Through His Mother's Eyes

Chapter Eight - Something Blue, Something Orange

"Thank goodness Madam Malkin's carries the robes we wanted!" said Ginny, waving a piece of parchment under Hermione's nose. "Two sets of Dusk-colored bridesmaids' robes were ordered yesterday, but -" Ginny's expression changed as she stopped waving long enough to read " -it'll be extra for alterations. Dammit, sometimes I hate being only a head taller than a house-elf!"

Hermione shot her a ferocious glare.

"Oh, you know what I mean...I hate being short!" She stood up on tiptoe. "I wonder what it'd be like to be tall like the grandiose Madame Gladrag." She strutted around on imaginary high-heels and idly waved her hands about.

"Nice impersonation," said Hermione, still scowling. Evidently the house-elf comment had struck a nerve.

"Are you almost done marking those papers?" Ginny asked impatiently. "We've got to meet Harry and Ron in -" she consulted the clock hanging over the mantelpiece " - six-and-a-half minutes."

"I'd be finished if my concentration wasn't constantly lapsing," said Hermione through slightly clenched teeth. She sighed, wrote a large "P" on Gretel Pritchard's paper, and tossed aside her quill. "That'll do for now...let's collect the boys and get over to Diagon Alley."

Ginny and Hermione stopped James and Reid midway through a quasi-match of chess; even though James was older, Reid was already showing his father's aptitude for the game, albeit he still had a lot to learn (he was chucking a knight at James' head when Ginny and Hermione walked in on the them).

"They're really too young to be playing chess," said Hermione as she snatched the chessmen from Reid's clutches (he was threatening to toss a bishop at James next), "but Ron insists on letting Reid play with his old set." She whisked the chessboard away next. "No throwing chess pieces at your opponents, young man!"

"But it's not as if this young man is allowed play with anything else for the time being," said Ginny as she rubbed the knight-shaped dent on James' forehead. "Harry and I decided no broomstick - or anything else he's particularly fond of - for a week, since he decided to be such a rogue at the robe shop!"

James emitted a low moan.

"How's the head?" asked Hermione in a soothing voice.

James contorted his expression. "I don't care if my head falls off," he said miserably. "I want my Nimbus back!"

"Tough luck," said Ginny, trying to muster a heart of stone. She looked quickly away from his baby blues before she melted and felt the need to relinquish the confiscated broomstick to her little miscreant. She found that delegating parental authority was a tricky task at times. On occasion, she could be as much of a saber-toothed tiger as her mother ever was, but then other times she was an absolute patsy - and that was usually about the time her young son began to widen his sweet little eyes and pop out his cute bottom lip.

"C'mon you two...it's time to go," said Hermione. "Your fathers will think we got lost."

"Really?" asked James in awe. "But we know the way...we wouldn't get lost." He picked up a bright-orange set of pint-sized Quidditch robes and went to put them on over his jeans and T-shirt as Hermione made a comment about how literal small children were.

"Hold your hippogriffs, James," said Ginny. "No Quidditch robes on this trip."

James crossed his arms defiantly.

Ginny turned to Hermione for aid. "He wants to wear them everywhere! Ever since your husband..."

"Your brother!"

"...brought them back from the last match!"

"Well, Reid has a set as well, but he doesn't seem as keen to show them off as James!" said Hermione, trying not to laugh. "Pick your battles, Ginny," she advised sagely.

Ginny shook her head as they departed.

***

"Off to a match?" asked Ron, grinning widely as his nephew strutted into the Leaky Cauldron donning the bold colors of the Chudley Cannons with aplomb.

"Nope," James told him as he plopped down at the table. "I'm gonna have dinner, then Mum's gonna take me to look at wedding clothes."

Ron chuckled.

On their way to the robe shop, the grown-ups exchanged wedding tales while the boys traipsed in front of them playing a game of "How Long Can You Hop On Just One Foot Before Falling Down and Giving Your Mum Heart Failure," and if the objective of the game was to see who's mum actually got heart failure the most, the undisputed winner was Reid. By the time they reached Madam Malkin's, Hermione was frantically clutching her son in her arms, scolding him for taking at least seven years off her life (which was roughly the number of times he had collided with the pavement before she snatched him up and refused to let him walk any further on his own).

At the door of the shop, Ginny made James solemnly promise not to knock over any displays or engage in games of any sort while inside.

"We've got business to take care of," said Harry to James in his most authoritarian voice. "You'll have time to play later, but not in here...do you understand me?"

James nodded. "Yes, sir."

And James kept his promise. He did not knock a single display to the ground, nor did he engage in Hide-and-Seek or any of the numerous other games small children might be tempted to play in a boring robe shop. Ah, but no one made him promise not to have a temper tantrum. That was Harry and Ginny's first mistake. Their second was asking him to swap his bright orange Quidditch robes for a set of boring blue dress ones.

"You'll just need to take them off for a minute, James," said Ginny pleadingly, tugging at his Cannons outfit. She wasn't ready to be kicked out of two robes shops the very same week.

James whimpered. "No! I won't do it!"

"The nice lady only wants to make sure these robes fit...these are the ones you'll be wearing in the wedding," said Ginny, holding up the dark blue dress robes for James to see, but her patience was running thin - as was Harry's.

"Lookit, James," he said, trying not to cause an even larger scene than they were already working on. "I'll hold on to your Quidditch robes, you slip on the robes your Mum's got, and Madam Malkin will just put a few pins in..."

"NO!"

"Why not?" shouted Harry, who looked to be on the verge of taking his offspring by the scruff of his neck and bodily removing him from the premises.

James crossed his arms in a rebellious manner that keenly reminded Ginny of herself. "Mum only said we had to look at wedding clothes. I don't wanna wear them."

Hermione stepped in. "James, you're taking things adults say quite literally...it's common for a child your age to be that way, but what your mother meant was that, in addition to looking at the clothes, you'd also be expected to try them on."

James gaped at Hermione as if she had three heads.

"No," he finally said softly, clearly not understanding the majority of what she'd said, but getting the general picture.

Ron shook his head and said, "Nice try, dear," then he squatted down in front of James and said, "How about if your dad and I get fitted for our robes, then you'll see how easy it is?"

James shrugged his shoulders. Ginny looked at him cagily - he'd agree to anything at this point to get everyone off his back about him trying on a set of dress robes.

After both Ron and Harry had been measured, dressed and pinned, the time of reckoning had come for James at last.

Madam Malkin gave him a nervous will-he-or-won't-he look as Ginny made to grab for the little set of blue dress robes. James gripped his orange Quidditch attire firmly and bellowed, at the top of his lungs, "NOOOOOOO!"

***

Ginny had agreed to send James' measurements to the shop via owl so that Madam Malkin could cut the robes to his specifications. And in the meantime, James was enjoying an additional week off his Nimbus.

"You wouldn't believe the grief he gave me," Ginny told Luna a few days later over tea. "I'm tempted to burn those Cannons robes of his, but he even wants to sleep in them lately! Isn't that bizarre?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Luna, "there are these animals called Spotted Cantlehooks that live in the forests of Germany, and they don't change from stripes to spots for years and years."

Ginny took a long swig from her teacup and firmly reminded herself whom she was talking to.

"Well, I'm just afraid he'll want to wear them in the wedding...I'm visualizing myself having to full Body-Bind him to get him into his dress robes on the day you get married!"

Luna gave a peaceful smile. "Oh, you wouldn't want to do that...after all, it'd be terribly tricky getting his rigid little arms into the sleeves of his dress robes, now wouldn't it?"

Luna had a fair point. Ginny started racking her brains for an alternative solution.

***

Much to Ginny's mortification, James' yearning to be clad like the flyers from Chudley hadn't desisted by the time Neville and Luna's wedding day had rolled around.

Ginny and Hermione had just finished enchanting each other's elegant coiffures so that they had a spray of Ever-Blooming Bluebells encircling the alluring knots that their hair was styled into. Luna had insisted on three varieties of flowers at the wedding; apple blossoms for good fortune, lilies of the valley for happiness and bluebells for everlasting love. Since her bridesmaids were in blue gowns, she decided the bluebells would go in their up-'dos as well as in her own bouquet.

As Hermione coaxed a wayward blossom into settling around Ginny's gingery locks, an ear-splitting yelp resonated through the walls, causing Hermione to send sparks flying from the tip of her wand. Just in the knick of time she'd managed to point her wand away from the vicinity of Ginny's hair.

Ginny glanced at Hermione with eyes full of gratitude for not setting her head ablaze, then looked towards the door of Luna's bedroom, where they were getting dressed. "What was that?" she asked, though, deep in the pit of her stomach, she already knew. A mother always knew.

Hermione gulped. "It sounded like...your son."

Of course it was her son. Harry was probably sitting on him in Luna's father's bedroom, insisting that he wouldn't budge until James wised up and put the proper garments on for a wedding - garments that weren't the not-so-subtle shade of neon carrot.

"If Luna comes out of the bath, tell her I'll be right back," said Ginny before pushing up the sleeves of her blouse (she still hadn't put her own dress robes on yet, thank Merlin) and marching determinedly down the hall to the room which sounds like a bleating calf emanated from. She knocked firmly on the door.

"Who is it?" asked a panicky voice. Neville.

"It's Ginny," she answered.

"Oh," answered Neville's voice in alarm. He was speaking loudly, to be heard above James' yowls. "Harry's in here, you know...I'm not sure it's okay if he sees you before..."

"We're already married, Neville!" Ginny shouted impatiently. "I can see my own husband...it's Luna who can't see you!"

"Oh," barked Neville in reply. "C'mon in then." He swung the door open with much trepidation, possibly in case Ginny was hiding Luna behind her back.

Ginny saw that her predication about what Harry was doing with James wasn't too far off the mark, but instead of sitting on their son, he had two hands firmly holding him down atop Mr. Lovegood's bed, though James was giving all his effort to wriggle free. Ron was holding James' feet until the boy let his right leg thrash extra hard, giving his uncle a solid kick to his nose.

"Oof!" exclaimed Ron, clutching his face and staggering several steps backwards.

When Ginny saw that blood was starting to ooze through her brother's fingers, she had had enough. She thrust her wand into the air, allowing the wand to emit a thunderous BANG! and hollered, "ENOUGH!" at the top of her voice.

"You..." she pointed her wand at her son, not so sure she'd be able to restrain herself from transfiguring him into a flower arrangement for the ceremony (though, with his current prickly personality, she was sure he'd turn out looking more like a cactus). "I want you in your dress robes...NOW!" Her wand hand was still aimed in James' direction. James opened his mouth, as if to protest, but a saber-toothed tiger with bluebells in her hair was not to be messed with. Slowly - very slowly - James sat up on the bed and unclasped the hooks of the Cannons robes. Even more slowly he pulled his arms out of the sleeves, then very solemnly he handed them over to his mother.

"If you're lucky, you may get to see these again one day," growled Ginny.

The corners of James' mouth twitched.

"But that day won't be any time soon!" she amended.

James' eyes couldn't meet those of his vexed mum, so he looked at his shoes instead.

"Now, while I make certain your Uncle Ron doesn't hemorrhage to death from the bloody nose you gave him, I want you in those dress robes--" James wasn't moving swiftly enough for Ginny's liking "--PRONTO!"

Ginny waved her wand so as to stop the blood streaming from Ron's nostrils, then left them all - Ron looking grateful, Harry looking impressed, Neville looking uneasy, and James (her oh-so stubborn son) looking very humble.

Without a doubt, when Ginny wanted to, she could summon her inner-Molly Weasley quite nicely.