Lost Boy 15i

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Lost Boy

Interlude III

James was confused since he woke up in 1978.

He remembered getting sick in 1971.  He had vomited a great deal and he couldn’t eat.  He couldn’t even drink water without vomiting it up.  He had been so dehydrated.  He remembered being so exhausted, he had just drifted off into unconsciousness—not sleep—and when he woke up, the world had shifted.

His parents were much older and then there was Hartwig, the brother he had never had.

Sirius, the brother he thought he’d always wanted, pranked him by giving him firewhiskey and putting firecrackers down his robes when he was flying.  He had almost fallen off his broom when he was over twenty feet in the air. 

Sirius thought it was funny.

James had almost died once.  He wasn’t going to die again.

“Hartwig knows everything,” Stephagenia told him.  She was a beautiful witch with auburn hair, put up elegantly on her head like the perfect pureblood.  Her heart shaped face was dusted with freckles and her lips peach colored.  She was tall like all Blacks, a full two inches taller than James who was now eighteen (and wasn’t that peculiar?).  “I suppose it all starts with Hartwig.”

“How is that possible?”

“I noticed him when I was a sixth year.  He was so tall and handsome—everything a girl could ever want.  It didn’t matter that he was a Slytherin.  I didn’t care.”  She sighed and looked down at her cup of tea that she was cradling with both hands.  “I had hope.  I was clever, but it wasn’t enough.  Then I learned I am a pureblood, but there was Lucius Malfoy.  Then I learned the truth.”  Her grass green eyes came up and stared into his.  “You should talk to him.”

James didn’t understand.  “But you married Sirius.”

“My biggest mistake,” she admitted.  “I’ve served him with divorce parchments.”

Reeling back in shock, James carefully took a sip of his own tea.  It was nice and warm.  Since he woke up from the plague, he was often cold.

It didn’t matter that it was the middle of the night.  It didn’t matter that there was a roaring fire.  It didn’t matter that it was July.  He’d be cold no matter what.

“He doesn’t treat you right,” James told her firmly.  “He doesn’t treat his friends right.  How could he treat a witch right?”

“He was sweet when we were going,” Stephagenia admitted.  “At least I thought so.”  She shrugged her shoulders elegantly.  “Once he had got what he wanted, he changed.”

“What are you going to do now?” James asked.

“Well, I’m here, at Fairy Black Apartment,” Stephagenia told him.  “This is my father’s flat.  Wizard Father said I can stay as long as I like.  It’s like I’m a young witch again.”  Her lips twisted into a grimace.  “It’s almost like it didn’t happen.”  She took another sip of her tea.

James waited.

“I’m starting at Merlin’s Castle, the magical university here in Britain.  I have a fellowship.  I was going to go directly into the Ministry, but the lure of more education was too much for me to pass up.  It also keeps me out of London, out of society.”

“All I have is tutoring and more tutoring.  I could give up a bit of education,” James admitted.

“Where are you?”

“Second year.  They think I can complete up through the O.W.L. year in the next three years and when I’m twenty-one I can go back to Hogwarts for my N.E.W.T. years.”

She nodded.  “A sound plan.”  She looked at him.  “You look nothing like Hartwig.”

“Mum said his grandmother was a Prewett.”

Stephagenia nodded carefully.  “That must be it.  My own mother was a Prewett.”  This seemed to mean something.  What it meant, James had no idea.

She seemed to be considering him again.  “I’m going to tell you something.  In your third year, you’ll learn a piece of magic.  It will dispel a Notice-Me-Not charm.  On Hartwig’s wall, to the left of the bed, is a hereditary parchment.  Cast the dispellation charm on it and you will see something that is more important than you can possibly imagine.—It all starts with Hartwig, James.  It all ends with Hartwig.”  She stared into his hazel eyes and then took another sip of her tea.

James had no idea what she was talking about.  “What do you mean it all begins and ends with Hartwig?”

“Just what I said,” she told him.  “July thirty-first, 1980.”

“It’s July twenty-third, 1978.”

“We haven’t gotten to the beginning or the end yet,” she told him.  “It’s July thirty-first, 1980.”

James leaned forward.  “Are you suggesting—you can’t be suggesting time travel, Stephagenia.  If it begins and ends with 1980.  Hartwig is sixteen next week.  He was born 1962.”

“Why can’t I be suggesting that?” she wondered, her grass green eyes shining.  “Why can’t I be suggesting many possibilities?  He is a Potter, is he not?  Where did he come from?”

“Mum told me not to ask.”

“And why did she tell you that?”

James seemed flustered.  “She told me to respect Hartwig’s privacy.”

“But what does he have to hide?” Stephagenia asked him.  “He’s a sixth generation Potter.  We all know this.  Shouldn’t he be proud of who his father is unless he’s illegitimate?  If he’s illegitimate, then his mother would be a Potter.  Is there a female Potter hanging about?”

She looked at him patiently.

James set down his cup down and stood.  “Thank you for the tea.”

“James, I did not mean to offend—”

“Well, you did offend,” he told her brusquely.  He went to the stairs that led down to the street and took up his broom.  “You shouldn’t invite me here and then cast aspersions on my family.  Time travel?  Illegitimacy?”  He scoffed.  “You should know better given that you yourself are a Lost Boy.”

“James,” she begged, reaching out and touching his sleeve.  She couldn’t touch him given that she was both a married woman and wearing a vined ring.  “Please.  Look at the hereditary parchment.  I’m Hartwig’s mother.  Look at me.  Look at him.  Look around for a Potter.  Look, James.”

Clenching his teeth, James stormed down the stairs.  When he reached the street, he took off into the skies.  By the time he reached Devon, he had calmed down, but he found Hartwig in bed with a grown wizard.  Something stuttered in his heart.  When Hartwig began to ask him where he had been, James asked himself, Could it be true?