Son of the Storm

Snapshots

After Jane had reacquired bra and panties, Harry's innocent façade, already cracking, had fallen apart proving that he did, in fact, have an excellent idea of what the bra was for and Thor had decided that world peace would be assured if he took Harry elsewhere and bore the brunt of his mischievous questions.

O

r more accurately, Jane had said that it would probably be a good idea to make sure that Tony, Sirius and Darcy hadn't confused/corrupted him too much in regards to the facts of life. Thor had been about to point out that this was pretty much inevitable, but he had noticed the militant gleam in her eye and decided that ground zero was not a safe place to be.

While Jane wasn't exactly Lily in terms of explosive temper and was, indeed, gentler, calmer and more harmlessly scatty than Lily, she had carved out her career in a fairly sexist profession filled with men who were likely to condescend and/or ridicule her because she was petite, pretty and full of non-mainstream theories, making her easy to dismiss.

Those that weren't eating humble pie by the truck load found themselves running into the sort of implacable determination and self-belief that would drive a brilliant young woman who could have done anything with her life to chase storms and rumours in the heart of the New Mexico desert, and damn the views of the scientific community.

In short, though she wasn't necessarily loud about it, she was determined, strong willed and had no concept of being intimidated. By anyone. Anywhere. Ever.

Thor wisely beat a retreat.
As it turned out, Harry wasn't immediately interested in asking about sex. He seemed to mostly regard it – for now – as a tool to embarrass his father with. That said, his reaction to what Tony would later call 'Close Encounters of the Cleavage Kind', was fairly indicative that he was on the point of becoming a sex obsessed teenage boy.
Thor felt proud of that.

He also felt reluctantly proud of the fact that Harry wasn't afraid to ask difficult questions. Difficult questions like the one that Thor had simultaneously been hoping for and dreading. He had prepared for it, by getting out all the photo albums recovered from the house and the vault, which he had stacked in the wardrobe by his clothes in his and Jane's shared room. Aside from briefly asking what they were, Jane had not paid any attention to them, presumably figuring that he would talk about it when he was ready.

Thor wasn't sure he was. But some bullets must be bitten.
"Dad… can you tell me about mum?"
Thor sat back. "Where to start?" he asked.

"The beginning's usually good," Tony suggested from the doorway, before beating a retreat. Being supremely nosy, he'd followed Harry and Thor, hoping for another amusing sex conversation into which he could throw a few bon mots. When he saw that something infinitely more sensitive, he left. Tony, though he hid it, had a reasonable sense of tact. In fact, quite a good one. As he would say, 'don't confuse not knowing with not caring.'
Harry was one of four people in the Tower who missed their mothers. Tony, though he would never speak of it to anyone but Pepper, was one of the other three. He could understand. He could understand very well.

"Well, the beginning it is," Thor said, standing and going to the wardrobe, easily lifting the stack of photo albums. Harry stared at them like they contained the answers to life, the universe and everything. And from his point of view they did.

Thor, sitting back down, grinned at his son, who grinned back. He had shifted into James form. It seemed appropriate.
He opened the topmost album, and was immediately confronted with a picture that made a lump rise in his throat. He and Lily, waltzing by a fountain in the Autumn, as an indulgent Remus took a photo. Sirius had got bored and wandered off to find a pub, as he remembered, dragging Pettigrew with him. Even now, Thor wondered if Pettigrew had betrayed them by then. He didn't think so. The war against Voldemort had barely gone beyond a few terrorist acts every now and then.
They had been so young, so carefree, so in love… and then it had all been shattered. He had accepted Lily's passing. That didn't mean it didn't hurt. Not by a long way.