I decided to write this fanfiction to commemorate the ending of the Harry Potter movies. Part II of the film is publicly released today in Canada. Thank you, J., for these magical adventures that have become a part of my childhood.

DISCLAIMER: The Harry Potter series belong to J.K. Rowling


11 years ago

"Daddy, Daddy! You promised! You promised!" A wail stretches through the thin walls and into the open street, shrill and piercing.

"Now, now, daddy has some things to take care of,"

"But you promised, you said you always keep your promises," A boy stands on the kitchen tiles, right beside the fireplace. Tear tracks run down cheeks puffy from baby fat and red rimmed eyes glare accusingly at Him.

He doesn't give in, He never does, and Albus knows that; just like how He never buys more than one bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, just like how He always does what He promised.

Until now.

It is cold in the kitchen, and his feet hurt from standing barefoot on the smooth-bumpy porcelain. Porcelain, like the blue-black inked vases that sat on the fireplace. They're from a far, far, away place, his mother said, and stopped.

Albus knows they came from a place called China. He told him that. Albus likes the 'ch', a curl of the tongue followed by a burst of air from the teeth, and the brusque-soft 'na'. A pretty name, like the lady with the chocolate-covered-almond eyes and rosy-pink smile that came to give the vases.

What did He called her?

Something with that lovely-exotic 'ch', two of them.

Albus stood at the door with his mother, her grip tightening at irregular intervals.

Albus looks up at his mother now. She is tall and pretty, very pretty.

He always says that.

She is holding his sister, someone with a name like the first two bars of the music box his sort-of Uncle Dudley had given him for Christmas.

Lily.

Lily is very small, and she waved her pink-puffy fists at him the first time he peeked into her crib, standing on a chair.

Albus liked her right away.

Beside him, his brother swats at his hand warningly. Albus stares at his eyes, curved like two-third crescents of the moon. James isn't like Lily, where she is all pinks and edges; he is all browns and waves. He curled too, from the cowlicks on the top of his head to the toes that scrape his nails against the kitchen tiles.

He kneels down in front of him, shoulder to shoulder, eye-to-eye, green to green. Albus sees his own eyes in His. They're just a bit lighter, His eyes, bright like the not-too-young leaves on the oak tree in the backyard.

"Your eyes have a wholesome colour," his aunt Hermione had said to Albus. Albus doesn't know what 'wholesome' means when it's not written on Uncle Dudley's cereal boxes, but he wishes he had eyes like His.

Uncle Ron had once told him that he looked like a copy of Him. But Albus knows that isn't true, it's the little things that are different, the little things that are off.

"I have work to do, Albus. We'll make up for it, okay?" He's close, and Albus sees the bird-feet around the corners of His eyes and the grey pencil lines in his hair.

"Daddy will be back soon, let him go, alright?" His mother tugs on his hand, her skin cool and dry. It's an urgent sort of tug, the pad of her thumb pressing into his knuckles.

Albus tries to shake his head, but nods anyway. Not because He is right, but because it is Him. Him and his mother.

He kisses Albus on the forehead, then James, then Lily. He doesn't give his mother a kiss, but smiles at her instead. She leans forward and kisses Him on the cheek.

He smiles again and turns around, His black coat swirling with the dancing green sparks in the fireplace before vanishing with Him.

In the kitchen, Lily starts to cry.


8 years ago

"I didn't do it!" Albus screams, his boy-shrill voice echoing.

"Well, it wasn't me!" James calls back, just as loudly, with flushing cheeks.

"Boys, boys, boys, what are you doing?"

Albus sees his mother rushing out of the kitchen, her fire hair streaming behind her in tendrils. She pushes them apart firmly, one hand on each shoulder, one higher than the other. Her Quidditch-hardened joints locked against soft-coarse fabric.

Albus tries to squirm out of her hold, but his mother is strong and layered with supple muscle. James sticks out his tongue at him, pink with Grandmum Molly's mulberry juice.

"It was you!" Albus screams again and lashes out at him, his blunt nails clawing at his brother's hair-mop.

For a moment he enjoys the look of sheer shock on James's face, the sort of respect that only seven year olds can understand, until his mother raps him on the wrist, hard.

"Albus! Is that any way to treat your brother?"

"James did it! I'm telling you! He broke that mirror!"

His mother signed, letting the breath out through her teeth the way she did before a lecture.

"I don't care who or what broke the mirror, but I want both of you to show a little maturity and try to solve the problem instead of arguing about it! Albus, go upstairs and think about what you did. James, come to the kitchen, I need to have a talk with you. We need to have this cleaned up before your father comes home."

Albus feels the heat rushing to his face and the sourness in his nose. He squints hard so that the liquid hotness welling up in his eyes do not spill onto his cheeks. He turns around and rushes up the stairs, but it is too late, and he swipes a hand at his eyes, blinking hard into the limp-stiff cloth so that James wouldn't see his face through the railing gaps.

When He comes home, it's all Albus could do not to burst into tears. He would have liked to run into His arms, but he didn't, not because James was watching nor because his mother was retelling the day's horrific events. But because he is Albus, and he hasn't done anything wrong, and so does not need the privilege that He offered as consolation. He would have offered regardless, Albus knows, but he doesn't move and stands rooted to the line-dot plank floor, watching Him listening to his mother as she stirs the pot of soup on the stove.

His mother sighs, "I guess they're still little, but they should try to get along better."

He nods, "Yes, well, this is rather different from how I imagined things would be between the two of them, as brothers. This isn't the first time, is it? I'm worried."

"Perhaps if we just wait it out, it'll pass. I remember that Ron and Charlie went through this phase."

He smoothes His hair back, the black-bristles sticking up in the many different directions that only His hair could. Albus ruffles his own locks, but they don't jut out in the same way.

"Maybe we should get someone to take a look at them, a special Healer or something." He has not noticed him, neither Him nor his mother, and Albus sees James in his mind, riding a broom with Him as he stands behind the window-curtains watching.

"It's not so serious to that extent, I mean, they are young, and it's just squabbling."

He purses His lips, "But if it is something serious, and we ignore it, it could ruin our family."

Albus feels the temperature drop, the kind that makes him shiver during summer.

"So this is what it's about? Is it your image of a perfect family again?"

"Ginny, you know I don't mean that, or maybe I do. But regardless, I just want them to grow up in a good environment. Pleasant, quiet, safe."

His mother's voice rises a few decibels, "But you're not thinking of them, you aren't. You're thinking of yourself and trying to fulfill your own illusion of a family that you're trying to have because..."

She spots him then, and Albus is glad.

"Have you been there for a while, Albus?"

And he lies for the first time in his life, even though He once said that He valued truth, "I just came."

He kneels down, like He always does when He is talking to him, "Come here, Albus."

So he goes, and up close, he sees the paper-creases on His forehead and cheeks.

"Try and get along with James, alright?"

He sees his mother opening her mouth from the corner of his eye and he nods. He smiles and Albus smiles too, even if only to match Him.

During dinner, Albus dips his roll in the dish of butter just like James.


Reviews are appreciated. :)