A/N - This story has been a long, long time in the making. It started off in 2014 as a series of oneshots from Scorpius' perspective and then for NaNoWriMo last year evolved into this beast of a story from Albus' perspective. Anyway, sit back and relax, 'cause it's going to be a long and bumpy ride.
Chapter 1: Before Hogwarts.
Albus Severus Potter had always been the odd one out in his family, ever since he could remember. For starters, there was his name, which in time even his father had come to regret, having taken to the time to evaluate all of the choices and decisions Snape had made. His mother had never been fond of the name, and made that quite clear, but as it was only her son's middle name, she reasoned that no one ever had to know it at all. Whatever anybody thought of the name, there was no denying that it set Albus apart from the rest of his family.
Of course, his name wasn't the only thing that set him apart. There was no denying that his whole family was obsessed with Quidditch; his mum had been a professional Quidditch player and was now an esteemed sports journalist for the Daily Prophet; his father had been on the Gryffindor team in his first year and stilled dragged his mostly enthusiastic children to a match whenever he could get the time off work; his older brother, James, was on the Gryffindor Quidditch team as a beater despite only being in his second year; and his younger sister, Lily, only ever wanted to talk about Quidditch, and there was no doubt in anyone's mind about her joining the Quidditch team when she went to Hogwarts. And then there was Albus.
He had always hated Quidditch, and he had been certain of it ever since he first knew what Quidditch was. He had his own broomstick, a tenth birthday present from a father still in denial, but it was mostly left in the shed to gather dust unless James managed to twist his arm enough and force him to join in the family games they played when they went round to their grandma Weasley's house. Even then he preferred to referee, since there was slightly less chance he would be knocked unconscious by a stray Quaffle, or even a deliberate one if James had anything to do with it.
Yet it was somehow more than that. He loved his family deeply and with all of his heart, but admittedly there were very few of them that he actually enjoyed spending time with. His cousin Rose was his best friend, which he felt more than a little pathetic admitting, but he just felt awkward and out of place among his other cousins, as thanks to James and Fred, he was frequently the butt of their jokes and pranks.
When Albus turned eleven, only a few days before Christmas, his mother and father sat him down in the living room, having bribed Lily and James to be elsewhere with the promise of sweets, and explained to him exactly what had happened to them during the second Wizarding War and why it was so important that it must never be forgotten. Albus knew he should have felt proud of his parents, and he did, but mostly all he felt was a crippling fear that he would never be able to live up to their magnificent achievements.
Luckily, that feeling was partly forgotten a few days later when he received his Hogwarts acceptance letter. The thrill of knowing he would be attending the best Wizarding School in the world was incomparable to anything he had ever felt before. Most of all it was the sense of being a part of something much bigger than himself, a place where he could finally break away from his family's name and become his own person at last.
Right now, he was Albus Severus Potter, the son of the saviour of the Wizarding World, and it marred the opinion of every witch or wizard who had ever met him. To them, he wasn't just Albus, he was Albus Potter, son of Harry Potter, and everyone expected great things of him. To them, he wasn't just Albus Potter, he was Albus Dumbledore's namesake, and so everyone expected marvellous things of him. Truth be told, he was just an ordinary wizard, and all he wanted was for other people to finally realise it.
It was just before James returned to Hogwarts after the Christmas holidays that the teasing started. James Sirius Potter was a perfect Gryffindor in countless ways. From the effortlessly cheeky sense of humour that got him into trouble more often than not, to the easy confidence he exuded at being the son of the infamous and celebrated Harry Potter. Unlike Albus, he took it all in his stride, and liked to brag about being the most popular boy in his house, much to Albus' chagrin – he was only in his second year, after all. There was also his effortless intelligence, as shown by the contrast between his excellent grades and the number of behaviour reports he had received. He never got into too much trouble of course, as that was simply who he was, as everybody said, even his own parents.
The teasing had started with a simple and innocent question, as it often did if you were part of the Potter household and your name just happened to be Albus. The three siblings were relaxing in the living room, Albus with a book he had received for Christmas, James frantically throwing things into a suitcase, and Lily shining her new broomstick. James grabbed his Gryffindor scarf, emblazoned in scarlet and gold, from the sofa, considering it carefully before winding it around his neck.
"James," Albus asked innocently, "what's it like being in Gryffindor?"
"Well," He began, "it's the best house in the school, so obviously it's the best feeling in the world. Not that you'll need to worry about it, since you'll be sorted into Slytherin," He shrugged as he zipped up his suitcase and kicked it so it lay in the doorway leading into the hall.
"What?" Albus demanded, getting to his feet angrily, his book falling forgotten to his feet, "I'm not going to be in Slytherin!"
"You keep telling yourself that, little brother," James said, rising up from the floor and leaving the room with a wink in Albus' direction, dragging his trunk behind him.
"I'm not going to be in Slytherin! I'm not!" Albus shouted, stomping his feet in frustration even though it was childish of him, just about managing to dodge his book. Lily, wise beyond her years, simply raised an eyebrow and continued her polishing in silence.
From then on, James was back at Hogwarts, and so for the time being, the teasing had stopped. The fear, however, remained inside of him. Albus wanted to bring the subject up with his father, but he wasn't sure he was quite ready to hear what he would have to say. After all, his dad was the perfect example of what it meant to be in Gryffindor house, the epitome of bravery and courage and standing up for what's right. Albus considered that being too afraid to broach the subject meant he surely didn't belong in Gryffindor, and that thought terrified him so much that he vowed never to think on it again, a resolution that didn't last long.
The rest of the year passed by much more quietly, as luckily he and Lily did get along very well. It was almost impossible to dislike Lily, even though she did have a penchant for wittering on about Quidditch for hours on end. Like Albus, she wasn't overly boisterous, and never felt she had to be the centre of attention. She was always willing to listen, and as a result put up with many conversations over the course of the year about which house he really belonged in.
Personally, Lily didn't think it mattered which house a person was sorted into. The way she saw it, your house was the place you slept, earned points for, and played Quidditch for, but in the grand old scheme of things it didn't really matter all that much at all. What mattered most was who you were as a person and the qualities you possessed, and even that rarely depended on house. There were altruistic people in Slytherin and cowardly people in Gryffindor and more than anything, people needed to stop seeing the world in purely black and white and start considering that life really works in shades of grey. Not that she ever told anyone but Albus or Rose what she thought.
By the time summer rolled around, Albus had more or less forgotten his fears and insecurities of which house he would be sorted into, but with summer came James' return from Hogwarts and a fresh new batch of teasing and petty insults, most of which was about Albus being sorted into Slytherin. James had always been observant and good at reading people and their insecurities, and he loved to exploit it when Albus was involved, as he was just so easily rattled.
It wasn't at all that James was a bad person; when it came down to it, he was genuinely good and cared about other people, his little brother included. He just loved to rile people up, something which hadn't changed as he had gotten older. His best friend was his cousin Fred Weasley, who, having grown up in a joke shop, was no stranger to practical jokes, and the pair of them got into no end of trouble, both at Hogwarts and at the many Weasley-Potter family gatherings.
Luckily, Albus had Lily to count on, not to mention his favourite cousin Rose. Like Albus, she lived in London, with her younger brother Hugo and her parents, and Albus would make any excuse to go and see her. Like him, she was rather quiet and introverted, so the pair of them could easily sit in amiable silence for hours on end, giving Albus a much needed break and a chance to forget all of his troubles, petty as they were since he was only eleven years old.
A couple of weeks into the summer holidays, the Potter family went to Diagon Alley so that Albus could buy all of his supplies and finally get a wand, and so that James could pick up his new school books for the year ahead. Lily came only on the premise that she could get something from Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes.
It was a blazing hot day, the hottest of the year so far, the kind where the air seemed to hang heavily like a blanket over the winding streets lined with people fanning themselves desperately in the shade, though a few witches and wizards had made use of cooling down spells. Even then, it was almost disgustingly hot.
Albus and his parents drudged through shop after shop in almost a daze, with fervent hopes of returning quickly to their nicely air conditioned house in Grimmauld Place. It was just after leaving Ollivander's, Albus clasping his new wand proudly, if a little sweatily, that his father stopped dead in the middle of the doorway, emerald eyes wide behind his spectacles. He looked around quickly and realised that others on the street were pointing and whispering at something just out of sight.
The crowd parted then and Albus followed his father's gaze to a little family of three wandering along a little further down the street, all of them seemingly far too aware of the many eyes trained on them. The father had receding blonde hair and a pointed chin, the mother a tangle of brown curls. The man's son, who walked with his hand clasped tightly to his mother's, looked almost exactly like his father, apart from the softer features he had clearly inherited from his mother. After a few seconds had passed of Albus watching the trio curiously, he looked back at his mother, who looked almost as dumbfounded.
"What are they doing here?" She asked, reaching for her husband's hand almost unconsciously, as it was a clear source of comfort for her.
"I don't know," Harry admitted, squeezing Ginny's hand, "but they've got some nerve showing their faces around here after nearly twenty years."
Albus stared back at the little family, confused. To him they looked like a perfectly ordinary family. The boy had spotted the pet shop and was dragging his mother towards it eagerly, as his father shook his head and laughed, following the pair of them. Within seconds, the little family was obscured by the milling crowd, though Albus couldn't help but notice that quite a few glares followed the family.
On his parents' insistence, they left not long later. Albus was glad to be back at home and out of the oppressive heat, but the mystery still remained – who were they? And why had they rattled his usually unshakeable parents so much? Admittedly, there was still a lot he had yet to learn about his family's past, but it had been nearly twenty years, after all!
He and his siblings were wise enough to wait a couple of days before bringing the topic up at the dinner table, and rather surprisingly it was Albus who brought it up, as he simply couldn't bear not knowing a moment longer.
"Dad, who were those people in Diagon Alley the other day?" He blurted out, unable to contain the burning question a moment longer. Lily raised her eyebrow at him over her stir fry and James just stared at him, his fork stuck halfway to his mouth, which stayed open for a few seconds before he realised what he was doing and closed it.
"I suppose I should've told you myself, but since you've asked, I'll tell you," Harry pushed his glasses back up his nose and then ran his hand absently through his messy black hair, revealing the scar he preferred to keep hidden.
"Those people we saw back there were Draco Malfoy, his wife – whose name I can't for the life of me remember – and their son, I guess," He nodded to himself, a resigned look across his face. Albus realised then that it probably wasn't proper of him to have asked; his dad had clearly had a long and difficult day at work, and he had only just noticed the shadows under his eyes and the stubble across his chin.
"And?" James probed when Harry said no more, "Surely they mean something to you?"
"Well," Harry began, setting down his fork with a sigh, "back in the day, at Hogwarts, Draco was kind of… my enemy. It all sounds completely pathetic and overdramatic now, but we just never got along. Maybe we could have, but I was in Gryffindor and he was in Slytherin and his family were very much for the Pureblood cause, some of which rubbed off on him. We spent nearly seven years hating each other needlessly, often because he was a bit of prat, but often because I was too, at times.
"He did a lot of bad things for Voldemort's cause, none of which I think he did because he wanted to, but because he was scared and misguided. Merlin, he was even a Death Eater, but right at the end of the war he saved my life. As for his father – now, he was a bad man – he was put on trial and sent to Azkaban. It's thanks to me in part that Draco didn't join him. After that, he just seemed to vanish – until last week, that it. So I hope you all understand why your mother and I are rather shocked to see him."
"I hope he's happy," Ginny said suddenly, holding up her hand at her husband's objections, "I mean, he had a tough time – not unlike you. And now he has a wife and a child and I sincerely hope that he's happy and he's made something of himself. Most of all I hope the ghosts of his past don't haunt him too much. After all, the war changed all of us so much and there's no doubt that it changed him as well."
Kissing her husband on the cheek and ruffling each of her children's hair in turn, Ginny retreated to the kitchen to wash up, a sad smile on her face. From that moment on, it was clear that no more was to be said on the topic, and so Albus and his siblings kept their mouths shut – around their parents, at least. That didn't stop them from speculating wildly when they were alone.
Most of the rest of the holidays was spent discussing the issue, though for Albus it passed by in an almost agonisingly slow blur as he frantically tried to read his books and get his belongings in order, intending to be much more organised than James for once.
On the last night of the holidays, the family of five sat together in the living room with hot chocolates for the children and alcohol for the parents as they played board games and chatted amiably, though Albus spent the evening queasily trying not to think too hard about what the next day would bring. He knew it would be the day his world changed completely, and looking fondly at his family, he wasn't sure he was quite ready for it yet.
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