A Developmental Approach

An Interruption

The morning Ginny left Grimmauld Place, she took everything.

The rug, the food, the pillows. The linens, the shower curtain, the photos. All planned for, selected, purchased, and arranged by Ginny. She was, effectively, the landlord, and Harry the sullen, withdrawn tenant, discarding dirty mugs and bundled socks wherever he went. He'd come to realise bits of this about himself in all the months he spent caring for James, but it doesn't fully hit him until their home in Ottery St Catchpole.

It's only then that Harry understands Ginny took exactly what was hers.

If Severus or Sirius were to depart and take all their belongings, it would cause emotional upheaval, but the contents of the house would not change in a fundamental way. There would still be the console table by the door, which he bought at the charity shop in Little Whinging, and the brown rug across the centre of the sitting room, which covers a stain in the carpet that won't be scrubbed or magicked out. The bedsheets, the bath towels, the pots and pans. Harry bought it all, using the (rapidly dwindling) gold he pulled from his vault those months ago when he first sent the Dursleys from Privet Drive.

Harry's thinking of all the objects that make up a home when he stands in Tom's doorway, gazing without focus into the unoccupied bedroom. It's been improved since Harry first noticed its drab interior. The other day, he took Tom to the village shops, where they picked up a few bits of artwork for the wall—a set of scientific diagrams in plain, solid frames. Tom said he likes his plaid sheets, though he was happy to purchase a more comfortable pillow and a long, wide shelf for all his books.

When Tom goes, he'll take his things with him. By then, he'll have even more, Portuguese textbooks and cauldrons filled with potions ingredients, a pet and a broom and a wand and sets of tailored robes. They'll all be piled in this room, and then—like his slight frame and dark eyes and that mischievous, charming smile of his—they'll be gone.

It's months away. James will be two before that happens. Harry should be focusing on that first, because that's a milestone with its own growing pains. But Tom leaving is so much harder, perhaps because of the uncertainty. James will still be home. He'll be picking up words, rejecting foods, playing, laughing, clamouring for hugs and kisses, running around the garden. He'll be bigger and stronger and smarter in a way that forces Harry to lament the passing of time, but he'll be there for breakfast and dinner and all throughout the weekends. He'll sleep upstairs, and if he has a nightmare, he'll yell for Harry, and Harry will go to him, sleepily but without resentment.

Not so with Tom. He'll take the Portkey with Severus, and poof. No more evidence that an older boy ever lived within their house.

This is parenting, Harry tells himself as he wrestles with these thoughts. This is letting go. This is moving on. This is life.

Still, it hurts, and it knots dread inside his chest that doesn't ease even when Tom comes scooting past him. He's just finished breakfast, and though he's a fastidious eater, there's a single crumb clinging to the tip of his nose. If it was James, Harry would thumb it away, casually. James would probably giggle about it. But it's Tom, who would be mortified, so Harry doesn't even point it out.

"Looking for something?" Tom asks, flopping down onto his bed. "Finally ready to prove you know how to read?"

"I don't know how to read," Harry says. "I got through Hogwarts off lying and cheating alone."

"I know." Tom's smile is teasingly wicked enough that Harry feels a little swing of guilt.

"No, I'm joking. Kind of. Don't lie and cheat at Castelobruxo, please."

"As if Severus would let me."

Tom looks, already, bored by the conversation as he reaches out to his nightstand to pick up his current book.