Letters to Lily

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Harry Potter paced around the tiny, dirty bungalow with force in his step and anger in his face. Most everyone else was out working - even Dylan had managed a shift in the nursery today so Evan James could have the day off.

Today was the day. His birthday. Born as the seventh month dies, that was him. Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. The boy who'd been ruthlessly thrown into the past by an unlucky combination of defensive magic and ornamental runes and now had to live the rest of his life in hiding.

But no pressure.

Harry leaned against the wall near his bunk and closed his eyes. Would he know when the time came? Would he be able to feel...himself?

He wondered if his mum was in labor yet. He wondered if she'd got the letter. He wondered what she'd thought.

He closed his eyes tightly and repeatedly rocked his head into the post he was standing against.

He'd put his name in the letter.

He hadn't even realised it until after it was gone.

No, the banging his head against the wall wasn't helping. Harry leaned down and pushed the mess off his bed before sitting down.

His mum must be petrified. Or livid. Or both.

Or she was in labor and had totally forgotten about the letter

Harry sighed. He wished he'd gotten to know her better.

Harry leaned back on the bed with his feet still on the floor. He reached up and put his arm over his eyes and tried to picture the tall, lanky redhead he passed in the halls every now and then. When he'd arrived at Hogwarts in the past - he didn't have anywhere else to go - he'd allowed the Sorting Hat to place him in Slytherin and charmed his hair and eyes to disguise himself. Clichéd, he knew, but it had worked. The only class he would have had with Lily Evans would have been Defense Against the Dark Arts. Harry - in his first disguise, which had been "Harold James" and had been discarded as soon as he left the UK - had sat in the back and tried to pretend he didn't exist.

Because he didn't, really.

The Marauders had looked at him funny for a few days, idly wondering if he was related to Potter, but Harold James had just laughed and said it must have been a trick of all that pureblood inbreeding. Or Muggle genetics.

Genetics? his godfather had asked.

Explain it to them, Lupin, Harry had replied, and then he'd abruptly turned and walked away.

Glad he's not in our house, he heard Wormtail say as he rounded the corner.

Letting out a slow breath, Harry couldn't help but agree.

Harry's thoughts drifted to his parents once more.

Was he born at St. Mungo's? Or had he been born at home? With a start, Harry realised that he didn't even know where his parents lived. He knew about Godric's Hollow, of course, but that's where they had gone into hiding. What were the chances that they had decided to hide in their own home? Even with the Fidelius Charm to protect them, it seemed sort of a bold move.

Actually, the more he thought about it, the more he started to think that was probably true. First of all, after the Charm was performed, everyone who had known where the Potters lived would no longer be able to find them there anyway, and with a young baby it would have been much easier to stay where they were.

True, it would have made a good diversion, like hiding in plain sight. No one would expect it. Like no one expected them to switch Secret Keepers.

Harry punched one of the beams in the middle of the bungalow so hard it cracked.

He kept expecting to feel...something. Anything. Somewhere across the English Channel he was being born.

Surely that didn't happen every day.

Partly to distract him from the endless waiting, and partly to alleviate his unrest at what his mum must've felt reading his last letter, Harry decided to find some parchment and write another letter to Lily. He stood up and stretched his arms over his head, looking around the messy room for a spare quill and some ink.

Dear Mum,

He scratched that out. He meant it to be congratulatory, the way people greeted new parents by saying, "Hello, Mum and Dad" even if they weren't related, but he thought it was too obvious. First he knows the name she's chosen for her child and then he knows that the child's been born? Yeah, that'd make it all better.

He sat back in the chair and tugged the black ribbon out of his messy black hair and ran his hands through it, pulling hard on the tangles as if that would help him feel better.

It didn't.

Sighing, he dipped the quill back in the ink and put it to the parchment, pausing before writing, once more,

Dear Lily

...to be continued...