I own nothing.
So, I was inspired for this by watching my cousins play over Thanksgiving…
Albus had always been overshadowed by James. He wasn't sure when it had started, but it had.
As soon as it became clear that James was to be the next great Quidditch star in the family, he won over all of the uncles and many of the cousins. Dad got him a broomstick and spent hours teaching him to ride while Mom watched. They were both mildly obsessed with Quidditch (Dad was the youngest player at Hogwarts in a century and Mom was the star chaser for the Holyhead Harpies). Whenever there was a family reunion at the Burrow, they all went out to play Quidditch with the older cousins and aunts and uncles and pretty much everyone except Albus and the little kids, because they had never been taught how to ride brooms. And because, the adults claimed, someone had to watch the little kids (Grandma and Grandpa Weasley fell asleep too often), and who better than responsible little Albus?
Yes, some of the family didn't play Quidditch (namely, Aunt Hermione, Uncle Percy, and Aunt Audrey) and they would sometimes pull him into a conversation about politics, or books, or arithmancy. Albus would listen to be polite, but he was only seven and couldn't be expected to sit still for hours and listen to his aunts and uncles drone on and on about things about which he knew nothing.
And yes, the whole family did still love him and care about him and want him. But maybe just not as much as they did James.
oOo
"Owwweee," Lily cried as a splinter got stuck in her finger from the tree in the yard. Tears appeared in her eyes and she bit her lip, trying to hold them in. She did not succeed. "Allieeee," she called (his nickname in her five-year-old mouth), "I got an owee!" She ran, stumbling, over to where he sat on the edge of the back yard.
"Oh no, Lily," Albus said sympathetically. "Where does it hurt?"
She stuck out her finger, waving the splinter in his face. Usually one of his parents would handle this, but they were both out at the moment. He was on his own. How on earth was he supposed to remove a splinter? No magic… hmm, maybe… yes, that would be it. Grandpa Weasley had told him, during one of the aforementioned family reunions, about a muggle contraption—something called a Twizers—that could be used to take out splinters. But what did it look like… oh!
"Hang on a minute, Lils," he said, and ran up to his room where a pair of Twizers lay humbly in the desk drawer. Grandpa had given him his spares, of course.
He raced back downstairs and outside to Lily with the Twizers and carefully reassured her while he plucked out the splinter. "See, that wasn't so bad, now was it?" he asked when he showed her the splinter.
She threw her arms around him and yelled, "Thank you, thank you, thank you, Allie!" right in his ear. And then she dragged him off to go climb the tree with her again.
And high above, James watched the whole scene from his broomstick.
Well, maybe there was one person who liked Albus better than James…
Review, please... And yes, I do know how to spell tweezers.