How the Other Half Lives

Chapter 5 - Asking for the Quaffle

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story was originally written during the fall of 2002, before the release of OotP. For that reason, certain characterizations aren't consistent with new information about the MWPP generation from that book.

For those of you who have enjoyed this story, I've written a novel-length prequel about James Potter's father. It's called From Here to Timbuktu, and you can find it at my author page (same username) at TheDarkArts.org.

* * *

Perhaps it was Alexander Potter's old instincts as a former star Quidditch keeper for the Ravenclaw house team that led him to dive before his wife when they were first surprised by the curses and hexes of seven Death Eaters. More likely, it was simply love. He had once told James that he knew that Philippa Martin was "the one" the moment that she was introduced to him as his new partner.

It was certainly love that led Philippa Potter to summon the hidden portkey and send her injured husband to safety while she remained behind to defend his escape. Perhaps she thought she would be able to defend herself until she had a moment to apparate. That moment never came. There is no counter-curse, after all, to the Killing Curse.

Madam Pomfrey was summoned to tend to James while someone fetched a bag of his things from Gryffindor Tower. Moody produced a portkey, and the two left Hogwarts for St Mungo's.

A short, middle-aged witch with chin-length black hair and warm brown eyes was waiting for them outside the doors to St Mungo's. Fiona Martin was Philippa Potter's only sibling, five years older, and had been Head Girl at Hogwarts in her time. She had once worked for the Ministry of Magic, but now managed a Charms research institute in Cornwall.

"Aunt Fi!"

"James." Her face was red and splotchy from crying. She hugged him fiercely. "The doctors say we can see your father in a bit."

"How is he?"

"Cursed and hexed within an inch of his life." Here she added a stream of invective that was obviously meant for You-Know-Who and his minions. "Hello, Alastor."

"Martin."

James wondered at the stiffness of their exchange. They didn't seem to like each other very much. Before he had time to say more, however, Aunt Fi noticed a reporter from The Daily Prophet approaching. "Let's go, James. Moody, you can deal with the press." And James found himself being tugged inside before he could say another word.

* * *

The doctors had charmed Alexander Potter into an enchanted sleep to aid the healing process. James and his aunt kept a steady vigil in his father's room. His father's skin was unnaturally pale, and there were hex marks on every visible inch of his skin. For four days there seemed to be no change in his father's condition, but on the fifth day Alexander Potter finally awoke to find his anxious son in a chair beside his hospital bed.

It took him a few moments to recover from the effects of the charmed sleep, but James could see that he remembered what had happened. James was violently, selfishly glad about this: he could not imagine trying to tell his father that his mother was dead. "Dad?"

Alexander Potter squeezed his son's hand, which was resting on the rough cloth of the hospital blanket. "Son."

James discovered that he was crying. "How do you feel?"

"Terrible." The older man sighed. "I'm sorry, James."

James was taken aback. "Sorry for what?"

"I should have done more to protect your mother."

"Dad! You did all that you could." James wiped his tears with the sleeve of his sweater and swallowed hard. "Aunt Fi has made all the, um, arrangements. For Mum."

Alexander Potter stared at the ceiling of his hospital room with the gray eyes that were so like his son's. "How are you holding up, son?"

"I miss her, Dad. But I have you. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have you."

"We'll make it through this, James. We Potter men will have to stick together." His father blinked, and tears welled up in his gray eyes. "I miss her too."

* * *

Everyone wanted to attend Philippa Potter's funeral. After all, she was a hero; her death had made the front page of The Daily Prophet. In the end, Fiona Martin put her foot down. She sent howlers to a very large number of people--including the Minister of Magic and Alastor Moody, both of whom she felt had not done enough to protect their Aurors--and kept the funeral small and private. She seemed to be dealing with her own grief by keeping busy, and James and his father were very thankful for her strong presence.

The family went back to Fiona's house in Cornwall after the funeral. Alexander Potter was to finish his convalescence there. One snowy afternoon a week after the funeral, when his aunt was off at the institute, James and his father sat in the parlor drinking tea. James was finishing the last part of The Dark is Rising, which someone had thought to include in the bag packed for him at Hogwarts, and Alexander Potter was staring at the swirling patterns on the oriental carpet. A copy of the newspaper lay forgotten on his lap.

"Son?"

James pulled his thoughts out of the world of Will Stanton and the Black Rider. "Yes, Dad?"

"I was thinking . . . would you like to go back to Hogwarts soon?"

"I hadn't really thought of it," James replied honestly.

"You've missed almost two weeks of classes."

"I'll catch up."

"I wouldn't want to affect your chances of being Head Boy."

"Dad! Do you think that matters to me now?"

"It matters to me," said Alexander Potter seriously. "I don't want Voldemort to ruin our lives any more than he already has. I still want you to be Head Boy, to win the Quidditch cup, to enjoy your time at Hogwarts. You know that I'll be rejoining the Aurors once I'm well."

"I wish--"

"I know you don't like the idea, James, but I refuse to let him intimidate me. That's what the attack was meant to do, you know. It was a way of telling people not to get involved."

"Aunt Fi doesn't like the Aurors."

"Your aunt has a lot of strong opinions. And even she's thinking of taking a position at the ministry again."

"Even after the howlers?"

"Even after the howlers. She wants to play a more active part in the war. And it is a war--don't let anyone tell you that it's not."

"Dad, I wish there was more I could do."

"I know, James. But even doing more won't take the hurt away." He sighed. "I'm not sure if Fi understands that taking down Death Eaters--or even Voldemort himself--won't bring Pippa back."

If either of them had any tears left to shed, they probably would have cried then. As it was, they both lapsed into a reflective silence. And when Fi returned from her office, fiery-eyed, with a tale of her official resignation, James informed her that he had owled Dumbledore about returning to school.

It was time to go back.

* * *

In James's absence, life went on at Hogwarts much as it always had. Many students expressed shock and horror when they heard about the DeLancie family and James's mother, but the terrible familiarity of the news dulled their reactions. James was hardly the first student to lose a parent, nor was Mac DeLancie the first student to leave for a holiday and never return.

Days passed, and the initial shock wore away. Sirius, Remus, and Peter were amazed by how quickly their friend seemed to be forgotten. After a few days, with a few notable exceptions, no one seemed to notice James was missing. The house Quidditch team was torn between fretting for their captain's welfare and worrying over their chances in an upcoming game against Slytherin without their star chaser. Lew Morris could occasionally be seen writing letters to James that would never be answered. And Remus thought he noticed one other person who was missing James, but he eventually convinced himself that he was imagining things.

By the end of the second week of the new term, James's closest friends no longer had the hearts to watch for Hamlet at the morning mail delivery. There had been a brief note waiting for them when they returned to school on the 6th, but they had heard nothing else from James since then.

Sirius was openly moping for his partner-in-crime. "He should come back," he said one evening in the Gryffindor common room as the three boys did their homework.

Remus looked up from his Arithmancy book. "He needs to be with his father," he said mildly.

Peter couldn't decide whether to agree with Sirius or Remus, so he kept his mouth shut.

Sirius twirled his wand for a few minutes in silence. Then he sighed dramatically and said, "I wish he would write. "

"He'll write when he's ready, Padfoot."

"I know." Another sigh. "There's got to be something we can do."

"Just wait. He'll come back eventually."

Remus might as well have told Sirius to behave himself and be quiet. The other boy cast about for something else to hold his attention. He noticed the other five members of the Gryffindor Quidditch team sitting on some chairs by the windows. "They're talking about the Slytherin game."

"If you're not going to work, maybe you should join them."

"I don't care about Quidditch." Remus raised a skeptical eyebrow, so Sirius added, "Not now at least."

"You know James would hate to have you clucking over him like a mother hen."

"Well, he clucked over me when my parents died. I may have pretended to hate it, but it helped." He pushed his chair back from the table with a loud screech that caught everyone's attention for a moment. "I'm going to write to him." And without another word, Sirius stomped upstairs to the sixth-year boys dormitory.

Remus and Peter exchanged a glance after their friend was gone.

"It's not like Sirius to sulk this much," said Peter.

"Well," said Remus tartly, "his attention span is usually too short for sulking. Don't worry about it. I'll tell you what--we'll give him a few minutes and then we'll offer to play Exploding Snap. That should make him happy."

Remus and Peter had both refused to play that particular game with Sirius after a few incidents during their second year landed them in the infirmary with rather serious burns. Only James still accepted Sirius's challenges.

"It could just remind him more about James."

Remus considered this possibility. "It's still worth a try, I suppose."

They watched the clock until five minutes had passed and then slipped up the stairs after their friend.

It took Remus and Peter nearly thirty minutes to coax Sirius out the dormitory and back to the common room. As they reached the foot of the stairs, the portrait hole opened with a loud creak. Everyone turned to see who was coming in.

Sirius's face brightened. "James!"

* * *

James could not remember the last time that he had felt so tired. Dumbledore had insisted that James take extra precautions in returning to Hogwarts. Finally, it was arranged for him to Floo from his aunt's house in Cornwall to a secure fireplace in the Ministry, where he met up with Moody. The old Auror had a portkey which brought the pair to Hogsmeade, where they were met by Hagrid in one of the school's enchanted carriages. There had been all sorts of delays, and soon James wanted nothing more than a hot drink and a soft bed.

Professor McGonagall met him at the front door and expressed surprisingly moving condolences for so stern a personage. It had taken all of James's strength not to dissolve into tears on the spot. There had been so many moments during the day when he had wanted to turn around and go back to his father and aunt, but that had been the worst. He didn't want anyone's pity. They couldn't understand--no one who hadn't been Pippa Potter's son could understand--and their awkward attempts at sympathy mostly made him more aware of his loss.

Even the Fat Lady seemed gentler than usual as she asked him for the password. Did she think he was too fragile to answer a simple question? He replied listlessly, watched the portrait swing open, and began hauling himself and his bag through the hole. The familiar buzz of happy voices filled his ears.

Someone called his name, but James hardly noticed. With a final tug, he pulled his duffel bag through the hole, and then dropped it at his feet with relief. His black hair was falling in front of his glasses again; he had forgotten to get a haircut with all the events of the past few weeks. He straightened up and swept his hair out of his eyes with his usual unthinking gesture.

They were all staring, he realized. As he scanned the room, he saw two third-years whisper to each other. He probably would have been angry, but then he saw Lily in her usual chair by the fire. She had evidently been studying--transfiguration, judging by the red binding of the book on her lap. There was a light in her green eyes that he knew was for him.

He had thought about her many times during his day of travel, but somehow he had never considered what their first meeting after their separation would be like. His feet began to carry him towards her before he quite realized what he was doing. She stood up as he approached.

"Oh, James," was all she managed to say before she wrapped him in a consoling embrace.

Suddenly it didn't matter to him at all that everyone in Gryffindor was staring. Someone muttered loudly, "When did that happen?" and he didn't care in the least. He buried his face in her hair and clung to her like a man drowning.

And he felt the tiniest bit better.

* * *

Very late that night, James and Sirius snuck to the kitchens using James's invisibility cloak.

"Moony wasn't surprised," Sirius said, as he poured James a mug of cocoa. Remus had pulled a slack-jawed Sirius out the common room after Lily and James embraced.

"He's always been good at putting two and two together."

"At least he had the pieces to work with."

James winced. Sirius had discovered that James had written about Lily to Remus. His friend had tried to hide his unhappiness, but James was far too good at reading Sirius's moods to be fooled.

Sirius added, "You really like her, don't you?"

James nodded.

"I can tell it's different. Not like Nina."

James needed a moment to remember that Nina Finch was his ex-girlfriend. He nodded again.

The two boys drank their cocoa in silence for a while. Eventually Sirius said, "I promise I won't fuss."

"What?"

"Moony was furious with me, so he made me promise that I won't fuss over you. Unless you want me to."

Only Sirius could be so disarmingly sincere. Somehow it went well with his usual deviousness. James managed a wan smile. "Just be normal, Padfoot."

"I am sorry, James."

"I know."

"I really liked your mum."

"She liked you too. She laughed herself silly over some of the owls she got from McGonagall about us."

"She was a good sport about them."

"Yes, she was."

"It makes me think that no one's safe. I never thought--"

James finished his friend's sentence, "That it would happen to me? I know. No one is safe, Sirius."

They were silent again for a bit. Then Sirius said, "Mac DeLancie's memorial is on Sunday night."

"Dumbledore mentioned it."

"You still speaking?"

"Wild hippogriffs couldn't keep me away."

Sirius nearly spit out his cocoa. "What are you plotting, Prongs?"

"I'm not plotting anything," James replied. He forced himself to meet his friend's pale gaze. "There just a few things I have to say."

* * *

Despite his exhaustion, James didn't sleep well that night. Perhaps it was the cocoa, which seemed to settle uneasily in his stomach. Perhaps it was the strangeness of sleeping in his dormitory again. Perhaps it was simply grief. Whatever the cause, he woke long before dawn.

The steady breathing of his friends filled the dormitory. He glanced at his watch, almost smiling as he remembered the Christmas tree and singing angel, and decided to go down to the common room. The last thing he wanted to do was to wake up his friends early on a Saturday morning.

There was another person in the common room when he reached the bottom of the stairs. Lily was sitting in a window seat, gazing over the quiet lawns of the school. James remembered another time he had seen her look through that window, how a rush of feeling had overwhelmed him as he realized that he had fallen in love with her.

"Lily?"

She turned slowly to face him. A sweet smile spread across her face and made James's heart pound. "Good morning," she said softly.

"You're up early."

"So are you. Couldn't sleep?"

"Not really."

She slid over on the seat and patted the empty space next to her. "I guess we made a bit of a scene last night."

He reddened as he sat down next to her. "I guess so." A little bolder, he added, "I don't care."

Her smile widened. "Neither do I." They shared a look. By some unspoken agreement, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and she leaned against his chest. He marvelled at how right it felt. At least there was one thing left in the world that was right.

"I'm glad you're back," she murmured.

James didn't know if he was glad to be back. But there was one thing he did know: he was glad to be with her, and for the moment, that was enough.

* * *

James looked out at the rustling crowd in the Great Hall. Every member of Hufflepuff house must have been there, along with a fair smattering of Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, and even Slytherins. He wasn't ready to speak. But after all that had happened, it was more important than ever that he step forward and say something. For Mac, for his mum, for Lily's parents. Even for himself.

He nodded, and Dumbledore waved his wand, casting a Sonorus spell to amplify James's voice. James took a final deep breath and then began to speak.

"I'm sure some of you are wondering why I am up here, talking about Mac, instead of someone from Hufflepuff House. I'll be honest with you--I thought that myself. When Professor Dumbledore first asked me to speak, my first instinct was to say no. But after all that's happened in the past few weeks, there's something I need to say. So I hope you'll bear with me.

"When I was a little kid, Mac DeLancie was one of my very best friends. All four of our parents were Aurors. My dad played with his dad on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, and our mums knew each other from the Ministry. Some of my best memories are of playing Quidditch in the backyard of his house. We weren't supposed to fly without our parents around, but we always found a way to get the brooms out of the locked shed. I don't think I would have been much of a chaser if I hadn't learned the game with such a great keeper. And maybe he would have said the same about me. That's one of many things I'll never know."

James's voice began to tremble, but he forced himself to continue.

"After we came to Hogwarts, we never saw quite as much of each other. We were in different years and different houses, playing for rival teams, busy with school and new friends and a thousand other things. It's something I'll always regret. I hope Mac didn't die thinking that I valued the Quidditch cup more than him."

He had reached the point of no return. He could end his speech there or take it in a different direction, and no one would think the worse of him. No one would remember a word he said, for good or for ill. James scanned the crowd. There was Lily, sitting with Sirius, Remus, and Peter. She gave him a tiny nod, as if she knew why he was hesitating.

He opened his mouth to continue but the words wouldn't come. The crowd's discomfort became almost tangible. They couldn't understand why he had paused. James began to panic. Then, at the very back of the crowd, he saw someone lean forward. Eric Bennet. And James remembered what Eric had said to him one day in the library, took another deep breath, and went on.

"Until this Christmas, Voldemort never seemed to be my problem." People gasped at the name, but James plowed forward. "What did he have to do with me? I'm a pureblood, and you have to go back over seven generations to find a single Muggle-born wizard in my family. But Mac was also a pureblood, as were his parents, as was my mother. So in the past few weeks, I've learned how the other half lives. I've come to know all the grief and pain and helplessness and fear that many of you have been dealing with for years.

"Voldemort's purpose with the attacks on the DeLancies, on my family, and on the other Aurors is clear. He's warning us to stay out of his way, not to get involved. He wants us to keep thinking of the world as us and them, as our half and the other half. The truth is this: it isn't about how the other half lives. This is about how we all live. Until we agree that an attack on anyone--whether Muggle or wizard--is an attack on everyone, he's going to keep gaining strength.

"Some of you are probably thinking that this is neither the time nor the place for me to be saying all this. You may be right. But Mac is dead. He won't play Quidditch; he won't take his N.E.W.T.s; he won't change the password to the Hufflepuff common room. He won't grow up, get married, have kids. He's gone. So are Robert and Mary DeLancie, Philippa Anne Potter, Brian and Thalia Black, Thomas and Jane Evans, Colin and Helen Bennet, Alfred Healey, Frances Thorpe, Benjamin Stowe, Olivia Marshall, and dozens of others. I don't want to add more names to this list. It's already far too long.

"When we were kids, Mac once told me that the key in Quidditch is taking the play to the other team. You can't sit back and hope your seeker catches the snitch, no matter how good he or she might be. I think we've all been hoping someone else would catch the snitch, end the game.

"Most of you know me as a chaser for the Gryffindor house team. Today I'm asking for the quaffle, asking to be in the thick of this fight. And as you all know, the best chasers work in tandem. I hope some of you will consider joining the play as well. For Mac's sake, and for our own. So we never ever have to sit in this hall again and remember a dead classmate."

He had nothing more to say. There was no reaction to his words, just a stunned silence. James put his head down and descended from the dias at the front of the hall. He hadn't expected a round of applause. But he had paid part of his penance to Mac in public, and the weight that took off his chest was enormous.

* * *

A few days after Mac's memorial, James encountered Lily outside the library. They hadn't had any time alone since that morning in the common room, so he asked, "Are you coming or going?"

"Going. What about you?"

"Coming, but I just changed my mind. Do you have a moment?"

"Why?"

"I want to show you something."

She nodded her head in agreement, so he took her hand and led her through the tricky hallways of Hogwarts. When they reached his destination, surprise rang clear in her voice. "The trophy room?"

He led her over to a set of shelves in the corner of the room. After all the detentions that he had spent polishing the silver without magic, James knew exactly where to find the item that he wanted to share with Lily. Second from the left on the third shelf of the bookcase. The Quidditch cup from 1947.

James picked it up reverently and passed it to Lily. She tilted so she could read the engraving in the dim light.

"1947. Ravenclaw House. Alexander Potter, captain. Theodore Close, Robert DeLancie, Vera Glenn, Sebastian Morton, Diana Sidney, Evelyn Ward."

"My dad's last year at Hogwarts."

"He played with Mac's father?"

"They were good friends. My aunt Fi played for the Gryffindor team that year. They played Ravenclaw in the final, and Mr DeLancie knocked her out of the game with a bludger. My mum blamed my dad for that for years."

"Until they fell in love?"

"And after. She would tease him about it from time to time." He put the cup back on the shelf. "What were your parents like, Lily?"

"Perfectly ordinary Muggles." She shrugged. "Perfectly ordinary and perfectly wonderful, if you understand me. My father got a first in history at Oxford and taught in one of our local schools. My mum stayed home. My dad always said she was the brilliant one, but my grandfather didn't believe in educating women. Probably wasn't fair, but she wasn't bitter. She was always more forgiving of people than I ever was." She paused and then asked, "Why do you want to know?"

"I don't want to forget."

"What happened to them?"

"And who they were and what they were like. I'm never going to forget how my mum died, but I want to remember how she lived too. And how Mac lived. There's a cup around here with his name on it too. From our second year."

"The Hufflepuff miracle," Lily remembered aloud.

"First Hufflepuff Quidditch championship in over twenty years."

They were both silent. Remembering. It had been the talk of Hogwarts. Hufflepuff had needed to win by 260 points, and only Mac's amazing skills as a keeper had made that possible. Their victory had ended a three year cup run by Slytherin.

A lock of red hair had escaped Lily's braid and fallen onto her cheek. James reached out and tucked it behind her ear. She smiled at the contact. Their eyes met. She was so beautiful that it made him giddy, but that wasn't what he loved most about her. It was that unexpected strength and resolve, hidden beneath a veneer of shyness and bookishness. That sense of humor, of which he had only seen the barest hints.

He kissed her then, not with passion or uncertainty, but with the tenderness of familiarity and trust. In so many ways his world had crumbled around him in the last three weeks, but with Lily he felt sure that something good was around the corner. He wanted to say all this to her, but it was still too much and too soon. So instead he tilted up her chin with his finger, looked in her amazing eyes, and said, "It's almost time for supper. Would you walk down with me?"

"Of course," she said, after a moment's hesitation. "But don't you usually go down with your friends?"

"You're a friend. And more. Lily, I don't know how this whole idea of us works when things are normal. But I do want to figure it out. With you."

She nodded her head in understanding and agreement, and James almost felt that she knew what he really wanted to say. In in the deepest part of his heart, he was certain that a day would come--perhaps not too far in the future--when he could tell her everything that he felt. She would be ready to hear it, maybe even return it. Right now, they both had too much pain; despite the comfort that their relationship had already brought them, neither was ready to move forward too fast.

They joined hands and walked towards the door. At the threshhold, Lily paused and glanced over her shoulder.

James asked, "What is it?"

"Have you ever had one of those moments," she returned, "when you knew, almost physically, in your gut, that something was beginning and another thing was ending?"

He immediately understood what she was trying to convey and nodded. "Is that what you're feeling now?"

"Am I crazy?"

"No, Lily Evans, I think you're just right."

They walked on together.

* * *

THE END

Author's note: "How the Other Half Lives" may be over, but I do have a one-shot fic about James and Lily, post-Hogwarts, that will posted shortly. Thanks to all who reviewed, especially Peter Day, who pointed out a small continuity error that I'll be going back to correct in the not-so-distant future.