The Marauders: Year Six #Wattys2017

Don't Worry Baby

Don't Worry Baby

James was sitting in the room with Charlus - Dora had fallen asleep crying against her husband's shoulder and Charlus himself lay awake, but unable to talk, stroking her shoulder. James was flipping through his book, trying to distract himself. He felt anxious. Just so anxious. Every muscle in his body begged him to move, to go, to do something, but there wasn't a thing he could do, no where he could go. He stared at the book, but the pages were blurring together and he couldn't focus on the words.

There was a clearing of a throat and James looked up to the doorway and there was Lily Evans.

She stood mousishly in the doorway, timid, her hands folded in front of her.

James dogeared the page in the book and put it down on the seat as he slid out of it. He glanced at Charlus, "I'll be right back, Dad," he murmured, and he slid out of the seat.

Lily was holding something grey. James reached her side and she held it up. "I found this in the car. I think you left it there the night we flew after Sirius..."

It was his Gryffindor jumper. His favorite jumper. Charlus's.

James's throat tightened up. He took it up in his arms and hugged it to his chest. He'd never been so bloody happy to see a jumper in all his life. "Thanks," he said quietly.

Lily nodded.

He had his eyes cast downward.

With as melancholy as he was now, it was hard to believe this was the same boy who had made jokes about winning omelette competitions just that morning, who had come to the door bursting with excited nerves and giving her flowers -- oh her flowers, she'd wanted to keep them and press them in a book, but they were gone now like everything else from that room, that house... -- and she felt guilty all over again. She reached forward and brushed James's hair off his forehead.

His eyes swiveled up to hers.

"I was mean to Sirius," he said quietly.

"Sirius will be okay," Lily answered.

James walked over and sank into the chairs along the wall and Lily sat next to him. He held the balled up Gryffindor sweater to his face and bent forward, his elbows on his knees.

Tentatively, Lily reached out a hand and she ran it across James's spine, trying to make him feel better. She could feel the tension there, all knotted up, and she whispered, "You poor thing..."

A silent tear slid over his cheek.

"You're just so busy being strong for everyone, aren't you?" Lily whispered, "And who's being strong for you?"

James closed his eyes. "Nobody," he barely breathed the word, it was really like he mouthed it as silently as that tear had been.

"James, come here, dear." She paused. "Stag, I mean stag."

He choked a laugh and a sob at the same time and turned to see she'd opened her arms up for him and he turned, leaning into her, his cheek pressing against her shoulder, his forehead and nose against the curve of her neck as she brought her hands up to guard his face as she felt the warmth of tears against her skin. She held him, and he made her his hiding place, the tears finally coming, and she felt the tension in his shoulders break, as he cried.

And because she wasn't sure what else to do, she did what her mum used to do when she cried when she was little, she hummed quietly as she ran her fingers through his hair. He recognized the song from Sirius's muggle tapes, although she sang it much slower than the Beach Boys did, and he couldn't help but think how much he preferred her version of it...