Figments

She listened to his question. They deserved answering. He deserved to know his father--the man behind all the myth.

"Come with me," she grinned, motioning to him. She knew he needed to eat. "I can do you better than chocolate. And then, yeah. I'll tell you what I know about your dad."

She opened the door, and Marcus stopped leaning on the wall, prepared to follow. Oh, yes. The Potter son. It wasn't as if James could escape the Potter legacy. He was recognizable. Marcus said nothing and was content to be a shadow.

Khaat led James to the lift and took him up to the fifth floor up to the healers' lounge that was deserted right now, where there was always a self serve counter of the same sorts of five star foods and drinks as they served downstairs. These were just in a smaller, quieter space where healers could either grab and go or sit and decompress.

"Help yourself," she told him motioning to the long counter of fresh foods of all sorts. She nodded towards the coffee, and Marcus poured her a cup of French roast.

"Anything else?" he asked her.

"I might get one of those Asian pears," she said.

"I'll get it," he said. He picked up a couple of pears and a plate and a sharp knife. He took it to one of the tables, cut both pears quickly into slices, put them on the two plates and set hers, with her coffee, on a coffee table in front of a sofa near a window. He left his own on a dining table a short distance from them.

Khaat appreciated Marcus helping her to do things she just couldn't manage as well with one hand.

"I have a lot of fond memories of your dad," she said with a smile. "And if you think you'd need to feel ashamed if he were here, you have him all wrong. The mythological Harry that everyone thinks they remember--that guy would have been harsh and self righteous. But the real Harry? He was quite different."

Sobriety was an unpleasant place to return to with the blinking, bright St Mungo’s light’s and everything associated with feeling sorry for yourself without a hope in hell of doing something about it. This was James when he was sober, when everything came back and his ribs began to hurt because getting into a fist fight with someone in Knockturn Alley really was the best thing to do. The pain potion soon dealt with all of that nonsense, however, and he was content to follow Khaat upstairs, eyeing the man with them a little curiously before deciding that he was probably there to keep her safe. A commendable thing, indeed.

“Wouldn’t you rather be home with the missus, mate?” He asked Marcus with a smile.

They reached the healer’s lounge and James didn’t need to be told twice to help himself. He picked up a large plate and balanced it in his hand before loading it up with dark chocolate muffins with chocolate chips and chocolate drizzle on top. To that he added a few bars of Honeyduke’s chocolate and he picked up a chocolate and coffee cheesecake before setting the machine to making him a mocha. He knew he’d be buzzed for the evening to come and was glad he’d left his puppy with the next door neighbour. He’d probably pass out as soon as he walked in through the door. Sugar highs never lasted long.

James flopped down across from Khaat and put his plate down on the table, taking a long swig from his coffee before sitting it down next to the plate. He then picked up the fork he’d thought to grab and started on the cheesecake, taking a few bites before looking up at her.

“I don’t reckon I know him anymore,” James admitted after swallowing the cheesecake with a sip of his coffee. He twiddled the fork between his fingers and brought the cup down, resting it on his knee idly. “I don’t think I’d know him even if I saw him. I was closer to mum, really, but I, um…I guess the bloke I knew was the bloke the reporters wanted me to be. Failed.”

"Lord, no," Marcus laughed at the thought of being home with his wife. "Unfortunately, I married a harpy. No, I'm quite happy to be working, with her far far away."

"Marcus, would you go over to my office and bring my bowl, please?" she asked. Marcus went to her office and brought a beautiful antique silver pensieve. He filled the pensieve with water and put it in front of her.

"James," she said. "Your dad was well known for having his dad's fiery spirit and your grandmother's compassion. His childhood with your great aunt and uncle taught him a lot about the demons we all have within--even his own--and the importance of not being judgemental.

"What angered him more than anything else was seeing someone not included, not loved, not cared about. It wasn't about whether that person made all the right choices. Hell, none of us have done that. Your dad and I were in the same house at the same time. If there was someone who was going to go off, big time, about anything, it was your dad, and it was only about someone judging someone else. Let me show you a couple of things."

She used her wand and drew out a couple of different thought threads. She dropped them into water. They swirled around like a great mist.

"I want you to see the Harry that most people either didn't see or don't remember," she told him. "Take a look for yourself."

The first memory was of Harry, in the Gryffindor common room after a weekend in Hogsmeade. One of the boys had been lashing out at a younger boy for a mistake the younger boy had made. The older boy had been harsh and verbally cruel. Harry had come in, drawn him off the younger boy and backed him straight into a wall, tearing into him with a vengeance. The whole incident had only taken a moment, but it was so typical of Harry.

The second memory was a very brief one. It had been a party of sorts. Ginny had just gotten home from the hospital with a newborn James. They'd gathered with a few friends one afternoon with tea and light refreshments. Friends had brought stacks of baby gifts, and, as with most things at that time, Lupins and Potters found themselves together.

Ginny was sitting with the stack of gifts, and Harry had left the task of opening them to her. He was perfectly content to simply hold his new son.

"He's got a big legacy to live up to, Harry," one of the guests had said to him. Harry had glanced up and rolled his eyes, disapprovingly.

"He has nothing to live up to," Harry had responded. "I don't want him living up to a lie."

"What do you mean?" the question had come.

"A myth is nothing more than a lie. I lived not being able to be myself because my Aunt Petunia couldn't deal with it. She got herself stuck in her own negativity about what she thought she wasn't because she wasn't magical. My son is beautiful. All he ever needs to be is himself. Whatever he chooses, we will always, always love him, just as he is."

An experience in the strange, whimsical waters of a pensieve dish was something that James had always struggled with. At the last moment, he wondered if he’d been right to press his cheeks to the cool surface of the memories but before he could grapple with the opportunity to pull away, a world so unlike his own, so bright and welcoming, materialised around him. He was in the common room again. He found himself sat in an armchair, his favourite one right by the crackling fireplace. As the scene unfolded before his eyes, James couldn’t help but mark the difference between himself and his father. Had the roles been reversed, in that moment James knew where he wouldn’t have been and that wouldn’t have been in his father’s shoes. No, he would have been with the group of boys. It didn’t assuage any guilt that James harboured.

Secondarily, the memory that followed did not serve to make him feel any better about the way he was running his life, either. Harry had been naïve. He and Ginny had both been foolish in expecting he would be able to make his own way. Neither had accounted for what would happen when they died. Worse with him, too. Harry just disappeared. Poof. No fanfare, no aplomb. He was just gone. Presumed dead. Missing in action. The world had looked for its new hero. They’d found it in James. He’d risen to the challenge. Only, he’d not been strong enough to withstand what had come with that. He’d instead buckled under the pressure. He wasn’t his father, as much as he’d tried desperately to be. James could never be just as he was. He didn’t know what that even meant anymore. It was too far down the line.

Emerging from the waters, James found he no longer held an appetite for the food before him. He put his fork down and sat back against the soft leather sofa, bringing a hand up to run it through the curly bits of hair long on the crown of his head. He sighed, the expulsion of air parting his lips. He looked at Khaat, trying to find the use in her presenting him with these memories. He understood it was in an effort to help him. The only thing was, James still felt penned in by expectation. Living his own life would ultimately end in him prematurely sealing his own place in whatever realm his parents and grandparents had found a home in. He didn’t know how to survive on his own. Every little thing presented itself as a temptation. None of it he could tolerate.

“Things are different now,” James broached finally. “They didn’t think they’d die. Everything changed after that and even if I can be me or whatever truly lovely but no less optimistic rubbish dad wanted to fill me with, I can’t. I don’t know who I am. I only understand myself in relation to the Daily Prophet which means I’m a washed up, former Quidditch star who ruined his career with one bad drugs test. Then, if I listen to Mac, I’m not like that. I can be different. Which is a lie, isn’t it? I can be sober. But that’s still part of who I am. Only, I can’t move past it because everyone looks at me like I had a brain transplant, Khaat. Besides that, my siblings hate me. I still have shoes to fill. Only, they’ve been chucked in a locked cupboard. If anything, I need someone to do my PR for me.”

James laughed sardonically and pushed his glasses up onto his head, rubbing at his eyes roughly. He could still remember the day the Aurors came home. He could remember packing up Godric’s Hollow. He could remember asking Teddy what it all meant. Teddy didn’t know. Or, maybe he did and he just didn’t want to say. That’s when they’d all started to keep secrets. James had his own. He’d pieced bits of his life back together, enough to remember what had happened after his mother had been killed. He’d not been very old. That is, it hadn’t been very long ago.

Duelling the Dark Lord was something that James Potter couldn’t recall in an absolute sense. Filled with rage quite unlike any he’d ever felt, all of the welling feelings of betrayal and goodness only knows what else on fire inside of him, James was always doomed to lose. For, he’d been betrayed. The Dark Lord hadn’t the same connection with the eldest Potter that he’d had with the man’s father. Instead he had one better, he had the love of a woman bending his ear. Kanade. How he’d loved her. He would have married her, he knew. He would have followed her to the ends of the earth and beyond. But of course, the Dark Lord robbed her from him. First with her loyalty, second with her life.

Thereafter, his mother was killed. The death of the Dark Lord wasn’t much of a consolation. James had watched another man walk away with what he’d felt at the time to be his Order of Merlin. All he had left was his mother. Then, she was gone too, found amongst the wreckage, rumoured to have been killed by the Dark Lord himself. In Godric’s Hollow, two graves stand beside the one mourning the loss of Lily and James Potter. The one to the right is of Harry and Ginny. The one to the left, James made up for Kanade. It was something he knew Albus would pick at him for but in his grief he’d not given a care for it. He’d been picked away from the site, pulled by the scruff of the neck by Fred and by Teddy. He didn’t know what hurt him more, even now. Whether it was knowing he was orphaned or that any and all chance of finding real grounding in his life had been snatched away from him.

“I should go,” James muttered finally.

Khaat inwardly bristled at his words, but she was learning from her father to keep her face expressionless. Instead of giving him the satisfaction of an emotional reaction, she got up, picked up the silver bowl by cradling it in her bent elbow, took the bowl over to the sink and tossed the water and the glistening thought threads down the drain.

Addictive thinking patterns. She should have been prepared for that first rather than expecting him to be able to relate to her in any sort of familiar manner.  

"First," she said candidly, dispensing with attempts to be overly diplomatic.  "You don't get it. Maybe you never did. Harry did expect to die. He got that loud and clear most of his life. He was the intended sacrifice and had to get geared up for dying. What he never expected was to live, to have family, to be much more than a little taller version of the boy the Dursleys abused. But he did learn how to be grateful for every moment of what he did have because he knew how fragile life was and how quickly it might all be taken away.

"Your mother was a Weasley through and through, and her family was made fun of their entire lives for who they were not and what they did not have. She understood that nothing stays the same and that bad things happen to everyone.  Don't paint me a picture of how unrealistic and idyllic they thought life was. They both knew better.

"You're right," she said. "You know that? You don't know who you are. And you won't until you decide that for yourself. If all you want is to be, as you put it, a washed up Quidditch star, then that's all you'll be until you want something different. When that happens, you'll see it doesn't have to be more. It just needs to be different. Nor does it need to be anyone else's definition of what they want for you.

"If Mac is filling you up with myths and fairy tales about rising like a phoenix out of your ashes to become a legendary hero or some other drivel, then she's doing you no favors. Consider, for one moment, that maybe all 'different' might mean, at least temporarily, is being able to get up out of bed and welcome a new day without hating both it and yourself, maybe even with some sense of a little bit lesser angst and a little closer to peace inside yourself. But right now, you aren't even open to the possibility."

She was working hard to stuff away her anger at him. He wasn't the only one who had lost more in this life than they could afford to give up. He wasn't the only one with wounds that wouldn't heal. Nor was he the only one expected to live out their most intimate moments in front of the wizarding press.

He didn't need more pity. He had an overdose of his own. She cared about him, but if, when she offered him caring and affection, all he was capable of doing was vomiting it back on her with venom, then she didn't have much more to offer.

"You don't need someone to do PR. To spin more lies. I care about you, James. I always have, and I always will. I would really like to help you out of the rut you've gotten yourself stuck in, but I don't know that anyone..."  

She cut herself off. There actually was only one real way that she knew of for someone to get unstuck out of their own self pity, even if the self pity was rightfully deserved. They had to lose their focus on themselves and start to honestly care about someone or something else.

"If you want out of that rut," she said quietly, gently, "let somebody know, would you? I think what I'm best doing is leaving you to it and not try to shove help upon you. When you want it, I presume you'll ask someone. The longer the suffering goes on, the harder it is to get out of it, you know."

“Then they shouldn’t have been stupid enough to start a family, should they?”

James prided himself on having neglected such a carnal thing. What he had never been informed of was an irony in light of such an assertion. He, for all his faults, and as far as he knew, had not done the troubling thing of prematurely creating a family. The irony came from the fact that for nearly five years, he had a family, the beginnings of one at least, dancing around to the tune of someone else. Had he known what Jamie had done, had he known what had happened, perhaps things would have been different. Maybe he wouldn’t have even been sat there, in that moment.

Sighing, James rubbed his hand over his face. “I didn’t mean that,” he amended gruffly.

But he did. At the same time, he did. Khaat’s words fell on deaf ears. He didn’t care for the way Ginny was. He didn’t want to hear it. He’d lived it. He’d had the luxury of knowing her far more intimately than he ever had done Harry. They’d depended on each other. He’d understood her, he thought. He thought he knew her. In truth, he thought he’d known Harry, too. He had been so sure he’d understood everything about his life. When it had become painfully, irrevocably apparent that he did not – well, it brought him to this.

“He’s not,” James exclaimed, coming to defence of the healer that had taken him by the scruff of the neck and shaken him into action.

Waking up, a stomach empty of food and an arm full of fluid pumping merrily away into the veins in his arm wasn’t the way James had wanted to spend the beginning of that year. The time that they had afforded him had been so unlike anything else he’d been given. He’d wanted it. They’d wanted it for him. They’d all tried. What irked him was that he’d let them down, rather than anyone else, let alone himself. He didn’t want to see the look on Mac’s face. Especially not when he’d come in tomorrow, looking for a prescription to help him detox.

They’ve give it. Reluctantly, though.

“I don’t need you to lecture me,” James sighed. “I really, really don’t. I’m sorry but nothing you can say is different to what I’ve been told a dozen times before. I am broken. Not irreparably but I am broken and I can’t fix anything for myself until things level out and get normal again. Overmorrow, things will be better.”

James licked his lips and picked up one of the bars of chocolate, stripping down the foil to break off a couple of pieces. He dropped some into his coffee and then brought another square up to his mouth. After chewing and swallowing the sweetness, he set the chocolate down and presented Khaat with a half-smile.

“Thank you, really.” He murmured. “And I’m going to fix this. I just… it’s a blip, is all.”

She listened to his version of the "I wish I'd never been born" song. For a moment, she supposed he would have condemned her too for having eight children when, at every turn, someone was outright trying to kill her these days.

Perhaps, in some way, he was right. If that was true, though, perhaps James would have been more content if Harry and Ginny would have offed themselves and gotten it overwith.

Then he backpeddled with "I didn't mean that." The problem was that, at that moment, he had. His bitterness towards his parents was more than apparent, much akin to a huge neon beacon.

She wasn't 100% unacquainted with how controlling an addiction could be, how blinding and self pitying it was. She had had just enough of a taste of it that she could identify. Words were a waste on James right now. He couldn't hear them. She wasn't really speaking to James, not so long as the addiction as the only thing responding to her.

"Of course," she said, placating him now. "That's exactly what it is. A blip." It was a blip he had apparently been marinating himself into for a long, long time. He had thrown himself into a proverbial vat that he could not get himself back out of . Tossing himself headlong into it? Yeah, that might have been a blip. Deciding to just stay there and soak up one's soul in it? The time limit that qualified that as a blip had long expired, and he was living in his own lie.

She tried to remember how she had gotten out of her own pit. Oh, yeah. She'd damned near killed herself unintentionally. Her drug lord husband had seen her symptoms and had rescued her from herself. Forced her to detox whether she liked it or not, and in so doing, saved her life. The second decent thing he'd done in the time she'd known him. Abbey was the first.

The twinge always came when she thought of him. It came from countless unanswered questions that he hadn't answered then and had no intention of ever answering. It wasn't exactly unrequieted love. Now it was unrequieted curiosity, and a need to make sure that he had no intention of ever trying to destroy her daughter's life by reappearing in it to try to be the father he couldn't man up to do before. She had a never ending fear that she kept buried--that he'd show up out of the blue and want Abbey. Legally, he had no right, of course, but when did he care about things being legal?

"I wish you better luck with your blip," she said, without thinking. She hadn't meant to even remotely hint that she had experienced a similar thing. No, that was a truth well hidden in the Lupin family secrets. It wasn't talked about, wasn't brought up. Wasn't even hinted at. She wished she could suck the words back up in a rewind. But this was James. Perhaps he was still too under the influence to have caught it. And there was always the hope that he was already too brain damaged to catch the details anymore.