I can't pinpoint the exact date that the anger started. I mean, it's obvious that it really began when Dad died, and probably even when he began his inexorable decline. But for two years after Dad died it was dormant. I suppose it was more of an edge than something that pretty much consumed me. It made me snappy; it caused my grandma to cluck over me. Once, after I'd gotten annoyed with Lily for picking at James for some stupid, imagined offense (honestly, though, she couldn't just relax, especially if it was the wrong time of the month).
"Just shut up, Lily!" My voice came out louder than I wanted it to. Uncle Ron looked over and quirked a grin.
"We're just teasing, Al," James snapped back. "Don't get your knickers in a twist."
I seethed inwardly. Apparently it was not as private as I thought, for Mum and Uncle Ron exchanged exasperated, amused, and saddened expressions. I knew this look well. It meant that either I or my brother and sister had done something that reminded them so much of Dad that they had to acknowledge it.
"Are you reminded of his fifth year?" Uncle Ron murmured.
"Almost every day," Mum said exasperatedly.
It infuriated me that what they said sometimes made no sense. I knew all about Dad's fifth year. He'd spent it training with Albus Dumbledore, for whom I am named, and right before Christmas, he'd taken care of Voldemort once and for all. I also knew that they'd never said anything about Dad being broody (and I'm not stupid, I knew that they were talking about what they called my moods). I don't know what they were playing at, and it only inflamed my annoyance when they tried to pretend that they knew something I didn't.
But I didn't have the heart to snap back at Mum. She tried to put a good face on things, but I heard her crying almost every night when she thought we were asleep.
But everything was slowly boiling all throughout my sixth year. I had the unsettling experience of being ambitious (what can I say? I fully belong in Slytherin), and being completely uninterested in what Hogwarts had to offer. I wasn't a bad student. Dad had always been really relaxed about using magic outside of school ("What's the point? What the Ministry of Magic doesn't know won't hurt them," he'd say. Mum would invariably try to argue, but he could always get her to forget about it.) and I got loads of practice. Plus, Aunt Hermione -- who is prety much the smartest witch on the planet -- took great interest in the education of her nieces and nephews. Sometimes I wondered how my cousins, Rose and Hugo, survived. I pictured them hunched over school desks, reading Hogwarts: A History three times a day.
Needless to say, my growing annoyance with life in general did not go unnoticed by my schoolmates.
Sometime in the fall during my sixth year, I was sitting in the Slytherin common room. I was pretending to study, but I was, in actuality, feeling annoyed that my dad had lied. Well, to be fair, he hadn't lied. He'd told me, the night before I left for my first year at Hogwarts, that he'd made the best friends he'd ever had during his very first ride on the Hogwarts Express. And he had. That wasn't a lie. And I could admit that he had never promised the same thing for me. But it seemed like an affront to destiny that I did not, in fact, meet an Uncle Ron or Aunt Hermione during my first ride.
I'd sat in the same compartment as my cousin Rose. And me and Rose were probably the closest of all the cousins. She's a great girl, she really is. But she's sort of scary how she's so rigid about following the rules. I'm not the only one who thinks this. I remember a day right between my first and second year when Uncle Ron tried to lure her into doing underage magic. The efforts became pretty elaborate, but Rose held out. That sort of self-control scared me, but my uncle just laughed and seemed really proud that she was just like her mother.
But I hadn't really made the type of friendship that my dad had. I couldn't look at someone in my dorm and say to myself yes, I'd want to have this bloke hunt down little pieces of a madman's soul with me.
"Albus Severus Potter," said a voice that was far too familiar. My dark mood took a turn for the worse.
"What do you want, Wilder?" I asked. I didn't even try to make it sound like she wasn't the last person in the world that I wanted to talk to. Emily WIlder is pretty much the bane of my existence.
She sat down on the table. I actually had to move my books out of the way. She would have sat on them if I hadn't. I glared at her, pretending that I hadn't noticed that my hand had brushed up against her bum. And when I gave that up as a bad job, I just glared harder. And, just to infuriate me, her grin widened. I hunkered down in my chair.
"I'm busy, Wilder," I said coldly.
"You know," she said thoughtfully. "I sometimes miss the days when you called me Emmy."
It was her own damn fault that I didn't call her Emmy anymore. We used to be pretty good friends, actually. We didn't meet on the Hogwarts Express, but we met that first night in the common room. We were both feeling a bit out of place. All of the other kids who'd grown up hearing about Harry Potter didn't really know what to make of me joining their house. And they doubly didn't know what to make of Emily; she's a Muggleborn. So we'd sort of banded together. And I'd called her Emmy, and she always said my full name in the exact same manner, putting the stress on the last syllables. I used to think it was pretty funny. She had no idea that magic existed until she got her letter, so she hadn't any clue that I was named for two great heroes of the war. I used to like that. But now... whenever she said my name, it drove me wild.
She cleared her throat when it became clear that I wasn't going to reply to her stupid comment. "Are you working on the essay for Charms?" she asked. I glanced down at the books in my hands. It was obvious that all of them were based on Charms.
"No," I said slowly. "I'm freaking working on the Draught of Peace. See all the potions ingredients?" I held up Quintessance: A Quest. "Isn't it obvious?"
She looked away, and I knew that I'd hurt her. I felt a horrible mixture of guilt and satisfaction. She'd burned me really bad not even two months after Dad died. I just couldn't forgive her.
"You're such a wise arse, Al Potter," she said coolly. Wilder was like that. She could bounce back without more than a second of hesitation. But she couldn't control the dull flush that crept up her neck. "No, wait," she said thoughtfully. "You're not a wise arse, you're a wise asp. Your initials," she said, as if I were a particularly stupid five year old and couldn't have figured that out myself. "ASP. Wise Asp."
A few fifth years laughed a bit nastily (I'd just told them to shut the hell up, so I probably deserved it). And Wilder scooted off the table, flipped that long hair the color of honey over her shoulder, gave me a wink, and sashayed right out the door.
The nickname stuck.
