Out of the Books

Chapter 4 - The Pearson Family

29^th February 1988

"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the British Airways flight number 4859 from Calgary to London. My name is Steven Linville and I will be your captain today. It is now 3.07 p.m. and we will arrive at the Heathrow Airport around 6.32 a.m. Enjoy your flight."

Liz leaned back in her seat and opened her seatbelt, now that they were up in the air. Through the small oval window to her right, she could see how the snow-covered houses and streets were already so small that they could be mistaken for ants. Soon the airplane had climbed so high that it was impossible for her to make out any details on the ground. It was just as if a white and grey blanket with few green and black spots was slowly drawn along beneath the plane.

Liz sighed and closed her eyes. When she opened them again after what felt like two minutes later, the sky around the plane was a deep velvety blue. She yawned and looked around. Her window was the only one that didn't have its shade down. Most of the other passengers were sleeping, although there were also a few that were watching some cheesy American movie on the little screen at the front of the cabin. Liz shook her head. Am I really that tired? Well, I probably am, she had to admit to herself. The last two weeks had probably been the most exhausting, but also most exciting in her career as a journalist. Who doesn't want to be at the Olympic Games?!

Of course, Britain wasn't exactly a country which was known for winter sports. But still, she had found enough interesting stories to write about, for example about a bobsled team from Jamaica, which participated for the first time. They didn't win any medals, of course, but they won the respect and the sympathy of the spectators. She also quite enjoyed that there weren't too many of her British colleagues around, so she got the chance to work closer together with journalists from many other countries. And because the British competition wasn't too big, it was quite easy for her to get an exclusive interview with Wilfred O'Reilly, who won double Gold in the demonstration discipline short track. Otherwise, she had mostly been covering the figure-skating competitions, as Britain was fairly successful in them. In almost all of the ice-skating disciplines, there was a British athlete among the best fifteen.

Unfortunately, she didn't get any interviews with British winners of the "real" Olympic disciplines. But that was because the British athletes hadn't won in any of them at all this year.

Well, in this aspect, her co-worker Samantha would probably be luckier. She would cover the Summer Olympics in Seoul in about half a year. Liz could have gone there, too, instead of going to Calgary, but she wanted to spend the summer with her husband and children. And the twins were a little too young to take them along, and even if they weren't, she and Jack couldn't afford such a big trip. Although Jack would have been thrilled to spend two weeks in the home country of Tae Kwon Do.

The thought of her family made her smile. She had missed them so much that it hurt. It was the longest time she had ever been away from Amy and Leonard. She checked her watch and felt positively giddy now. In less than three hours, she was finally going to see them again.

Happy about that prospect, she took a family photo-album, which she had taken along to Canada out of her backpack. On the first pages there were pictures of her and Jack's wedding. They had married less than a year and a half after they first met at that fateful Halloween party. In two weeks, they were going to celebrate their fifth anniversary. It had been extremely strange to Liz to marry the same man twice. Even Jack had admitted to her that he had had a strong déjà vu, when they had been exchanging the rings.

Smiling, she turned to the next pages, which showed their honeymoon to Paris. On the picture, it was barely visible, but she had already been four and a half months along with the twins at that time. That was also the reason why they went on their honeymoon so early in spring and didn't wait till summer. But they really were lucky. The whole week they were in Paris the sun had been shining and they had fairly pleasant temperatures.

She chuckled softly at the memory of Jack telling her he would be faster climbing up the stairs of the Eiffel Tower than she taking the elevator. The most amazing thing was that he was right, but only because she had to stand in line for almost half an hour. So when she finally reached the top, she found Jack standing there, enjoying the view over the city and a large portion of strawberry ice-cream.

A few pictures of Jack and her in their new little house in Dawlish followed, her belly getting larger and larger. She and Jack had moved to this small town near Exeter, when Jack found a teaching job in the local high school there. Liz had stayed at home until the twins where about two years old and then went back to working part time at the sports section of the Exeter Express. Since almost a year ago, she had been working full time again, though.

Finally, she turned to the pages with the pictures of their children. They both had wild hair, which they had obviously inherited from their father. But while Amy's had the same raven colour as Jack's, Leonard had chestnut hair. Amy also had the same hazel eyes as her father, while her brother had green eyes, but not the same brilliant green as Liz. It was a dark forest-green instead. Liz sighed while she studied a picture of her son, taken at the twins' third birthday. He looked a lot like his older brother, whom he would probably never know.

Liz dreamed of Harry regularly. Most of the time, she just saw him sleeping in a very dark room, so she couldn't make out anything other than the small bed he was sleeping in. But sometimes he was awake, sitting with crossed legs on the shabby mattress and looking right at her with sad eyes that seemed way too large in his thin and pale face. He was so small and thin, he looked much younger than seven years. At those times, she always woke up crying softly and feeling extremely guilty and sad about her lost son. She wondered where he lived now. Was he still living with the Dursleys or with Sirius? Or had someone totally different taken care of him now. She had no way of knowing, because the only time she ever saw her son was at night. But whoever it was, she felt grave disappointment and anger with them, as Harry clearly looked neither healthy nor happy.

She was the lucky mother of two gorgeous children and loving wife of the best husband she could ever wish for, but one important part of her family was missing, and nobody apart from herself knew about that. Sometimes Liz envied Jack, because he had no memories of his old life, but at the same time she was glad that she could at least sometimes get a glimpse of Harry.

When the announcement was made that they would soon land in London, Liz put the photo-album away and fastened her seatbelt again.

To her, the landing of the plane and its rolling to the gate almost felt longer than the actual flight. Finally, the big air craft smoothly came to a stop and the people began to stand up, gather their bags and cloaks and annoyingly slowly filed out of the airplane. Liz was one of the last to leave the airplane, as she had sat in the back. But she was one of the first to reach the luggage belt. When she arrived at the hall, where the passengers could pick up their suitcases, the broad belt had just started to move and the first bags passed her. After what felt like an eternity, she saw the dark grey suitcase with a red bow attached to it. She had to admit it looked kind of silly, but at least she recognized her luggage on first sight and wasn't in danger of taking someone else's bag instead. And with more than three quarters of all bags being black or grey, that danger definitely existed.

Pushing these thoughts away, Liz grabbed her suitcase and with some effort, heaved it on a trolley. Finally, she headed towards the glass doors, which smoothly glided apart, when she came close to them. And behind the doors, she could see hundreds of people waiting to greet the passengers of her flight. Some serious looking men in neat suits held up signs with names on them and a group of teenagers waved a large colourful banner with balloons attached to it, which read "Welcome home, Sally."

Liz's eyes searched the crowd and it didn't take long for her to find a small boy and girl break through the front of people.

Only a moment later, both had jumped at her and were squealing delightedly. "Mum, you're home. We missed you, Mum."

Liz laughed while she bent down and gave both of her children a big hug, kissing them on the forehead. When she looked up, she could see Jack smiling down at the three of them.

Leo and Amy pulled back from their mom and turned excitedly to Jack. "Daddy, Mummy is home. Look, she's home," they told him.

Jack grinned at them and then took Liz in his arms and gave her a loving welcome kiss. The kiss didn't last long, though, as they both felt small hands pulling at their clothes.

"Mummy, look what I can do, Daddy showed me," Leo said proudly. Then he stood with his feet so far apart, that he could barely keep his balance. It was hard to decide whether he looked awkward or cute. His little face was screwed up in concentration as he started punching the air wildly.

After they had all watched him for some moments, Amy piped up.

"Leo, you're doing it wrong. It must look like this," she told him with a superior look on her face. Then she stood next to him and also started punching the air.

After a while, they both turned around almost at the same time and looked expectantly at their father.

Jack grinned down at them. "You're both doing great. Looks like I can soon teach you some kicks as well."

Both children were glowing with pride at the praise from their daddy.

"I see, you've taken them to the gym," Liz asked with an amused look on her face.

"Yes well, I could hardly leave them at home alone," he told her. "And they seemed to like it, too," he added with just a slight trace of defiance in his voice.

Liz laughed while she put her arms around his neck and gave him another quick kiss on the lips. "Of course, they liked it. How can they not like what the best daddy in the world does?" she whispered in his ear and grinned at him.

"I bet if you could ride on a broomstick, they would even do just the same," she added playfully.

Leo, who had heard the last sentence, turned to his father in awe. "You can ride on a broomstick, daddy?" he asked.

Jack chuckled and pretended to glare at Liz, while he said. "No, of course I can't, Leo. Mum is being silly."

Amy giggled at that and chanted, "Mum is being silly, mum is being silly," all the way to the car.

***

30^th July 1991

Liz loved the odd years. When the number of the year was odd, there usually were no big sports events during the summer, such as Olympic Games, European Cups or World Cups in major popular disciplines. That meant that she could take some time off work during the school holidays, when Jack and the children were free as well.

Two days before, she, Jack and the twins had arrived in this sleepy little town at a small lake and they would stay here for one more week in a small and comfortable cottage right between the lake and a birch forest.

It now was late afternoon and the whole Pearson family relaxed after a long trip on their bikes. Liz was lying on her stomach in the soft grass, idly tearing apart some flowers, watching her children play. Jack was lying next to her, brooding over a crossword puzzle, a pen in his mouth.

Leonard and Amy were sneaking along the edge of the forest, pretending to be on a treasure hunt. The eightyear-old children loved to go on "expeditions" or on "rescuing missions" or whatever promised to be adventurous. Sometimes they played some scenarios from books they had read, or that had been read to them, but most of the time they developed their own plots.

A smile curled around Liz's lips as their voices carried over to her. "Watch out, Sir Lionel!" called Amy.

Leo ducked and turned around to his invisible attacker, kicking his foot high up in the air.

"Hah!" he cried smugly. "This will teach you to mess with the noble knights of Dawlish, you foul scoundrel!"

Then he turned to his sister and said casually, "Thank you, my brave Sir Andrew."

When playing their adventurous games, whether they were being knights, detectives, pirates or explorers, Amy never wanted to be a girl in them. As they had learned from the stories in their books, girls where only ever useful to be rescued from some evil guy or fantasy animal. But in Amy's opinion, running around, exploring and solving mysteries was, of course, much more fun than sitting around, waiting to be rescued.

Glancing over to her husband, Liz noticed that Jack had abandoned his crossword and was now watching his children, who were involved in another fight with many invisible enemies.

Jack had a proud look on his face as he commented under his breath: "Yes, Leo, that was a fantastic kick, only turn out your foot, you're standing on, a little further. Great combination there, Amy, but don't get too sloppy with your defence. Wow, I wouldn't have wanted to be in the way of that one..."

Liz chuckled, as she listened to her husband rambling on. But after a short glance on her watch, she interrupted him. "You know, we still need to gather some wood, if we want to do the campfire tonight."

"Oh, er, yes," replied Jack, coming out of his intense observations. "I'm sure the children would love to collect some wood," he grinned.

Leo and Amy must have noticed that they were the subject of their conversation, as they curiously came running over to their parents.

When they were close enough, Jack stood up and said with a deep and dignified voice, "Oh brave knights of Dawlish, You are only a few steps away of retrieving the treasure. If you solve the three tasks that I, the guard of the treasure, will set you, it will be yours, oh brave knights."

The eyes of the twins glowed with excitement.

"State your tasks, guard of the treasure," said Leo in a very authoritive tone, which clashed horribly with his high-pitched, young-boy voice.

"Very well, Sir Lionel. The first task will be to retrieve enough wood to build a campfire. Remember to only collect branches that lie on the ground."

Amy and Leo nodded eagerly and turned to run into the forest.

Liz was barely able to hide her amusement. "Well, guard of the treasure," she snickered, "What are the other two tasks, you are going to set them?"

"Oh, I thought of something fun, which provides for them to use their brain," he grinned and stood up. "But I need some things for this," he called over his shoulder as he went into the cottage.

A few moments later, he came back with two baking sheets, a large juice glass and a ping pong ball. He put the glass and the ball on a table on the porch of the cottage and carried the baking sheet over to the lawn. Then he picked up two long sticks and laid on of them close to the blanket that Liz was still sitting on, watching him curiously, and the other one parallel to it about a dozen meters away.

"So, everything is ready. Now we just have to wait for the knights to return," he said smugly, as he joined his wife on the blanket again.

"I suppose you aren't going to tell me what you have planned, are you?" she asked. Jack shook his head. "Nope. Two reasons," he said playfully. "Firstly, you're going to see it anyway in a few minutes and secondly, there are definitely better ways to spend the time waiting." He tilted his head to the side and looked expectantly at her. Liz held his gaze for a few seconds, quite amused how the expression on his face grew from a puppy-dog-look to a begging pout.

Finally, she gave in and leaned towards him, catching his lips with her own, drinking him in passionately.

Hearing soft giggling, they broke apart. Leonard and Amy stood proudly behind a large pile of branches, watching their parents.

Jack cleared his throat. "Oh, you're back. Good job, both of you."

Then he seemed to remember his role as guard of the treasure and continued to speak with a deeper voice. "You have successfully finished the first task, Sir Lionel and Sir Andrew," he said, nodding at them. "Are you ready to face the second task?"

"Yes, guard of the treasure, show us what we have to do," answered Amy.

Jack led them to the stick that he had placed on the lawn further away from the cottage earlier; the two baking sheets were still lying next to it. He picked them up and turned to the twins.

"Before you, you can see acid swamps. To reach the treasure you have to pass them. You are not allowed to touch the ground between here and the stick you see over there. Your only help will be those two magical shields. Use them well."

Leo and Amy eagerly took the sheets from him and started discussing, how to use them best.

"I know!" said Leo after a while. "Let's use them as giant skis. We both put one foot on each shield and slide along on them. Of course we need to take care that we make our steps at precisely the same time."

Amy looked sceptically back and forth between her brother and the baking sheets.

"Alright," she finally said reluctantly. "But let's try it on safe ground first, before we go out on the acid swamps."

Determinedely, they both stood on the sheets and started to practice sliding over the grass with them. Unfortunately, they never managed more than three or four steps until one of them stumbled and they lost the sheets from under their feet.

After more than a dozen unsuccessful tries, Leo shook his head. "That won't work," he stated. "We need to find another way."

For a while, they stared at the wide area of grass in front of them in silence.

"Of course!" cried Amy suddenly. "We were so stupid not to think of this immediately."

She explained to her brother what she had in mind and he hit his head with his flat hand.

Feeling confident about their new plan, Leo picked up one of the baking sheets and threw it about one step into the "acid swamp".

Then he slightly jumped on to it and Amy handed him the second sheet, before she joined her brother on the first one. It was a bit tight, but holding on to each other, they managed to keep their balance.

They threw the second sheet another half meter away, jumped on to it, turned around to pick the first one up and threw it in front of them again. In this fashion they had crossed the "dangerous acid swamps" in less than two minutes.

When they had reached the stick, which symbolized their goal line, they grinned at each other and shared a high five.

Then they both turned to their father again, eager to hear the third and final task.

Jack showed them the juice glass on the table. He had placed the ping pong ball in it. "This white pearl is the key to the treasure. If you can retrieve it without touching or moving the glass, nothing else will stand between you and the treasure."

While the children were staring at the glass, going around the table to look at it from all directions and trying to figure out how they could get the ball out of the glass, Liz appeared at Jack's elbow and asked him softly, "I know, you don't want to tell too much about your plans, but what exactly is the treasure the children are about to earn?"

Jack swirled around to her, his jaw hanging open. "Oh, damn," he muttered. "I knew that I forgot something."

"Language, Mr. Pearson," she scolded him playfully. "Well aren't you just lucky, that I still have a large box of ice cream and some fresh raspberries in the kitchen, which would do just nicely as a treasure."

"You save my life, Liz. You know that, don't you?" he said, grinning gratefully at her and giving her a big kiss.

Then they both turned their attention to the twins again, who were tentatively trying to reach the ball with some wooden sticks without touching the glass.

After some minutes of trying in vain to move the ball up in the small glass, Leo threw his stick away impatiently. "That doesn't work, Sir Andrew," he told his sister. "We have to find another way," he said, while he was looking around the area surrounding the cottage for some tools that might help in their mission.

Amy was lowering her stick now as well and followed her brother in searching another way to retrieve the ball.

She could see some thread lying in the corner of the terrace of the cottage. Maybe if they could somehow...

But while she was still trying to figure out how they could use the thread, Leo's eyes had fixed on the lake.

"Water..." he thought loudly. "That's it. It's so easy. We just have to fill the glass with water. The ball is so light, it will float on it, and we can easily take it out."

With a proud look on his face, he determinedly grabbed one of the empty lemonade bottles that stood in a plastic box on the porch and ran down to the lake to fill it up. Amy followed him excitedly.

They both returned to the porch in long dignified and self-confident strides, carrying the bottle with water as if it was a valuable ancient artefact that they had just discovered. When they passed their parents, they gave Jack a smug and meaningful look.

After making sure that their father was looking, Leo slowly filled the glass with water, and when the ball reached the top of the glass, Amy took it carefully and then thrust it up in the air, both twins crying out in triumph.

"Very well done, my brave knights," Jack said, while he beamed at his children. "You have solved all three tasks exceptionally well and are now allowed to follow fair Lady Elizabeth into the castle to retrieve the treasure."

So while Liz and the children went into the cottage to get the ice-cream, Jack started to set up and light the campfire.

It was a very pleasant evening for the Pearson family. The talked, sang and grilled marshmallows until late in the night. But eventually, the twins had to stifle yawn after yawn and Liz decided that it was bed time for them.

Now Liz and Jack were sitting by the fire by themselves. Liz had leaned her head on Jack's shoulder and Jack had laid his arm around her. They weren't talking much. It was just too special a moment, sitting there side by side by the fire, looking into the mesmerizing dancing flames, feeling the heat of them on their faces and the cool night air on their backs.

Liz felt comfortably tired and she snuggled closer into Jack as her eyelids became heavier and heavier...

Liz was floating in the dark. Below her, she could see the body of a young boy, apparently sleeping. In the back of her mind she knew that she was having one of her Harry-dreams. But something was different tonight. For the lack of light she couldn't see, but she could feel it. Before she could further dwell on this thought, the room was bathed in bright light, and although it only lasted less than a second, it was enough for Liz to take in all the details of the room, her son was sleeping in. Two walls of the room consisted just of plain wooden planks, stained by humidity. The third wall was the same, except for a completely dust-covered window and a door, which hung crookedly in its frame. The fourth wall, to the right of the door, featured a large and empty fireplace.

The only furniture in the room was an old sofa with a moth-eaten blanket on it. On the sofa, there was the fattest boy Liz had ever seen. He was lying on his stomach, his mouth slightly open, drooling on his pillow. His left arm was hanging down limply. Liz wondered vaguely what the boy was doing in her dream, as she had never seen him before. Then she let her gaze wander to her son, who was lying on the bare floor, covered with a dirty grey rag, that had several holes in it. The storm that was obviously raging outside must have woken him up, as he was half sitting now, his elbows propped on the bare floor under him, supporting the weight of his upper body.

Contrary to her previous dreams when Harry had been awake, he wasn't looking at her this time. Instead, his eyes where fixed on the wristwatch, which was attached to the dangling arm of the fat boy. The glowing digits just turned to 0:00.

Suddenly, several things happened at once. The warped door was forced open violently; Harry's head jerked up and the fat boy fell from the sofa. It was really strange to Liz to witness all this without hearing a single noise.

She followed Harry's gaze to the now-open door. She could make out the shape of an unnaturally large man, who seemed strangely familiar to her. When he stepped inside the cabin, Liz recognized him and would have smiled, had she had a body in her dreams.

She watched Petunia and Vernon Dursley rushing into the room and observed the events that unfolded in front of her eyes. Hagrid was making himself comfortable in the cabin and arguing with the Dursleys. But Liz didn't really pay attention to what she was seeing.

She was seething at her sister. She had always suspected that Harry was still staying with her, but now she knew. How could she treat her little boy like that? How could she let him sleep on the floor, like an animal? She remembered the ridiculously small room she usually saw Harry in that resembled a cupboard rather than a room. But honestly, who would be so cruel to keep a child in a cupboard?!

Liz's raging thoughts about her sister were interrupted when she saw how Hagrid pulled some parchment with green ink on it out of the folds of his cloak and handed it to Harry. Harry unfolded it and began reading, his eyes growing larger with every line of the letter.

Liz felt herself grinning and floating away slowly. No! I want to stay! I want to watch him!

But while she was still thinking this, she was already opening her eyes and found herself looking into the face of her dear husband.

Liz couldn't keep a happy smile on her face and her eyes shone as she whispered, "He's finally going to Hogwarts."

Jack stared at her. "Huh?" he made, caught in his watching her sleep.

Liz sat up eagerly. "Harry is going to Hogwarts," she was almost singing. "He's finally going to Hogwarts, isn't that great?"

Jack rubbed her back gently. "Yes, it is great, Liz. I'm sure, he will like it," Jack agreed in a very soft and patient voice. "Why don't you go to bed, while I'll be putting out the fire?" he whispered softly in her ear.

Liz looked in those amazing hazel eyes, while she began to understand that Jack couldn't possibly know what she was talking about and a wave of disappointment rolled through her.

She nodded silently and stood up to go inside.

But on her way into the cottage her lips curled into another proud smile. Happy birthday, Harry. It is so great you're going to Hogwarts.