Bradley showed James loads of wonderful things in the suitcase. For James, that suitcase visit was positively everything he'd hoped it would be ever since he was a tiny child. It was like visiting a very beautiful zoo and seeing all of the exotic animals, but in their very own natural habitats with loads of space to wander and be free and happy, while also being safe and well cared for. The creatures were unique and each had its own story of rescue, a reason that Mr. Scamander had collected them, rather than setting them free again - for Mr. Scamander always tried to let them be if he could, only keeping the ones who could not be released for safety or care reasons. Bradley shared as much as he knew with James, which was quite a lot.
"You know so much about the creatures," James said, very impressed with his tiny tour guide.
Bradley smiled, "I want to be just like Mr. Scamander when I grow up. He's brilliant."
James smiled and he wondered if Newt was aware just how proud of him his werewolf pup was.
When they'd seen near to everything in the suitcase - steering well clear of the door marked with the warning of the dementors - they heard Lily calling for them through the mouth of the suitcase. "Boys," he said, "It's dinner."
They came up out of the case and James's face was flush with excitement for all the things he'd gotten to see. Dora smiled all throughout dinner, listening to her little boy brag on and on about all the creatures Bradley had showed him and spouting off facts memorized from years of her reading to him before he went to bed. His excitement was punctuated with excitement from Bradley, too, who was flushed with joy at being able to play the role of Newt Scamander by interjecting information here and there about the specific creatures in Newt's suitcase - repeating some of the stories he'd told James about how certain creatures were acquired.
"Newt never keeps a creature that would be better free on their own," Bradley said, "Like me, for example, he collected me because I wouldn't be able to survive by myself."
Lily reached out a hand and touched Bradley's arm gently, "He did not collect you, Bradley, you're not a creature or a beast. You are a little boy and they adopted you. It's very different."
Bradley nodded, "Oh I know that."
"It's a very important distinction," James said, "And one that's easy to forget sometimes. I know Remus forgets to note the difference sometimes."
Bradley said, "He isn't the wolf most of the time, how can it be hard to know the difference?"
"People can be very cruel and try to make him forget the difference," Lily explained. "You're very lucky you've grown with Newt and Tina to care for you. You're in the very best, most loving hands you could be." She smiled at Bradley.
Bradley smiled back, but something about the conversation stayed with him, and he thought about Remus's sad eyes and the words he'd said before - the night Marlene McKinnon had been over and Bradley had told her about being a werewolf. It wasn't safe, he'd said, and there were bad people who would do bad things if they knew, and Bradley felt sad for Remus Lupin.
When dinner was over, Bradley said goodnight to Mrs. Potter, who gave him a hug and a kiss on his head - he really, really liked Mrs. Potter, she smelled like the warmth of a fireplace and like all the good food in the world, and her hugs were like magic. She had the same loving air that Tina Scamander did and Tina Scamander was Bradley's most favorite person in all of the world. But he thought that Mrs. Potter might be a close third or fourth after Newt Scamander, of course, who was near to tied with Tina. Mrs. Potter might just be tied with Remus Lupin, Bradley reckoned, and at very least tied with Auntie Queenie and Mr. Kowalski, which was no small feat itself.
It occurred to him as he thought this that he had a lot of wonderful people around him and he was thankful for it.
James and Lily offered him their guest room so he didn't have to sleep inside the suitcase all alone, but he said he preferred inside the case, since Dougal often slept on his bed with him, and so did the niffler, and although James and Lily said they were alright with Dougal coming out of the case to the guest room, nobody wanted the niffler free in the house and for good reason, so Bradley decided to stay in the case. They put the suitcase in the guest room anyway, just in case Bradley changed his mind during the night, and James and Lily went with Bradley into the suitcase to tuck him in.
Bradley was excited, and he showed Lily some of the creatures in the case, which she marveled over with wide eyes, and laughed as James got so excited all over again. The moon calves greeted them on the hill and, as they'd done with James, they crowded about and head-bomped against Lily and licked her hands and she patted them. "These are lovely," Lily laughed.
"We could take one," James said quietly to her, "Mr. Scamander would never notice one of the - there's gotta be thirty of these things - gone missing."
"James," Lily laughed.
"We could name him Octavius, he could be one of our children." James grinned.
"Where on earth would we put a moon calf?" she asked, shaking her head.
"We have a basement! And the forest the lads and I made in the Howling House and -"
"Octavius would end up werewolf snack in the Howling House, silly."
"Well we wouldn't leave him there on full moon nights, obviously, Evans."
"You are not stealing a moon calf."
"It wouldn't be stealing," James argued. "It's - it's borrowing permanently."
Lily laughed and shook her head, then firmly, in case he wasn't joking, she said, "No." Then added, smirking, "The queen has spoken."
"Ohhh Evans, you caught onto that phrase far too quickly," James chortled. He turned to the moon calf that was chewing on his shirt. "Sorry Octavius, I tried."
Lily laughed and pulled James along after Bradley toward the house. Once inside, Bradley reminded them to beware of Zayn (still not poisonous, still amused by nipping strangers) and showed them up to his bedroom.
Bradley's bedroom was like a whole different world than the rest of the little house, which appeared more like a quiet cottage, cozy the way Tina Scamander had decorated it. In contrast, Bradley's room was positively covered with comic books and posters of superheroes. Shelves lived one wall, filled to overflow with toy models of cars, ships and airplanes that he had built. There were action figures and jars of frog spawn and slime, a fish tank full of tiny little goldfish that swarmed about and another with a couple of hermit crabs with brightly painted shells crawling about merrily. Square in the middle of the bed was a large stuffed giraffe and the pile of comic books Remus had brought home earlier, one folded open to the page he'd stopped reading at.
Bradley quickly hurried to pick up some of the messy things that lay across the floor - some clothes and a pair of trainers, a couple toys that he played with Dougal and the Niffler with including a shiny gold ball with bells inside and a good deal of sequin-covered cat toys, which he shoved into his closet rather unceremoniously.
Lily looked about at the room and smiled to herself, picturing one day a room in their house that would look like this, filled with boyish fascinations that her Harry would be interested in. Surely, if Harry were anything like his father, there would be quidditch more than comics.
"Did you build all of these yourself?" Lily asked, gesturing to the models on the shelf.
Bradley nodded, "Mr. Kowalski helped with some of them. He bought them for me. He used to do models when he was my age, he said, and we do them together sometimes."
"That's lovely," Lily said smiling.
"Dad and I did that one of the dragon skeleton," Bradley pointed to one that hung from the ceiling. "It's one twentieth scale." Lily looked up at the immense model and could barely imagine what a true size dragon would look like. "He said it's not very accurate, that the count of the vertebrae was off and a load of other things, but it's a muggle model and it looks cool so it's good enough."
James watched the hermit crabs crawling about in their tank while Lily turned down the bed and Bradley changed into his pyjamas. He crawled in between the sheets and grinned as Lily tucked the blankets 'round him carefully, making sure he was all snuggled in. "Does your mum tell you bed time stories?" Lily asked.
"Mum and dad both," Bradley answered. "Dad usually tells about cool things he's done and mum read fairy tales and mythologies. We're reading a brilliant one right now about a Prince who got turned into a dragon on accident and the whole kingdom doesn't know it's him."
"That sounds brilliant," James said.
"Yeah, I can't wait 'til I see mum again and we can keep reading it. I'm very excited to know what happens next," Bradley said wistfully.
James waved his wand and two little stools appeared for him and Lily to sit upon next to Bradley's bed and James sank onto one and put his feet up on the rungs of the other underneath Lily, who held Bradley's hand. "What sort of story would you like us to tell you?"
"One about an adventure," Bradley answered.
"Adventure! Hm," James murmured. "Do you know any good adventure stories, Evans?" he asked.
Lily thought for a moment, then said, "Well, there's. the one about the Hobbit in Hobbiton that went on a very great adventure --"
"I know all about Bilbo Baggins, mum and I read that book ages ago."
"Oh, well then," Lily smiled.
"Did she tell you it's a true story?" James asked.
"She did," Bradley nodded. "Mr. Scamander even took us to where it's said the real shire may have been."
"No way," James was genuinely surprised.
"Yeah, it's in Ireland. He said Ireland and England and France were all stuck together back in those days, before the continent separated."
James had never heard this, but he was very impressed, and decided to ask Remus about all this next time he had a chance to.
"Have you ever heard the story of the Stag Prince and his Doe?"
James and Bradley both looked at Lily. "No," Bradley and James both said at the same time. James leaned forward, his feet dropping from the rungs beneath the stool where Lily sat, intrigued, and he stared at her, a grin beginning to trace onto his lips as he studied her. Bradley snuggled into his pillow even more, staring wide-eyed at Lily in anticipation.
Lily drew a deep breath, glanced at James once, then resolutely kept herself turned to Bradley.
"There was once a Prince, ruler over all the forest creatures. He was a magnificent stag, strong and handsome and brave, and he had mighty antlers that stretched up into the sky, positively glorious things, the most impressive of any stag that ever had lived among the trees... And he was very, very handsome - I know I said that he was handsome already, but it's alright that it is said twice because it's so true. But more important even than that, he had kind eyes through which everyone who looked upon him could see he had the most gentle and loyal heart of all the creatures that ever lived."
Bradley was grinning.
"There was a doe who lived in the forest... a plain, simple little doe... nothing so special about her, really, she was just like any other doe. But the stag saw her and he saw her as different. He saw her better than even the doe could see herself because she always thought there was nothing special about her, but the Stag Prince thought she was beautiful, and he told her so all the time. But the silly doe was so caught up in what everyone else didn't see in her and what she didn't see in herself that she thought the Prince was being silly and told herself he was lying and just teasing her... She couldn't trust her own heart enough to allow the Prince's words of kindness sink in. So whenever she saw him, she ran away."
"I bet she was pretty," Bradley said.
"Yeah. She was gorgeous," James whispered.
"You don't know the story, hush," Lily said to James, and she blushed and pushed his knee.
But James was smirking.
"So this Doe, she always ran away, silly thing, but the Stag never stopped thinking of her as beautiful, even when she was positively terrible to him. He did all sorts of nice things for her - brought her the finest bark for eating and made sure she was safe in her nest each night. When hunters came, the Stag Prince protected the Doe. He would chase the hunters away and even took an arrow for her on more than one occasion. The Stag's friends would tell the Stag to give up on that Doe, but he never would. It took such a long time for the Doe to realize that the Stag was really genuine about how he thought she was pretty, and how he thought she was special, that the Stag's heart was broken by the time she'd finally done it... And the Stag's friends told the Doe how sometimes the Stag didn't think himself worthy of the admiration of the other creatures in the forest, how the Stag thought that he didn't deserve to be Prince."
"He's brave," Bradley observed. "He should be the Prince."
James looked down at his knees.
"Yes," Lily said, nodding. "He should. He's a very brave, brave Stag, and very kind, which all leaders ought to be. But the Stag always felt he needed to be more than he already was somehow, and he was afraid of ever falling short. It's quite a lot of pressure for anyone, but especially when the measuring you're using against yourself is so high as the Prince had done for himself. Then it's just near to impossible, and the more you hold yourself to such a standard, the more pressure you feel and the more likely you are to fail because nobody can live up to such high expectations as you hold for yourself, and soon you've built yourself into a terrible state..."
Bradley frowned.
"You have to be kind to yourself," Lily told Bradley. "That's the lesson that the Stag Prince teaches us more than any other, don't you agree?"
"Yes," Bradley replied firmly.
Lily smiled.
She didn't know why she was doing it - but she suddenly felt she needed to make a lesson not only for Bradley in this story, but one also for James, too. It had been weighing on her terribly how much he needed her for quite some time, but in the last few hours that need had quadrupled to the point of a near panicked feeling that she felt deep in her chest... Like a constant gnawing that she couldn't seem to shake off. She had a suspicion where this new found burning was coming from - an idea that had flickered into her mind but she was unsure about - a suspicion about what it was Sirius Black had seemed so hurried to leave the house for earlier...
"So did the Stag Prince and the Doe end up falling in love?" Bradley asked.
"Oh yes, they did," Lily nodded. "Yes. It happened that the Stag Prince's life came into danger. Some of those hunters had come and they sent an arrow straight through the chest of the Prince, only narrowly missing his heart."
"No!" Bradley gasped, eyes wide. "No, he can't die."
"He didn't die," Lily said, calming him, "But he was so close, and the Doe... she had to face her fears and rescue him from the hunters, with the help of the Stag's close friends and a very special Young Prince who came from the kingdom that the Hunters were from. The Young Prince knew how to find the Stag Prince, you see, and although he belonged to the Hunters, the Young Prince was very brave, too, and he knew that the Stag Prince and the King that he served ought to rule over the whole kingdom, not the hunters and their king, so he vowed to help the Doe in her quest to save the Stag Prince."
James bit his lips, thinking of Regulus... that brave Young Prince.
"So they went and they rescued the Stag Prince from the other kingdom and they brought him home, back where he belonged, though getting the arrow out of his chest would prove quite the challenge. Removing that arrow was harder than rescuing the Stag Prince from the hunters for the arrow was in so deep and it had struck the Stag Prince in precisely the place where he'd been wounded so many times before by - by the Doe." Lily paused. "By protecting her I mean, to say."
Bradley whispered, "They have to get it out though, if it's left in, it'll hurt him so much worse." He'd seen creatures with arrows before - Newt Scamander had rescued an occamy with an arrow through his beautiful jewel-toned chest once and Bradley had helped at removing it and cried when the occamy cried, and Newt had paused and explained to Bradley how the arrow in could become infected and though it hurt, taking the arrow out would minimize the pain the occamy felt in the long run. He stared up at Lily, "It must come out!"
Lily nodded, "It must. So the Stag Prince's friends and the Doe worked to remove it, but they could only get out the stock of the arrow, and though they wanted to go in and take out the arrow's head from the Stag's heart -- he wouldn't allow them to. He was afraid they would see all of the things he held hidden deep within his chest... and the Stag Prince made himself strong for them, despite the arrow head that weighted him down."
Bradley stared at Lily, his eyes getting sleepy, but wanting to know how the story would end.
"But the Doe loved the Stag. She loved the Stag Prince so much, and she vowed to the Stag Prince to uphold him as long as she lived, and to take some of the arrows that the hunters might shoot at them in the future... They promised to keep each other warm and to be loyal to one another, forever, and though the Stag Prince believed the Doe might run away if she should see the things that the arrow head in his chest touched upon, she promised him - and really, really meant it with all her heart - that she would stay, and help him to carry it all, to take some of it upon her own heart... if only he would let her."
"He should let her help," Bradley whispered.
"The Stag Prince is so brave and prides himself so..." Lily whispered.
"Yeah... but sometimes it's braver... to take the help," Bradley said, nodding off.
Lily nodded, kissing the boy's head. "That's right, Bradley... Sometimes it's braver to take the help." She brushed the boy's hair off his forehead. Though she could feel James's eyes upon her, she didn't quite dare to look at Stag Prince himself.
"I just don't want to hurt you, Evans," he whispered.
She stayed looking at Bradley, who was fully asleep now, and she busied herself checking the blankets around him gently again, making sure he was still snugly tucked in. After a long moment, Lily said softly, "Maybe it hurts more knowing that you need me and I can't help you."