Rule 63: Support

“Uncle Mori, come on!!”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” Moriarty yawned, still holding Harri’s shoes as he followed the six-year-old girl who was racing to find their spot to watch the preliminary Quidditch matches.

She was easy to spot thankfully, wearing a gold shirt with a broom on it, her hair done up in twin pigtails which were bobbing violently as the girl raced forward, and now, as these new shoes that Chelsea had given her had started to hurt moments after their portkey had dropped them off, barefoot and sporting a band aid on knee.

He had woken up at five in the morning to the girl’s tugging. Apparently lack of sleep was lost on her and he was so glad he had left Maxine with Chelsea. Max was even less of a morning person than he was, something she had gained from her mother.

Harri however seemed to gain her father’s energy and her mother’s ability to be awake in mornings without coffee.

A combination that maybe she would grow out of as she got older. At least he hoped…he was getting too old to get up at five in the morning.

Wait…did he just call himself old?

“Uncle Mori!”

“Did you find our spot?” He called out as he walked up the hill.

“Well yeah…but…” She trailed off as she looked at the tall people in front of her. And there lay the problem.

Moriarty could see over them perfectly fine, but a die-hard fan that was six years old stood little chance in seeing anything other than what flew past them. He frowned and glanced around.

He sighed.

Harri yelped as he grabbed her by her waist and hoisted her up, settling her onto his shoulders. She looked at him as he took her hands with his, keeping her balanced. But when she looked up, her eyes and grin widened.

She could see everything.

“I’m so tall!!!” She shrieked and he snorted.

“You can see the match right?” He asked and she nodded, giggling happily. “That’s good.” He added watching as her eyes followed the player’s flit back and forth in the sky for warm up.

She would definitely become a Quidditch player that was for sure. Whatever position she played would be entirely up to her, though he was partial to being a Keeper. His gaze softened a bit as he glanced up again. She hadn’t stopped staring at the players, her smile wide, shaking with excitement.

Just like James did during their first year, impatient to try out the next year, staring out the windows of Hogwarts watching as the older students practiced.

He wondered how James would have handled this.

Sure he would have been enthusiastic about her being a Quidditch player, but just as anxious when she actually played. It was different when it had been him, Ceri, and James. Harri was his baby, no father wanted the possibility to get a letter that she had been injured in a match. Moriarty had known that the moment he had spotted James’s expression over Harri’s present from him and Ceri on her first birthday. The panic in his eyes when Harri’s emerald green eyes had lit up at the sight of the beginners broom. The man would have been a nervous wreck when she started playing Quidditch. That would have been James to be honest. No matter how cruel that sounded.

James had been wrapped his daughter’s finger the moment she had been born.

It would have made sense he would have probably been a nervous wreck when she took to the field.

But that wouldn’t be James’s problem anymore.

It was his.

“Watch over my kid Mori when I can’t. I know you can do it better than anyone.”

It had been something James had told him the night he had seen his goddaughter for the first time, a little pink bundle secure in her exhausted mother’s arms. He had assumed it had meant when James wasn’t in the room and he was, but now…

But now…

His eyes misted up at the thought of his friends and family, before he blinked harshly, focusing on the shrieks of the girl who was sitting on his shoulder, balancing and clinging to his hands for support to make sure she didn’t fall off, cheering her favorite team on.

And at that moment he didn’t really care about his own exhaustion and the fact his shoulders were probably going to fall asleep and his back was going to be sore the next day. The little girl on his shoulder’s happiness outweighed the negative.

It always would.

They watched the entire match, her on his shoulders the entire time, clinging to his hands as she cheered loudly and he yelled along with her.

He didn’t even complain the next day when he couldn’t lift his arms past his head.