Harry met James Potter for the first time when he was five. He was also asleep.

. . .

He opened his eyes and found himself standing in an open field with the sun on his face and a light breeze tickling his scalp. With a grin, he giggled to himself and began running full out across the grass, his feet barely touching the ground as he moved. He looped around an old oak tree, jumping easily over its numerous roots and then ran back the opposite direction.

Coming back, he tripped over his own feet and very nearly took a nosedive into the fresh green earth, only to be caught by the arm and pulled back upright.

Was it his daddy?

He turned to see and nearly barked out in surprise. It was another man and he didn't know him.

So why was he in Harry's dream?

"Daddy says I'm not s'posed to talk to strangers," little Harry said, looking distrustfully up at the messy haired man standing opposite him.

The man's face seemed to tighten for a moment and Harry took a careful step backwards. True, as a five year old, he wasn't nearly so frightened around adult people as he once had been before coming to live with his Tall Man, but threat was still remembered.

He watched carefully as the man crouched down on the ground, close enough for Harry to touch his face—if he wanted—and just looked at him. He seemed more sad than anything else, and little Harry felt a little bad for being afraid. After all, the man had kept him from falling, right?

Better than Auntie!

"You're all right then?" The strange man asked him, talking so quietly that Harry wasn't even sure he had intended to speak out loud.

"I'm okay," he answered anyway, in a whisper, just in case his daddy was around somewhere and happened to get angry at him for disobeying one of his rules. "I no—I didn't fall. All better," he said, stretching his arms out to show him.

"And—And you're happy?" The man asked him in a halting voice.

Little Harry peered up into his blue eyes that stared out at him from under thick spectacles and pursed his lips thoughtfully.

"Who are you?" He asked, crouching down like the man and putting his own small hands around his tiny knobby knees.

Here, the man gave him a smile, but Harry didn't think he did it because he was happy. His eyes turned down too much in the corners and his hands were knotted up in front of his body.

"Harry, who's your other daddy?"

Harry blinked, surprised that the unknown man would know about that.

"James Potter! Why? D'ya know him?" He asked, forgetting briefly that James Potter was dead. It didn't seem like a very relevant point at the particular moment.

The man gave a small snort, an almost chuckle really, and Harry waited patiently, leaning slightly from side to side to keep his feet from going numb.

"Has Sn—has your dad ever shown you pictures of him?"

Harry shook his head in the negative.

"What do you know about him?"

"That I gots his hair," little Harry answered quickly, pointing up at his head with one tiny finger to reemphasize it.

"And?"

The little boy leaned back and plopped his rump down on the soft grass and thought carefully about the man's question.

"Ands," he said softly, a consternated look on his tiny face, "Ands he was my firstest daddy, ands he loved me and my angel mummy, ands he and daddy bot' went to Hog'arts." Done with his recitation, Harry nodded his head firmly to himself, sure that he had not left anything out.

"You also have his knees," the man said, following his lead and sitting down on the ground too.

Harry looked doubtfully down at his knees and then back at the man. "How you know?"

"See, I knew James Potter rather well," the man answered slowly.

"Was you his friend?" Unconsciously, Harry scooted forwards ever so slightly, his attention fully on the man.

"Most of the time," the man answered with a great boisterous laugh—one that seemed too great for the answer given.

"You weren't means to him, were you?" Harry looked disapprovingly up at the man, tiny little brows lowered in a frighteningly accurate portrayal of his Tall Man.

"Not on purpose, I promise," the man gave him a great big smile, the gentle kind that made the worried expression disappear from little Harry's face.

"What was he like?"

"Hm," it was the man's turn to look thoughtful. "He was a fool, but a nice one, at least most of the time!" Another smile that Harry smiled back at, and then the man continued. "He talked too much, and sometimes he got in trouble too much, but he loved his friends and he was loyal to them as he best he knew how."

The man lapsed into silence and Harry moved up on his little knobby—other Daddy inherited—knees, looking at him again with another thoughtful expression.

"Did they love him?"

"He thought they did," a cloud passed over the sun and Harry gave a little shiver at the sudden change in temperature. In the shadow, the man looked very sad suddenly and before he had a chance to change his mind, he was on his feet and had walked right up to the stranger.

"Daddy always hugs me when I feel bad," he said just as the cloud moved on, opening up the sun to them once more. "I coul' hug you, if you wanted. Would that make you feel better?"

"I'm sure it would," the man said, an odd brightness coming into his eyes just before little Harry put his arms around his neck.

He smelled warm and familiar, but Harry didn't know why. It wasn't until after he had woken up and asked his daddy for a picture of his other daddy that he understood why.

When his Tall Man asked him if he remembered anything about his other daddy, little Harry gave him a tiny smile and then reached out for a hug.

"I 'member more'n I thought I did," he whispered, unaware of the tears that fell quietly down James's cheeks at his words.