The Kitchen
Ginny was reporting on the Quidditch World Cup in India and the port-lag is too much for her to come home, even at weekends. Besides, it's good for her to stay with the team, to be on site in case of any breaking news. The kids miss her, but Harry's fine with it, really, and besides, by the time they've had dinner with each of their extended family and twice with Mrs Weasley it's nearly time for Ginny to come back home. It's Monday, the second Monday of her trip, and she will be home early on Wednesday.
Harry is making dinner. He's good in the kitchen, the Dursleys taught him that much, though the kids don't really like the stodgy, traditional British meals that Vernon favoured, all pastry and pies and potatoes. Ginny can conjure curries and noodle soup and tangy dumplings that all three fall upon like starving creatures when she has time to cook.
Tonight Harry is making steak and kidney pudding. James and Lily have already turned their noses up at it as he made up the pastry at the counter. They are in the garden tossing a Quaffle back and forth.
Albus, who hates flying and Quidditch and physical activity in general, leans on the kitchen table and watches as Harry rolls out the pasty. Harry places a dinner plate on the dough and Al leans forward to pass him a blunt kitchen knife. Harry cuts out the circle of pasty and lays it carefully on the top of the dish.
"When's Mum back?" Albus asks, even though he knows perfectly well.
Harry doesn't answer. Instead, he idly gathers up the remaining pasty. He rolls it into a ball and splits it in two, re-rolling one half into a ball again and then splitting the second ball in half again. He flattens the two pieces and starts to shape them.
"Dad," Al begins, then stops for a moment. "Dad, do you mind that I'm not on the Quidditch team?"
"Course not Al," Harry answers automatically. "Go play outside, okay? Dinner in an hour."
Al makes a face at the thought of Harry's cooking, then runs outside. Carefully, Harry attaches the two wings to the pastry snitch and balances it on his hand for a moment. After a second, the wings begin to flutter lightly. Harry smiles wistfully. The children are really beyond such novelties now, for all that it amused them when they were younger.
He goes to put the snitch on top of the dish but the small lift provided by the pastry wings sends it sliding off his hand and under the kitchen cupboards. Harry freezes, looking at the dark foreboding gap. Oh, he knows what's in there, he knows what curls up beneath things, always hiding in the shadows, in the dark.
Ashamed of such weakness, he slams the dish in the oven and shuts the door firmly. He stands at the kitchen sink washing up and catching glimpses of his children moving back and forth past the small slice of the garden he can see. James and Lily are flying, swooping up and down and occasionally speeding into sight, low to the ground and focused. Albus is playing alone, still enjoying those childlike games that he liked before he went to Hogwarts. Ginny sometimes tries to find out what it is he is imagining, but Harry doesn't ever ask. Because of that, Harry thinks, Al has told him a few of the games he plays.
Sometimes I'm playing with a life-sized chess set, he told Harry one night as Harry tucked the boys in. He whispered the words in Harry's ear, so James wouldn't hear.
Sometimes I'm Merlin, I'm trying to tell Arthur what to do, he told Harry when the two of them were sitting on the grass and watching the other three play Quidditch. But he doesn't believe in magic, so I have to prove it to him,
"You can be yourself, Al," Harry had said.
"I am most of the time," Al had replied with a shrug, his eyes watching Lily as she dove for the snitch.
Sometimes I'm Dumbledore, fighting Grindleward, Albus whispered in a noisy bookshop last week. Sometimes I'm fighting Voldemort. Sometimes I'm you.
Harry had looked at his own face on the front of James's DADA textbook for next year and swallowed back all the words threatening to spill out.
Looking out of the window now he can see Al looking at the sky, his wand dangling in one hand. James and Lily never carried theirs around in the holidays. They had to take James's away, because he wouldn't stop casting spells and Lily didn't bother because it got in her way.
Albus always carried his, though he'd never, to Harry's knowledge, used it outside of Hogwarts. He would pretend, Harry supposed, watching him pointing his wand upwards, then to the side, them at the ground. He laughs - or maybe shouts, Harry can't hear him - and flings his wand away and dives in the other direction, out of Harry's view. A few moments later he comes back into sight, running towards the window, his dark hair messy and his green eyes sparkling. Harry smiles at him, but he doesn't smile back and Harry thinks he's too lost in his game until Albus comes charging in through the back door and into the kitchen.
"Dad," he shouts, like he'd been shouting it over and over. "James fell off his broom, oh, come on!" He runs back out again, looking behind him to check Harry is following, which he is, running and overtaking Al, his heart pounding in his ears wondering how he hadn't heard anything.
"I'm all right," James grumbles when Harry appears, brushing leaves out of his hair. "Lily knocked me off my broom!"
"Oh Merlin, it's Quidditch. You get knocked off your broom loads at school!"
Harry frowns. "You get knocked off your broom at school?"
"Yeah, he's rubbish, they only keep him on cause he's your son - "
James leaps at Lily with a shout and Harry has to pull them both apart before things escalate. "Stop it!" He holds a hand out to stop James leaping again while Lily leans on her broom and smirks.
"I suppose you'll be better," James spits at her.
"Course I will! I knocked you off, not that that's a challenge," she snorts. "I can't wait to try out. I'm going to be the best Beater ever!"
Harry looks over at Lily quickly. "You want to be a Beater?"
"Well, yeah."
"Oh I - I didn't know."
Lily rolls her eyes but doesn't say anything. James is back on his feet, brushing grass off his trousers.
"Wanna play Keeper-Chaser?" Lily offers, which James seems to take as a peace offering. They grab their brooms and spin off into the sky. Harry really doesn't understand his oldest son and youngest daughter, but they seemed to like each other, most of the time. He'd once been concerned at how often they fight, but Ginny never had been worried, so Harry had pretended he wasn't either.
Harry looks around for Al, sees him whispering over a bush and shakes his head. God, he has weird kids, he thinks. With a glance upwards to see Lily sailing a Quaffle past James, Harry goes back inside to lay the table.