blackestfaery (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blackestfaery) wrote2011-05-07 12:00 am
blackestfaery) wrote2011-05-07 12:00 am
Entry tags:
Limbo [Harry Potter Fic]
Yeah. Another one :)
Limbo
Series: Harry Potter
Pairing: Harry/Hermione, but canon compliant
Rating: G
Word Count: 563
Summary:
Harry sees the flash of yellow just as he finishes the heating charm on the kettle. A few steps bring him to the kitchen window and the view beyond.
James.
His son, who has—depending on who you speak to—the fortune of inheriting both Harry's eyes and unruly hair, is splashing around in the puddles of the backyard, screaming in delight. He is not alone, of course, and it is the long fall of a hastily made braid and the glimpse of a smile that draws Harry's gaze.
Hermione.
She stands in her own pair of wellies, hands shoved into the pockets of her raincoat, and lingers at just the right distance to catch James if he falls. He is relatively steady on his feet, but children his age tend to think they are invincible—I don't need a broom to fly, Dad—and Harry is willing to bet there is something in the blood they share that makes James more susceptible to misfortune.
And there he goes—
—but Hermione is there, hands cupping under the child's arms and saving Harry from what would most definitely have been a mud-induced headache in the bathtub later on. He watches as she keeps her grip after righting James, turning as she goes, and then they are both spinning. James is kicking his feet, absorbed with the feeling of heavy weightlessness.
And Harry is absorbed with watching her.
He has seen that same smile directed at him countless times over the years, across a flame-tinted Common Room, tilted up at him as he soars by with Snitch in hand, and over the head of their ginger-haired best friend. But this time, it is for James alone. She is laughing too, he can tell, shoulders moving with her breaths and hands gripping tighter to compensate. There is a twinge in his chest that both aches and exhilarates him at the sight. And—
This is right, he thinks suddenly. So obviously right and can I join them and can I keep this, and he is leaning over the sink and pressing his hand against the rain-blurred glass before he registers the voice calling from upstairs.
"Harry, is the tea ready yet?"
The kettle shrieks off to the side, and he jerks his gaze to it. The feeling is not unlike pulling out of a Pensieve, and it takes a moment of stillness before he lifts his stare to the wall.
Ginny.
He pulls and holds in a breath to the soundtrack of muffled laughter. But he lets it out eventually and has to move and has to go, and he gathers everything he needs with the detached attention given to routine. He could levitate the tray upstairs, but he tells himself that he needs to carry the tray because he has never been good at that charm (only Hermione) and what was he going to do instead—go outside?
Still, he lingers at the window (steady, steady, don't tilt the tray) and stares hard enough until he is satisfied he will remember all the details. And then he turns, one foot in front of the other, toward the stairs. Toward what he has chosen to be right.
Only later, when James is back inside and Hermione has left, will he imagine what it would be like to stand outside with rain soaked hair and mud caked boots.
x-posted to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
harryhermione
Limbo
Series: Harry Potter
Pairing: Harry/Hermione, but canon compliant
Rating: G
Word Count: 563
Summary:
Harry sees the flash of yellow just as he finishes the heating charm on the kettle. A few steps bring him to the kitchen window and the view beyond.
James.
His son, who has—depending on who you speak to—the fortune of inheriting both Harry's eyes and unruly hair, is splashing around in the puddles of the backyard, screaming in delight. He is not alone, of course, and it is the long fall of a hastily made braid and the glimpse of a smile that draws Harry's gaze.
Hermione.
She stands in her own pair of wellies, hands shoved into the pockets of her raincoat, and lingers at just the right distance to catch James if he falls. He is relatively steady on his feet, but children his age tend to think they are invincible—I don't need a broom to fly, Dad—and Harry is willing to bet there is something in the blood they share that makes James more susceptible to misfortune.
And there he goes—
—but Hermione is there, hands cupping under the child's arms and saving Harry from what would most definitely have been a mud-induced headache in the bathtub later on. He watches as she keeps her grip after righting James, turning as she goes, and then they are both spinning. James is kicking his feet, absorbed with the feeling of heavy weightlessness.
And Harry is absorbed with watching her.
He has seen that same smile directed at him countless times over the years, across a flame-tinted Common Room, tilted up at him as he soars by with Snitch in hand, and over the head of their ginger-haired best friend. But this time, it is for James alone. She is laughing too, he can tell, shoulders moving with her breaths and hands gripping tighter to compensate. There is a twinge in his chest that both aches and exhilarates him at the sight. And—
This is right, he thinks suddenly. So obviously right and can I join them and can I keep this, and he is leaning over the sink and pressing his hand against the rain-blurred glass before he registers the voice calling from upstairs.
"Harry, is the tea ready yet?"
The kettle shrieks off to the side, and he jerks his gaze to it. The feeling is not unlike pulling out of a Pensieve, and it takes a moment of stillness before he lifts his stare to the wall.
Ginny.
He pulls and holds in a breath to the soundtrack of muffled laughter. But he lets it out eventually and has to move and has to go, and he gathers everything he needs with the detached attention given to routine. He could levitate the tray upstairs, but he tells himself that he needs to carry the tray because he has never been good at that charm (only Hermione) and what was he going to do instead—go outside?
Still, he lingers at the window (steady, steady, don't tilt the tray) and stares hard enough until he is satisfied he will remember all the details. And then he turns, one foot in front of the other, toward the stairs. Toward what he has chosen to be right.
Only later, when James is back inside and Hermione has left, will he imagine what it would be like to stand outside with rain soaked hair and mud caked boots.
x-posted to
harryhermione