Here We Go Again

The Boy Who Lived

Here We Go Again

Chapter 34: The Boy Who Lived

POV: James

She was laying beside me with her head resting on my chest. Her left hand was over my abdomen, her fingertips were tracing patterns, like a whisper, over the material of my navy-colored hoodie. She hadn't spoken a word to me for about a day. Her silence was something I grew accustomed to in our relationship, since her mind had been plagued by its own voices that she chose to listen to more than the ones outside of her head, but I found that I wasn't contributing conversation to fill in the silence, either. And I think that the silence grew because of me, that I'm the one that caused it because I hadn't spoken since leaving Hogwarts. For the first time I didn't want to talk, I didn't want to hear conversations and useless chit-chat. Voices bothered me. And maybe she knew that. Maybe she knew that all I needed was silence and unspoken talk through the traces of letters she wrote over me.

When Lily first came thundering into the greenhouse with the worst news that I've ever listened to, the Healers of St. Mungo's said Dad had three days to show progress and respond to any of their treatments in order for them to promise that he'd recover from the attack. Three days was all they gave him. Most of my relatives thought that three days was enough. Ever the hopeful ones, the survivors of an impossible war, praisers of the Boy-Who-Lived, they believed that my dad would conquer the dark magic in his system and that he'd be opening his eyes by the night of the first day like the champion he was.

Their hero failed them.

Harry Potter never opened his eyes that first night. By the second day of his comatose state, Dad's healer, a man named Ed Lane, came out to the waiting room of the hospital with Aunt Angelina beside him. Everyone who could stay every hour of the day in St. Mungo's stayed, and when the others weren't working, they rejoined the family. Friends of the family offered their time to wait as well. But on that second day that Healer Lane and Aunt Angelina came out, Mum, Teddy, Lily, Gran, Emily, and I were the only ones there.

'How is he?' demanded Mum as soon as her eyes spotted the old, white-haired Healer and her sister-in-law. 'How's Harry? Is he awake?'

Aunt Angelina's dark eyes gleamed over with sadness. That was enough of an answer to not require a verbal one. He hadn't woken up yet. If he would've, surely my aunt would have raced with sheer excitement to inform us rather than let her colleague do the talking as she lingered silently beside him.

'Any improvements?' Mum further questioned, hopeful to hear a response she'd been dreaming of getting. But she didn't. Once again, Aunt Angelina's miserable gaze and tight-lipped grimace said enough.

'Then what is it?' inquired Teddy angrily, wrapping an arm around my mother's shoulders as her life deflated right before our eyes. 'If he hasn't woken or or shown any signs of improvement, why are you—?' He stopped himself.

I've known Teddy all my life. Mum and Dad adopted him into their family when he was six and his grandmother Andromeda died, but I think he was always destined to be my brother and a part of the huge Weasley/Potter clan. He was seven years older than me, my big brother, and I always looked up to him. Just like Dad, Teddy was someone I thought a hero. There was nothing that Teddy didn't do that I didn't think was amazing. I thought he was the most talented, funny, badass bloke in the history of the world. I wanted to be like him. I wanted to be just as funny (even funnier), mischievous (borderline reckless, instead), smart (even smarter), cool (wicked cool to them highest degree), loyal (fierce at heart), and strong (borderline indestructible). Teddy was never scared, experienced loss of words, or emotional.