FIC: Uncloaking (James, Gen)

[shiiki]

Title: Uncloaking
Author: shiiki
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: James Potter, Lily Evans, Harry Potter, Ignotus Peverell, Gen (mild Lily/James)
Fandom: Harry Potter
Word Count: 2,359

Summary: 'You have guessed, I know, why the Cloak was in my possession on the night your parents died. James had shown it to me just a few days previously.' But why did James show Dumbledore the Cloak? And did anyone besides Dumbledore suspect it to be what it is?

Notes: I owe a big thank you to my betas: queenb23more for looking out for my untamed commas, st_dl for her suggestions and input on baby behaviour, and rougered for the encouragement and reassurance! If you enjoy this fic, make sure to send love their way as well!

Link to fic at Checkmated


James Potter's Invisibility Cloak had always been one of his most valuable possessions -- almost right up there with his wand -- since he'd dug it out of the attic the summer he was twelve and a furious afternoon storm had made him responsible for entertaining Sirius inside the house without magic. It had seen him through just about every kind of scrape, from sneaking past Filch to get to the kitchens to hiding three teenage boys on their way to visit a werewolf on the full moon; from spying on Lily Evans during her prefect rounds to taking her out for a walk on the grounds at midnight. It had saved his arse on countless missions running the gauntlet for the Order. The Invisibility Cloak was the perfect tool for anything he needed -- or wanted -- to do unseen.

Now, James wanted to remain hidden, although for very different reasons and much shorter periods. It turned out the Cloak was also the perfect tool for entertaining a fifteen-month-old baby with peek-a-boo.

For the umpteenth time, he donned the Cloak and disappeared right before his son's eyes, calling out, 'Where's Daddy now? Where's Daddy?'

Harry gurgled and reached out his plump little fists towards the sound of James's voice. He brushed the silky fabric so that it rippled against James's nose. His chubby face scrunched up as he pouted.

'Boo!' James pulled the Cloak off to reveal his face. Harry screamed with laughter and batted James on his now-visible nose. 'Clever boy!'

Still giggling madly, Harry made a grab for the Cloak. His little fingers closed round the shimmering silver material and gave it a surprisingly strong tug.

'Uh-uh,' cautioned James, reaching for his son's hands to pry open his grip. 'Careful there, it's a family heirloom, you know -- someday this'll be yours, and you won't want to make holes in it now. Mighty inconvenient, an Invisibility Cloak with hole.'

'I imagine so.' Lily stood framed in the doorway, one arm around a thick book, the other on her hip, her face crinkled with laughter. Harry looked up and saw her too. Attention diverted, he willingly released his hold on the Cloak and called for Mummy. At least James imagined that to be the intended substance of his wordless cry. Harry might be quite advanced for his age, but he wasn't quite at the first-word stage yet.

'Who's a good boy?' crooned Lily, coming to squat by the pair of them. She laid her book on the ground beside James and picked Harry up, bouncing him gently in mid-air. James glanced at the book, a hard-covered children's storybook with colourful pictures framing the title, and grinned, the faint picture of his own childhood reading The Tales of Beedle the Bard with his mother rising to float on the surface of his memory.

'You've certainly brought peek-a-boo to a whole new level,' said Lily, watching him fold up the Cloak.

'Ah, well, there's nothing this baby can't do.' He patted it fondly. 'I've come to rely on it, you know.'

Lily just shook her head, her lips curled up in amusement. She settled herself on the floor next to him and sat Harry on her lap, freeing an arm to reach out and run her fingers over the smooth material. 'I love the way it feels. Nothing comes quite close ... except maybe ...' Her fingertips traced the skin of his arm and she smiled at him.

He let himself sink blissfully into the depths of her eyes. They held each other's gaze until Harry, impatient with his parents' inattention, tried to crawl out of Lily's lap. When she held him tighter, he squirmed and reached towards the storybook.

'Oh no, Harry, not a book. You don't want to turn out a swot like Mummy,' James teased. Lily swatted at him as he passed it to her.

'I got it from Alice,' said Lily. 'I thought it'd be something nice to read to Harry -- and I haven't read any of this before, so it should be interesting.'

James gaped at her. 'You're kidding!'

Lily shook her head. 'No, I'm not.'

'You've never heard of Beedle -- of the Hopping Pot? -- of Babbitty Rabbitty?'

She raised her eyebrows. 'You've never heard of Goldilocks or Puss in Boots.'

'Yeah, but they're Muggle ... I mean ...' He ran his fingers through his hair distractedly. 'Beedle's famous -- everyone comes across him sometime somewhere.'

'I reckon that's now, for me.' She shrugged and turned over the book's cover. 'Well, Harry, shall we start with the first one?'

'Try The Tale of the Three Brothers,' said James. 'There's an Invisibility Cloak in that one.'

'Ooh, it seems someone's quite the fairy tale expert.' But she turned the pages according to his suggestion. 'Here we are -- The Tale of the Three Brothers. There were once three brothers,' she began.

James let the sound of her voice wash over him as he settled in comfortably to listen. The Tale of Three Brothers was hardly a long story, but Harry was evidently more tired than he'd let on, as the short reading time was sufficient to lull him to sleep.

'... And then he greeted Death as an old friend, and went with him gladly, and, equals, they departed this life,' Lily finished. She smiled down at Harry's sleeping form. One chubby arm was reached out towards James, disappearing abruptly at the wrist. James carefully uncurled Harry's fist from the edges of the Invisibility Cloak.

'Let's put him to bed,' he suggested. Lily nodded and lifted Harry into his arms.

Harry's room -- the nursery, James sometimes thought of it, when he imagined the other children who might inhabit it, someday, when the war was over -- had been cheerfully decorated by hand. In the later stages of her pregnancy, Lily had taken to painting the room the Muggle way to amuse herself. Sirius had thought it a splendid idea and so between them, the nursery walls had been done up with all sorts of brightly coloured pictures. Lily's handiwork tended towards butterflies, flowers, and the scenic backgrounds. Sirius had been more inclined towards friendly animals ... including a quartet comprising of a stag, a dog, a wolf, and a rat, which occasionally ran laps around the room like guards.

The four animals were still now as James entered and lit the room with a dim Lumos. They watched from a spot above the door as James lowered Harry into his cot and tucked him in carefully. Lily kissed him on the forehead. As they left the room, Prongs and Padfoot trotted along the wall, following them out, and took a post on each side of the door.

'Nox,' whispered James, vanishing his wand light. Above their heads, Lily had painted silvery stars which she'd charmed to glow comfortingly, a night light for Harry.

'I wonder if he'll dream of the story,' said Lily. 'It does seem a little frightening for a baby, those Deathly Hallow things. You don't think he'll get nightmares, do you?'

'I doubt it. I never did.'

'I suppose you remember when you were less than a year old.'

'I'll have you know I have the best memory in the world.' James tapped his head.

'I'll remind you of that if you ever forget a birthday.'

James laughed, knowing that Lily was in general more likely to forget than him.

'I wonder how that story evolved, though.' Lily veered back to the Three Brothers.

'I reckon Beedle the Bard wrote them.'

'Yes, but if he was a bard ... they're supposed to be carrier of tales, not necessarily the creator of them.'

'What are you getting at, Lily? You're not trying to ask if the tales are real, are you?'

She laughed and shrugged. 'No, not really. An unbeatable wand, a stone that can bring back the dead, and an Invisibility Cloak that sounds like it could probably ward off Avada Kedavra? It's all so mythical.' For a second, she looked wistful. 'That last would come in handy just about now.'

James drew her to him. She leaned her head against his chest. 'Don't worry,' he whispered into her hair. 'We'll find a way. I won't let him have you or Harry.'

+++

Whether Harry dreamed of the Three Brothers, neither James nor Lily would ever know. James, however, did.

He stood on a bridge with two men -- brothers, his mind told him. The taller of the two cupped a small, pebble-like object in his hands; the stockier one ran his fingers along a long, thick wand. There was a similar expression on both their faces, a look of mingled reverence and smugness.

The idea crossed his mind that he should feel that way, too, as his hands clutched the soft, fluid fabric of a cloak that he knew would serve him well in the years to come. There was only the satisfaction and pride of a choice well made.

'You are a fool, Ignotus,' said his stocky eldest brother. 'All the power of the world at your hands, and you choose to hide.'

'Why, you could have your heart's desire, as I soon shall,' his other brother gloated.

'One cannot master Death with power.' The words fell simply from James's mouth. 'He will come in time.'

His brothers laughed. 'We have already mastered Death, younger brother. Why, you are a coward to go on hiding.'

'We shall see.'

The scene dissolved, and he was covered in the flowing folds of his Cloak, an unseen pair of eyes watching as a dagger was plunged into his eldest brother's chest, his murderer making off with the wand of elder that Antioch had acquired. He was as a shadow on the wall as Cadmus kissed the his long-dead love and let his precious stone fall from one hand as the other brought a goblet of poison to his lips.

The two gory scenes seemed to converge, blending at last into the shape of a cloaked figure. Before him, an old man slowly appeared from head to toe as he let the Cloak concealing him slide to the ground.

'Ignotus Peverell. I have found you at last.'

The old man, Ignotus, did not acknowledge his visitor. He said, 'You came for Godric. But you will have me.'

The cloaked man laughed. 'Yes, the last of the Peverell brothers. I wondered when your gift would fail you.'

Ignotus spoke sharply. 'It has not failed. I come to you willingly, because there is another who needs its protection.'

The surroundings faded into view: it was a sparsely furnished room, with only a rickety table and a small bed, upon which a young boy lay.

'The boy is sick,' said the cloaked visitor. 'He could be mine.'

'He is only seven,' said Ignotus. 'It is not his time.' And he spread the Invisibility Cloak over the boy.

'I see.' The cloaked man's voice sounded amused. 'Very well, then. Walk with me, Ignotus.'

Their forms strolled together into the distance, and it seemed as though Ignotus's stooped form grew straighter and taller the further they went.

Then James turned and saw a mirror, only there was no reflection. In the back of it, a figure was walking towards him. When it got closer, he thought it was himself -- the man had the same messy hair, glasses, and slighter build. On his forehead, a thin zigzag line was imprinted, a scar which James's eyes were drawn to. He could not tear them away from that lightning-bolt scar, even when his almost-mirror image spoke.

'The true Master of Death is not the wielder of his gifts.

'He has the Elder Wand, but uses it not.

'He has the Resurrection Stone, but leaves it to lie still.

'He has the Invisibility Cloak, but hides not himself from Death.'

At last James's eyes slid down to meet his almost-mirror image's. Lily's almond-shaped green eyes gazed upon him for a long while, and then it was Dumbledore who was smiling down at him.

'For he who fears not Death is the true Master of Death.'

+++

Lily was sound asleep. James peeled the covers off his sweating body and rolled out of bed, careful not to disturb her.

It was a dream, that's all, he thought to himself as he wet his hands under the bathroom tap and ran one cold palm over his face. Just a dream ... but it had been so vivid, and he remembered it with more clarity than he'd ever recalled any of his dreams, even the ones back in his teenage years that had made him blush every time he looked at Lily.

He found his Invisibility Cloak and took it with him to the nursery. He sat there in a shadowy corner, Cloak across his lap, staring Harry's sleeping face, illuminated dimly by the silvery glow of the painted stars on the ceiling. He thought of the Ignotus Peverell of his dream, who must be the third brother of the story, throwing the Cloak over the boy who had been marked for death. If only it were so easy!

It was absurd, really. He was reading too much into his dream, which like Beedle the Bard's story, couldn't be real.

Except his mind refused to let go of it. He knew that name Peverell -- it came to him suddenly where he'd seen it before. Less than a mile from here, in fact: there was a plot of Peverells in the Hollow's graveyard, not far from James's family plot. And then there was his Cloak ... his valuable, trustworthy, perfect Invisibility Cloak. It had never faded, never needed re-Charming, always provided foolproof cover. James hadn't taken Charms and Defence to N.E.W.T. level to believe that such characteristics were normal.

How could he ever test the suspicions running through his mind, though? Who wouldn't think he was cracked if he even brought up something like this?

He closed his eyes briefly and his mind landed on the last image of his dream. Dumbledore, smiling gently.

Dumbledore.

James summoned parchment and quill non-verbally. By the light of Lily's stars, he began to write a letter to Albus Dumbledore.