dancing on bones (our souls of iolites and emeralds)

Chapter 3

States must undertake to ensure the child protection and care necessary for his or her well-being.

-CRC Article 3.

//

When Lily fell pregnant, it came as a surprise. They hadn't been trying to have a baby, but after much discussion, they quickly decided that a new child was a blessing to their little family.

And when they learned there were twins– well, after the initial, scrambling panic, they decided it was twice the blessing, and prepared accordingly.

Their Harry was born rosy-cheeked and radiant; he was filled with life, positively blooming as he screamed his little lungs out in protest of the new, cold environment he'd found himself in. He was such a plump, lovely little thing, all strawberry pink as a newborn should be, with tufts of ebony-black hair and hazel-green eyes that Lily suspected would turn bold emerald over the following weeks.

The second twin, the midwife had told them, wouldn't even survive the night.

Silent, even as his chest fluttered up and down, this baby had the same tufts of red hair as Lily but an unhealthy pallor, as pale as fresh-fallen snow, and too fragile, every tiny vein visible. His limbs were too thin and frail, barely any muscle or fat clinging to them. Lily had dragged herself from the other side of the room, still aching and still bleeding slightly, to the special crib where her baby lay, sickly and quiet, far too quiet, and stared down at him, heartbroken. She could feel tears dripping down her cheeks as her Sweet James wrapped his arm around her, carefully supporting her weight as she half-collapsed back into him.

That was when the baby's eyes fluttered open; unfocused, distant, and a startling, eye-catching shade of dark violet that Lily knew, with a certainty that surprised her, in some far-off, distant part of herself, would not fade or change.

He looks at her with a soft sort of tiredness, as though he saw her, but didn't really see her and...

"Oh."

The tears start coming again after that.

The two of them had agreed on names long before either twin was born. One after Henry Potter, a relative of James', and one after her father, August Evens. Oleander had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, but oleanders were beautiful things, and Lily wanted to see more than her hair in her boy.

But then he pulled through, had defied death, and her mind changed.

He was such a lucky child, they were so lucky to still have him, so that was what his name would be.

Felix.

They expected to bury their child.

But Felix survived the night.

He survived the next day.

And the next.

And the next.

He survived.

And that was how Harry James and Felix Oleander came into the world.

//

Much of a fuss was made, when Felix's treatments were nearly over. They were still in the hospital, so they can't have the twins go through the usual rites, but it was okay because he can bring the Saining* Ceremony to their sons with the help of the other Marauders. They can't bring the juniper smoke or the ashes, so it won't be proper until they get home, but they could bring the Water and work the rest out later.

He couldn't wait to invite the rest of his and Lily's friends.

Harry was healthy enough to be cleared after the standard day of observation, but Felix seemed stronger, though he always responded better to treatments, when his twin was close, Harry reached out to clutch Felix's hand when they were placed in the same crib. It made James' heart melt and he chuckled as he watched his wife coo at the little children.

"There are studies, you know, about this sort of thing," one of the healers told them. "Cases where if one twin is ill, the other twin can help them pull through. He doesn't seem all that sickly though, at least, not anymore."

And he wasn't, and he was talented. James sees it early, an intelligence in his young eyes that shouldn't be there, an understanding he shouldn't have.

Accidental magic at two weeks old wasn't common, but it happened, and the Potters were a long-standing pure-blood house, who had been prided on their intelligence.

James holds his baby close; counting the collage of milky freckles that were littered across his pale (far too pale) cheeks, and prays to Artemis that his son would be okay from now on. **

And if he sees Felix send him a small, gummy smile that he shouldn't have been able to form before he was at least another week old, and his big eyes furrow in a kind of annoyance he shouldn't experience yet, it wasn't as though anyone outside his and Lily's little family would know.

A/N

*Saining: Saining is a cleansing, blessing, and/or consecration ritual of Gaelic origin. Most saining rights involve "blessed" water of sorts and/or the burning of juniper paired with spoken prayer or poetry. It fell out of common use but regained popularity again with Celtic (specifically Gaelic) Polytheist in the late 1900s.

Pagan baby celebrations involve calling for the protection and blessing of the patron deity upon the child and welcoming them into the home or the larger community. It usually involves invoking the four cardinal directions and the elements of earth, air, fire, and water.

**Artemis is actually the Greek goddess of childbirth, children, and chastity alongside her position as goddess of wild animals, hunting, and the wilderness. So this line works and I also just really want her to be Kusuo-Felix's patron god/goddess. The Potter's are of Irish (or at least Celtic) descent. Fight me.

Hello, my faeries! How are you? You're doing well, I'd hope.

I have done a lot of reading on Paganism on top of my usual ridiculous amount of homework and in my quest for knowledge for this fic, I learned a lot.

Kusuo's appearance is that of a noticeably pale, freckled, red-headed boy, simply because I felt that his bright pink hair (for all that I adore it) would appear out of place. I did, however, want to keep an element of his original design though, so I chose to keep his purple eyes. They are, after all, the windows to the soul.

Remember you are loved and cared for, and that you deserve to be taken care of :)