Harry Potter and the New Bloom (A Marauders AU)

Dirt and Stardust

James flushed when the Astra's passenger door did the thing where it wouldn't open properly and he had to ram it with his hip in order to get it to work when he opened the door of the car for her. It was both a gentlemanly gesture and one of necessity, since he knew a new-comer wouldn't know how to jimmy the door.

"Thank you again," Daisy was saying as James threw himself into the driver seat. She was pulling the seat buckle over her chest and strapping herself in and James stuck the key in the ignition, praying for the engine not to stutter. She watched him struggle with it as the car hesitated to turn over and she said, "I'm sort of surprised you don't have some fancy high-end car like most rich sorts do."

James said, "I've never been a big fan of cars. Nor was my wife. This was her car. It was new when we got it. She loved it dearly. Loved the ugly color, even. I've never had the heart to turn it over to the scrap heap."

"One day, it will be vintage and then it'll be fancy again," Daisy said.

"Good way to look at it, I s'pose," James said. "Til then, it is worth something only to me, but what it's worth is more than the gold that any other car would cost."

"That's beautiful."

The car engine finally turned over and James steered them off, following Daisy's instructions. "Our nanny's flat isn't too far," Daisy said. Once James had gotten them headed in the right way, impressed with his navigational knowledge of the city, she asked, "So do you and Harry live in London?"

"A bit north." He didn't want to try to explain Godric's Hollow. Or how the long distances could so easily be travelled about. Flying, after all, was a lot faster than the motorways and it was a complicated lot explaining to a muggle where Godric's Hollow was anyway, as it was a wizarding town and not many muggles knew of it to begin with. "Remus and his husband live in East London, though, near to Waterloo. And I used to work over near to Scotland Yard."

"Oh. What did you used to do?"

"I was a sort of policeyman."

"Policeyman?" Daisy laughed lightly, smiling at the funny term.

"Yeah," James answered, not realizing he'd said it funnily at all.

"That must've been right exciting."

"It was a lot," James admitted. "I wasn't very good at it, I don't reckon. There was a lot of political rubbish I didn't much go along with. A lot of discrimination and that sort of rot."

"Oh no, that's terrible."

"Yeah. I don't feel like anybody ought to be oppressed for things that aren't their controlling - blood and conditions and orientations and that sort of thing. I think people are people and they ought all be treated with equal amounts of love and given the same sort of opportunities and care, regardless of what their skin and blood and bones are made of. At the end of the day, we're all dirt just trying to live up to the grandeur of the star dust we're made from, right?"

Daisy stared at him. She nodded, "Yes, that's right. Sometimes I feel more like dirt than star dust."

James glanced at her, then turned back to the road. "Don't we all?"

"I think some more than others."

"That's exactly what I mean, though. You wouldn't feel that way if you weren't meant to feel that way, made to, I mean, by others. Like, you'd feel like star dust if everyone treated you like star dust and then the challenge would be to stay humble and remember that star dust is just dirt, too, with a flashier name, yeah? But then others of us are good at forgetting that the dirt is the same in that we think we're lesser than, and honestly it's all just the same damn thing with different weights placed on it by human minds, and if we all just believed in ourselves and each other, what a better world it would be. Then we could focus more on healing and helping and becoming better - on fulfilling what we're really meant for, yeah? On things like our dreams. Like if money didn't matter and everyon was worth the same and we all cared about each other properly and cared for each other properly, we could all reach for our own stars and be the best versions of ourselves."