James has never been so happy �“ not since the day we were married. He returns home early every day, smiles, laughs, cooks dinner!
Over the years we’ve grown apart, not closer, and I don’t know if this is entirely his fault. If you and I weren’t…
I can’t believe he doesn’t know. Now, when he is so happy, when I find myself loving more and more every second, when old feelings have begun to rekindle… am I doing the right thing, following my heart?
This time there is no unconsciousness. James and Scorpius land on a bed of grass and hard earth, but there are no large rocks nearby. Except for a few bruises they come out of the journey unscathed.
James springs to his feet.
‘Where are we?’ mutters Scorpius from the ground.
James doesn’t answer him. Once again, the Time-Turner has transported them to an open field. But this time James knows where he is. He can see a small house jutting above the horizon �“ his house
‘What’s the time?’ he asks Scorpius.
Scorpius is getting to his feet, rubbing the back of his head at the same time. ‘Er�”’ He turns and peers at the setting sun. ‘Seven? Eight? Hey!’ James has already set off at a run. The sun hasn’t set yet and it hasn’t begun to storm so he still has time. If he can just get home in time, if he can just make sure he catches Laura before…
The thought has hardly left his mind, when, in the distance, thunder rumbles. James curses under his breath and suddenly, he has entered a nightmare. He can’t seem to run fast enough, the sky is darkening quickly. Every step seems to take an infinite amount of time. His throat is beginning to hurt from the panic; the house doesn’t seem to be getting any closer. Behind him he can hear Scorpius calling out to him.
Laura Potter stands in the doorway of the large barn. Her blond hair sweeps around her head in the heavy wind. In the distance she can hear the sound of thunder. She can see the ladder that leads to the loft, only a few feet away. She begins to walk towards it. Her mind runs over her conversation with Scorpius. He has insisted they end their relationship. She knows it is the right thing to do, but her heart does not like it. She has spent more of her married life with Scorpius than with her own husband. She has a son, a son whose father is a mystery. And the one man who knows of the turmoil in her heart has just told her that enough is enough. That they cannot be together anymore.
Laura does not think she can face a lonely life again.
James crashes through the door of the house, Scorpius at his heels. His instinct is to call out to Laura, but he controls himself. James knows his other self could be in the house somewhere. Scorpius is thinking the same thing. He raises a finger to his lips. James nods in agreement, trying not to let his frantic heart rule his actions. James points Scorpius towards the kitchen. He walks into the parlor, only to find it empty. The main sitting room and Deben’s bedroom on the ground floor is empty too. Scorpius meets James back in the front hall. He shakes his head �“ he hasn’t found anything either.
Just then thunder explodes through the silence. James almost jumps out of his shoes. The ceiling suddenly creaks and both James and Scorpius turn. James’s heart jumps into his throat. Someone is moving around upstairs. Only two other people besides Laura could be in the house: the other James and Deben. And Deben hadn’t yet learned to walk.
The telephone rings and James jumps again. He will never get used to the sound of the phone, but Laura always insisted on having it. She had lived her independent life as a Muggle �“ there was option for a Squib. The telephone is in the kitchen and James can hear someone walking towards the stairs on the first floor.
‘Out!’ hisses Scorpius and James follows him out the front door into the brewing storm.
Laura walks towards the swinging rope. It has been strung around one of the loft’s supporting beams. Laura reaches out and unwinds it and takes it in her hands. It is a thick rope, looped at one end so that someone can hold onto it properly while swinging. The previous owners had children and they had left the rope when they had moved out. Laura realizes now that it is a death trap. The loop is the perfect size �“ anyone could put their head through it and…
The rope feels rough and hard in her fingers. Her hand does not go all the way around the circumference of the rope. She gazes at it for a moment before stepping forward. Her toes hang over the edge of the loft. She peers down into the darkness of the barn floor below. It is covered with hay but that doesn’t matter. The rope is short enough. She will never reach the ground.
James gasps as the freezing rain pelts his head and neck. ‘She’s not in the house!’ he shouts, turning to Scorpius, tears mingling with the rain. The panic is almost overbearing. His knees knock together. ‘She’s not in the house!’
‘Keep your head on!’ Scorpius yells over the wind. ‘Did you answer the phone before you found her or after? Try to remember?’
James shakes his head, tries to remember a phone call. And then it comes to him. ‘Before! Just before! You called! You told me to check the barn!’ A cold feeling engulfs James, a feeling that has nothing to do with the rain slipping down his back. His mind roars at his legs to run and even then they take a moment longer to process the order.
As thunder rumbles and lightning flashes, he races towards the barn.
Laura leans forward slightly. She slips the rope under her chin, wondering how it will feel. Will she die instantly or will she have to wait for death’s clammy hands to end it?
She shivers.
And then from somewhere, a voice filters into her mind: For better or for worse…
She remembers the James she married. Not the James that is currently asleep in the house… but the sweet James. The James ho would have done anything for her. Suddenly, every second of their whirlwind courtship floats to the top of her mind. And then she remembers the James whose jaw dropped when she revealed her pregnancy. Who was so happy he had lifted her into his arms and danced around the room. Who had cooked dinner every day, who had done the unthinkable and taken off days from work to clean the house for her, to care for her, to be with her.
And then she remembers her reaction. Her wish that he wouldn’t. She wanted to spend more time with Scorpius, and James being around meant that she had to stay home to avoid the risk of arousing suspicion.
She thinks of this all and her heart hurts.
She and James. Making mistakes at every chance.
James runs to the front of the barn to find its two large double doors wide open and creaking in the wind. He pushes away flashbacks and memories of what he found last time he entered these doors and clenches his teeth, mustering the courage to enter his nightmare once more. Behind him Scorpius gives him a gentle push. ‘James! There’s not much time!’
Lightning lights up the night.
And James storms through the open doors.
The barn inside is dark, but just as the sound of deafening thunder trails off, another flash of lighting brightens the surroundings.
James heart stops.
He has just seen Laura’s outline. She is standing at the very edge of the loft.
‘No!’ he tries to cry, but the shout comes out half-sob, half-whisper. He makes a mad dash for the ladder, clambers onto it and climbs like he has never climbed before.
And here she is, about to make another mistake. A mistake with consequences that she cannot predict. What will her death do to her family? The rope slips around her neck, scratches at her skin. Her hands move to take it off. She is making a mistake.
James runs towards Laura, having reached the loft, as lightning blazes against the darkness again. The rope is around her neck.
‘Laura, no!’ he shouts. ‘Please! I’m sorry!’ His shoes thump loudly on the wood. Laura jumps and turns at the sound of his voice.
‘James?’ she calls out. ‘Is that you?’
‘Laura, you can’t!’ James shouts, running frantically, wishing the distance between rope and ladder was less. ‘I’m sorry, I know I’ve been a bad husband, but please, I can fix things, don’t do this! I love you! I do, I swear!’
Laura hears her husband’s voice and feels like she has been transported into a dream. His words are like a miracle, and suddenly a deep warmth rushes over her body, warming her, fingers to toes. This must be how magic feels, she thinks. Her face feels like it will split from grinning. ‘James!’ she calls into the darkness. ‘I’m here!’ She reaches around her neck to remove the rope.
Lightning.
James’s heart leaps. He sees Laura is the light, her hands fiddling with the rope around her neck. ‘Laura!’ he cries, and he reaches out for her. But she hasn’t seen him, and as he reaches out, she jumps.
Her feet are too close to the edge already.
The rope is still around her neck.
She jumps at her husband’s voice. And she loses her balance.
It happens in a flash of lightening. James sees her stumble backwards, her hands leave her neck, the rope slips back into place and she falls backwards.
‘No!’ yells James and he reaches out to grab her.
He catches only air.
The length of the rope flips up as she falls and strikes his face. The force of it flings him backwards. There is a whoop sound as the rope slaps the air. And then suddenly, the rope is taut.
‘NO!’ screams James, pain ripping at his heart and throat. He tries to get to his feet but his legs will not support him. He crawls to the edge of the loft, where Laura was just a second ago.
His heart bleeds in his chest.
Lighting again.
And he sees her there, still. Unmoving. Gone.
The room brightens again, and James looks at the double doors of the barn and sees the silhouette of a man �“ his other self.
It is over.
In a daze, he somehow manages to find the ladder again, scuttle down it and out the back door of the barn, to a waiting Scorpius. The door bangs behind him as he leaves. Just before it shuts he hears someone scream, long, hard and loud. The scream is filled with pain. James remembers it well.
The funerals are held on time, Monday at three.
Harry Potter’s first. Laura Potter’s immediately after.
James attends both.
Scorpius stands at his side. James has forgiven him, and Scorpius has forgiven James. They have done so without discussing the matter.
The funerals are short. Attendance is minimal. Family mostly. That is how it should be, James thinks. Halfway through Laura’s funeral, Deben becomes fidgety and Scorpius takes him and leaves. As James watches them go, Scorpius tickling Deben’s tummy, he realizes he never asked Laura the ultimate question.
He still doesn’t know if Deben is his or not.
At this moment, it doesn’t really matter. He may never know.
That will not stop him from treating Deben like a son.
James has made too make mistakes already. And he has paid. He will not pay again.
When the funerals end, James finds himself sitting in the open field that the Time-Tuner transported himself and Scorpius to, the second time around. The day is cloudy, but this time, there is no storm. The sun peers out from behind a puff of gray and lights up patches of grass with a pure, lovely golden. A slight breeze ruffles James’s hair.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her, yet he doesn’t turn to face her.
He realizes who she is now. Beautiful and unearthly. There is only one person she can be.
This time, she speaks.
‘Remember the Blue Highway?’ she asks. James remembers telling the bartender about needing to save someone from it. Only now does the significance of those words hit him. It was Laura’s fancy that the path to heaven was a long stretch of highway. Blue highway. She and James had been married at a church outside of which a road stretched as far as the eye could see. On the day of their marriage, the road had looked blue, for some unfathomable reason. Laura had decided then and there that it was blue because it led to heaven and all heavenly things were blue.
‘I remember,’ he says.
‘It is very blue,’ she replies. ‘You’d like it.’
James doesn’t look at her. For the first time since Laura’s death, tears come willingly to his eyes. He looks down at his lap. There rests a crumpled scrap of paper from the Daily Prophet. It says: “In Memory of Laura Potter �“ Beloved Wife”. A shuddering breath leaves James as he reads it. A few tears drop onto it, smudging the ink.
He can tell she is watching him. Finally, she speaks again. ‘Are you reading this with your heart or your mind?’
James looks up. She is kneeling next to him, pointing at the paper. James shakes his head. He doesn’t understand what she means.
‘I’m gone. That is that,’ she says. ‘You could never have saved me.’
‘Then what was the point?’ murmurs James. ‘Of everything that has happened. Why did it happen?’
She doesn’t answer. Instead she stands, and gazes at a ray of sunlight peeking through the clouds. James watches her and hates himself.
‘I treated you badly.’
She looks down at him again and this time, she smiles. It almost blinds him. ‘That was the point.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Then, you have learned. And your mission is complete.’ As James watches her, she seems to brighten with her words. She looks down at James once more. ‘I made mistakes too, darling. It was not entirely your fault. Be at peace. And remember that I love you.’
For a moment, she shines brighter than the sun, and James is forced to shield his eyes. When he looks back up, she is gone. In her place is a white piece of paper. It flutters to the earth, brighter than it should be.
James picks it up and reads:
When the time is right, sweetest, you shall follow the blue highway, and we shall be together again. This time, for better, not for worse. Remember: I will always love you.
And as James sits there, in the field, the clouds float away and the sun shines brightly, and the day seems suddenly lighter.