asked, “And Pete? Do the books say what happened to him?”
---
Lily let out a breath, comforted by James’ presence even if it didn’t really erase the Harry-shaped ache in her heart. She had wished a dozen times that her son was here, but maybe it was easier that he hadn’t been when she arrived. Maybe it was easier for her to get used to the idea of what happened, and now if he showed up she would know what the opportunity she was being gifted with.
She pulled back at James’ question, knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer any more than she had. And after her conversation with Severus, the fact that they had agreed to Peter just seemed so foolish, but hindsight was 20/20 and it wouldn’t change anything.
“You’re not going to like the answer to that question,” she sighed, looping her fingers through his and gently rubbing a thumb over his hand. “It’s one of those details. I read all of the books after I got here and after Dorcas told me - well, what I’ve just told you, more or less - and I had to know the whole story for myself. Professor Dumbledore lent them to me, actually, and they’re over on the bookshelf, I’ve not sent them back yet. I suspect he won’t mind if I keep them a while longer if you want to read them.
“You know how we kept losing information and we were certain there was someone leaking information to the Death Eaters?” She looked up at her husband and sighed. “Peter was the leak. All of that time. He was a Death Eater, apparently. I don’t know when or how. The books don’t provide that detail, actually, but he was a Death Eater, so when we made him our Secret Keeper, we picked the one person most likely to give us up to Voldemort - or at least to be in such close proximity to him that he would be unable to resist giving us up to him. I keep hoping maybe it was the latter, but it doesn’t matter, really.
“Voldemort is dead, but he’s used this magic form to hide pieces of himself in objects, so he returns, and the Prophecy is right - he and Harry have to face each other in the end.” Lily looked over at James and squeezed his hand. “I know this is overwhelming for you, it is for me still. I keep thinking I’ve - I’ve made peace with it in some way or another. I even -” She brought herself up short, because mentioning that she’d spoken with Severus Snape was probably not the best idea at the moment. “I even read the books, tried to get more information and be at peace with it all, but I still feel sick when I think about it. And I hate that you’re having to learn all this, but I’m so stupidly glad you’re here James and I don’t have to be here by myself.”
---
Of course he wasn’t going to like the answer to that question. James was asking a lot of questions that he wasn’t going to like the answers to, but they were answers he needed to know. That had just been a fact of his life, lately: nothing about the state of their lives or the world around them had been pleasant. People died in the war all the time, and just because the news wasn’t fun to hear didn’t mean he shouldn’t hear it. He needed to remember what he was fighting for, what mattered, what was important. People’s lives mattered. The lives of everyone who hadn’t actively chosen to join Voldemort’s forces, who weren’t cruel and evil, they all mattered. But admittedly, certain people’s lives mattered to him the most.
He had been expecting to hear that Pete had been tortured. That it had finally gotten so awful that he’d given in, that he was dead now. Peter had never been quite as brave as the rest of them, which had just made James more protective of him, but Sirius’s argument-- that no one would suspect Peter at all, that his friend would be safe from all that-- had convinced him to give the responsibility to Peter anyway. He’d never doubted for a second that it was something that Peter would do for him, because it was something he’d have done for Peter in a heartbeat. All of his friends knew how far he was willing to go for them.
“No,” he said, though even as he said it, his mind was filling with doubts. He balked at that, trying to shove them all away; he didn’t want to believe it. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, even when everyone had suspected that one of his friends was the mole, although fingers had mostly been pointing at Sirius and Remus. When he thought about it, it made sense that it would be Peter; he was the one everyone overlooked, never suspected of anything. But just because it made sense from that perspective didn’t mean it was true. There was another, higher truth: that Peter was his friend. “He wouldn’t. He’d never.”
James could believe that Peter might give him up under torture, might break under the pressure. He couldn’t believe that Peter would be a Death Eater. Why would Voldemort even want him, anyway? Well, Lily had answered that question for him. To spy, to leak information, particularly the secret of where the Potters were hidden. It made sense, but James didn’t want to believe it. He refused to believe it so forcefully that it turned into physical movement, and he got to his feet. He paced a few times back and forth, then raised his hands and ran them over his face, starting underneath his glasses and finally ending with his fingertips over his mouth, almost in prayer.
And he looked at Lily, unable to hide the pain in his expression. He didn’t think she was lying to him, he just thought that her information was wrong. But obviously it had been enough evidence to convince her, and she wouldn’t have wanted to believe it either. He didn’t want to accept it, but the knowledge was sinking in. He’d trusted his best friend with his life, and more importantly, with the lives of his wife and child, and his friend had turned them in. Gotten Lily killed, left Harry orphaned. That was harder to take than just the deaths themselves, it cut deeper. He couldn’t possibly hate Voldemort any more than he already did, because he was an evil bastard that had wanted them dead, he’d already known that.
His mind went back to Voldemort, because that was still easier. Voldemort wasn’t dead. Lily’s death had protected Harry, but he hadn’t stayed dead. That bastard, James thought vehemently, taking comfort in the ease of hating his enemy, much less complicated than doubting his friend.
“Harry’s still going to live?” he asked, a little plaintively. She would have said if Harry was going to die facing Voldemort, surely, but maybe she was just waiting to rip off that bandaid. James couldn’t blame her if that was the case; there was probably only so much bad news a person could take at one time. This was a lot of bad news, more than anyone should have to stomach. But at the same time, he wanted it all now. He didn’t want to deal with this and find out, farther down the line, that there was more he didn’t know. “He lives, right?”
He took a deep breath, and tried to handle the amount of emotion that had been brought up in just the last few minutes. He tried to compose himself enough to sit down, but sitting down wasn’t going to work. He was too restless, and at the same time, too overburdened; finally, he knelt in front of his wife and rested his arms on her legs, bowing his head and touching his forehead to the back of one hand. He almost felt as if he should apologize, for having trusted Peter when he obviously shouldn’t have, for not seeing whatever signs there had been there. It was one thing when it was just their friendship on the line, but Lily’s life and Harry’s were too valuable to be toyed with. He should have known better, even if he’d thought the only risk was that Pete might be tortured into betraying them. Because-- had it been because he was more willing to risk Peter’s life than Sirius’s? No, he wasn’t that kind of friend. Oblivious, maybe, too trusting, and he was closer to some than others, but he didn’t play favorites like that. Peter was the one that was willing to throw away a friend’s life, not him. But if he doubted one of them, then he had to doubt himself too. It seemed only fair.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally, quietly. “I’m here. I’m glad I’m here. Not like I’m going to be anymore use at home, anymore,” he added, with a laugh that came out a little choked. His death somehow hurt more now, because the story of it had changed. He was still the brave man sacrificing himself in an attempt to save his family, but he was also the foolish man who’d entrusted their lives to a traitor in the first place. That was hard to swallow, but he made himself lift his head. “Things at home are… done, right? For us, at least.” Oh, god. “We’ll figure out how to deal with everything here, like we did at home. Together. I’m so sorry, Lily.”
---
Watching James take all of it in was almost as difficult as simply taking it all in had been for Lily. She absolutely knew how difficult it was, the sense of betrayal and guilt and frustration. She’d felt it all when Severus had asked her why they’d trusted Peter and she hadn’t done very well with the realisation that it had been misplaced trust that would change everything for both of them, but she could at least give James something - Harry.
“He does,” she offered James a smile. “Harry does live. He faces Voldemort and kills him once and for all. He becomes an Auror, eventually, or so I’ve read. You spoke with his wife - Ginny, on the network earlier. I saw her talking to you. She told me he was here before, adult him, but he’s not here now and I keep thinking maybe he’ll come back and we’ll get to meet him - however odd that might be for all of us. People apparently show up at all sorts of times.”
She ran her fingers through his hair gently. “I think all that’s important for the moment is that you’re here, and Voldemort isn’t. We’ll get to try living without being in hiding,” her throat tightened. “But I miss Harry so much James. There’s not a day that’s passed being here where I want to see him, or hear his giggle, or just - when I think of all the things we’ll miss? I keep thinking that I’m okay, that I’ve accepted it, and then something happens and I don’t know if I ever will.”
----
James let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Harry lived. Harry defeated Voldemort. How his kid-- his tiny little baby son-- had managed that, he didn’t quite know, but at the same time, it didn’t surprise him. He’d always said, over and over again to anyone who would listen, that he and Lily would make epically awesome babies. He’d already known he was right, even if he wasn’t going to live to see the proof of it. He didn’t really need the proof.
And Harry got married. That was even better news. He’d liked Ginny, and weirdly liked her more for the fact that the sly minx had completely left out the part about how she was married to Harry. She’d dropped hints, but never come out and said it. And she’d seemed a good person, one that had her morals and priorities in the right place.
“He’d better come back,” he said, finding the strength to even smile a little. There was a happy ending to this story, even if it started out all wrong. Harry had a bright future waiting for him. That, he supposed, might have already happened. That was a weird thought, but there was that whole time travel business going on. “There are a million things he’s meant to do with us. Even if we have to skip ahead to having him as an adult, it still counts. Bet he still giggles when he’s all grown up. If not, I’ll tickle him til he does.”
---
Lily couldn’t help it, she laughed. And it was one of the first time she’d really laughed since she’d arrived into the tesseract - and of course James being here and James talking to her would be the cause of it. “I now want him to come through at like, say forty, just so as I can watch you tickle someone two times your age,” she laughed back at him. She leaned forward and hugged him tightly.
With James here everything felt more surmountable. Nothing had changed, but perhaps the reality of what would happen to them both in their home world, seemed a bit dimmer now that James was sitting here in front of her. It was easier to forget the fact that they would neither of them live to see their son grow up when they were sitting in the room together - even if that room was not Godric’s Hollow, and was in fact a long cry away from Godric’s Hollow. And while she deeply missed Harry, it was easier to feel like maybe she’d just left him with Remus for an afternoon while she and James got a tiny break - not that they’d done that for ages now, but it was the sort of tiny lie she could tell herself to make it not quite so bad here.
“You know, we can go out here, to the theatre, or shopping,” she raised her eyebrows and pulled a smile at him. “We don’t have to hide from anyone, and there’s a bar downstairs where you, as a new arrival, get a free drink. So you should take advantage of that fact, plus you can actually show me off to the world, which - it’s been a long time since you’ve been able to do that hasn’t it been?”
---
“I would tickle the daylights out of him,” James said. He attempted to keep a straight face at it for a few moments, but it was obvious that he was trying very hard not to laugh as well. Just the urge to laugh felt good, was a drastic improvement on his mood from just moments ago. “No matter what age he comes through, he’s still going to be a little kid to me. At least for a little while.”
He waggled a serious finger for extra comedic effect, just to really drive the point home, and then lowered his hand and settled more comfortably against her. He didn’t deflate quite so much as he had done before, though. He’d been right, it was better to have it all at once, so that he could process it. Not that he’d fully processed it, at least not the part about Peter. His friend had been shoved into a little box in his mind, along with all the questions he had. But they weren’t questions to ask of Lily; he couldn’t ask them of anyone except Peter. Even finding out the information through the books wouldn’t have felt right, and from what Lily had said, the answers he was looking for probably weren’t in there anyway.
So he chose not to focus on it, for the moment. Peter wasn’t here, he assumed, or Lily would have said so. She certainly wouldn’t be talking about going out and having fun, not when there was someone that was apparently so dangerous around. There was no danger here: that was another concept that it might take him a while to wrap his mind around. But it was a good thing, especially considering-- “I still haven’t got my wand,” he said suddenly. “Or any of my money, just what they gave me. Is Gringotts here anywhere?”
Drinks sounded good, but he’d sort of passed the point where he felt like drowning his sorrows. Actually, he wasn’t sure he’d even reached that point. Finding out that awful things happened back home, that his life was over, didn’t make him want to wallow in it. Maybe he would have if she wasn’t here, if they hadn’t managed to cheer each other up somehow, but he liked the idea of going out and doing things much better. Getting to enjoy the life he had here, while he had it. Because-- and he allowed himself this depressing thought-- eventually he’d go back, just like Harry had, and he’d be dead. It was better to be here, and alive, and have hope, even if it was hard to deal with the harsh reality of what happened elsewhere.
Thus decided, he smiled up at Lily. “You miss being shown off, don’t you? There’s no point in pretending you don’t, I can tell.”
---
“Oh, you don’t have - Oh.” Of course he wouldn’t have had his wand. And Lily had no idea if anyone could make a wand there. “There isn’t a Gringotts, James. That whole being fictional, and in books, things. They do give us some money to start with, although I was thinking that I ought to find some sort of job if I’m going to be here. I don’t know about the wand either.
“They sell wands here, but they’re just props from the film, so it’s like a toy wand - no real magic core, and probably not that useful.” She thought for a minute. “Professor Dumbledore is here though, he might have some ideas.” Or Severus might, she thought, but that was a conversation she was not willing to broach with James at the moment - it would involve too much other information and she’d given him enough for the day.
“Or maybe I’m just showing you off,” she laughed. “But yes, I think it would be fun to do some mutually showing off of each other, oh but - other randomly odd things about this place? There’s someone who looks exactly like me and since she’s from a television show - Doctor Who actually, you remember we watched that at Mum and Dad’s once before? - Anyway, it’s still on and she looks exactly like me, and half the time when I’m out people think I am her, and so there’s a good chance that someone may accuse you of stealing Amy Pond from Rory, and it only makes any amount of sense if you realize that I look precisely like Amy Pond and people think I am her.” She hesitated frowned and then shook her head. “If that even makes any amount of sense and I’m not certain it does!”
---
“I’ll ask around,” James said. “There’s no Statute of Secrecy here then, either?” That explained why, as soon as he’d started talking about muggles (just out of frustration, really), so many people had been willing to start talking openly about magic and wizards and purebloods. He’d just gone with it, because the whole thing had been too surreal not to, but it was starting to sink in that there were things he could do here that he couldn’t have at home, even before they’d gone into hiding. “If I can’t get a wand, then I’ll just have to get better at wandless magic. Or live like a muggle.”g
That prospect was actually sort of exciting to him, except for the part where it left him sort of defenseless. All the same, he grinned as he said it. Plenty of people got along without magic, that was really the least of his problems at the moment. It was easier to think about than the rest of his problems, though.
“I knew it,” he said, and if he’d been in a better mood-- under better circumstances-- he might have crowed it victoriously, added a little victory dance. But he still wasn’t quite that carefree, so he stayed where he was. “You just wanted me as your trophy husband all along. I’ve been waiting for you to admit that.”
He grinned at her, and was about to lean in to kiss her when she started rambling on about something else. Most of it went right over his head, and he stared at her bemusedly, shaking his head when she finished. “Half of what you just said makes no sense, Lil,” he said, but her rambling was endearing, and there was a slight smile on his face. “But if anyone suggests I stole you from anyone, I’ll just tell them they’re mad. You,” he finished, and leaned forward to emphasize his point with a kiss, “Are mine.”
---
“No,” Lily said. “there’s no statute of secrecy, or magic, or ministry of magic, or any of the things we’re used to. I actually went on a search for the New York City magical community a week ago, but they don’t exist and I didn’t really expect them to. I mean, things like comic book heroes do exist here so that’s something. But you can use my wand a bit too, if it’ll work for you, because I do have mine.”
Lily accepted the kiss with a smile and a lightness that she hadn’t felt since arriving in this ridiculously bizarre place. It wasn’t that things were exactly right with the world. She still desperately was missing Harry, and she was no more keen on the news of her future than she’d been a few hours before, but James was here, which meant that they could face the world together as they’d done since seventh year, and that made everything feel less insurmountable.
“It’s all right, it doesn’t have to make sense,” she laughed at him and tugged at his arm to pull him to sit down beside her. “I don’t know if it entirely makes sense to me yet - or any one here, as it happens, because most of us are in a situation not entirely unlike our own. But you’re here and I am not letting you leave my side, so you’d best be comfortable with being mine.” She gave him a smirk and a raised eyebrow.
---
Well, that was something. Freedom like that might actually be kind of nice. James had always wanted to be able to hang out with muggles more freely just to see what they were like, but had never really had the chance, not only because of the laws against it but because he’d been a bit preoccupied with his own business. Maybe here he’d get the chance.
“You’re just afraid I’ll blow up the toaster again,” he said, amused, when she offered him his wand. It was probably a valid fear, because he didn’t quite remember how to use it, although it hadn’t been the part where he did it wrong that had caused the explosion. It had been the part where he’d gotten frustrated with it not working and poked at it with his wand. Magic and toasters didn’t mix well. “But thanks. I’d rather you had yours, so one of us can defend ourselves properly, at least. I can get along without it. Might take you up on it at some point though.”
At least the business of finding a wand or learning wandless magic would give him something to do. There were other things he probably should do-- if there was no Gringotts, then he had no access to his fortune, and therefore he’d probably need a job too-- but he wasn’t going to worry about that just now.
Instead, he grinned widely at her and let her pull him back onto the couch, but kept his hands resting on either side of her legs, leaning into her personal space. “I thought you’d figured it out by now, love,” he said, “You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.”
---
“Actually, now that you mention it?” Lily gave him a glare. “You should stay out of the kitchen until I’ve had a chance to show you around. It’s bad enough that it’s all Muggle, but then it’s like thirty some years in the future from Muggle technology that you might be used to, so don’t go blowing anything up!”
She grinned back at him. “If you blow something up I may ask SHIELD for a room reassignment, so you just keep that in mind James Potter and don’t get a big head!”
Lily kept grinning though, and pulled her arms around his neck to keep him right where he was. She was so very glad that he was here after all and she very much oped that he stayed where he was for a while. She had been here long enough to become aware of the fact that people sometimes tended to come and go, but if she could keep James here just by wishing - and it was possible she’d brought him here just by wishing - then she would do it. She was Lily Potter, after all, and surely it was possible.
“So have you looked around the flat?” She grinned at him. “I could you show you the kitchen right now, and the bathroom, and you know, the bedroom. It’s a small flat, but a tour is always a good idea.”
---
James didn’t yet understand how tenuous their existence here was. It was hard to wrap his mind around the fact that Harry had been here, but left-- what he understood was that Harry wasn’t here, and that was somewhat tangled up in the fact that he’d expected to die and never see his son again. Which was, in fact, exactly what had happened, except now he was alive to deal with all the repercussions of the way all that had gone down.
So when he returned the joke, he thought that she was talking about him choosing to leave. Which was, of course, a ridiculous notion. He never left behind the people he loved. The only acceptable way of doing that was to sacrifice himself for them, and since he didn’t actually have to be dead now, he planned on sticking around.
To make sure she understood that, he wrapped his arms around her waist, his forearms providing a brace against the sofa to keep them from falling over, though he really wasn’t attached to the notion of staying upright. Horizontal sounded like a good way to be at the moment.
“I can’t wait to go in the kitchen and find something to blow up,” he said, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “I think you’d have better luck distracting me from that than threatening me with consequences, really. You should know those don’t work any better now than they did when we were in school.”
Lily grinned as she leaned forward: "Consider that challenge accepted." And she found his lips with no intention of letting go.