Pictures for Harry

    He said he wanted pictures. Pictures for Harry. I have not seen Harry for nine years.

    The letter is in the wastebasket now, crumpled up and forlorn, but somehow the words cannot leave my mind. I think, perhaps, that that is because I do not want them to.

    That is why I am standing here, exhausted, with a mostly-empty glass of scotch in my left hand and my other holding my aching forehead. The square ends of shoeboxes and memory boxes and the stiff spines of empty albums stare at me, questioning, and I want to shut this closet door forever.

    But I don’t.

    Instead I down the rest of my scotch, shakily set the glass on the nearest table, and reach back into the closet. A grey shoebox at the top of the tallest shelf is labeled simply ‘James’, and I suppose that it is probably the best bet. With a sigh, I pull it down, knowing that am Pandora, Pandora with her box, and all the evil in the world will come spilling back to me in the form of James.

    The top of the box slips easily off, as easily as though I had looked at these photos yesterday. The top picture stares at me, silent yet screaming out to me, and I close my eyes for an instant.

    It is of James, as I suspected, James holding a tiny Harry. They have the same hair, and I don’t really know whether to laugh or cry. For a moment I smile, but then I notice the way Lily stares at me out of those eyes, reproachful, and I set the picture aside with trembling hands.

    Harry will like this one.

    The next twenty three are similar, but after that comes a change. A pregnant Lily, eight months at least, holding hands with James and kissing him. His hands are tangled throughout her red hair, and my hands want to tangle in his hair or her flesh. He is smiling, which kills me, and I set it aside with four others, knowing that I shouldn’t be doing this.

    I wave my wand at my empty glass, promptly guzzling the golden drink before plowing on through the pictures. The next is even better, better for me that is, and I have to sip more scotch before properly observing it.

    Lily looks as slim as ever, but she has the haircut she had the day she told us she was pregnant. She is laughing, her red lips wide in a smile, and James is beside her, holding her in a one-armed hug. I am in this picture, though, my eyes bright with something most likely other than happiness, and I have to squint to see what I am looking for. The arm that is not occupied by Lily is reaching behind him, interlocked with my own pale fingers, and I smile despite myself that he had not forgotten.

    I hesitate, holding the picture up before me. Part of me wants to send this to Hagrid, a picture for Harry, simply to spite James, to show Harry what a prat his father was, but the larger part of my mind makes me set it in the other pile.

    More pictures follow, three more, but only one more with my hand in his. I set the others in the pile for Hagrid, wondering what will happen to them. Will they be sobbed upon by some poor orphaned boy, later ripped apart by that same boy, a teenager? Or will they simply be stared at, for hours on end, until the corners have faded from his touch and the edges are peeling from the pages of the album? I wish I knew which, but I suppose I don’t really want to or care, and I content myself with not knowing.

    Their wedding day. James is smiling, flushed red from excitement, anticipation, and Sirius is laughing beside him. Peter - God rest his soul - is standing behind them and to the left, chin resting on James’ shoulder, and I would give anything to be Peter for a moment.

    Lily, from a distance, her white robes swirling behind her in some breeze of pity for me, and she is looking over her shoulder. She is laughing, her pink lips parted, but her eyes are glinting at me, supercilious, patronizing, and I find that I do not blame her. In the rush for James, she won, and I collapsed in a corner.

    Me and Sirius, heads together, laughing, and I remember that it was James who took this picture. Sirius is wide-eyed, his grey eyes shining, and a lock of dark hair is falling into one eye. He is smiling. I, in contrast, am pale and fair, with a mess of dirty blonde hair capping off my head. I am smiling, wide as ever, my hazel and gold eyes shining. I wonder briefly why I am smiling at the loss my everything.

    Mostly, though, I wonder how I let this happen at all.

    I pull out the following pictures, more wedding shots, and thrust them into the wastebasket, letting them lie on top of the letter from Hagrid. I tremble, knowing I will regret that act later. No. I won’t; I never could.

    An unfamiliar smirk twists my lips at the photos from James’ bachelor party. Countless pictures reveal the four of us with mugs of beer before us; the second one features a very flushed James, and me, me with my eyes as round as saucers. I can faintly make out the silhouette of Peter, vomiting in the corner.

    James is bright, his cheeks shining with a light sweat, and his arm is around me, his left hand thrown lazily over my shoulder. Picture James is telling my photo being something, his eyes alight, but I am not listening. My eyes flick to the lily-white hand on my shoulder, and the blush in my cheeks is rising. My pupils are dilated to the point of blackness, and I cannot believe that I ever got off on a simple touch from a near-married man.

    I wrench a heap of photos from the grasp of the boxes. Sweet bliss.

    Fifth, sixth year, and something deep in my mind pulls me in to the pictures. James and me and Sirius, sitting on a thick branch of a tree on the Hogwarts grounds. Sirius is rambling on, distracted by his own voice, and James is laughing at the overall pointlessness of the conversation; I am grinning my widest, surveying James out of the corner of my eyes while wondering if we were this obvious to everyone.

    I doubt it.

    Peter and James on the limb, James smirking and Peter beaming. Sirius is somewhere in the background, a gorgeous brunette in his arms.

    More pictures, the four of us in our dorm, and I can’t help but remember. James lying on his stomach on his bed, feet raised up and behind his head, a bleary grin on his face. Sirius, sitting in the common room with a charms book before him and one certain finger raised in the direction. Sirius and his eyeliner. James and his flares.

    All four of us, hair cut in identical androgynous haircuts. James was John. Peter was Richard. Sirius was Paul. I was George. I remember that Peter’s refused to be charmed back to it’s previous short state after the photograph.

    James and I on my bed, under the covers but in our clothes, his head on the pillow and me sitting up against it. James with his lips to mine. Sirius with another girl.

    James and Lily. Lily blushing, head on James’ shoulder. The five of us laughing.

    Another for Harry, I suppose, reluctantly placing the latter in the stack.

    At the very bottom of the stack we are but eleven, small, childish, and giggling. James is in the middle of me and Peter, arms thrown around both our shoulders, with Sirius in the back, chin resting on Peter’s head. James on his broom. Me doing homework. The four of us swimming in the lake.

    I restore the other photos to the box and close the lid. Slipping the seven chosen pictures into an envelope with a short note to Hagrid, I down another glass of scotch and put a Muggle disc in the stereo. Deep Purple’s ‘Knocking On Your Back Door’ blares out into the room, skipping in places from the my own magic on the air. I laugh to myself, recalling James’ fascination with the band and their music.

    I seal the envelope with my wand and the Muggle stereo shorts out.