The Boys
“DAAAAAADDDYYYYY!!!!”
Harry’s head jerked up at the scream coming from somewhere in the house. When the cry struck up again, he dropped the Quidditch magazine he’d been casually flipping through the backyard, leapt from his chair, and sprinted across the lawn, through the garden Ginny spent so many hours in, up the short flight of stairs, through the backdoor, across the living room, and into the kitchen. He finally stopped his mad dash by slamming bodily into the kitchen counter and looking around frantically for his screaming son.
“DAAADD–“
”Jamie? What? Where are you?”
“Behind you,” a little boy sniffled. Harry spun, totally ignoring the throbbing pain now gripping his hip. It wouldn’t be long before he was going to get a blue mark there, he knew.
“Wha–“
”AGH!!! IT WILL GET YOU TOO!!!” Jamie shrieked. Harry instinctively jumped up onto the counter and looked around for whatever monster had his son so terrified.
“What, Jamie? Where is–“
”There.” Harry followed the pudgy little finger pointing, shaking. “OH! Get it, Daddy! Make it go away!!” However closely Harry looked, though, he couldn’t make out what Jamie was so frightened by. He squinted his eyes and adjusted his glasses but still nothing.
“James, I don’t–“
”THERE!!! AGH!!!” Jamie clutched his knees to his chest and hid his eyes behind his hands.
Deciding that whatever horrible creature was there posed very little real threat, Harry sighed, hopped down off the counter, and lowered his face to the floor.
“Where? Here?”
“No, the– AGH! It’s going to get you, Daddy! THERE!!”
Harry’s head whipped around and he steeled himself to duel some ferocious creature or dodge a blow from some house imp or whatnot. Instead, Harry quickly located the monster scurrying towards him, scuttling on eight spindly legs, his body barely larger than the nail on Harry’s smallest finger.
Jamie continued whimpering as the spider approached his father. Harry looked from one to the other and asked for confirmation, “This?”
“Yes!” Jamie screamed, shaking his finger accusingly. “Kill it! Kill it, Daddy! Kill it!” His voice took on a hysterical note.
“Jamie, I –you –forget it. Let me just put this outside, then–“
”You aren’t going to kill it?!?”
“Of course not!” Harry scooped the spider up into his hand and strode over to the window over the sink, ignoring Jamie’s nervous tittering, then tossed it out, watching as a thin thread trailed from the body, allowing the arachnid to float weightlessly through the air. “We don’t kill spiders, Jamie, because they get rid of the bugs we don’t like.”
“And us!” Jamie added. Harry looked sideways at him, eyebrow raised. “They do! They’re...’murderous, barbaric, demonic monsters.’”
“Oh, really. And what exactly does that mean?”
“Um...that they’re bad?”
“And where did you hear this?” Harry asked, pulling Jamie off the counter and gently setting him back on the floor. He must have been terrified; it was quite a leap for such a little guy Harry took Jamie’s hand they walked together over to the kitchen table where Jamie had abandoned his glass of juice upon seeing the eight-legged monster. They sat down and Harry repeated his question.
“Uncle Ron. He said–“
”Of course. I should have known.”
Jamie nodded gravely and continued, “Uncle Ron said that monsters eat people and that one almost ate you a long time ago and I didn’t want to get eaten, too!” Harry studied his face for a moment but found nothing save genuine childish gullibility.
“Listen, Jamie, I know you think your Uncle Ron knows everything–“
”He does. He told me he does.”
Harry continued, giving him an unconvinced look, “But he really doesn’t. You see, good ol’ Uncle Ron is absolutely terrified of spiders. Couldn’t be more scared of them. And sometimes he gets teased about this a little bit.”
“By who?”
“Well...me, Aunt Hermione, Uncle George and Fred, Grandma and Grandpa, Mum, and so on. Anyways, he believes they’re really as scary as all that, but he’s wrong. I promise they won’t hurt you, especially if you’re nice and just give them their space.” Seeing that his son looked unconvinced, Harry added, “Just think how much smaller he is than you. He probably saw you and started running for his life, thinking you were a giant coming to eat him!”
Jamie wasn’t totally sure and, mimicking his father’s doubtful expression, asked, “But if they aren’t scary, why would Uncle Ron tell me they are?”
“Like I said, Ron really does think they’re scary. It’s like when you get scared and tell me and your mum all about it because you want us to understand, right?” Jamie nodded. “But you don’t have to be scared of spiders just because somebody else is.”
Jamie thought on this a moment, his brow furrowing like Harry’s but his lips twisting like Ginny’s. He finally asked, “What are you scared of Daddy?”
“Something happening to you or your mum.”
“Nooooo, yuck! That’s mushy. I mean something you’re really scared of.”
“Oh, right, right. Well, I’m really afraid of Mum when she hasn’t gotten enough sleep.” Ginny chose that moment to enter the kitchen, glancing suspiciously at her two men both giggling and watching her from their position leaning together at the table.
She smiled and asked with narrowed eyes, “What are you two up to?”
“Nothing! Just...”
“Man talk,” Jamie finished for his dad, then giggled into his orange juice. Ginny rolled her eyes.
~
Several days passed before the issue of spiders was brought up again in the Potter household. Ron and Hermione stopped by for lunch on a Sunday afternoon just for a visit, the only people in the world (besides Mum and Dad Weasley) who didn’t upset Ginny by just showing up. Jamie ran to meet them at the gate, throwing it open and jumping into Hermione’s arms.
“Aunt Miney! You’re here!” Hermione laughed and caught Jamie and lifted him up into her arms, planting a dainty kiss on the top of his head.
“Hey there, Jamie. How are you doing?”
“Good. Me and Mum made ice cream this morning. It’s got bananas and strawberries in it and it’s really good.”
“It sounds good.”
Ron frowned at Jamie and pouted, “Don’t I get a greeting? Or were you just going to ignore me, pretend I’m not here at all, like–“ Jamie leapt out of Hermione’s arms and caught his arms around Ron’s neck, dragging himself and his uncle into the dirt. Once Ginny appeared at the front door and waved, Hermione stepped gracefully over the mess and entered the house.
“Hermione! Ron! How nice to see you both. Come in, come in. Harry’s out working in the backyard. He said he’s trying to make a tree house for Jamie, but...it’s not looking too good,” Ginny laughed, leading her visitors through the house to the backyard. She called to Harry once outside and motioned him over.
Hermione eyed the thing with a little less than enthusiasm and snickered sarcastically, “That’s all right. Ron can help him. I’m sure together they can create a truly atrocious safety hazard.”
“Ah, just what we want.”
Harry jogged over, meeting Ron halfway, then both returned to the porch, talking over Jamie’s excited chittering. They grabbed their usual chairs amid the scattered toys and side tables and tools, ignoring any questions posed by Ginny or Hermione.
“Well,” Ginny shook her head. “You would think it had been two years instead of two days since they saw each other last by the way their acting.”
“Tell me about it. All I heard on the way over was ‘Harry this,’ ‘Harry that,’ ‘Harry said this,’ ‘Harry said that’.”
“Don’t I know it. I’ll be right back; let me go get some lemonade for us all,” Ginny excused herself. Meanwhile, Jamie grew more and more frustrated by his father’s and uncle’s lack of attention to him. They seemed to be purposely ignoring him, too wrapped up in some Ministry of Magic thing that Jamie couldn’t have cared less about if he’d tried. He tried tugging first Harry’s, then Ron’s sleeves, doing a somersault beside them, kicking their chairs, tapping his feet, clapping his hands. Even repeating over and over in a monotone voice, “Dadunclerondadunclerondaduncleron...” to no avail. Finally, deciding that desperate times called for desperate measures (he really wanted to show Ron his new tridenorbal; it was a really cool blue color), Jamie stomped off on a mission.
Ever since his dad had told him spiders weren’t to be feared, Jamie had kept an eye out for the little creatures. He’d come to highly admire their delicate webs and frail collection of legs. Once he brought Ginny out to show her a web that the spider had abandoned for some reason and she showed him how to cover a looseleaf paper in black ink and carefully stick it to the web so that when pulled away he was left with the beautiful design attached to his paper. He had hung it up on his wall. Now he ventured over to the same woodsy part of the yard he’d designated “Spider Alley.” Sure enough, there were a half dozen spider webs in easy reach, each home to a little eight-legged critter.
When they’d visited Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron two days earlier, Aunt Hermione had been more than happy to answer his questions about spiders (she sure seemed to know a lot about everything) and, during this, had explained what the different colors on their backs meant. For instance, if they had yellow or red markings you really wanted to avoid them because their bite could be poisonous. Jamie saw two spiders with black and yellow striped bodies and wisely bypassed these. The next, however, was a small brown one, perhaps a little larger than his thumb, just sitting there, minding its own business. Perfect.
“Hey, Jamie. Whatcha got there?” Ron asked when Jamie returned minutes later, whispering to something he held clutched against his chest. Jamie looked up at Uncle Ron and grinned sweetly and shrugged his shoulders. “Let’s see it, then.”
Jamie carried his little friend over to his uncle and quickly flattened and held his hand out, “Look. I found him for y–“
”AGH!! Get –AGH!!” The second scream grew even louder than the first as Jamie jumped and dropped the spider, after which it fell –this couldn’t have been planned better– onto Ron’s leg where it quickly latched on and scurried up towards his shirt. “AGH!!! AGHAGHAGHAGHAGHAGH!!!”
“OH, for goodness’ sake, Ron, what are you screaming at?” Hermione demanded after calmly taking her glass from Ginny. Ginny raised an eyebrow and looked at Harry for an answer but her husband was too busy trying not to laugh.
“A –a spider!! Get it off, Hermione!!” Ron yelled, wriggling around in his chair as the spider crawled farther up his shirt.
Hermione sighed and rolled her eyes, but kindly reached over and flicked the spider off. It fell effortlessly to the ground and made a beeline for the grass. “Oh, grow up, Ron. It’s just a little spider.”
“Yeah,” Jamie piped up, smiling innocently and twisting his fingers together. “Spiders are our friends.”
Ron’s eyes narrowed, “Why you little...”
“Eek!” Jamie took off across the yard with dear Uncle Ron mere steps behind him. Ron called over his shoulder, “Be right back; have to strangle a certain nephew of mine!” He quickly caught Jamie (a four-year-old can only run so fast) and, grabbing him around the waist, spun him around and around in the air until Jamie insisted he was going to puke.
Harry sighed dramatically to Hermione and Ginny still at hand, “They’ll both sleep well tonight, won’t they? Pass me a glass, please, Ginny?”
“Oh, go run with them,” Ginny encouraged instead, moving the glasses out of his reach and nodding to the pair in the yard.
Harry nodded, “Right,” and took off after the boys.
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Written probably around 2004 for some Harry Potter fanfiction challenge. Not crazy about it, and it's not exactly my best writing, but it's sort of a cute quick read.