Regained Moments

Chapter 12

Harry sat a little closer to James than he usually would during mealtimes, but otherwise he didn't show any signs of discomfort like he had the first time they ate in the Great Hall together. He and Harry ended up having to eat alone later as Harry had been afraid to eat until after everyone else had, but the food obviously disappeared when people had stopped eating. Harry wasn't doing that though, but James didn't know if it was because he had gotten past that fear, or if he wasn't too scared around Lily.

"So what exactly do you do with the Slug Club?" James asked, putting on an odd voice that made Lily's lips tremble from trying not to laugh.

"It depends, the parties when we're allowed to bring plus ones are pretty tame, just drinks and some guests he brings in. For some reason the drinks are set up as teachers or special guests, Slug Club members, and Slug guests, I think the one for teachers and special guests is alcoholic because they're all adults, sometimes there are some vampires, so those times there's usually blood for them." Lily said. The vampires who usually came did not seem to like drinking the blood provided and tried to drink from the students, though they were never left alone long enough to manage to.

"Why do the club members and their guests have different drinks?" James asked, though as his eyes flicked to Harry he realised this could well be the kind of conversation to not have in front of a child.

"Who knows? I usually drink from the one for guests though." Lily said with a shrug.

Harry was playing with some of the wild flowers that were growing in the lawn. The grounds were only kept far enough to prevent any dangerous plants growing where students were encouraged to be, and that it never got too long, but otherwise the plants could do as they wanted.

"Hey baby, what'cha doing?" James asked, moving so he was lounging on his stomach, close to Harry.

Harry jumped a little, lowering his hands with the flowers in, but not hiding his hands as he might have done before.

"The flowers are pretty."

"Can I see them?" James asked, shuffling closer again.

Harry looked away from James, but held out the flowers. There were a lot of daisies, some pure white, others with pink or purple tips to the petals. Harry also had a few small blue flowers that had thin, white spines that could scratch but weren't very strong. Even though none of the plants were supposed to grow tall, there were spindly looking, small yellow flowers that always seemed to climb to about Harry's height that Harry had also picked. Harry had picked a few small, purple flowers amongst them too.

"These are so pretty, Harry," James said, giving them back to him. "Do you have anything you want to do with them?"

"I can teach you how to make daisy chains if you want." Lily offered with a smile.

Harry didn't verbally respond, but held onto the flowers more tightly and looked away from her. Lily frowned a little at the rejection of her offer, it's not like she was acting like Harry had done anything wrong. She guessed he had no reason to trust her, he didn't even know she's his mother.

"Do you want them to be a bouquet, crown, necklace, or something else?" James asked, his eyes kind and smiling.

"I just think they're pretty..." Harry mumbled, looking at the flowers and trying not to fiddle with his fingers as it could damage the flowers he held.

"There are spells that can preserve them if you want to keep them forever." Lily leant forwards, though she still left rather a lot of space between her and Harry.

Though he flinched away, Harry seemed to brighten up at that. He was the one who had picked them, but he didn't want them to die.

Picking wildflowers Petunia didn't want in the garden had become a habit of his, they were going to be removed from the garden anyway. They never survived long, sometimes he was caught, but while they were still living the small amounts of brightness and colour they brought into his cupboard made his loneliness a little more bearable. Of course, he didn't need to do that anymore. Harry was with James now, who was so nice Harry sometimes felt like he didn't deserve it. The room they slept in was large and bright, and there were flowers in the common room that changed as soon as they started to wilt. Harry still liked wild flowers though, the fact that they're small made him like them more than the large ones in the common room.