DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter is the property of J. K. Rowling
6 years ago
Albus does not particularly like flying, but he doesn't particularly dislike it either. He enjoys the wind whispering through his hair when he flies in lazy circles under an autumn sky, drifting downwards along the paths of the yellow-orange leaves, the red-leaves carpet fluttering beneath his feet. He likes the crisp air that breaks against his forehead and the steady-slow scent of leaf-rot that drifts on the breeze.
But it isn't autumn, it's summer, and summer means flying of a different sort. Summer means seemingly jet propelled brooms zooming through the air, flying high enough to become specks in the sky, and launching toward the ground in a blur, pulling from the dive in the last possible second, all while accompanied by equally frenzied balls.
Summer means Quidditch, and Quidditch means watching James soaring over the roof laughing with Him by his side from the shade of the gnarled tree-oak.
Albus never joins them, in summer-flying that is. It's too fast, too shocking, too surprising. It startles him the way a loud noise startles him in the early morning, when he is almost awake but not quite, jarring his nerves and leaving him tingling with diluted fear.
He doesn't feel that rush of adrenaline, that sense of freedom that so many of his relatives, including Him, claimed to feel slashing through the air. To Albus, summer-flying is out of place, it's too brief and abrupt and rushed; too easy to gain, too easy to lose.
It has no place, not in his world.
Not in his world where time moves languidly, where not even the tiniest movement of paper-translucent insect wings goes unnoticed. His world, made up of trappings of moment-snapshots, unchanging glimpses of outside.
Unchanging, the full white fluffs of the dandelion at exactly that time in the summer, the precise lime-green of the sycamore leaves on that day, the almost spherical dew drop hanging on that grass-blade, warping the tip in that particular way.
Small things, but it's always the small things that don't change.
People are not small things.
People change, like the way the lines-groves accumulate annually on His face, like the way He summer-flies higher every year with James, higher and faster, like the way He is in the Quidditch-backyard with James more and more.
Like James, who is leaving for Hogwarts when summer ends. James, who laughs with Him the way Albus has never been, nor will ever be, able to. James, who is bold and daring and rash, James, who is as unafraid as He always is, James, who captures His attention, James, who Albus is afraid will bring that attention with him when he goes and leave Albus with none.
James, who would never cry as Albus does that night after summer-flying with his cousins.
James, who would never have Him knocking on his bedroom door.
"Albus, are you alright?"
Albus doesn't answer because He comes in anyway.
He comes in without a light, and kneels down beside the bed. Albus turns around so that He would not see the tears glistening on his cheeks, not that He can in the dark.
"Tell me what's wrong, Albus."
There are a lot of things he wanted to tell Him, things that James would never tell if he were Albus. So Albus tries to do what James would do.
"Why haven't you ever taught me how to play Quidditch?"
But He knows what he is really asking.
"Well, I wasn't under the impression that you liked Quidditch very much, was I wrong?"
Albus shakes his head begrudgingly, "Not really."
"Then I don't understand why I should force you to learn something that you have no interest in."
"But James..."
"You are not James, Albus, and James is not you. For one thing, James doesn't employ the services of our library nearly as much as you do."
Albus laughs at that through his tears; James would never be caught dead reading.
"And for another thing, Albus," something in His tone makes Albus turn around. In the dim lighting, he can just make out His eyes, clear and green behind the glass pieces.
"You are more like me than James is."
Albus stares, and He smiles, brushing his hair from his forehead.
"I want you to know, that no matter how different you are from James and Lily, I love all three of you the same. I would never think any less of you."
Albus neither believes nor disbelieves Him, because his own truth is different from His, and he isn't very good at making up his mind.
But even so, in the morning, amidst the smoke and the clunking metal, Albus stands on the platform, waving at James.
5 years ago
"Albus, what on earth are you doing here at the owlry at this time of the night?"
"I could ask you the same, Rose." Albus smiles and dips his quill in ink without looking up. He would recognize his cousin's scratch-smooth voice anywhere.
Rose plops herself down beside him unceremoniously, her black robes spilling over the step-stair gaps. "You're writing to Uncle Harry."
"Nicely observed." Albus loops the tops of his 'p's carefully, dabbing at the swirl as to not drip too much ink. The ink smudges anyway, and Albus pauses for a moment to look at the tiny ink-feet tracing the parchment fibres.
"I'm going to write to Dad, he'll probably sleep better once he finds out I'm in Gryffindor." Rose makes a face, the really boring kind with her tongue sticking out. Albus can do better.
And he feels pride for a second because of what Rose said, a sense of I-am-better-than-you that comes from being different. He would never ask that of him.
Rose doesn't say anything else, and Albus welcomes the sandpaper scratching of quill against parchment. It is a comforting sort-of silence, the warm sort that makes Albus think of leather books and writing desks, of coloured water-glass bottles and of Him flipping worn-out pages.
He has always read to Albus, every day since James left.
Every day until today.
And now, sitting under the same moonlight He must be sitting under, surrounded by sleeping owls, Albus feels an odd sort of hollowness. Not homesickness of course, he can't possibly miss home after one day.
It's more like nostalgia, the long fancy word that he learned from Rose last winter after James left again.
It's a funny word, nostalgia, all short-elongated.
Like His voice when he reads, undulating and smooth, comforting.
Comforting and safe, bringing characters that lingered behind Albus' eyelids.
Warm and soft, whispering like the pages of a book.
"Albus, hey, Albus, are you alright?"
Albus jumps, rocking from his cousin's hand shaking his shoulder. He blinks hard at the parchment on his lap, the blue ink-puddles spreading outwards.
"Yes, I'm quite alright, Rose." He is surprised at how thick his voice sounds as he dabs at the wet spots and smears his fingertips in blue.
"You sure? We can write tomorrow, you know, I can come with you then." She peers at him, leaning forward to catch his eyes.
His eyes that everyone says look so much like His, the two spots of always steady green that looks at him with confidence. Eyes that talk to him as clear as He would, watching him as he waved from the moving train that morning.
"I think I'll finish this tonight, no sense in dragging on the suspense about Sorting." Albus smiles a little and is glad when Rose mirrors him.
Somewhere behind them, one of the numerous owls hoots.
Albus would like to think that it's his owl; He once said that owls understand people surprisingly well.
Reviews are appreciated! Many thanks to my Beta reader!