Why is a raven like a writing desk? (Harry)

It was so nice to have friends.

Luna smiled to herself as she wrapped the present for little James Sirius. She had taken her time to consider what she’d get for the baby, thinking that it was an important decision she had to make. It wasn’t a question of money. The Potters had enough galleons to get whatever they needed or wanted for the child. It had to be something personal. Something that the baby would enjoy, something that showed who it came from and that it was a given with love.

Being a creative person, Luna had decided to craft something herself and had thoroughly enjoyed the process. She had used over a dozen Butterbeer corks, painted funny faces on them and attached little bells to some, creating an unique mobile that little James hopefully liked and that had the additional effect that it kept away nargles - a fact she would remind her friends of when they'd unwrap the present.

Harry and Ginny had both written to her after little James’ birth. She had been in Sweden when the letters reached her and, although Luna was quite eager to see the boy and her friends, she had not immediately reacted. It had been very nice to be invited so soon after the birth of their son, of course, but Luna felt certain that the young family appreciated some space and time to adjust to their new life.

Luna had chosen what she deemed an appropriate outfit for the visit - bright blue sneakers on which she had painted golden snidgets to replace the brand logo, mustard yellow jeans and a sky blue t-shirt with the logo of some obscure wizarding band called ‘The Magnificent Mooncalves’ that the Quibbler had recently written about. Her dirty blond hair was falling in waves down her shoulders and looking somewhat messy.

She hadn't announced her arrival and just apparated to the street of the new home of the Potters, feeling convinced that they'd be home. She smiled dreamily as she rung the doorbell.

@Harry Potter

Nor Mummy nor Daddy had gotten any sleep the night before, so at present Ginny was having a kip, which they estimated would last about an hour, and Harry was walking baby Jamie around the kitchen, trying to make sense of a case he wasn’t supposed to be working on his day off, and trying not to make James cry.

James was not much help; mostly he drooled on the front of Harry’s robes. Harry bounced him a bit, on what he figured was his fifty-thousandth lap around the table, and said, “We just have to figure out where he’s stashed his wand so we can check it for its last activity – he can’t have broken it, can he, Jamie?”

The baby gurgled. “That’s right, there’s not enough wandmakers out there to just go breaking your wand every time it’s evidence in a murder,” said Harry; he used his thumb to smudge some of the drool off his son’s lip and wiped it carefully on the towel over his shoulder.

“Maybe,” said Harry, before turning his head to sneak a spoonful of porridge, “he’s going to go back for it once he’s out on bail, and we just need to make sure he’s under surveillance.”

The doorbell rang; James, unfamiliar still with the sound even though they’d had far more visitors than Harry had expected to be able to stand (and frankly he could stand them mostly because a number of them had come bearing food), sounded panicked for a moment before Harry said, en route to the door, “Shh, shh, that’s the door, you’ve heard the door before. See the door?” which, though he hadn’t expected it to work, worked, though perhaps James was just baffled as to why his father was talking to him like he was an infant.

It was Luna. “Hello, Luna,” he said, “We weren’t expecting anybody – there’s a bit of a mess.” He wasn’t really sorry, but he wiped his hand with vigour on the side of his robes to make sure it was droolless and stepped aside to let her come in. “You haven’t met Jamie, have you?”

“Hello Harry,” Luna said dreamily, not at all distracted by the fact that she had heard little James cry before Harry had even opened the door. She didn’t even consider that Harry’s comment that they hadn’t been expecting anyone might imply that she should have announced her visit. Instead she just smiled at Harry and his son. “Oh I don’t mind a little mess. If you like, I can help you clean.”

She walked inside, looking around in amazement. She was naturally interested in seeing how her friends lived now but there was no obnoxious curiosity about the way she scanned the place. She smiled fondly as she turned to face Harry and James again. “It’s a lovely place you’ve got here,” Luna said, already picturing the place the way it could look like.

“No, I haven’t had the pleasure yet,” she responded as Harry spoke about James, her gaze resting on the baby now. “He’s precious,” she said quietly. “I can already see the resemblance to both of you. I’m sure he’ll be a courageous wizard.”

For a while Luna just quietly looked at the baby. Then as if she awoke out of some sort of trance she remembered that she had a present for little James and raised her gaze to focus on Harry instead.

“You have drool on your shoulder,” she remarked as if this was something Harry needed to be told. “I suppose it makes little sense to clean it off when you’re still holding him...” her voice trailed off and she held out her present which was wrapped in self made gift paper on which she had painted various magical creatures, including unicorns, thestrals and hippogriffs.

“I’ve brought a gift for James,” Luna explained unnecessarily. “Shall I take him while you unwrap it?” she offered, eager to hold the little Potter herself.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” said Harry, who had never liked others’ self-sacrifice on his behalf, and felt that cleaning any of his and Ginny’s mess might qualify. “Here, let me just…” he shut the door behind her with his free hand, and followed her into the living room, following her gaze around the room. It was mostly set up – he had put highest unpacking priority on the bathrooms, kitchen, and living room, whereas most of his clothes were still in a trunk he was having to rummage through in the dark in the mornings – but rather untidy now.

He swivelled his son to let him and Luna appraise each other; Luna thought he looked like both of them, which seemed to be the general consensus – Mrs Weasley had brought by a lot of photographs of Ginny as a baby, but as Harry had hardly any of his own, they hadn’t been able to compare them so much. He’d tried poking at the ripped one he’d found in Sirius’s room, the morning after Bill and Fleur’s wedding, but had had no luck making his one-year-old self stay put in the frame. So they had that to look forward to, with James, he supposed.

Luna looked back up at Harry, and as Harry repositioned James in his arms, he laughed. “I always have drool on my shoulder,” he said. She brandished a gift, papered handsomely in what he suspected were hand-painted patterns – he wiped one hand off on his leg and set the gift aside, handing the baby over to Luna, and – at a second thought – transferring his shoulder towel over as well. “Jamie, this is Luna,” he said (to the baby), then, as James immediately protested the change, “He likes being walked around a bit,” (to Luna) before turning his attention to the gift.

He rather wished Ginny were up to help; she would probably have done a better job preserving the paper, which Harry was unable to keep totally intact (though he made a much stronger effort than he ever had with any other gift-wrapping paper). “Wow – brilliant,” he said, picking it up by what he thought might be the top. “Thanks!” But he gave Luna a slightly questioning look, not entirely sure he knew what he was holding, and unwilling to make any assumptions.

Harry didn’t want her help cleaning up. That was quite alright. Luna hadn’t expected him to appreciate the gesture but would have gladly helped if he had taken her up on her offer. She wanted to be there for her friends but she was not going to overstep any boundaries. There was no point in making Harry feel uncomfortable.

The living room did look orderly and ordinarily. Not quite like the Lovegood’s home but Luna thought that it was a nice place and would likely get more personal with the time that they’d spend there.

“Yes, I can see that,” Luna said, her voice serious as though they were discussing some matters of life or death and not little James’s drool. Harry handed James over to Luna, even transferring the towel and Luna smiled at the baby as she took him despite the fact that the little boy didn’t seem too pleased to leave his father’s shoulder.

“Jamie, it’s so nice to meet you,” Luna said to the baby and then nodded as Harry mentioned that he liked being walked around. She immediately started pacing the room in some dance-like steps, twirling on the spot whenever she reached the end of the room and moving to a silent rhythm.

She turned to face Harry again as he unpacked the gift and reacted to it. His expression gave away that he wasn’t quite sure what he was holding in his hands now. Luna thought that it was rather obvious that it was a mobile but she didn’t mind that he didn’t recognise it. It was quite alright. She could explain it to him. In fact, she was glad to get the opportunity to tell him all about her self made present.

“It’s a mobile,” she said, looking at James as though she was explaining it to him rather than to Harry. “And since it’s made of butterbeer corks it’ll keep away the nargles. I thought you might appreciate the extra protection.” She added thoughtfully, not making quite clear if she thought that the nargles would otherwise take away the baby or the baby’s toys.

Luna wasn’t walking the baby around so much as waltzing with him, but – after a moment of tensely waiting for him to start crying – Harry stopped watching; he was struck suddenly with a memory of her and her father and the odd, flapping dance they’d done at Bill and Fleur’s wedding, and with an overwhelming fondness for her. Since their vague musings on starting a family had become a concrete future, he had tried not to think too much about how much he wanted his son’s childhood to differ from his own, but whenever he watched Jamie in the arms of his Aunt Hermione or, now, his Aunt Luna, he couldn’t help the bittersweet comfort he felt, that his son wouldn’t grow up fearing his aunts.

He set the wrapping paper aside.

Clearly Luna had made this herself; he grinned down at the gift and then back at Luna, who was still pacing around their living room. “Right,” he said, though he’d forgotten what nargles were, aside from that they were in mistletoe. “Thanks, Luna.”

Trying not to hover too obviously, and doing a rather poor job of it, he left the mobile on the coffee table to show to Ginny when she awoke, and ambled with his hands in his pockets over to Luna. “How’re you?” he said, to make conversation – he hadn’t seen her since the baby was born, and she was often busy or abroad.

“He’ll be a good dancer one day,” Luna stated, leaving it entirely open what made her think so. “That’s a good thing,” she added, her voice quite serious now. “You know, if he ever comes across a blubbering double snouted sow it’ll be very useful. You can only appease this creature by waltzing around it.”

While she held the baby tightly, Luna spun around a few more times, much to James’ delight and quite ignorant of the fact that not only the towel was covered in drool but also a noticeable part of her t-shirt.

Once Harry had unwrapped the present, she waltzed towards him again. “You’re welcome,” she said brightly as he thanked her for the gift. “I thought I’d combine a toy with something useful.” Clearly a toy that kept nargles away was useful and should be available to everyone.

Then Harry asked her how she was doing and Luna smiled brightly at him. “I’m very well, thank you, Harry,” she responded softly. “You look tired with these dark circles around your eyes. Little Jamie doesn’t let you get enough sleep, does he?”

“Right,” said Harry, feeling nonplussed as always when confronted with any of Luna’s beliefs. He went the usual route of not questioning any of them, though he wasn’t sure how the baby was contributing at all to her waltz, since he seemed more preoccupied with sticking one pudgy hand into his mouth to drool on, and as Luna twirled around his living room, Harry tried to imagine a what blubbering double-snouted sow could look like (where was the second snout?)

It was just as difficult to imagine how the mobile qualified as either useful or a toy, but then he wasn’t the baby between the three of them; James so far had been fairly difficult to please, but Mrs Weasley had assured Harry that things would seem more normal once he could hold his head up. He prodded absently at the butterbeer corks for a moment, before setting the mobile back down.

Luna had next to nothing to say about how she was, which was a bit of a disappointment; Harry, whose only trips lately had been to the shops for baby things or instant meals or emergency cleaning supplies, would have liked to live vicariously for a few minutes through whatever outlandish adventure his friend had had most recently, somewhere on the continent searching for Snorkacks. Failing that – “That’s good,” he said.

“No, he doesn’t,” said Harry, adding with a little grin, in case James thought he meant it personally, “He’s a little tyrant – his mum sleeps even less.” The dark circles weren’t new, though – they were courtesy of his multiple murderer, whose wand he couldn’t find. He reached one hand out to rub Jamie’s little head, though, and said, “We put up with it because we love him.”

A vague smile spread across Luna’s face as Harry seemingly agreed with her. If he really agreed didn’t matter too much in the end. What Luna appreciated in Harry was that he accepted her the way she was. She had come across so many people in her life that felt that they had the right to judge her for her beliefs, thinking that they were right with everything.

“Yes,” Luna said brightly when Harry stated that it was good that she was doing well. “I’ve been travelling a fair bit and now I’m just happy to be back in England for a while and see everyone again.”

“You are a little tyrant?” Luna asked the baby in a singsong voice as she came to a halt in front of Harry. “There’ll come the time when he sleeps at night,” she said in a reassuring tone as if she was an expert on the matter.

“Maybe the mobile will help him to sleep,” she said dreamily, still looking at James. She had put in quite some effort to give every butterbeer cork a different face and make them all look friendly and funny. Some faces were just smiling, others pulled funny grimaces. “Shall we hang it over your little bed?” The question was directed at the baby but then she turned to Harry to wait for his answer. Surely her friend was aware that the mobile would not fulfil its purpose if they didn't install it properly.

“See anything cool?” Harry asked. He suspected that her definition of ‘cool’ would differ somewhat from his, but was frankly open to hearing about an interesting cloud or a mushroom spore, provided it didn’t burp up.

Luna paused to let Harry rub James’s dark hair, which was already showing signs of his father’s unkemptness – there’ll come the time when he sleeps at night. So Harry had heard; he had also heard that said time might not come for months yet. He was, overall, trying to keep a realist (pessimistic) view of things. “Well, he can take his time,” he said.

As they regarded the mobile, Luna offered to go and set it up; for an agonising moment Harry weighed the pros and cons of waking up Ginny. On the one hand, it would give him somebody to look at while Luna spoke. (Both Ron and Hermione were useless for that, as Ron’s and Hermione’s disbelief were equally hard not to laugh at, but Ginny was a lot of help, as he knew she was also trying her hardest not to find anything humorous.) On the other hand, he would have roused Ginny from her hard-won slumber.

“Should probably let Ginny sleep,” he decided, “She’ll be down soon anyway – we can go up then. Or you can explain it.” Sure this wasn’t an area Harry had any expertise in, but how hard could it be to hang a mobile?

A dreamy smile spread across Luna’s face as Harry asked if she had seen anything cool. In Luna’s opinion the whole world was an exciting place and everywhere was something spectacular to see. She wasn’t quite convinced that her friend shared her enthusiasm for the world, though.

“Yes, many cool things.” She paused as she wondered which of the things she had taken pleasure from seeing would classify as cool in Harry’s opinion. “I saw a few forest trolls in Scandinavia,” she said. “They’re really misunderstood, you know. Just because they’re not very intelligent doesn’t mean that they don’t have feelings. They are very loving in personal relationships.” Luna smiled again as she thought of the troll couple she had observed for a while.

“I’ve also seen some really pretty tree bark in the forest in Sweden,” Luna looked at little James again as she spoke about this, “it looked almost like an impressionist painting.”

Nodding thoughtfully, Luna obviously approved of Harry’s comment that James could take his time to sleep at night. “Yes, that is a good thing to say,” she added a verbal reaction. “I have heard that if you tell a child this often enough and they do not feel pressured to sleep at night it’ll happen quicker.”

Harry wanted to let Ginny sleep. Luna understood that sleep was important and, while she would have loved to see her friend, she didn’t want to wake her up either. Harry said that she could explain how to hang up the mobile and Luna smiled at him. “Of course,” she said, holding out James for Harry to take. “If you take little James again, I can show you how it works,” she offered and already placed the towel on Harry’s shoulder again.

Then she pulled out her wand and levitated the mobile, carefully rearranging the threads that had got entangled when the mobile had been on the table. “This is the top,” she explained, pointing at a ring. The butterbeer corks were now all hanging down and the funny faces were looking at Harry, Luna and little James. Luna had even bewitched some of them to wink or make grimaces every now or then. The little bells were quiet for as long as nobody touched them and there was no wind but would sound all differently because of their various sizes and materials.

Feeling privately that, misunderstood or not, he wouldn’t want to spend much time with a troll at all, Harry nodded, now vividly imagining trolls in love, probably putting entire uprooted shrubs behind each others’ ears and feeding each other goats or something. “Cool,” he said again.

“Huh,” he said, still looking down at the baby, “I’ve been assuming he doesn’t know anything I’m saying.” He’d rather been counting on it, as he’d found that, when it came to the vocabulary he’d inherited from Uncle Vernon or from Ron, taking care of a week-old baby had about the effect on his restraint as a stubbed toe. He tickled one of James’s fat little feet – “Let’s hope his first word’s not ‘damn!’”

Luna handed the baby back over, and Harry – keeping one eye on the mobile, which was coming impressively to life, some of the painted faces blinking as though they’d just awoken – rearranged his son in his arms, feeling like perhaps he ought to put the baby down for a while, but somewhat unwilling to. (By the time James was a year old, Harry thought he’d have muscles to rival Ludo Bagman in his heyday.)

“Brilliant,” he said, almost through a yawn. “Won’t it keep him awake?” He thought it would keep him awake to have a lot of little corks grimacing down on him, but when he looked back down, James looked like he was falling asleep. Sheepishly Harry added, “Or not, I s’pose.”

“Yes, it really is cool,” Luna responded to Harry’s comment, not picking up on the fact that he didn’t actually mean that it was really cool. Trolls were not everyone’s favourite species, after all. Truth be told, they weren’t Luna’s either, but she didn’t want to judge them for something that was not their fault at all.

“They’re so tender with their loved ones,” she added, “almost like you are with James.” A soft smile spread across her face and she was blissfully unaware that this comparison might be perceived as an insult by some.

“Oh, I’m sure he understands a lot more than he lets on.” While Luna didn’t think that James already understood all words they spoke, she was pretty certain that he would pick up the tone of his parents’ voice and thus know how they were feeling and whether they liked or disliked the person they were talking to.

Harry complimented the mobile but seemed to fear that it would keep the baby awake. Luna shook her head, smiling dreamily. “Oh no, I don’t think it will. I think it’ll make him sleep more easily. He can watch the butterbeer corks until his eyes fall shut.” James seemed sleepy now and Luna felt that her point was proven. However, instead of a triumphant expression she looked at Harry compassionately.

“Does he wake when you put him down or can you get some rest yourself when he is asleep?”

Almost like you are with James. “Thanks,” said Harry, unable this time to keep the dryness out of the word. He knew, though, that Luna meant it fondly and (he looked down at his son) it wasn’t like James wasn’t stinky and loud and utterly incoherent, at this age.

Ginny would probably think it was hilarious if the baby’s first word was ‘damn’, anyway, though they might have to make up another to tell Mrs Weasley.

Though he and Luna just stared at Jamie for a long moment, Harry snapped out of his reverie – surely it wouldn’t help the baby sleep to have them ogling him – and looked back up at Luna, who was likewise looking back up at him. “Depends,” he said, now fighting his yawn less successfully. “Sometimes he’s out like a light and sometimes he’s up all night – but he’s probably tired now.” Harry was tired, and Harry was definitely a lot more used to sleeplessness than the baby. Gingerly he walked the baby over to the cradle in the corner – he didn’t quite want to risk taking the stairs, which had a high chance of waking both James and Ginny.

He glanced back over his shoulder at Luna, feeling very awkward now that the clear objective of her visit had been put down for a nap. “Cup of tea?”

Harry thanked her for the comment and Luna was delighted. Although she knew that he didn’t always understand all her eccentricities, he still got her to some degree. It felt good to have a friend who tried to understand her point. Luna appreciated that trait in her friend.

He looked at his baby again and Luna tilted her head to the side, taking a mental image of how father and son looked at each other now. Moments like that were so precious. She knew that if she had a camera with her now and would pull it out to capture this moment she’d likely fail to capture it in its entirety but she clearly hoped that she’d remember this picture for a long time to come.

She listened as Harry told her about little James’ sleeping habits and then watched how her friend gently put the baby into the cradle. If Harry worried that Luna was upset by the fact that the baby was sleeping now, he was mistaken. Luna was quite pleased with everything so far. She had held little James for a while, had seen him with his father and thought that the young Potter clearly deserved to take a nap if he felt tired.

“I’d love a cup of tea,” Luna said, smiling fondly at her friend. “I don’t assume you have dirigible plum tea? It doesn’t matter if you don’t. I should have thought of bringing you some.”