dancing on bones (our souls of iolites and emeralds)

Chapter 5

We are born of love; love is our mother.

—Rumi

//

Lily wasn't sure what it was about her nine-month-old son that concerned her so much.

No– that was a lie. She knew what it was, she just convinced himself her mind was playing tricks, right up to the moment she locked eyes with him once more.

Felix Oleander, her lovely little Faerie, was a beautiful child by all accounts. Doll-like even, with those vivid violet eyes, framed by dark lashes, pretty porcelain skin, and brilliant red hair that seemed to grow out every time they cut it. All the best of their blood coming out, her mama would've loved him.

But there was something off about Felix like there was a barrier between him and the rest of them; a barbed wire fence, a ditch filled with broken glass, a trench of mud and blood.

Both of her children were precocious and charismatic; Harry was the brightest boy she ever did see, never without scrapes on his palms and knees and a brilliant, laughing smile on his face.

And then there was Felix who stared at shadows and runes as though they held the answers to life, who flinched at loud noises, who looked off into space with hollow, empty eyes– he was graceful and gracious with a refined temperament unusual in a child, especially under a year old.

Yet, sometimes, when she checks up on him at night, he had the look of a child who had heard and seen too much until something shattered underneath his skin, where no healer or doctor or surgeon could reach. He had the look of those squibs who'd come back from the concentration camps; of a grown man who had seen things words could never describe, who knew how the blood and ash of the dead smelled mixed in with the sweat and shit and piss and fear.

It was the look of a man who had been to war, who had seen the dregs of all humanity had to offer, all the filthy death and rot and misery and it still hung just behind his eyes. Who had watched blood and flesh be torn from the bone of comrades in a simple wand movement, and could do nothing to stop it.

She would know– she saw it herself, whenever she looked in a damn mirror.

Lily didn't know how much she was projecting. Her son was a child, not even yet a toddler, and sheltered too. They were wealthy, the Potter trust fund was always there to fall back onto. They had never been without food or shelter or warm clothes and boots in winter.

At night when she tossed and turned next to her still traumatized husband, the sound of the screaming and sobs of other muggle-born still in her ears (because they were her people in a way the James just could never understand), she tried to convince herself she was imagining it. That she was seeing things, that no little boy knew what it was like to sleep in a pile of shrapnel shreds and rags, to crawl through splintered bones and mud and corpses piled too high, the scent of burning flesh thick in his nose– Lily tried to convince herself, but when she looked into her youngest son's eyes, she saw her reflection looking back.

//

As Saiki Kuso, he had been the youngest son in a Japanese household, the intended spare, if you would, should his brother not succeed (but that was out of the question, as Kuusuke was a genius and his parents hadn't quite fit in with the cultural norm). His grandmother had cooked all day and his entire family had come to celebrate, though perhaps his direct family feared him too– Kusuo, a powerful, psychic child, the first of his kind. An enigma. A masterpiece. A god.

A younger Kusuo had been so proud of his powers, of his name, of what he felt it implied about his character.

Then he grew to hate them, the way they had strained his relationship with his brother ( how they had killed the Kuusuke from when Kusuo was little, the Kuusuke who used to read to him about The Modern Atomic Theory and explain all of the ways he could make it better, who was all baby fat and sugar and spite) and turned him into more of a parent then his father was.

Then he accepts them as a part of himself, goes to therapy, and life goes on.

Kusuo wondered if his parents had ever regretted what they had raised him to be, even his Gentle Mama, who he loved with all his being. If they had regretted throwing him to the fire because he grew faster and stronger than other children. If they regretted their neglect.

(Regret was hard to think about, and sat in the subconscious mind more often than not. The subconscious was confusing to navigate, and besides, kusuo thinks his Parents deserved some form of privacy)

But the dead couldn't give any answers. Only questions. And they were functionally dead. If Kusuo allowed himself to linger on all the questions he had for his dead, he would collapse under the weight of them.

Felix Oleander Potter was simpler. Oleander was the name of a plant with poisonous leaves and pretty flowers that came in pink and reds and sometimes white or yellow. Oleanders tolerated cold temperatures, and they could bloom just as beautifully in winter as they did in spring. Fitting, Kusuo supposed.

Saiki Kusuo was worried for the future, about the magic and blood ties and politics and morality. Was scared for the family he had grown to love and the little boy he wanted to protect. He saw a road that leads to death and despair.

But he wasn't Saiki Kusuo right now, he was Felix Oleander Potter. And Felix decided that it wasn't worth thinking too hard about right now.