A/N: I've had this done for a while, but I've been leery about publishing it. Also FF wouldn't let me change the summary for a while. I don't know, you can tell me what you think of it. Al's third year seems to be on my mind for some reason, but if I add to this, the other chapters will be all over the board.
Disclaimer: I disclaim! Just borrowing some characters. No money being made at all.
Professor Marcus Lancing had held the post of Defense against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts for twenty-one years; ever since the end of the last war. He had dealt with an enormous amount from his students in that time, from severe personal phobias (mainly from those students who had been directly involved in the war or who had suffered close losses), trauma from curriculum that struck a little too close to home, (again, mainly from those who were close to the war) as well as physical and mental handicaps (namely from those students who had fought or been wounded during the war). But even Professor Lancing was not prepared for what Albus Potter's first encounter with a bogart would bring up.
It was the first DADA class of the term for the third years, and, as Lancing had done every year since he began teaching, he treated his students to a practical lesson. He picked up the idea from Professor Lupin, whom Lancing had heard ringing praise about as the best Defense professor in nearly two decades, and it had been met with relative success each year. Having your classmates help you confront your fears was unifying and helped students build self-esteem, and most found it an entertaining and exciting beginning to the year.
Albus stood at the back of the line, nervously twirling his wand between his fingers. Rose, waited eagerly for her turn with the bogart beside him, and even Scorpius Malfoy, their unlikely best friend, seemed excited to have a go as they all watched their classmates one by one conquer their fears (literally, if not figuratively).
"What are you so worried about, Al?" Rose inquired glancing at Albus's apprehensive expression. "You're Dad's already taught us how to do it, remember? He wouldn't let us wonder around Grimauld Place until we learned. Even let us use magic outside of school."
"He did?" Scorpius asked, looking impressed. "And did you actually use it?" he couldn't help but add with a smirk to Rose, ever the stickler for rules.
"That's not the point," Rose told him, blushing slightly.
"I know he did," Albus said to Rose, biting his lip. "It's just… well, I didn't actually come across a bogart. I've never really done it before…"
"You'll be fine," Rose assured him confidently. "You're always pretty good at defense. There's nothing to worry about."
But Albus knew there was. Unlike the rest of his classmates seemed to be, Albus was not sure what his bogart was going to turn into. He was scared of a lot of things, but he didn't really consider them his deepest fear. At least he hoped none of them were. He could only imagine what the rest of the class would do if his bogart turned out to be James in a reaper mask or Lily's vicious pet rabbit, pinky. (No one ever believed him when he tried to explain how the thing tried to rip off his hand whenever he got near it.) And the things he was really, really afraid of… well, he didn't know how to turn them funny.
In reality, Albus had been dreading this class all summer; quite the opposite of most of his friends. He thought he knew, somewhere in his gut, what his deepest fear was, but it was so horrifying that he was even afraid to think about the bogart taking its shape.
It'll probably be something stupid, Albus tried to reassure himself as he moved forward with the line and Rose rolled up her sleeves in preparation for her turn.
With a loud crack, the hissing rattlesnake that Emily Fletcher had tied up like a pretzel turned into a luridly dressed clown, leering through dramatic face paint and cackling hysterically as it advanced on Rose, raising its gloved hands towards her. Rose stood her ground without even flinching and raised her wand.
"Riddikulus!" she cried in a strong, fearless voice, and a second later the clown popped as if it were inflated, brightly colored shreds exploding around the room.
"Well done Miss Weasley!" Lancing called above the class's laughter, and Rose beamed as she stepped aside for Al, giving him an encouraging grin and a wink as he passed her on slightly shaky legs.
Well, the moment's come, Albus thought, taking a deep gulp of air to steel himself. No turning back now.
A loud crack echoed yet again around the room and Albus raised his wand. But the image before him froze the blood in his veins and left him breathless. Two bodies were sprawled on the classroom floor, ashen and lifeless. His mother was crumpled in a heap, her firey hair fanning out behind her, eyes closed, as white and still as marble. And beside her, his father lay spread-eagled, gray and still, his eyes, so like Albus's own, open and empty, staring unseeingly up at his son. A pool of dark blood was slowly expanding from both of them.
The room fell silent in horror as Albus choked, feeling as if something very heavy had slammed into his torso.
"R-r-riddikulus!" he gasped, waving his wand, trying to make that horrible image go away. But e hadn't the slightest idea as to how to turn this amusing. "Riddikulus! R-riddikulus!" he repeated, voice cracking and rising with every stammered attempt. He stumbled backwards, waving his wand madly as the classroom seemed to close in around him and all he could see were his parents' white faces, frozen and veiled by death.
Albus couldn't breathe. Wanting only to get away from this grisly sight straight out of his worst nightmares, he whirled and sprinted from the room, knocking stunned people aside as he fled and barely noticing. Distantly, he heard Rose, Scorpius, and Professor Lancing calling his name, but he was out of earshot in a second and didn't look back.
But he couldn't escape the bogart. His parents' corpses swam in front of his eyes as if burned onto his retinas; cold, unmoving, far beyond his reach. His stomach lurched and he swerved into the nearest boys' bathroom, diving into a stall and not bothering even to shut the door as his insides heaved.
Scorpius, who had been hot on Rose's heels as she raced after her cousin without even bothering to glance at their professor, found Al slumped on the dirty, tiled bathroom floor, shaking and sweaty and still looking sick. He grabbed a handful of paper towels and ran them under cold water, wrung them out, and handed them to Albus.
"Here," he mumbled, sinking down to the floor beside his friend.
Albus took them wordlessly and wiped his mouth.
"You… gonna be okay?" Scorpius asked anxiously, knowing it was a stupid question. "Do I need to get Madam Pomfrey or anything?"
Albus shook his head and dragged himself to his feet, staggering over to a sink to wash the horrible taste out of his mouth. Scorpius followed, frowning.
After he'd splashed water over his face and wiped it off with his sleeve, Albus looked up at Scorpius in the mirror and muttered, "Some Gryffindor I am, running away from my fears, huh?"
Scorpius had no idea what to say to him. Rose was the one who knew what to say. All the time. But she was stuck outside the door. "No…" he protested feebly. "I'd have run away, too, if I'd seen… that."
Albus grimaced. "I bet I'm the first one ever to fail the bogart practical. Everyone else has normal, legit fears and I pull out that… I must have looked so stupid."
"Al, my bogart is a bumble bee. You can't get much stupider than that," Scorpius told him, trying to cheer him up.
"Yeah, but you're allergic to bees." Albus pointed out.
"And you've seen a lot of graves," Scorpius retorted quietly. "I mean, you're dad's parents… Teddy's parents…. No one can blame you for being afraid of that with what you've grown up around."
"James's bogar was a shark," Albus muttered. "And he barely had time to look at it before he turned into a giant shark squeaky toy with a pink hat."
"Yeah, but…listen Al," Scorpius struggled to find a way to make his friend feel better. "All of our fears are the stupid ones. Clowns and sharks and bees and snakes… we're the cowards for being afraid of them. We can fight back against those things, but you've actually got a real fear. There's nothing you could do about yours. You've got a reason to be afraid of it."
But this was clearly not the right thing to say. Albus blanched, going, if possible, even whiter than before and clenching the sides of the sink painfully tightly.
"What if it did happen?" he asked in a choked whisper. "What if my parents got killed while we're all at school? There're plenty of people who want my dad's blood. From the last war and his job…. He's come really close at work before. And what if someone broke in like what happened to my grandparents and murdered my parents?"
Albus's voice had grown progressively higher and Scorpius was startled to see tears leaking out of his eyes as he leaned over the sink, an arm wrapped around his middle and shaking even harder than before as, unbidden into his mind came the image of his parents' dead bodies sprawled on their living room floor.
Scorpius was lost for words. He'd never dreamed how terrified Albus was of this.
"Al? Are you okay?" came Rose's worried and impatient voice from outside the bathroom door and Scorpius knew she'd been hovering anxiously outside, waiting for them.
"Come on, mate," he said, putting an arm around Al's shoulders and steering him to the door. "It'll all be fine. Your mum and dad are just fine."
Rose was, in fact, hovering impatiently outside the door to the boys' bathroom. She was extremely frustrated by the burrier and was half-tempted to ignore the sign and the rules and just go in anyway. But before she could become impatient enough to barge through it, the door opened.
The moment she saw Albus, Rose drew him into a tight hug.
"Oh, Al…" she sighed, feeling him still shaking. She couldn't blame him one bit. It had been like getting slammed in the stomach to see her aunt and uncle – virtually her back-up parents – lying dead in her classroom.
She caught Scorpius's eye over Al's shoulder and he mouthed 'he's afraid it'll happen'.
"It won't happen!" she told Albus forcefully, letting go of him so she could look right into his bright green eyes. "It won't happen, Al. Do you hear me?"
"It could," Albus said back, voice quaking so much it hardly sounded like his own.
"But it won't!" Rose insisted, stamping her foot. "You're dad won the last two bloody wars, didn't he? He beat Voldemort for Merlin's sake! And your mum's one of the best duelers I know. Mum even says so. And besides that, my mum and dad wouldn't let anything happen to them. There's a reason they survived the last war."
She looked so fiercely determined that Albus managed to swallow the lump in his throat.
"You're parents are good, Al, really good," Scorpius chimed in, seeing Albus beginning to calm down. "And it's not like it used to be. There's no war going on now."
"Yeah," Albus mumbled. "Yeah, you're right. It's stupid to be afraid of it."
"No, it's not!" Scorpius exclaimed in frustration. "It's not stupid to be afraid of it, but it's not going to happen. You can't live in fear of it."
Albus nodded, wiping his nose on the back of his hand.
"You're all going to be alright, Al," Rose told him more gently, putting an arm around his shoulders.
"Class is nearly over," Scorpius pointed out. "Why don't we hide out down in the kitchens for dinner? Get some treacle tart out of the house-elves? I'll tell Professor Lancing you're alright and meet you two down there."
"What do I do?" Albus asked his friends as they slowly began walking down the corridor. "What do I do about my bogart?"
Rose and Scropius shrugged.
"I don't know how to make that ridiculous."
"We can confuse it though," Rose suggested. "If Scorp and I are with you, we can confuse it into trying to turn into all of ours at once. Then you could finish it off good."
"That might work," Albus said slowly. "But what if I've got to do it alone?" he added with a touch of panic as the image swelled in front of him again.
"You won't," Rose said firmly.
"Yeah, what are friends for?" Scorpius added, flinging an arm once more around Al's shoulders.
A small smile crept slowly onto Albus's face as Rose hooked her arm through his like she'd done a million times when they were younger. Well, he sure felt a lot braver with the two of them at his side. Maybe he could take it after all.
A/N: Well, I hope you liked it! I'd love to know what you thought of it! Please? :D