Incognito

✑ 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟒.𝟖

𝙰𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗'𝚜 𝚁𝚘𝚘𝚖
𝟷𝟸:𝟸𝟼 𝚙.𝚖 I

Lily and James were supposed to be celebrating finally finishing the redecoration of their rooms, but instead, they had spent most of their morning searching frantically for who had Harry last. James had maintained it was Mary, but Lily was sure it was Marlene.

They were about to start panicking when they heard voices coming from Ophelia's rooms.
"Hey! Buddy, don't touch that, it's very important!" (Followed by a high-pitched screech of delight.)

Sighing a breath of relief, the two parents burst into Ophelia's room to see her sitting on the floor and watching the new ten-month-old Harry who had pulled himself up on Ophelia's coffee table and stolen the wooden doll she had always kept safe in her room.
Surprisingly, James noticed she didn't look overly upset by being accidentally left to care for Harry, in fact, she had looked almost happy until Lily and James had shown up.

"Your child is a kleptomaniac," she said, addressing her cerebral humor to James more so than to Lily. Ever since the two of them had gotten together, Ophelia had been cold towards her and especially so after Harry. Though it wasn't Harry himself she seemed to have a problem with, this intrigued James further.

"Yes well he's nearly at toddler age, aren't you, Bambi?" James laughed, scooping up his son and allowing Ophelia to stand up before he turned Harry to face her.
"We need to give Ophelia back her dollie now, buddy. What do you say?"

Harry gargled but allowed the doll to be taken off him.
"Ta," Arson cooed in a way James had never heard such softness.

"TA!" Harry replied, kicking his legs in glee.

"Sorry for this, Arson," Lily added, speaking for the first time, "I swore we'd left him with Marlene!"

"You had," she clarified, taking the time to fix her sleek black ponytail as she talked, "but Marlene was about to take a meeting and I was the closest door."

"Told you so!" Lily grinned but Ophelia ignored her, as she usually did unless directly spoken to.

James, however, was still unconvinced. He handed Harry to his girlfriend and whispered to her that he would be right behind her, just as soon as he'd spoken to Arson.
Once Lily and Harry had left the room, Ophelia seemed to deflate.

"Right, what's bothering you?" James asked in a critical tone, rather than one of sympathy. He'd used sympathy on Evelyn and it hadn't worked, so this time he would try something else.

"Apart from the fact I just babysat the kid of the guy I like?"

"Yes." James nearly scoffed, he wished Ophelia would move on from the not-so-subtle crush she had on him. He'd learned from Evelyn yet again that entertaining a crush only made things worse, but he had just assumed it would fade away. Though he did not suppose it would be pleasant to be in Ophelia's situation.

"I can't stop myself from liking Harry."

"That's a bad thing?"

"On principle, I suppose. But he's just wonderful," she clearly was not finished and so James said nothing as Ophelia took a full breath.
"You know?... you know I can't have children?"

This James was not expecting. This was in fact more than just a stubborn crush, that was merely salt in the wound.
"No. No, I didn't."

"Well, I can't. I didn't think it would be a problem until I met Harry and Neville. Everyone just dotes on them, and it's made me realize that I won't be able to experience that in my life. It feels..." she sighed, "It feels like having the rug ripped from under your feet before you even register you've stepped on the rug. It's a shit analogy but it holds."