Because You Love Me

12. Finally Eleven

July 31, 1991

"Harry!"  Alaina stood down at the bottom of the stairs, tapping her foot.  She had already woken him up three times.  "Breakfast!"

She turned around and walked back into the kitchen of their four bedroom home.  There was bacon frying away on the stove and she could only leave it for a few seconds at a time.  After the bacon was done, all she had left was the toast because the eggs were already on two separate plates on the table.  Harry was very picky about his toast.  He liked it really brown with the crust torn off.  She smiled.  That was the way Lily had liked hers too when she was little.  Everyday she seen more and more of her and James in him.  Harry had inherited James's terrible eyesight.  She had to take him regularly to the Muggle eye doctor.  He had inherited Lily's eyes along with her sense of curiosity and her imagination.  She saw it in his school work, the things he would write and draw.  She hadn't really wanted to send him to public school, but she didn't really have much of a choice without arousing her neighbor's suspicion.

Alaina had chose the most remote place she could find for her and Harry to live.  It was out in the country, and her only neighbor was a nosy old woman who came to check on them from time to time.  Alaina and Harry hadn't always lived in the house they resided in now.  They had started out in a small apartment and had lived there in London until Harry started school.  That was when everything changed.  Alaina's job as a waitress at the local diner didn't pay much, but with the money she'd saved from her inheritance, it was enough to pay the rent and buy groceries for the two of them, plus put about twenty bucks back to save out of every paycheck.  After she had a nice little chunk saved up, she moved them to a house and officially adopted the little guy.  He called her 'Mum'.  Not because she had asked him to or anything though.  She felt a little awkward when he said it because she wasn't his real mother.  Lily was.  Still it warmed her heart that he thought enough of her to consider her worthy enough to be his mother.  She had raised him after all and she would always love him like her own.

She looked toward the stairs.  He still hadn't come down.  She shook her head.  She opened her mouth to call his name again when she heard his bedroom door open, followed by the sound of footsteps thundering down the stairs.  Harry appeared around the corner with a smile on his face.  His hair was wet and he was already dressed in the outfit she had laid out for him last night.  She studied him curiously.

"Harry, did you take a shower?"

He looked up at her innocently.  "Yes.  I felt dirty."

Alaina chuckled.  "Oh really?"

"I played outside all day yesterday."

"Yes, but you had a shower last night before bed."

He frowned for a moment, then shrugged.  "I guess I forgot."

Alaina smiled and bent down to hug him.  She did it every morning right before they ate accompanied by a kiss on the cheek.  "Happy birthday, sweetheart."

"Thanks, Mum."

She stood back up when she heard the bacon sizzling.  "You go ahead and sit down at the table.  I'll get your bacon and toast on your plate in a moment."

"Okay."

Alaina watched him skip over to the kitchen table and take his seat.  Then she turned her attention to the bacon.  She had learned to cook the Muggle way while Harry was just a toddler so she could make him meals when he was older.  Otherwise he would have grown suspicious.  She hadn't told Harry about magic yet.  He had only had a few incidents where he'd used magic himself.  She told him it was nothing to be ashamed of, that 'accidents' were part of being human.  Harry seemed to accept it.