FIC; Someone in My Head But It's Not Me
Author: mozarts-piano
Title: Someone in My Head But It's Not Me
Rating: R
Word Count: 4,000
Pairing(s): James/Teddy, James/Albus, James/OMC, *spoilers*:Albus/George Weasley
Warnings: swearing, *spoilers*:character death, rape, suicide, mental illness
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: The worst part about it, James muses as he stares silently at the draught of poison in front of him, is that he was happy at first.
Prompt: 67
Author/Artist's Notes: Title from Brain Damage by Pink Floyd. This story is heavily influenced by a recent trip to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, although the man that I met there was not, in any way, as extreme as Albus is portrayed in this story.
This was written for the nextgendarkfest March-June fest.
-
The worst part about it, James muses as he stares silently at the draught of poison in front of him, is that he was happy at first.
---
Teddy comes to wake him up in the morning with a sweet kiss on his forehead and a mug of hot tea.
“Hello darling,” he says and he’s lovely and beautiful and smiling and James can’t help but just feel dark and angry, “I have to go to work now.”
“Alright.”
“But I left you some eggs.”
“Thank you.”
“And I love you.” Teddy grins at that, leaning down again to press another kiss to James’ red mouth and James holds on, presses up, greedily takes every last breath out of Teddy that he can because he doesn’t know how much longer he can do this.
“I love you too.”
He leaves and then James is alone.
-
There's a little boy on the bus that has dark hair and green eyes and James can't stop staring at him. The boy is sucking on his ring finger like it holds all the rules of life in it, eyes bright and wide as he takes in the public bus around them, blinking his pretty, long lashes at the other passengers.
And then there's this noise from outside, some siren blaring into the late night, and the green eyes flood with something akin to fear and James wants to run across the jolting bus and embrace him tightly.
He wants to wrap his long, freckled arms around the boy and never let go because fuck and goddamn it and what did he do to deserve this?
The little boy follows his mother off the next stop with a cheerful wave and pleasantry to the bus driver. James swallows hard.
-
Andromeda comes over to their home for dinner every Sunday, all happy and grateful, with a scarf wrapped around her neck to cover that ugly ugly scar. She brings some kind of stew that Teddy beams at when he first sees it and she hugs both of them so tight James thinks he’s going to suffocate, her new plastic hand digging painfully in his side.
“Don’t you dare let this one go Ted,” she says while they’re tucked in to eat, a forkful of mash and gravy halfway up to her mouth. “Jamie’s such a good boy.”
He’s heard it so much from her over the last year that he’s just gotten used to smiling in that faint way he’s got.
“Nan,” Teddy laughs, sliding a hand over the one that James has lying on the table, drumming quietly on the flower tablecloth that they threw over before she got here, “Stop it, you’re embarrassing both of us.”
“I mean it Teddy.”
“I know Nan,” and then Teddy shoots him this secret, special, lovely little smile and half of James’ heart swells and sighs and the other half gives a twisted, achy groan.
-
His family wants nothing to do with him.
Well, his mum sits in her bed all day, sobbing dry tears (there isn't anything left to give) into her pillow and Lily's in her final year, desperate to get into Healer's Academy like it's the last thing she'll ever do and his dad is just - he's not there anymore.
James always knew Al was his dad's favourite. Everyone knew. Even if they didn't say it out loud, they knew that the day Albus was gone was the day Harry Potter lost the spark in his eye.
-
They go to the market on Sundays together, holding hands like the couple they are, the couple that James has always wanted to be with Teddy.
He spends so much of the time just looking at their fingers, at the way his pale, skinny, paint-splattered digits are wound so tightly around Teddy's smooth, long, tan ones. He likes to look at the contrast and tries to focus on that, on the happy emotion that he used to feel.
Sometimes it even comes back to him, in a form as pure as straight firewhiskey.
Teddy will say, "we need to get some apples, we're all out."
And James will say, "and some chocolate, please?"
And Teddy will laugh and say something lovely to him like you're sweet enough or have you already finished the last pack of Honeydukes, you twat? or he'll just keep laughing and pull James away from where they are, and kiss him on his freckled nose like James is worth more than anything and-
And he'll feel so fucking happy in that moment, like everything's okay.
But then Teddy will tip his head back and when the sunlight hits his eyes James will only see green instead of blue and then everything hits him again and the pain returns.
-
He's walking down Euston Street with his new painting when it starts to rain. He retreats into the nearest building, a Muggle coffee shop where there's foreign music playing and the baristas are wearing green aprons and James wants to clutch his wand tightly but instead he just walks up to the counter and asks for a blueberry muffin (Albus' favourite) and sits down at one of the tables.
James sees a group of girls staring at him from across the shop, and maybe a couple years ago he would have winked or blushed or done something but instead he just sort of stares right back at them.
One of the girls, with hair so red she could be related to him, starts giggling and then she just looks confused and then they all sort of turn away looking uncomfortable and talking in whispers.
James smiles and feels ridiculously empty.
It's something Albus would have done, he realizes as he sets off again down the sidewalk, sky a murky grey but rainless. Albus would have stared at the girls until night set in and they went home to their families, tired and confused and petrified.
And then, James thinks to himself with a bitter smile as he hops over a puddle. Then Albus would have killed them.
-
"Are you okay James?" Teddy will ask him sometimes and James wants to say yeah of course I'm fine, kiss me again but he just can't - he can't.
He's wanted to be with Teddy for years, literally years of pining and now he has him. He has him all to himself. He can cuddle up with him at will, kiss him on the cheek when he feels flirty or tug off his robes when he feels slutty. He can make him breakfast and paint his eyelashes on as many canvases as he wants. He can plead and beg and then just smile when Teddy will sigh and go do whatever James asked of him, because Teddy is the world's best lover and he would do anything for James.
He can do all of this - but he doesn't. Instead he just nods and says in a voice that hasn't sounded like his own in months,
"I'm fine."
-
James feels so guilty some times it's like a million knives are stabbing him in the neck, making his breath come out in choked gasps, his lips dry, his throat scratched, his eyes wide.
Teddy always smiles at him when he's like this, puts his arms around him and holds him tight, and he tries, he tries so fucking hard to remind himself, to think that yes you have Teddy everything's okay, you're okay, please be okay but he can't and it hurts all over again.
-
Their first date is at a Muggle bowling alley.
Their second takes place walking about Millennium Bridge with ice cream cones and hesitant smiles.
The third and fourth and fifth and sixth all sort of blur together until James wakes up at night with arms wrapped around him and love engulfing him and he thinks I shouldn't be this happy because it will hit him at random times:
He is dating Teddy Lupin.
And he's wanted this for years, in any and all capacities but sometimes James will fall asleep first on the couch while they watch Doctor Who reruns and he'll hear Teddy's voice above him murmuring and he's not sure if he's imagining it, or if the older man really is whispering,
"Thank you, thank you"
over and over again.
And he's not sure how he feels about their relationship being built on gratitude.
-
Things are quiet for months afterwards.
His paintings are all the same - dark moody black sad with hints of green and this overwhelming amount of desperation in every stroke - and he doesn't want to sell any of them, just wants to create and destroy.
He doesn't know what stage of depression he's in, and doesn't particularly want to know if he's being perfectly honest with himself, because he knows he's sad and that's enough for him.
But then Teddy comes by nearly every morning with a smile and a hug and a plate of pancakes so that's nice.
That's really nice.
-
He gets interviewed right after by countless papers, all so happy that he stopped the killer and solved the case (like he's just a working class hero who was in the right place at the right time).
No one offers condolences because Albus and everything he ever did was wrong and James is strong and when he leaves the Quibbler's main office there's about thirty people milling around with pictures of him from the funeral, with their quills out and everything, asking for signatures.
"You saved us!" shouts a man from the back, who's old and frail with eyes that remind James of someone. "You saved us all!"
He leaves.
-
Albus’ funeral is quiet. Only the immediate family is there, Lily and Ginny and Harry standing in perfect order with their eyes to the ground, watching the body be lowered into the soil.
James stands by himself farther away, an unmistakable wall between him and the rest of his family.
When the Daily Prophet prints the photos the next day, the Wizarding World will find it odd that although there were tear stains down every single one of their cheeks, the only one who was openly sobbing was James.
-
He sits in his flat by himself most evenings, figuring that a glass of firewhiskey made better company than the brightest of strangers anyways.
-
No charges are laid against him. James isn't sure if this is a good thing.
-
James won't remember what Andromeda first said to him after the body hit the ground. He won't remember what the Aurors did when they first walked through the door. He won't remember his mother's screams or his father's broken breath or the steady heartbeat pounding out from within his own chest.
All he can remember is the feeling of Teddy's arms around him when he leans into his ear and whispers, thank you thank you thank you.
-
He moves his wand without meaning to, the only thing running through his head being Albus, Albus, Albus, Albus, Albus.
He catches Andromeda’s old, frightened eyes and her screams as they bounce around the kitchen.
He catches the wild demeanor of Al, the way the knife is held stiffly in his long fingers.
He catches the twisted, bloodied, gnarled piece of flesh that was once a hand that had patted his cheek as a child. The jeweled bracelets she always wore on it are still caught on its fingers.
And so, without thinking, James sends a jet of green light at his brother.
Albus falls gracefully
peacefully
perfectly.
-
He doesn't see Teddy's shoes when he pops into Andromeda's house, which upsets him far more than he wants it to.
There are a pair of green high tops though, all mangled and scuffed like they've been through years of torture. The tongue is flipped out and there's writing up and down the left side of the right shoe, and if James bends down he knows it would be the lyrics to a Durmstrang Rat's song.
James' heart goes still.
-
Albus and him go out for breakfast one morning. Albus spends the entire time looking at the waiter bustle around the restaurant with a tray, swaying to the music coming out of the wireless. James makes a pyramid out of little cream containers and holds Albus' hand over the table, squeezing tightly whenever he makes a noise.
"You're going to be fine Al," he says whenever his brother looks like he's going to cry. "We're going to be fine."
"Of course of course," he'll whisper back and then jerk his head around, following the waiter again. "That bloke over there wants to kill us."
James will sigh and tighten his hand and watch Albus' big frightened eyes shift around until they leave the shop.
-
He can't look Lorcan and Lysander in the eye at the funeral.
-
"Luna?"
His broken, choked out gasp is met with the darkness of the flat. He can hear the steady drip drip drip of her blood hitting the hardwood floor and the heavy breathing of his brother across the room.
"Why?" and he doesn't know why he asks because he doesn't expect an answer.
The silence overwhelms him.
-
They spend the night together, him and Teddy; just chatting about this and that at the pub they're in. Teddy will suggest a club and James will nod along with it because he's tired of his life and he wants to dance the night away.
When they get there he summons his Gryffindor courage and preps himself to ask Teddy to dance, but his friend is already being dragged out by some tall guy in a green jumper and they're dancing like a pair of eels, all over each other.
James has to bite his teeth to keep from crying because he's so so tired and all he wants is Teddy, just warm, strong, reliable Teddy but stupid asshole friend Teddy is too busy dancing and grinding and sucking on some other man's neck to pay him any attention.
Instead though, he takes a deep breath and starts swaying his bony hips to the beat.
James ends up going home with this dark eyed Scottish bloke. He's got a gorgeous face, all strong jaw line and long nose and red lips. They snog on his couch for a bit before tangling around in the sheets together and James can feel the stress and pressure fade away from him as the man (he doesn't even know his name) pushes harder and harder into his body.
Thrust no more Albus and his illness.
Thrust no more Teddy and his perfection.
Thrust no more James and his sick twisted excuse of a life.
But when he wakes up the next morning to the strange man kissing him on the cheek with a "see you later beautiful" and all of his problems come sinking back to him he can't help but want to cry.
Again.
-
On one of Albus' good days James takes him to the zoo. They go and look at the big cats with their ferocious teeth (Aw, they're just pussies Albus says when he sees James flinch away and James will laugh for the first time in weeks) and then they'll look at the snakes (Albus will hiss and hiss but no glass will break) and then they'll buy some ice cream and watch the school children walk by.
"Albus," James starts, because he always gets glared at when he says Al nowadays, "do you want the rest of my cone?"
Albus looks over, away from the little boys with their knobby knees and their bright smiles and says, "Can we get some sherbet lemons when we get home?"
And James will say, "Yes."
And Albus will smile and take his ice cream and James will feel a slight weight lift off his shoulders.
-
His name is John Moore and he works with Harry.
James remembers seeing his face in the fire of their family home on multiple occasions, his big bright Irish face smiling from the coals.
He has two kids, girls James thinks, who are a coupe years older than him. He has an image in his head that one of them used to play for Hufflepuff, but he's not sure.
John Moore has sandy blond hair and brown eyes and rough skin and freckled arms and a hairy chest and long toes and strong legs and a beer belly.
But when James finds him - his back crooked, a knife buried deep in his chest, blood splashed all over his once bright smiling face - he just looks sad.
Sad. And pathetic.
Albus shrugs when he sees James watching him, and helps pick up John Moore so they can Apparate him to the forest behind their house.
s
He doesn't ask why, he just shakes his head at his younger brother and sighs.
-
"Everyone's staring at me."
James can remember Albus' first day at Hogwarts, when he had first whispered that, when he was so scared of what the other kids would say to him. He saw their eyes and their questions and their curiousity and was frightened by it, scared like nothing else.
"You're fine, it's okay," James the big brother had said.
When Albus says it now though they’re at some Muggle club in London and the music is pulsing and Albus is looking around like a bloody deer in the headlights; James knows he's not right.
No one is looking at Albus anymore.
No one but James.
-
James tells Teddy that he loves him at the annual New Year's party.
He's drunk and messy and mussed from snogging Scorpius Malfoy, but it comes from the deepest, darkest, truest part of his heart and he knows that everything would be better if Teddy said it back to him.
But Teddy laughs and tousles up his hair and jokes have another one Jamie and James just wants to throw up any happiness he's ever felt and die.
-
“You have to call me Professor Dumbledore from now on,” Albus used to say as a child when they played heroes and death eaters, stealing their father’s glasses and walking around with a stick from the forest.
“Just call me Albus Dumbledore,” Albus said when he got his Hogwarts letter at eleven, cheering and chanting and swinging his way around their tiny kitchen, drunk on dopamine and nervous jitters.
“My name is Albus Dumbledore,” Albus glares when James gets it wrong, straightening the long sweeping robes and letting his mouth twitch in a serious, unfaltering line, his copy of Advanced Potion Making in the corner gathering dust.
-
"James"
He'll reply back like he didn't just murder someone in cold blood and James will look at his brother and try to find the old Albus in his gaze.
And when he does (he always does, always) he'll nod and shuffle forward and then help to get the girl off the ground.
-
"Albus"
He says it like there isn’t a bloody beaten bruised body in front of his brother, a girl who had the life stripped and strangled and stabbed from her.
-
James and Albus don't usually take the tube because James has had a bad case of claustrophobia since he was a child and his uncle Ron had accidentally locked the door behind him when he left the shed, not knowing that a little boy had hidden in there when the family dog had barked too loud.
But, heedless of this, they take it anyways, because Albus' friend was a university student and she didn't want arriving like the wizards they were.
It's alright for the most part, really. James takes long, deep breaths while Albus people-watches, pointing out odd couples and funny scarves.
They're nearly at their location when Albus turns to him and says, quite clearly, "They're going to kill us."
And James, fearing and knowing the kind of imagination that Albus has, just brings him in by the neck so that their foreheads rest against each other.
"Al," he breathes out, ignoring his own issues in favour of his brother's, "we're fine."
"No, no, they want to-"
"Al!" he's not yelling, not really, just whispering loud enough to shock some feeling back into Albus' cloudy brain. The people around them don't pay them any mind, "You trust me, don't you?"
It comes out like a whimper, "yes yes but they're-"
"We're going to be fine." James presses his lips to Al's hairline and then pushes them out of the train, not caring where they were, only how to get back home.
-
Albus likes to explain it.
"So there's Albus right?" he'll ask all seriously and wait for James to nod before he continues. "And Albus is okay, he's fine, he just wants to be normal. But then Dumbledore comes in and he starts telling Albus what to do and sometimes Albus doesn't want to do that and they start fighting in my head and the only way to shut them up James is to yell at them to stop."
James will nod and then Albus will nod and then James will open his arms up and Albus will crawl in them.
"You're the only one we trust Jamie," he'll say and although a part of James is sickened by that, a bigger part is secretly pleased.
-
The hallucinations freak Albus out. He doesn't like seeing the things he has to see, or so he tells James anyways, late at night when James finally stumbles in from the common room; he'll see a tuft of dark, twisted hair underneath his blankets and he'll just sigh, shuffle Albus over, and sleep next to his brother.
He's awoken nearly every night to shrieks or cries or tight pinching and eventually he places a charm around the bed so that none of his roommates can hear his brother slowly loosing his mind.
This starts in James' fourth year and never really stops.
-
The books at the library all pointed to the same conclusion.
Paranoid schizophrenia they said.
Incredible serious they said.
Immediate medical attention is recommended they said.
But Potters always have been so damned rebellious.
-
For fourteen year old James it just seemed like one day Albus was fine and the next day he was crying in a corner, hands cradling his own skull, begging the monster not to hurt him.
The tears, the tantrums, the wild screams late at night - they all appear out of nowhere.
---
James can remember it so well it's like it was yesterday.
He'd been enjoying the party. Thirteen year old him had bounced around from family member to family member, jostling the crowd, throwing charming smiles, avoiding questions that asked just how is that painting thing of yours coming along Jamie?
Albus had been missing from it for awhile and James doesn't remember why exactly but he had to find him, so he'd gone looking through the house. He'd wandered into the kitchen and looked through the parlour and creaked up the stairs until he heard what he was after - his brother's voice coming from the boy's room.
Then he heard Uncle George's voice from behind the closed door and James' figured that they must have been talking about something really important (doors were so unnecessary in the Potter's home) so he waited patiently for them to come out.
But after standing next to the door for a couple minutes, and hearing weird sob like sounds and awful whiny tones that sounded like the cat when it was caught out in a storm, James started to get really curious and confused.
To this day, James still isn’t sure why he didn’t scream for help when he looked through the ancient key hole and saw Albus on the bed crying.
His arms tied up to the headboard with some sparkly, magic rope.
His body bare.
Uncle George naked and moving on top of him, making the whole bed squeak, making James’ brother scream and cry and cry and cry.
He still doesn’t know why he didn’t say a word later
when George and Albus had left the room
had cleaned up and walked downstairs
had smiled and laughed along with the family.
He doesn't know why he never asked Albus about it, never questioned what had happened.
Maybe if he had said something it would have been-
Maybe.
Title: Someone in My Head But It's Not Me
Rating: R
Word Count: 4,000
Pairing(s): James/Teddy, James/Albus, James/OMC, *spoilers*:Albus/George Weasley
Warnings: swearing, *spoilers*:character death, rape, suicide, mental illness
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: The worst part about it, James muses as he stares silently at the draught of poison in front of him, is that he was happy at first.
Prompt: 67
Author/Artist's Notes: Title from Brain Damage by Pink Floyd. This story is heavily influenced by a recent trip to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, although the man that I met there was not, in any way, as extreme as Albus is portrayed in this story.
This was written for the nextgendarkfest March-June fest.
-
The worst part about it, James muses as he stares silently at the draught of poison in front of him, is that he was happy at first.
---
Teddy comes to wake him up in the morning with a sweet kiss on his forehead and a mug of hot tea.
“Hello darling,” he says and he’s lovely and beautiful and smiling and James can’t help but just feel dark and angry, “I have to go to work now.”
“Alright.”
“But I left you some eggs.”
“Thank you.”
“And I love you.” Teddy grins at that, leaning down again to press another kiss to James’ red mouth and James holds on, presses up, greedily takes every last breath out of Teddy that he can because he doesn’t know how much longer he can do this.
“I love you too.”
He leaves and then James is alone.
-
There's a little boy on the bus that has dark hair and green eyes and James can't stop staring at him. The boy is sucking on his ring finger like it holds all the rules of life in it, eyes bright and wide as he takes in the public bus around them, blinking his pretty, long lashes at the other passengers.
And then there's this noise from outside, some siren blaring into the late night, and the green eyes flood with something akin to fear and James wants to run across the jolting bus and embrace him tightly.
He wants to wrap his long, freckled arms around the boy and never let go because fuck and goddamn it and what did he do to deserve this?
The little boy follows his mother off the next stop with a cheerful wave and pleasantry to the bus driver. James swallows hard.
-
Andromeda comes over to their home for dinner every Sunday, all happy and grateful, with a scarf wrapped around her neck to cover that ugly ugly scar. She brings some kind of stew that Teddy beams at when he first sees it and she hugs both of them so tight James thinks he’s going to suffocate, her new plastic hand digging painfully in his side.
“Don’t you dare let this one go Ted,” she says while they’re tucked in to eat, a forkful of mash and gravy halfway up to her mouth. “Jamie’s such a good boy.”
He’s heard it so much from her over the last year that he’s just gotten used to smiling in that faint way he’s got.
“Nan,” Teddy laughs, sliding a hand over the one that James has lying on the table, drumming quietly on the flower tablecloth that they threw over before she got here, “Stop it, you’re embarrassing both of us.”
“I mean it Teddy.”
“I know Nan,” and then Teddy shoots him this secret, special, lovely little smile and half of James’ heart swells and sighs and the other half gives a twisted, achy groan.
-
His family wants nothing to do with him.
Well, his mum sits in her bed all day, sobbing dry tears (there isn't anything left to give) into her pillow and Lily's in her final year, desperate to get into Healer's Academy like it's the last thing she'll ever do and his dad is just - he's not there anymore.
James always knew Al was his dad's favourite. Everyone knew. Even if they didn't say it out loud, they knew that the day Albus was gone was the day Harry Potter lost the spark in his eye.
-
They go to the market on Sundays together, holding hands like the couple they are, the couple that James has always wanted to be with Teddy.
He spends so much of the time just looking at their fingers, at the way his pale, skinny, paint-splattered digits are wound so tightly around Teddy's smooth, long, tan ones. He likes to look at the contrast and tries to focus on that, on the happy emotion that he used to feel.
Sometimes it even comes back to him, in a form as pure as straight firewhiskey.
Teddy will say, "we need to get some apples, we're all out."
And James will say, "and some chocolate, please?"
And Teddy will laugh and say something lovely to him like you're sweet enough or have you already finished the last pack of Honeydukes, you twat? or he'll just keep laughing and pull James away from where they are, and kiss him on his freckled nose like James is worth more than anything and-
And he'll feel so fucking happy in that moment, like everything's okay.
But then Teddy will tip his head back and when the sunlight hits his eyes James will only see green instead of blue and then everything hits him again and the pain returns.
-
He's walking down Euston Street with his new painting when it starts to rain. He retreats into the nearest building, a Muggle coffee shop where there's foreign music playing and the baristas are wearing green aprons and James wants to clutch his wand tightly but instead he just walks up to the counter and asks for a blueberry muffin (Albus' favourite) and sits down at one of the tables.
James sees a group of girls staring at him from across the shop, and maybe a couple years ago he would have winked or blushed or done something but instead he just sort of stares right back at them.
One of the girls, with hair so red she could be related to him, starts giggling and then she just looks confused and then they all sort of turn away looking uncomfortable and talking in whispers.
James smiles and feels ridiculously empty.
It's something Albus would have done, he realizes as he sets off again down the sidewalk, sky a murky grey but rainless. Albus would have stared at the girls until night set in and they went home to their families, tired and confused and petrified.
And then, James thinks to himself with a bitter smile as he hops over a puddle. Then Albus would have killed them.
-
"Are you okay James?" Teddy will ask him sometimes and James wants to say yeah of course I'm fine, kiss me again but he just can't - he can't.
He's wanted to be with Teddy for years, literally years of pining and now he has him. He has him all to himself. He can cuddle up with him at will, kiss him on the cheek when he feels flirty or tug off his robes when he feels slutty. He can make him breakfast and paint his eyelashes on as many canvases as he wants. He can plead and beg and then just smile when Teddy will sigh and go do whatever James asked of him, because Teddy is the world's best lover and he would do anything for James.
He can do all of this - but he doesn't. Instead he just nods and says in a voice that hasn't sounded like his own in months,
"I'm fine."
-
James feels so guilty some times it's like a million knives are stabbing him in the neck, making his breath come out in choked gasps, his lips dry, his throat scratched, his eyes wide.
Teddy always smiles at him when he's like this, puts his arms around him and holds him tight, and he tries, he tries so fucking hard to remind himself, to think that yes you have Teddy everything's okay, you're okay, please be okay but he can't and it hurts all over again.
-
Their first date is at a Muggle bowling alley.
Their second takes place walking about Millennium Bridge with ice cream cones and hesitant smiles.
The third and fourth and fifth and sixth all sort of blur together until James wakes up at night with arms wrapped around him and love engulfing him and he thinks I shouldn't be this happy because it will hit him at random times:
He is dating Teddy Lupin.
And he's wanted this for years, in any and all capacities but sometimes James will fall asleep first on the couch while they watch Doctor Who reruns and he'll hear Teddy's voice above him murmuring and he's not sure if he's imagining it, or if the older man really is whispering,
"Thank you, thank you"
over and over again.
And he's not sure how he feels about their relationship being built on gratitude.
-
Things are quiet for months afterwards.
His paintings are all the same - dark moody black sad with hints of green and this overwhelming amount of desperation in every stroke - and he doesn't want to sell any of them, just wants to create and destroy.
He doesn't know what stage of depression he's in, and doesn't particularly want to know if he's being perfectly honest with himself, because he knows he's sad and that's enough for him.
But then Teddy comes by nearly every morning with a smile and a hug and a plate of pancakes so that's nice.
That's really nice.
-
He gets interviewed right after by countless papers, all so happy that he stopped the killer and solved the case (like he's just a working class hero who was in the right place at the right time).
No one offers condolences because Albus and everything he ever did was wrong and James is strong and when he leaves the Quibbler's main office there's about thirty people milling around with pictures of him from the funeral, with their quills out and everything, asking for signatures.
"You saved us!" shouts a man from the back, who's old and frail with eyes that remind James of someone. "You saved us all!"
He leaves.
-
Albus’ funeral is quiet. Only the immediate family is there, Lily and Ginny and Harry standing in perfect order with their eyes to the ground, watching the body be lowered into the soil.
James stands by himself farther away, an unmistakable wall between him and the rest of his family.
When the Daily Prophet prints the photos the next day, the Wizarding World will find it odd that although there were tear stains down every single one of their cheeks, the only one who was openly sobbing was James.
-
He sits in his flat by himself most evenings, figuring that a glass of firewhiskey made better company than the brightest of strangers anyways.
-
No charges are laid against him. James isn't sure if this is a good thing.
-
James won't remember what Andromeda first said to him after the body hit the ground. He won't remember what the Aurors did when they first walked through the door. He won't remember his mother's screams or his father's broken breath or the steady heartbeat pounding out from within his own chest.
All he can remember is the feeling of Teddy's arms around him when he leans into his ear and whispers, thank you thank you thank you.
-
He moves his wand without meaning to, the only thing running through his head being Albus, Albus, Albus, Albus, Albus.
He catches Andromeda’s old, frightened eyes and her screams as they bounce around the kitchen.
He catches the wild demeanor of Al, the way the knife is held stiffly in his long fingers.
He catches the twisted, bloodied, gnarled piece of flesh that was once a hand that had patted his cheek as a child. The jeweled bracelets she always wore on it are still caught on its fingers.
And so, without thinking, James sends a jet of green light at his brother.
Albus falls gracefully
peacefully
perfectly.
-
He doesn't see Teddy's shoes when he pops into Andromeda's house, which upsets him far more than he wants it to.
There are a pair of green high tops though, all mangled and scuffed like they've been through years of torture. The tongue is flipped out and there's writing up and down the left side of the right shoe, and if James bends down he knows it would be the lyrics to a Durmstrang Rat's song.
James' heart goes still.
-
Albus and him go out for breakfast one morning. Albus spends the entire time looking at the waiter bustle around the restaurant with a tray, swaying to the music coming out of the wireless. James makes a pyramid out of little cream containers and holds Albus' hand over the table, squeezing tightly whenever he makes a noise.
"You're going to be fine Al," he says whenever his brother looks like he's going to cry. "We're going to be fine."
"Of course of course," he'll whisper back and then jerk his head around, following the waiter again. "That bloke over there wants to kill us."
James will sigh and tighten his hand and watch Albus' big frightened eyes shift around until they leave the shop.
-
He can't look Lorcan and Lysander in the eye at the funeral.
-
"Luna?"
His broken, choked out gasp is met with the darkness of the flat. He can hear the steady drip drip drip of her blood hitting the hardwood floor and the heavy breathing of his brother across the room.
"Why?" and he doesn't know why he asks because he doesn't expect an answer.
The silence overwhelms him.
-
They spend the night together, him and Teddy; just chatting about this and that at the pub they're in. Teddy will suggest a club and James will nod along with it because he's tired of his life and he wants to dance the night away.
When they get there he summons his Gryffindor courage and preps himself to ask Teddy to dance, but his friend is already being dragged out by some tall guy in a green jumper and they're dancing like a pair of eels, all over each other.
James has to bite his teeth to keep from crying because he's so so tired and all he wants is Teddy, just warm, strong, reliable Teddy but stupid asshole friend Teddy is too busy dancing and grinding and sucking on some other man's neck to pay him any attention.
Instead though, he takes a deep breath and starts swaying his bony hips to the beat.
James ends up going home with this dark eyed Scottish bloke. He's got a gorgeous face, all strong jaw line and long nose and red lips. They snog on his couch for a bit before tangling around in the sheets together and James can feel the stress and pressure fade away from him as the man (he doesn't even know his name) pushes harder and harder into his body.
Thrust no more Albus and his illness.
Thrust no more Teddy and his perfection.
Thrust no more James and his sick twisted excuse of a life.
But when he wakes up the next morning to the strange man kissing him on the cheek with a "see you later beautiful" and all of his problems come sinking back to him he can't help but want to cry.
Again.
-
On one of Albus' good days James takes him to the zoo. They go and look at the big cats with their ferocious teeth (Aw, they're just pussies Albus says when he sees James flinch away and James will laugh for the first time in weeks) and then they'll look at the snakes (Albus will hiss and hiss but no glass will break) and then they'll buy some ice cream and watch the school children walk by.
"Albus," James starts, because he always gets glared at when he says Al nowadays, "do you want the rest of my cone?"
Albus looks over, away from the little boys with their knobby knees and their bright smiles and says, "Can we get some sherbet lemons when we get home?"
And James will say, "Yes."
And Albus will smile and take his ice cream and James will feel a slight weight lift off his shoulders.
-
His name is John Moore and he works with Harry.
James remembers seeing his face in the fire of their family home on multiple occasions, his big bright Irish face smiling from the coals.
He has two kids, girls James thinks, who are a coupe years older than him. He has an image in his head that one of them used to play for Hufflepuff, but he's not sure.
John Moore has sandy blond hair and brown eyes and rough skin and freckled arms and a hairy chest and long toes and strong legs and a beer belly.
But when James finds him - his back crooked, a knife buried deep in his chest, blood splashed all over his once bright smiling face - he just looks sad.
Sad. And pathetic.
Albus shrugs when he sees James watching him, and helps pick up John Moore so they can Apparate him to the forest behind their house.
s
He doesn't ask why, he just shakes his head at his younger brother and sighs.
-
"Everyone's staring at me."
James can remember Albus' first day at Hogwarts, when he had first whispered that, when he was so scared of what the other kids would say to him. He saw their eyes and their questions and their curiousity and was frightened by it, scared like nothing else.
"You're fine, it's okay," James the big brother had said.
When Albus says it now though they’re at some Muggle club in London and the music is pulsing and Albus is looking around like a bloody deer in the headlights; James knows he's not right.
No one is looking at Albus anymore.
No one but James.
-
James tells Teddy that he loves him at the annual New Year's party.
He's drunk and messy and mussed from snogging Scorpius Malfoy, but it comes from the deepest, darkest, truest part of his heart and he knows that everything would be better if Teddy said it back to him.
But Teddy laughs and tousles up his hair and jokes have another one Jamie and James just wants to throw up any happiness he's ever felt and die.
-
“You have to call me Professor Dumbledore from now on,” Albus used to say as a child when they played heroes and death eaters, stealing their father’s glasses and walking around with a stick from the forest.
“Just call me Albus Dumbledore,” Albus said when he got his Hogwarts letter at eleven, cheering and chanting and swinging his way around their tiny kitchen, drunk on dopamine and nervous jitters.
“My name is Albus Dumbledore,” Albus glares when James gets it wrong, straightening the long sweeping robes and letting his mouth twitch in a serious, unfaltering line, his copy of Advanced Potion Making in the corner gathering dust.
-
"James"
He'll reply back like he didn't just murder someone in cold blood and James will look at his brother and try to find the old Albus in his gaze.
And when he does (he always does, always) he'll nod and shuffle forward and then help to get the girl off the ground.
-
"Albus"
He says it like there isn’t a bloody beaten bruised body in front of his brother, a girl who had the life stripped and strangled and stabbed from her.
-
James and Albus don't usually take the tube because James has had a bad case of claustrophobia since he was a child and his uncle Ron had accidentally locked the door behind him when he left the shed, not knowing that a little boy had hidden in there when the family dog had barked too loud.
But, heedless of this, they take it anyways, because Albus' friend was a university student and she didn't want arriving like the wizards they were.
It's alright for the most part, really. James takes long, deep breaths while Albus people-watches, pointing out odd couples and funny scarves.
They're nearly at their location when Albus turns to him and says, quite clearly, "They're going to kill us."
And James, fearing and knowing the kind of imagination that Albus has, just brings him in by the neck so that their foreheads rest against each other.
"Al," he breathes out, ignoring his own issues in favour of his brother's, "we're fine."
"No, no, they want to-"
"Al!" he's not yelling, not really, just whispering loud enough to shock some feeling back into Albus' cloudy brain. The people around them don't pay them any mind, "You trust me, don't you?"
It comes out like a whimper, "yes yes but they're-"
"We're going to be fine." James presses his lips to Al's hairline and then pushes them out of the train, not caring where they were, only how to get back home.
-
Albus likes to explain it.
"So there's Albus right?" he'll ask all seriously and wait for James to nod before he continues. "And Albus is okay, he's fine, he just wants to be normal. But then Dumbledore comes in and he starts telling Albus what to do and sometimes Albus doesn't want to do that and they start fighting in my head and the only way to shut them up James is to yell at them to stop."
James will nod and then Albus will nod and then James will open his arms up and Albus will crawl in them.
"You're the only one we trust Jamie," he'll say and although a part of James is sickened by that, a bigger part is secretly pleased.
-
The hallucinations freak Albus out. He doesn't like seeing the things he has to see, or so he tells James anyways, late at night when James finally stumbles in from the common room; he'll see a tuft of dark, twisted hair underneath his blankets and he'll just sigh, shuffle Albus over, and sleep next to his brother.
He's awoken nearly every night to shrieks or cries or tight pinching and eventually he places a charm around the bed so that none of his roommates can hear his brother slowly loosing his mind.
This starts in James' fourth year and never really stops.
-
The books at the library all pointed to the same conclusion.
Paranoid schizophrenia they said.
Incredible serious they said.
Immediate medical attention is recommended they said.
But Potters always have been so damned rebellious.
-
For fourteen year old James it just seemed like one day Albus was fine and the next day he was crying in a corner, hands cradling his own skull, begging the monster not to hurt him.
The tears, the tantrums, the wild screams late at night - they all appear out of nowhere.
---
James can remember it so well it's like it was yesterday.
He'd been enjoying the party. Thirteen year old him had bounced around from family member to family member, jostling the crowd, throwing charming smiles, avoiding questions that asked just how is that painting thing of yours coming along Jamie?
Albus had been missing from it for awhile and James doesn't remember why exactly but he had to find him, so he'd gone looking through the house. He'd wandered into the kitchen and looked through the parlour and creaked up the stairs until he heard what he was after - his brother's voice coming from the boy's room.
Then he heard Uncle George's voice from behind the closed door and James' figured that they must have been talking about something really important (doors were so unnecessary in the Potter's home) so he waited patiently for them to come out.
But after standing next to the door for a couple minutes, and hearing weird sob like sounds and awful whiny tones that sounded like the cat when it was caught out in a storm, James started to get really curious and confused.
To this day, James still isn’t sure why he didn’t scream for help when he looked through the ancient key hole and saw Albus on the bed crying.
His arms tied up to the headboard with some sparkly, magic rope.
His body bare.
Uncle George naked and moving on top of him, making the whole bed squeak, making James’ brother scream and cry and cry and cry.
He still doesn’t know why he didn’t say a word later
when George and Albus had left the room
had cleaned up and walked downstairs
had smiled and laughed along with the family.
He doesn't know why he never asked Albus about it, never questioned what had happened.
Maybe if he had said something it would have been-
Maybe.