Although he was trying to reaccustom himself to spending time with his family, Albus Potter still felt a bit uncomfortable reading in the living room with his parents and little sister rather than staying in his bedroom. It wasn't much of a change – no one was talking, and Harry had only smiled with that small smile full of an emotion the fourteen-year-old did not yet have the emotional capacity to understand – but he felt very aware of every shift in a person's position, every hitch or sigh in their breathing, every flick of a page or scratch of pen. He knew also – could not push the knowledge to the back of his mind – that his older brother wasn't there. James had dashed out the door earlier that day, calling something about seeing his friends, and hadn't yet returned.

Albus wasn't sure he liked this new awareness. It felt good to be with his family, to feel at home and accepted in a way he hadn't, even as a child, when he'd sought desperately to hide the traits that had gained him entry to Slytherin. However, it was hard to concentrate on his book when he slammed back to the reality of the quiet living room every time his father coughed (which was a lot, because, despite his strenuous denials, it was quite obvious he had a cold). Albus had been on the same page for twenty minutes and kept losing his place.

The front door banged open and the closed just as loudly. Albus jumped and turned, just in time to see the messy dark hair and blue t-shirt of his brother flash past the open door to the hallway.

"James!" Harry called, but it was too late: they could hear footsteps on the stairs and then a door slamming shut.

Harry sighed. He turned to Albus.

"Would you go and ask James to come down, please?" he asked. "I thought it would be nice to have a family dinner – especially since James is always over at Abby's these days."

"I think they're dating," Lily sang from where she bent over a roll of parchment. Lily always seemed to be doing homework these days; that, or she was plotting world domination. It could go either way with Lily Luna.

"I suppose you're expecting me to make this dinner, are you?" Ginny said, standing up.

"I can make–" Harry protested, but Ginny had already gone, leaving Harry staring sheepishly after her.

"I'll just go and tell him, shall I?" Albus said.

He stood up, mournfully ditching his book – Weird and Wonderful Potions for Beginners – on the chair. Although he wasn't nearly as interested in potions as his best friend Scorpius Malfoy, he would take any amount of dusty old professors over talking to his brother.

Though Albus had made up with the rest of his family, even his cousins (including Rose, who was still not impressed with Scorpius's attempts to woo her), he wasn't really sure where he stood with his brother, although he didn't think it was anywhere good. James had stopped teasing him after he'd been Sorted into Slytherin. He'd stopped talking to him altogether. Albus was fairly sure the last time he'd spoken to James Sirius was on Platform Nine and Three Quarters right before his first year at Hogwarts. Unfair though it was, James clearly hated Albus for being a Slytherin, and the worst part was that the younger wizard couldn't stop himself caring.

But they would have to talk again at some point. Albus wanted to feel part of his family again, he really did, and that meant making nice with his older brother – Quidditch player, prankster, Gryffindor extraordinaire.

Besides, Albus thought with a sudden spurt of anger, it wasn't him who was being unreasonable. James had no right to ignore him just because he'd been Sorted into a different house and was best friends with a Malfoy. Albus wasn't a worthless, sneaking Slytherin. He'd been on more adventures than James had, hadn't he? Alright, so it hadn't actually been much fun, he'd accidentally destroyed the world as they knew it, and had had to be rescued by his father. James had never even tried to do something original. He was just a repeat of his namesakes.

Angry, afraid of his brother's possible reaction, and ashamed of himself for that fear, Albus to didn't bother to knock on James's bedroom door. He just pushed it open and started talking, his voice too loud, too aggressive, and God, just kill him now, this was already too embarrassing.

"Dad says you've got to come down," he said, ignoring the inconvenient fact that Harry was far too soft to order his children around like that. "We're having a family dinner and you're part of the family."

He felt that "unfortunately" was implied at the end of that. He hadn't intended it to be – except it was entirely possible he had.

James was sitting hunched over on the edge of his red bed – good Godric (Albus thought him the most appropriate founder to call up for this), the entire room was red, with accents of gold. Although, since Albus had decorated his own room in green and silver (though much more tastefully, of course), he supposed he really shouldn't make any snide comments about the colour scheme. Albus had no intention of being the hypocrite here. House loyalty wasn't necessarily a bad thing and James was definitely a Gryffindor.

Except, right now, Albus thought James actually looked quite out of place in this room. He had the messy black Potter hair, but it was longer than Albus's or Harry's and looked much more like he'd spent hours styling it in front of a mirror than like he'd just rolled out of bed. Although he was well muscled from playing Beater at Hogwarts, he didn't look like brawn-for-brains Quidditch player – he looked like he could break hearts simply by walking into the room (which, Albus thought a little sourly, he probably could). He was wearing Muggle jeans and a Ravenclaw blue t-shirt with some reference Albus didn't understand. But the most out-of-place thing about him was his attitude: he looked defeated, staring intently at something on his right arm and not looking round when his little brother barged into the room.

"I won't be when they find out," he muttered.

Albus paused. The negative emotions that had carried him through the door were fading – Albus had never managed to stay angry at James for long – and were being replaced by a rising tide of curiosity. James was always in trouble, so often that he never even bothered to defend himself from accusation, but Albus had never seen him look so dejected before, and nor could he imagine what his brother had done that was so bad it had made him thing that Harry and Ginny, who loved their family above all else, would kick him out.

"What'd you do?" Albus asked, completely forgetting that James was supposed to hate him.

"Got a tattoo," James admitted grudgingly.

There was a moment of silence. James still hadn't looked up. Albus didn't move from the doorway. Then:

"What? How?" Albus asked, the questions jerked rapidly from him. He advanced eagerly, still talking. "Don't you have to be, like, seventeen? What's it look like? That's so cool! Mum's going to kill you. Can I see? Did it hurt? That's so–"

He stopped, embarrassed. James had turned to look at him now, the corners of his mouth quirked up in amusement.

"Breath, Al," he said, as though they were still twelve and eleven. "You can see." He held out his right arm. "Just don't touch, it's still a bit sore. I had it done the Muggle way, and Abby brought pain relieving potions but they can only do so much."

Albus crawled over the bed to stare at James's arm.

Albus had always been jealous of how much fitter and more tanned James seemed to be than him. No matter how much time the younger boy spent sitting in the sun he, like Lily, only seemed to burn and, well, exercise just wasn't happening. James, on the other hand, seemed to have sprung into being like this: golden tan, windswept black locks, toned body. Now he had become even cooler in the eyes of his brother and all teenage boys everywhere: over a patch of irritated red skin on his bicep flowed delicate black ink lines in the outline of a spreading tree. Underneath it, in looped, slanted writing Albus had to squint to read even with his glasses on, was a quote he didn't recognise: All who wander are not lost.

"Cool," he breathed.

"Yeah," James agreed, staring down at the tattoo. It was clear that, whatever his fears of his parent's reactions, he didn't regret it.

"Where'd you get it?" Albus asked. "You said 'the Muggle way'…"

"Muggle tattoo parlour," James said. "Abby knows a place. We took an Aging Potion – it's worn off now. We had to use fake IDs because we couldn't do too much on the potion. In even just five years the arm might be very different and it's better to have the tattoo aging with you rather than skipping back to younger skin and muscles."

"It looks Muggle," Albus mused, eyes tracing the intricate lines. "Wizarding ones move, don't they? I'd like a wizarding tattoo one day." His brain caught up with his ears. "You got it with someone? A girl?"

"Yeah, Abby Walker," James said. "She got a different quote. Same book, same poem different line."

Albus had never met Abby Walker, a Muggle-born girl in James's year and house and the person he was closest to at school. She'd come to stay with the Potters before, but those had been in the days when Albus avoided his family and especially his older brother and his friends. He knew of her mostly from gossip. She was a fiery, fierce-tempered girl who had short patience with bullies and gossipers, and no time for suck-ups. She'd grown up alternating between her Muggle grandmother's house and her equally Muggle father's flat and spoke fondly of her stepmother and her host of sort-of-cousins-but-it's-complicated and with annoyance of her younger Muggle half-brother. She and James were inseparable: they took all the same classes, were Beaters together on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, went to Hogsmeade together every time, and were generally even closer than Albus and Scorpius.

"Your girlfriend?" Albus said now. He supposed it made sense that James would want to get matching tattoos with the love of his life, even if they were only fifteen – age had never affected Potters' loves before.

"What? Abby's not my girlfriend!" James said, frowning, and Albus remembered that James probably hated him. "We'd never date. Ew, that would be like dating Lily – she's like my sister. Anyway, I've got a boyfriend," he added, as though this bombshell wouldn't leave his brother incoherent and stuttering from shock.

Albus choked. "What? You– what?"

Suddenly James looked as nervy and frightened as he had when first considering the consequences of his illegal tattoo. "Yeah. I have a boyfriend. It's not – It's not really a secret, as such, I'm not – not ashamed of it, of – being gay, or dating him, or – but it's just – it's easier, you know? Because the media would jump all over it and I don't – I don't want them in my private life and I won't want him to have to deal with all the shit we got, growing up and at school – and I'd have to tell Mum and Dad and Grandma and Grandpa that I'm not – I'm not the boy who's going to fall for a pretty, spirited girl with red hair like Dad and Grandfather James. My friends know, but I know they won't tell – and you know what this family is like with secrets."

Albus nodded automatically. It did make sense. God knew he'd have like to keep his Sorting a secret when in first happened. Maybe this James Sirius Potter, the James who couldn't string a sentence together when talking about his sort-of-secret boyfriend and didn't want to disappoint their parents, wasn't the James Sirius Potter who had teased Albus in front of the Hogwarts Express – but Albus didn't think he was the same Albus Severus Potter as he had been then. And, maybe, this James had been there all the time, just not yet old enough to have figured out his sexuality and what that might mean for him and whoever he dated. Albus knew how damaging newspaper and magazine articles could be and how much they could hurt. Though Lily had seemed to lap up the attention, he and James had always been united in hating the journalists and busybodies who seemed to think it their duty to learn whatever they could of the Boy Who Lived's children's lives. Albus had assumed that James's attitude had changed once he started at Hogwarts, but he was beginning to suspect that that had been prejudice on his part.

Albus knew, too, the fear of losing one's place in the family. Of not fitting in. Of being a disappointment simply for who he was.

"I won't tell anyone," Albus promised, and felt six years old again, conspiring with his brother to steal the Marauder's Map from Harry's office.

"Thanks," James said.

For a moment there was silence. Albus felt oddly comfortable with the boy who'd teased him for years and then ignored him for almost four more. James running his fingers round and round his wrist, absentmindedly. His tattoo shone black against too pink skin, drawing attention.

"Who's the lucky bloke?" Albus asked eventually and James blinked, apparently having forgotten that he wasn't alone.

"Damon Wells," he said softly.

Albus's eyes widened. He hadn't expected to recognise the name, but he did – because Damon, despite being in James's year, was in the same house as Albus, and (although his mother, at least, was definitely Muggle) far too similar to Scorpius in appearance not to be related to him (the latest Malfoy scandal).

"But he's a Slytherin! I thought you hated Slytherins!" he blurted.

James looked up at him sharply.

"No," he said, "why would I hate Slytherins? Damon's sweet. Slytherin doesn't have to mean evil, we both know that." Albus flushed and looked down. James seemed to understand. "I don't hate you, Al. I never have. I certainly don't hate you for being in Slytherin."

"You always seemed to," Albus muttered. "You stopped talking to me after my Sorting."

James sighed. He turned to face Albus completely, bringing his legs onto the bed and resting his chin on his knees. Albus picked at a faded bit of gold embroidery on the duvet cover and refused to look at him.

"I didn't stop talking to you after your Sorting," James said gently. "I stopped talking to you after you got on the train. I don't talk to any of our family or family friends at Hogwarts if I can help it; ask Lily if you don't believe me. You being in a different house than me made it easier not to talk to you, and would have done so if you'd been in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. And then you were always hiding in your room during the holidays so I didn't talk to you then either."

"Why?" Albus whispered, embarrassed to find that his throat was tight. "What's wrong with our family?"

Albus looked up. James looked away. An uncomfortable muscle jumped in his throat.

"I didn't–" He cleared his throat and tried again. "I didn't want to be like Lily, or Mini Molly, or Dominique or any of our cousins – never really talking to anyone who doesn't have Weasley blood or whose parents weren't in Dumbledore's Army. We're Harry Potter's children, Al. It would have been so easy, to just get wrapped up in Dad's circle, and to never really think about the people outside it except as lives to be saved – to never really think about who I might be outside it. That's what everyone else seems to have done – everyone except us. Even Teddy, even though he's so much older than the rest of us.

"I didn't want that. I didn't want to be that person, the spoilt brat everyone expected me to be – and they did expect it, even if they didn't admit it to themselves. So I made a rule for myself: I wouldn't talk to anyone whose parents I knew. Of course it isn't that simple – I have to talk to our cousins sometimes because otherwise the adults would get involved, and Mum and Dad know so many people, so if I completely ignore their children based on their parents I have the same problem I'm trying to avoid, only in reverse. But most of my close friends are Muggle-borns, like Abby, or half-bloods raised in the Muggle world, like Damon. I'm not just Harry Potter's son to them and they're not just children of my parents' friends who are easy to hang out with because our parents get along. I think that's better, for me at least."

Albus didn't say anything. Now that he thought about it, it was true that he couldn't remember seeing James with his cousins at Hogwarts. He was always laughing, always surrounded by people, always popular, but they were always people Albus recognised only because he'd seen them with James. One year age difference and a bit of shyness could not have explained his complete lack of familiarity with his brother's friends if he'd known their parents.

Albus remembered Rose when they'd first got on the train, saying they could pick and choose who to sit with. This what they both meant, Albus realised, except Rose had seen it as a good thing and James had viewed it as a dangerous habit to pick up. And hadn't Albus chosen to sit with the lonely blonde boy instead?

"You must talk to Lucy and Fred," Albus said. "You three play pranks all the time."

"They play pranks," James corrected, "I get detentions because no one can bring themselves to believe I wasn't involved. Named after two pranksters? I couldn't possibly help myself." He sounded a bit sour and turned away from Albus, morose. "Pranks aren't my thing. They never have been. I've always gotten the blame for other people's pranks. Fred and Lucy mostly, of course, although I'm not sure why they bother since they get in trouble too. I know you've done it and Teddy used to do it, too."

Albus felt a surge of guilt. He had blamed pranks on James before. He'd figured that James did so many, and was in so much trouble anyway, and he would probably love getting the credit, and he was always bullying Albus so it was only fair… but he was trying to justify himself and he knew it. He hoped, if he'd known that everyone else was also doing it (and it seemed fairly obvious to a Slytherin like Albus that they had been), he wouldn't have been so eager – but he didn't know if it was true.

Albus opened his mouth to apologise, then:

"Wait," he said. " You said Teddy did it too?"

James nodded. "Yeah. Dumb stuff mostly. Whoopee cushions, old WWW products, that sort of thing." He didn't seem nearly as horrified as Albus was.

"But he's seven years older than you! He shouldn't have been getting his baby godbrother into trouble for the things he did!"

James shrugged. "I guess he didn't want to risk getting kicked out of the family – not that anyone would even think about it, but you know he's always been worried about it. Besides, it's not like I ever corrected anyone. Maybe he expected me to."

Albus wasn't convinced. James's shoulders had gone tense again and Albus suspected that James knew that it had been wrong of Teddy and didn't want to admit it. James had always idolised Teddy, which Albus had never really understood. Teddy was cool and kind and all, but he was so much older than them and had never really had time for Albus and the other younger cousins, especially not after starting Hogwarts. But James had spent years trailing after him anyway. Albus was beginning to think he understood why.

"You had a crush on him, didn't you?" he said. "That's why you were always following him around."

"What? No!" James said unconvincingly. "He's our godbrother. He's practically family."

Albus shrugged. "Didn't stop him getting with Victoire and everyone squealing over them. Anyway, at least he isn't actually related to you. I had the most embarrassing crush on Vic when I was seven."

"I remember that," James said, smiling. "You gave her your ice cream."

"You said I wasn't allowed to be part of the family anymore," Albus said, "because anyone who would give up their ice cream for a girl was worse than a Death Eater."

"I stand by it," James said, and Albus hit him on the shoulder (the left, not the right), and the two boys went rolling across the bed, playfully wrestling and laughing. Albus felt lighter than he had done for years.

"Boys!" Harry called from downstairs. "Dinnertime!"

Albus and James sat up, panting. James was looming nervously down at his arm again. Albus leant down and pulled a Quidditch jumper from under a stack of textbooks and chucked it at his brother.

"Here," he said. "Use this. I'm sure there's some sort of charm to make skin look smooth."

"Thanks," James said. He hesitated, then said, "And thanks for not hating me. For being gay or for being a terrible brother."

Albus smiled. "Thanks for not hating me for being in Slytherin or for blaming my pranks on you."

As Harry watched his sons over dinner, he pleased to see that his plan had worked. They were getting along again, in the playfully teasing way they had as children, except now Albus wasn't afraid to let his mean side out. It was nice to see. Even if he didn't understand why Albus raised his eyebrows suggestively and James flushed and glared at him when Lily mentioned James's good-looking friend Damon Wells.