A/N: Hey guys!
This chapter was IMPOSSIBLE to write but I got some lovely reviews from you all which made me go back to the drawing board over and over again, which made this chapter as good as it is (my humble opinion :])... incredibly sweet, thank you so much. Special props to Bella-Faye and Moonlit Daybreak who have recently said they loved both my story No Chance and this one... you guys are the best :D Also, KaitlynEmmaRose continues to be perhaps the most loyal reviewer ever in the history of fanfiction, so she gets points too. If anyone were to actually keep track of these points I arbitrarily give out, she would most definitely be the high scorer.
Happy reading!
When Did Your Heart Go Missing?
I'm waitin, waiting for nothin',
You're leavin', leavin' me hangin'…
I treat you like a princess
But your life is just one big mess
When did your heart go missing?
-Rooney
Ten minutes later I was sitting beside Albus on the couch while Cory leaned over my copy of the Standard Book of Spells, Book 1 at a table across the room. Cory always read when he was freaked out. I'd asked him why once, and he'd said it was because he could only fix what he knew and everything he knew came from books.
The kid was walking Ravenclaw material.
I actually sort of hoped, in my heart of hearts, that Cormac would be in Gryffindor like Rose and Albus and me. But the fact of it was, I felt bad enough for the kid that even if he was in Slytherin I'd forgive him. Today was still his eleventh birthday and I'd essentially forced him to leave home with me. He could be Slytherin and a truant and get into so much trouble that I had to bail him out all the time and I'd probably forgive him. I felt that guilty about his being a wizard.
And I would have sat him down for a I-never-wanted-this-for-you talk right then and there, had we not been waiting on Mr. Potter and Mrs. Weasley. James, Albus and Serafina had jumped into action the second that it'd become clear that my dad was the cause of the finger marks on my wrists. James had flooed back to the Potter estate and Sera was at the Ministry, getting Albus's aunt Hermione Weasley. Mrs. Weasley was also Rose's mother, and knew me best—she'd been great, my first year at Hogwarts, helping me to buy all of my things before school. She would also be good in this particular issue: she worked for the Magical Law Enforcement Department or some such place.
James Potter was retrieving Mr. Potter for slightly sketchier reasons: they wanted a member of law enforcement to hear me out. I'd tried to argue against it, but James hadn't spared me a moment of his time and Albus had pointedly told me that his dad wouldn't do anything about it if I didn't want him too. James had suggested that Al come with him—Al knew me better, according to James, and might be better able to describe the situation. But Al had declined the offer before I'd even had the chance to dispute the fact that Albus and I weren't friends.
Albus and I had a very weird relationship. I was invisible at school. Not in a bad way—no one picked on me or anything. I wasn't even important enough for that. Just… no one knew me. And Albus was arguably the most well-liked kid in the school. I mean, even some Slytherin girls liked him. And he was Harry Potter's clone. I was fairly sure that he only knew my name because there were only two girls in the Gryffindor dorm—Rose and me. Since there were five Gryffindor boys, the Gryffindor girls didn't go completely unnoticed. But still. I was all but completely under the radar. And Albus was, in short, king.
He didn't abuse his power, or not so much that I saw. But he wasn't perfect. He was a strictly hook-up kind of guy, or in so far as I could see. He had never had a girlfriend, and he didn't spend a lot of time acknowledging the existence of people who weren't either his roommates, his cousins, or the best-looking girls our year. I mean, it wasn't exactly moral. But he also wasn't hurting anyone, so, as a rule, I kind of didn't care so much about him.
But I was still invisible.
Which bothered me a little. A big part of that problem was the fact that my best friend, Rose Weasley, was one of those people who was practically sparkling. She was gorgeous and smart and she spent a huge part of her time teasing the boys of Gryffindor tower into wishing she was their girlfriend/friend-with-benefits. So I got a little lost in the mix. But I didn't need the attention the same way that Rose did—Rose was an attention monster. She needed attention or else it was hard for her to function. So I let her have the spotlight and I went along in relative obscurity.
Unfortunately, all of the above insights didn't help me when I was alone with Albus Severus Potter. Albus shifted, startling me out of my reverie, turning on the couch to face me, his expression tortured. "Molly, why the bloody hell didn't you tell me?" Albus demanded quietly in a fast voice, shaking his head a little. If I hadn't known better, I would have said he seemed anguished.
But he we weren't friends. He was him and I was invisible. So anguish wasn't possible. "Why the fuck didn't you tell me that your dad hurt you?"
I met his gaze evenly, raising an eyebrow. "First off, keep your bloody voice down. If you think I want my personal business all over the bar, you're sorely mistaken. Second off, he doesn't hurt me. And third off, why would I tell you of all people?" I demanded quietly.
"Why would you tell me of all people?" Albus echoed, evidently too shocked by my response to offer one of his own. "Because I would have—helped." Albus was definitely seeming pretty anguished here. I'd never seen Al without his easy-going smile, without his being happy or frustrated about a lost Quidditch game or something equally him. This panicking thing was not only extremely out of character but really confusing. Of all people for him to worry about, why me? "I would have helped you, Molly. You could have stayed with us. You could have stayed with anyone—" Albus cut himself off.
"You're acting like a nutter." I muttered after a second, uncomfortable with what he was offering.
Albus glared at me witheringly, but I just scowled back. "I'm acting like a nutter?" He demanded. "You're the one who was just having a bloody mental breakdown because your dad apparently hurt you and kicked you out of your house and now you're telling me you're fine." Albus demanded scathingly. I glared at him icily. "You think I'm the one acting like a nutter? Really?"
"You are overreacting." I muttered.
"I'm overreacting?" Albus demanded loudly, and I exhaled heavily. "I'm just—God, what is wrong with you?" Albus demanded. "You're such a bloody mental case!"
"So charming…" I murmured.
"Your dad hurt you and you're sitting here acting like it's no big deal!" Albus said after a second, his voice flat. He was obviously at a loss for why I was acting the way I was, but I didn't care. I acted the way I felt like acting. It had nothing to do with what Albus was expecting. "Are you kidding me, Molly? He hurt you—he doesn't deserve whatever's driving this," he made a grand gesture with his hands that seemed to indicate that the entire room was this, "sympathy for him! He lost his right to that the second he hurt you—"
"Keep your voice down or I will smack you." I told him seriously.
"He hurt you—" Albus had made this point several times but apparently didn't believe I was getting the memo. I frowned at him defensively, leaning back an inch on the couch.
"What the fuck are you doing, Albus?" I demanded.
"Making treacle tart, thought it would be a nice dessert—what do you think I'm doing? I'm trying to get through your immensely thick skull to see whether you even care that your dad hurt you—" Al was yelling, and my hand shot out to smack his arm.
"My little brother is sitting maybe eight feet from us and I swear to God, if you scare him with all this talk you will pay dearly." I murmured.
"You're more protective of your brother from me then you are of yourself from your father. Does that sound normal to you?" Albus demanded scathingly. "You—need—the desire to protect yourself, or something—I don't know how you got this far, in life—" I glared at him pointedly, "without wanting to, oh, I don't know, protect yourself from your dad, but this," He waved a hand in the air, indicating me, "is unhealthy." Albus fell silent, evidently done with his rant, and I was about to jump in with some sort of response when there was a cracking sound like a gunshot. Albus and I both glanced towards where the sound had come from: his dad had just apparated into the bar. Cormac, however, jumped about a foot in the air, his eyes wide as he scrambled to his feet and spun around to stare at Mr. Potter, before he fell back a couple of steps and stepped around the table, sinking down at the armchair beside me shakily. Mr. Potter, however, just looked around, laid eyes on his son, and came forward with a concerned frown.
"Al, hey." Mr. Potter said, glancing at me. "James came and got me, I assume you know," Mr. Potter said after a second, and I had to give him credit for his tact. James had come and got him and said something along the lines of Albus's friend is being abused, I would bet. To approach this as sanely as he had, he had to have a healthy dose of tact.
"Yeah, he did—one second, Aunt Hermione's coming too…" Al said to his dad awkwardly. There was a second cracking sound, and Mrs. Weasley appeared beside the fireplace, pushing some of her wild hair out of her face. Cormac made a sound like a dying animal, wincing and throwing me a bewildered look.
"Kid, calm down." I murmured to him, rising to my feet and crossing the few steps between us. I crouched beside him, rubbing his back for a moment like I'd used to do when we were little and he'd had nightmares. "It's called apparation—it's how we got here? Remember that?" Cormac nodded a little, and after a second, shifted his shoulder uncomfortably, and I removed my hand from his back, studying him wordlessly. I was worried about the kid.
"Hello, Harry, Al," Mrs. Weasley said with a brief smile to her brother-in-law and nephew, but her gaze quickly switched to me. "Molly, sweetheart, it's so nice to see you." She said quietly.
"Hi Mrs. Weasley." I murmured, pushing myself back up to standing.
"Molly, this is my brother-in-law Harry Potter—Harry, this is Molly Gale, Rose's best friend."
"Nice to meet you, Molly." Mr. Potter murmured with a small, forced smile.
"Nice to meet you too," I murmured. I put a hand on Cory's shoulder. "This is my brother Cormac—he's starting Hogwarts this year."
"Ah." Mrs. Weasley said quietly. For a moment, we all just stood there—Mr. Potter, Mrs. Weasley and I standing, and Albus and Cory sitting, all of us awkward. And then Mr. Potter unbuttoned the cuffs on his shirt and began to roll up the sleeves.
"Molly, I'm not going to hit around the bush here—James told me your dad hurt you. That you got kicked out." Mr. Potter said after a beat. I exhaled heavily, before I looked down at Cormac.
"Go upstairs, Cory," I said quietly. My little brother looked up at me, a hint of irritation on his features.
"I know what you're gonna say to him—" He kept his voice quiet, but that didn't change my orders.
"That's all well and good but you're still going upstairs—" I said firmly.
"I was there when Dad freaked so why can' I—"
"Kid, you're not going to be here for this conversation." I said flatly, my eyes narrowing a little at my brother. "There is nothing you're going to say that's going to change that." Cory was being a pain in the butt, but it was excusable in this one instance: I'd uprooted his entire existence in the last hour. If he felt better about that being difficult, I'd allow him that. "Go upstairs."
"Fine." Cory said after a second, flushing red with embarrassment as he picked up the book, stood, and rushed past us. He stormed up the staircase, and I waited until he'd disappeared upstairs before I glanced back to Mr. Potter and Mrs. Weasley.
"You're hurt?" Mr. Potter prompted again, with a note of concern this time. I nodded, thean held up my wrist, keeping my face carefully composed. I didn't want pity and I didn't want people to take care of me, and if his son's reaction was any indicator, Mr. Potter was going to want this to be a clean-cut problem with a clean-cut solution. And I knew there wasn't.
"Can I ask what set him off, sweetheart?" Mrs. Weasley asked.
"Cormac got his Hogwarts letter today." I half smiled, ruefully. "We're muggle-born, so it was unexpected from that, and aside from that, Cory's never shown signs of magic. I was always doing weird crap as a kid and he was just… normal." I let out the breath I'd been holding. "Dad hates magic—he accused me of—infecting Cory or some such thing." I crossed my arms. "The bruise isn't that big of a deal."
"It's not good." Mrs. Weasley pointed out softly.
"Has he hurt you before?" Mr. Potter pressed.
"No." I said firmly.
"Did he hurt Cormac?" Mrs. Weasley continued, and I shook my head once, my weary gaze going from Mrs. Weasley to Mr. Potter.
"Okay, and then…"
"He kicked me out." I said with a sigh. "He's not going to let me back."
"Cory too?"
"He's allowed back for holidays." I murmured, but I said nothing else. I wasn't that interested in sharing my life story with these adults. I liked and trusted Mrs. Weasley—enough. But she had such a happy-everyone's-happy view of the world that it made me think that she'd freak out a little hearing a play-by-play of my night. And I just didn't know Mr. Potter.
"Do you think it's safe to send him back?" Mrs. Weasley asked me doubtfully: I could tell what she thought just from her tone. I tried to smother the resentment building for her. She was just trying to help. She didn't get it though.
"Dad doesn't blame Cory for anything." I had no desire to explain to these people that it had only ever been me on Dad's hitlist. Even with Cory being magical, I strongly suspected that Dad still wasn't going to fear Cory as much as he feared me. I was his eldest and I was "infecting" his kids with magic. Cory was more than blameless—he was a victim. Someone who needed pity and aid. Not someone to be blamed.
"Does that make it safe? People who abuse their kids aren't exactly… reasonable…" Mrs. Weasley said carefully.
"He's not abusive." I said quietly. "He's a jackass. But this," I held up my wrist, "Was an accident."
"Here we go." Albus murmured, pushing himself to his feet and pushing past me: I glared at him pointedly. "Ask her whether or not she wants to report him, next. I dare you." He walked behind me to a window that looked onto Diagon Alley, stopping there and putting his hands on the sill.
"Al…" Mr. Potter said scoldingly. Mrs. Weasley was studying me though.
"Molly, sweetheart," She said in a kind voice. Uh-oh. She was working too hard to prove with everything from her tone to her facial expression that she was on my side. She thought I was being seriously abused. "Aside from whether or not your father would hurt Cory—we have to call the police." Mrs. Weasley said in her best let's-be-reasonable voice. "Because regardless of whether he would hurt your brother, he's already hurt you."
"Molly, I grew up with my aunt and uncle—my uncle only hit me very, very rarely but it was the way he treated me in general that was the most harmful, compared to the physical conflicts I had with him." Mr. Potter said quietly. I blinked. Mr. Potter—Harry James Potter, boy-who-lived and essential savior of the free wizarding world—had been abused as a kid? "It's not healthy for him to treat you in a resentful way when you haven't done anything to deserve it."
"It's not that simple." I said after a second.
"Why not?" Mr. Potter demanded, his eyes a little narrowed at me, but not in a confrontational way. He was just trying to figure out what was going through my head. "Your dad doesn't deserve to abuse his kids and then be protected by them—"
"I'm one of five." I said quietly. "My brothers Nate and Cal and my sister Ellie are all at home. They're muggles, or at least Nate is for sure. Cal and Ellie are seven." I raised my eyebrows. "If I report my dad to the police, the police will take Nate and Cal and Ellie and put them in homes." I met Mr. Potter's gaze challengingly. "I'm not contradicting that you had a hard childhood, Mr. Potter, and I think that what my father did was wrong in the most essential of ways: parents shouldn't hurt their children. But he's not hurting them. It's just me. So please stop acting like you understand what's happening." I sighed quietly. "Because I'm getting Cory and I through this best I can and if that plan means I don't call the police on my father, then that's the way this is going to go."
"Okay." Mr. Potter said, shaking his head after a second. "Tomorrow, Molly, I want to talk to you more about this, but I'll let this sit for right now." He sighed. "Forgive me for the change in topic, but did you tell Cormac before you sent him upstairs that you apparated here?" I nodded. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you in Albus's year at Hogwarts?"
"Molly, sweetheart… You're fifteen." Mrs. Weasley said faintly. "Rosie is fifteen. If she tried to do that, I'd kill her." Her face seemed extremely pale.
"I'm assuming you weren't spliced, since you're standing before me and I don't see anything…" Mr. Potter said, but there was a dazed tone to his voice. He was as thrown off about this as Mrs. Potter, just better at hiding it.
"Molly, that's just so dangerous—you can never try anything like that ever again, alright?" Mrs. Weasley said earnestly to me. "Ever, ever again." I nodded, and Mrs. Weasley just turned to Mr. Potter. "She apparated."
There were a few beats of silence before Mr. Potter straightened up, running his hand through his hair. "I—have to get back to work—Hermione, you should come back too." Mr. Potter was obviously still a little dazed from my confession of apparation. "Make sure that there's no record of Molly's magic—and maybe get started on some wards for underage apparition?" Mr. Potter suggested faintly.
"I can't just let her off without even a warning, Harry—" Mrs. Weasley murmured as Albus came back over, coming to stand just behind me. I twisted to look up at him and he just met my gaze for a moment before he looked away. I swallowed, before I looked back at his dad and unt.
"She's your daughter's best friend and—"
"I wasn't there so I wouldn't be able to attest to that it was absolutely necessary in front of the Wizengamot so I can't just write it off unless I can defend her myself—"
"Molly won't have to go in front of the Wizengamot, right?" Albus asked after a second worriedly, leaning forward. I twisted to out-right glare at him now. Albus and I were not friends. He had no right to sound this worried about me. My own parents hadn't demonstrated this level of concern for me.
"No, Al—no, of course not." Mr. Potter said consolingly. "First offense rules and self-defense rules and Hermione will take care of it, right?" Mr. Potter demanded. Mrs. Weasley rolled her eyes.
"Alright, I'll—have my assistant botch up the paperwork and make sure Molly's magic never makes it into a file." Mrs. Weasley said in irritation. "But if I get caught, I'm going to tell the inquiry board that gets my case that you made me do it." Mrs. Weasley said incredibly maturely. Mr. Potter shrugged: he didn't care.
Mrs. Weasley looked back at me, seemingly a little embarrassed from being caught acting like an eight-year-old. "Alright, sweetheart, I'll be back late tonight, but Rose will be along in a bit, sweetheart, after she finishes dinner with my parents." Mrs Weasley smiled at me tiredly. "So I'll talk to you tomorrow, alright?" She stood up, smiling at us. "And Al, you might want to bring her by Sera's brother so he can heal her wrist." She looked at me sympathetically. "I know it's just a bruise, but it still looks like it hurts."
"I'll bring her by." Al agreed quietly. Mrs. Weasley smiled at us, then disapparated with a bang, closely followed by Mr. Potter. Al and I stood there for a second before I turned to glare at Albus.
"What are you doing?" I demanded. "We're not friends. We're not—anything. You're my best friend's cousin and you're acting like you're worried about me or something. And thanks if you stop acting like you're my flipping—what was that in front of your dad?" I gestured frantically behind me, scowling deeply. "Ask her, I dare you. Are you twelve?"
"Sorry for worrying about you." Al said with narrowed eyes. I flushed at his words, but made no apologies. I was doing this my way because this was a crappy situation and I couldn't waste my time making apologies for trying to fix this to the best of my abilities. Even if Albus got a harsher end of the bargain than he deserved.
Albus studied me for a second before the fight seemed to leave him: his shoulders slumped a little, and his form stopped being so tense. He reached up and pushed some of his getting-to-be-too-long hair out of his face. "We are too friends." He said after a moment.
"If we're friends then Rose and Scorpius are married." I said mildly. Albus wrinkled his nose. Rose was, against all odds, close friends with Scorpius Malfoy, much to Al and James's distress. They'd both flipped on her several times during our first few years at school, but for all you can say about Rose being attention needing and perhaps not the most modestly dressed girl in the world, she was loyal as hell.
"You can't say things like that." Al said uncomfortably. Then he dropped his expression of discomfort and smiled a little oddly. "No, we're friends though." I frowned up at him, and he pushed by me, walking past me. I almost laughed: as if he thought he got the last word in this.
"And exactly how d'you figure that?" I demanded, turning on my heel to follow him. "Since, you know, I've been here, oh, twenty minutes, and we've spent the entire time snipping at each other."
"Friendship." Albus insisted.
"Enemy-ship."
"Your argument would be more believable if you'd bother to use real words." Al noted, glancing at me over his shoulder with an easy grin. I blinked. Al was happy again. After being angry about my supposed abuse.
God, was this kid moody as hell.
"But since we're presenting our evidence: I've known you since we were eleven." Albus began, holding up one finger as he started up the stairs. I followed him, too bewildered to let this go.
"I've known everyone our year at Hogwarts since we were eleven, I'm not friends with all of them—" I protested. "That's ridiculous.
"We sit together on the train every year—" Albus continued, holding up another finger. It was as if he'd never heard me. I narrowed my eyes at him. I didn't take well to being ignored.
"Because Rose is your cousin and my best friend." I said irritatedly. "You two sit together and we sit together but you and I aren't really sitting together though I suppose, strictly speaking, yes, we are in the same compartment."
"We were potions partners second year—"Albus held up a third finger as he stepped onto the landing. He directed himself towards one of the rooms—133. "That means we've collaborated on something before." Al said with an easy shrug of his shoulders. "We're friends."
"Because you needed a partner who actually paid attention because you were two busy not paying attention with Fred Weasley to take notes and my best subject is Potions—" I said angrily as Albus led the way into their room, and I followed him unapologetically, ignoring the fact that Sera and James seemed to be chatting on the bed. I raised my eyebrows—I hadn't seen them floo back from the Ministry and the Potter estate. Of course, I had been a bit distracted. Then I remembered I'd left one of Al's points unaddressed. "We're not friends!" I insisted, but I sounded a little bit like a four-year-old sounding a tantrum. I'd waited too long for my dispute to be taken seriously.
"We're friends." Albus said easily, sitting on his bed and opening his trunk, which was off the end of his bed. He began to rifle through his things as if completely unconcerned with our conversation.
"No, we are not!" I said with scowl to Al. "I wouldn't be friends with some—concieted—wanker—"
"Language!" Albus tutted, shaking his head in mock-disapproval.
"You're the mental case here, okay?" I said after a second. "You're crazy." I made a frustrated noise before I fell onto the end of his bed, my legs hanging off the end but me lying down, so I was staring up at the ceiling. Then I paused, and pushed myself up on my elbows, realizing that James and Sera had stopped talking to watch us. I blushed but said nothing: Al glanced back at me, then followed my gaze to his brother and Sera, before he also blushed.
"Molly isn't wrong about you being a mental case." James said to his brother.
"Awfully sweet of you to offer your input." Albus said sarcastically.
"I assume Mr. Potter and Mrs. Weasley are gone, if you two are up here," Sera said with an amused smile.
"Yeah, they went back to work—oh, Sera—could Wes heal Molly's wrist if I brought her by St. Mungo's?" Albus demanded of Sera, sounding a little antsy, and the older girl raised her eyebrows at Albus.
"No, it's just a bruise, it doesn't matter—Al, stop it." I ordered, glaring at him.
"You're acting like a two-year-old." He shot back at me.
"If I'm two than you're a freaking infant–" I began.
"I'm sorry, correct me if I'm wrong," James began in a bewildered tone. "But are you two losers arguing over whether or not you're friends?" Albus and I fell silent, and I felt an embarrassed blush work it's way up my face: I considered myself more mature than I was acting, right now. "Eh, you're both infants." James decided. "Yes, that seems fair."
"Jamesie, leave them alone," Sera said fondly, her hand tapping James's arm lightly. "Molly, if you would like my brother to heal that, he'd be happy to, I'm sure."
"It's fine, thanks." I said with a tight smile. I glanced back at the door, wondering for a moment whether I should go check on Cory, before Albus's stomach growled loudly. I laughed quietly, but Albus looked too pleased with himself for making me laugh, even if it had been unintentional, so I swallowed the rest of my laughter, rolling my eyes after a second.
"Al, come grab dinner with us—" Sera said lightly.
"No." James and Al said together. Al glared at little at his brother, and James just looked unapologetically up at Al. "I live with the kid. I refuse to spend more of my voluntary time with him."
"I practically live with you dorks too—" Sera pointed out.
"Yes, but Albus has a respect for your privacy that does not extend to me." James said irritatedly.
"He's not wrong." Al said with a grin.
"Well, gosh, if Al's not welcome… sorry, kiddo." Sera said, shrugging at Albus. She gestured to us, smiling a little. I was put a little off by her smile—it was as if she knew something that I didn't. "Guess it's just you two for dinner." She said significantly. I groaned loudly in irritation. Ew. Dinner. Alone. With Albus.
"Er—I'll just grab something with Cory—" I tried, shooting Albus a doubtful look. Al flashed me an easy smile, and I felt something nervous start in my stomach. I hated how off my game Al made me feel.
"C'mon…" Al said wheedlingly, and I frowned at him a little: why couldn't he just leave well enough alone? Why in the world would he want to spend time with me when it was so clear that we were not good at being together?
"And I really should write Nate and Cal and Ellie." I muttered, running a hand through my hair.
"Didn't you just spend a lot of energy convincing my dad and my aunt that they'd be fine?" Albus demanded skeptically.
"Mm-hmm, because my parents are super great." I said sarcastically, under my breath. Al didn't move his gaze from my face, though, and I met his searing green gaze for a second before I sighed. "No, Al. Cory's going to have two trillion questions and I know he's freaked out and aside from that I need to figure out what Cory needs for school and what I need for school—"
"Your Hogwarts letters." Albus said gently.
"My dad tore them up." I admitted, and Albus winced. In the corner of my eye, I saw James studying his brother as if he were fascinated by what he was doing. I didn't see what was so fascinating. All Albus was doing was bothering me. Nothing particularly new about that. "I have to figure out what I need—"
"You can just buy what's on my list tomorrow," Albus said sensibly.
"Cory needs stuff—"
"Diagon Alley is swarming with new first years, I'm sure some mother will let you copy down her kid's list." Albus suggested easily. I glared at him: he was difficult to argue with. He just wanted to answer all of the problems rather than release me from my responsibility to go to dinner.
"I don't want to ask some random mum to use their kid's list, she'll think I'm mental—" I was whining now, and finding excuses. But Albus was tiring. And I was already tired. "And I have to find a good second-hand place to buy Cory's things cheap—"
"I'll help you find a good place tomorrow." Albus offered gently, putting a hand on my shoulder and guiding me towards the door. "Dinner, though, can't wait." I shrugged my shoulders uncomfortably, squirming away from him and then turning to glare. He continued to advance though, so I fell back a step, and then another.
"Al…" I whined. "I'm exhausted. It's been a long day—and it's Cory's birthday still. Shouldn't I be—I dunno, a good sister? Take care of him or something?"
"Molls, he'll be fine." Albus said, and I glared at him. Molls wasn't an acceptable shortening of my name. My mum called me that when I was little and it'd taken years of tantrums to get Mum and Dad to stop calling me that in public. But it wasn't until I'd turned eleven and gotten my Hogwarts letter that my parents stopped using my nickname at all. I didn't miss it, but it had a lot more weight to it than people assumed.
"Molls?" I asked in a lethal voice, my eyes narrowed. Al raised his eyebrows.
"Molly." Albus repeated a little nervously. He seemed to have realized that this was extremely unwelcome. He paused. Then, he guessed. "Melissa?" He took another step forward. I narrowed my eyes at him.
What was Albus doing? This felt like a game but I couldn't figure out what the rules were. He was getting personal—talking me off a ledge, defending me to myself in terms of whether or not I should call the police on my dad, cajoling me into dinner. But I didn't understand why he'd ever want to eat dinner with me. Or why he wanted us to be friends. Or how I was supposed to react to all of these wildly unexpected things.
"Molly." I said finally. "Molly Sienna Gale." I flashed him a false smile as he took another step forward and I stepped back against the wall beside the door in James's room. Sera and James were watching us unabashedly, but I didn't care. "And Molly Sienna Gale doesn't leave her brother upstairs while she eats dinner with her non friend." I pulled away from Albus, turning on my toes to walk down the hall towards the room I was sharing with Cory. Albus followed me. Incorrigible prat.
"He's eleven. He won't want to eat dinner with his lame big sister—" Al said teasingly.
"I'm his only big sister." I retorted. "I'm his lame big sister and his cool big sister. So no standards." I snorted in laughter. "And our seven-year-old sister Ellie is the biggest brat in the entire universe so I sincerely doubt that I rank lower than her in terms of—" I fell silent as I opened the door. Cormac was asleep on his bed, his arm thrown over the book he'd been reading upstairs. Poor kid. He'd only been up here alone for fifteen minutes. For him to already be asleep, he had to have been more exhausted than I was.
I grabbed the blanket at the bottom of Cory's bed, shaking it out and draping it over him, before grabbing the book and putting it on his bedside table. I picked up my wand from where I'd dropped it on my bed when I'd moved everything up here with Cory and tapped the lamp on the bedside table, then the one on the desk. I stepped back from the dark room, dropping my wand back on the bed, before I turned to face Al, still in the doorway. I pressed a finger to my lips before shooing him out, and I followed, closing the door quietly behind me.
"He's asleep." Al noted softly, smirking a little as I turned to face him. He was leaning against one side of the thin doorway, while I was still standing with my back to the door, my hand just dropping from the doorknob. "Come eat dinner with me."
"I only eat with my friends, sorry." I said quietly with a half-smile. "And you've yet to make your case as to how exactly it is we're supposed to be friends…"
"I made my case…but let's say, for argument's sake, that we're not friends." Albus said, shrugging his shoulders lightly, the smirk never leaving his features. There was a glint in his eyes that I couldn't quite place: was it humor? Did he think he was making a joke out of me? "Let's make friends. We'll eat, chat. It's completely mundane, nothing to lose."
"Ah, but my dignity wouldn't let me be seen with the likes of you…" I said with a small laugh. "My pristine reputation would be ruined…"
"Your pristine reputation could take the hit, I reckon." Albus murmured, taking a half-step closer to me. We were very, very close, now, his chest not an inch from mine, his green eyes sharp on me.
"What are you playing at, Potter?" I murmured after a beat. Albus raised his eyebrows.
"And we're back to last names… Gosh, Molly, I thought we were closer than this." Albus said, pressing a hand to his heart. I narrowed my eyes. He hadn't answered my question.
"Hmm I get this now." I said, suddenly understanding what was happening here. Al was, in short, trying to hook up with me. God, was I slow on the uptake.
Oh, Ew.
Ew, if that was what was really happening here, Al was hugely sleazy. Like, a new level of ick. "You get an Outstanding for effort, but a Troll for execution." I told him after a second. Al frowned at me for a half a second before his easy smile returned.
"Well, gosh, Miss Gale, I don't rightly know what you're talking about…" Albus said mock-innocently, and I shook my head with a grin.
"Incorrigible." I murmured. "This is remarkable. You really don't take rejection very well. Or… at all. You reject rejection." I shook my head. "Remarkable."
"If I reject it, perhaps it would be best to accept, then?" Albus suggested.
I snorted in laughter. "No."
"How you wound me…" Albus said dramatically.
"You're obnoxious." I decided after a second, pulling away. "I'm going to go wait for Rose downstairs." I turned to walk backwards, facing Albus with a rueful smile. "And so you know, you see this, right here? This debate? I won that. I cleaned the board. I want props."
"Eh… I have to disagree. You won the battle, maybe. But you're going to lose the war." Al promised with a grin.
"You're about as charming as a toad." I warned. "So the odds are against you."
"And you're as pretty as a princess." Albus said in a sugary voice.
"Get some pride, Potter, and move on." I muttered, rolling my eyes. I turned and faced the hallway, ignoring the boy behind me now. I started down the stairs and then, when I got to the bottom, I made a beeline for the girls' lavatory. I slipped inside, locking the door behind me and turning to face the mirror, pushing my hair out of my face.
What the hell had just happened?
