The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix Part Three

I Will Lay Me Down

And James chucked the ball as hard as he could, sending it soaring toward his father.

Without thinking, Charlus reacted from instinct, kicking the ball with his heel, sending it back with twice the force it had come to him with and --

There was a horrible crack and James was off the broomstick, falling - a good fifteen feet from the ground, not much for a grown man but a great distance for a small boy, and Charlus had never feinted so hard as he did at that moment - his broom handle quaking in his fist as he plunged to the ground, crashing and rolling with all his might to land directly below the spot where James would land, crashing into his chest and knocking the wind out of him.

James's mouth was bloody. He could taste the blood in his mouth.

Was it where the quaffle hit him or where Voldemort's spells had struck him? It mingled in his mind.

"Oh gods. Oh gods. James - Jamey..." Charlus was clutching him to his chest, panic in his voice as he struggled to his feet. Blood stained Charlus's shirt as he ran for the house. James shrieking the entire way. "Oh gods. DORA!? DORA?"

But she wasn't home, she'd gone to the market, and Charlus spun on the spot. The reception witch at Mungo's face floated into James's hazy memory of the event. Charlus's panicked voice, "Help! Help me! I - I've broken my son. With a quaffle. Quaffle to the face - I -" He was crying nearly as hard as James was.

Then James's mouth was being healed by a mediwitch, new on her job, she was resetting his upper jaw and nose where the quaffle had struck him. "Good as new," she promised, but his mouth felt different, his teeth felt bigger, there was a small gap between the front two, which were slightly pushed forward compared to the others, and his lip couldn't quite close over the canine one on the left, which had a slight turn to it now that he wasn't used to...

"I'm an idiot, Flor," Charlus was groaning. They were at Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor in Diagon Alley and James was happily eating caramel popcorn flavored ice cream, Florean Fortescue and his dad sitting at the table, Charlus watching with a mixture of misery, guilt, and relief as his son ate merrily. "I can't believe I did it, my heart nearly stopped. If anything ever happened to him --"

"You didn't do it on purpose, Monty," Florean said, "And look, he looks fine. Well, that tooth is a little wonky, but he'll grow into it, I 'spect!"

"Dora's going to actually murder me."

"Probably," Florean answered with a chuckle.

"Hey mum! Guess what?!" James cried, running into the kitchen and leaping into his mum's arms, "We had ice cream and I got a lolly at Mungo's and --"

"Mungo's?" Dora gasped, focusing for the first time on James's reconstructed mouth. "What in the name of Merlin's --"

"It was an accident!" Charlus said quickly, flushing.

And Dora was crying, kissing his face all over, gasping how she was so sorry she wasn't there, so sorry that his face had been hurt...

Voldemort was cackling.

Lily was frowning at him.

"Evans?"

"Let me fix it."

"What?"

"Your smile. Let me fix it. Please. It's not right and it's - it's bothering me."

James laughed and sat up, too, sitting cross-legged on his bed, "How is it not right, Evans?"

"Your lip doesn't..." she tried to replicate what it usually did, but couldn't quite bend her mouth that way. James laughed again, and she said, "It's not funny, it's very much a part of you and everyone's going to notice. You might not be recognized, seeing as you make that stupid face a lot."