Evans Home, August 1976

[lilium_evansiae]

It's a solidly good production -- simple sets, straightforward production, nothing terribly innovative (but also nothing innovative for the sake of being innovative), an amazing Oberon balancing a slightly weak Bottom.

Adrian, as is his habit, keeps up something that is part review, part commentary, and part classroom lecture on the way home. Lily and Geraldine have both heard most of what he has to say about A Midsummer Night's Dream before, but it's new for Albus. And maybe it's the new audience, but Adrian seems even more animated than Lily thinks he usually is, and by the time they're back home, Albus and Adrian are deep in conversation and promptly vanish into the back room that essentially serves as Adrian's study.

Lily looks in on them three times, over the next couple hours. An increasing number of books seems to have been pulled from the shelves all around the room each time. Lily's not completely certain either of them even noticed her in the doorway.

"I do hope your father isn't boring that young man," Geraldine says, as Lily helps her get dinner together. It hasn't quite been discussed, but it seems to have been assumed that Albus will stay for dinner. (And at this rate, Albus may wind up having to sleep on the disreputable-looking but very comfortable couch in Adrian's study, because it's going to get way too late to pretend he's off to catch a train.)

"I don't think he's bored at all, really," Lily says. "And Dad's enjoying himself, so we'll let them talk. At least until dinner's ready."

"And possibly all through dinner, too," says her mother, with a slightly wry twist to her tone that would sound not unfamiliar to almost anyone who has talked to her younger daughter.

Geraldine is, of course, right. The conversation stays quite literary all through dinner and pudding, and Albus will have to pretend to contact relatives to tell them that he'll be staying with the Evanses tonight, because there's no way he'd start a train trip at this hour. Adrian might have gone right on talking, too, except that Geraldine insists that he help with the washing up. "That young man did not come to visit you, darling," Geraldine tells him, as Lily and Albus leave the kitchen. (Even though Albus kind of did.)

"I'm going to get us some tea," Lily says, "but if you go back in there, we'll never get away. Up the stairs, last door on the right, and I'll be there in a couple of minutes."

Lily vanishes back into the kitchen, leaving Albus on his own in his great-grandparents' house.

Comments

[lilium_evansiae]

"You think so?"

Lily looks around.

It's a small room with slightly faded wallpaper, shelves wherever there's wallspace for them, all the furniture three inches too close to all the other furniture, a wardrobe she and her mum have been meaning to repaint for three summers now, and a vaguely general air of not being occupied most of the year.

Lily loves it.

"Thanks."

She settles down on the bed, leaving the desk chair for Albus.

"When I was little, Petunia and I shared the room next door, and this was Dad's room for his books and his desk and all. But it was getting hard to walk in here, with all his books, and Petunia and I kind of, er, outgrew sharing a room, so ... I got this one, and Dad took over the room downstairs."

[honourbyname]

Albus takes the desk chair as well as a sip of his tea.

Not simultaneously, as that would have been a bit complicated, and potentially cause messes.

"My dad knew the possibility of my brother and I sharing a room at any point would've been a bad one," Albus says, smiling a little over the rim of his mug, "so we'd always had separate ones."

[lilium_evansiae]

"Yeah?

"What was going to happen if you did?"

[honourbyname]

"A lot of - um. Fighting, probably."

Albus laughs.

"James and I don't always get along."

[lilium_evansiae]

"That's better than I'm doing, then. Tuney and I don't ever get along."

They used to.

But not in recent years.

Lily grins, suddenly.

"You know, Mum has been worried all afternoon that Dad was boring you to tears, and you were just to polite to say anything about it."

[honourbyname]

Immediately, Albus shakes his head.

"Oh, no. Definitely not." There's a brightness in his eyes. "I think your dad's brilliant. He knows so much; I've learned more tonight about Muggle literature than I have in my whole life. And his - your - library is amazing."

[lilium_evansiae]

"Oh, the library is Dad's. The rest of us just visit it.

"And if I'd thought there were even a chance you were bored, I'd have dreamed up some way to rescue you."

But she looked in. He didn't look bored.

"He did that thing, didn't he? Where he starts talking and then something reminds him of something else and you have to follow him around the room and he's pulling books off the shelves and quoting things and handing them to you and before you know it, you're holding nine books and neither of you can quite remember the original question?"

[honourbyname]

Albus laughs.

"Yeah," he says. "And d'you know, I had this thought, while he was doing that. I was thinking, if I really did end up teaching, like I think I really want to, I'd want to be like your dad. He made literature seem so ... exciting."

[lilium_evansiae]

Lily smiles.

"He'd be really pleased to hear that. He loves what he does. Even though I don't think most of his students come close to appreciating him. He says it's worth it for the ones who do.

"And you could definitely do worse, as role models go."

There's Professor Binns, for one.

[honourbyname]

"Yeah, that's true. Honestly, I wish we had professors like your dad at Hogwarts. Not to say they're bad, but - it's really cool to see someone so enthusiastic about what they love to teach. You know?"

[lilium_evansiae]

"I suppose Professor Sprout has retired by your day.

"She can get pretty enthusiastic about Herbology.

"But, yeah, I know."

[honourbyname]

"Yeah. Um. It's Professor Longbottom who teaches Herbology now," Albus explains, smiling. "He's actually a family friend. And - um. Well, he's a brilliant professor too. I feel bad for forgetting about him, now."

[lilium_evansiae]

"Maybe there's something about Herbology that attacts good teachers.

"Like flowers and bumblebees."

[honourbyname]

Albus grins.

"Yeah, maybe. It's those screaming Mandrakes."

[lilium_evansiae]

"You probably have to love it, if you're going to teach a subject that requires you to wear fluffy pink earmuffs in class."

Or you'd do something else.

"You've had a good day, then?"

[honourbyname]

Albus lets out a laugh.



"It's one of the best I've had," he replies, happily. "Thank you for inviting me here, Lily."

[lilium_evansiae]

"You're welcome. I'm glad you were there and it all worked out.

"Midsummer is one of my favorites.

"One of the many things I grew up thinking everyone heard as a bedtime story. Only to learn that, no, most people don't hear Shakespeare instead of Mother Goose."

[honourbyname]

"Mother Goose?"

Albus raises an eyebrow, curious.

[lilium_evansiae]

... how do you explain Mother Goose?

"Um, they're children's rhymes, or nursery rhymes. There isn't really a Mother Goose, but she's kind of used as an author of them, or a way of gathering them as a collection.

"There are all kinds of theories about the rhymes being political, or meanings they'd have had when they were written, but mostly now we just read them to children. Things like, um, 'Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey. Along came a spider, who sat down beside her, and frightened Miss Muffet away.'"

[honourbyname]

Albus laughs a little.

"Oh, that's kind of brilliant. So these were read to kids for bedtime stories?"

[lilium_evansiae]

"Yeah.

"I mean, we heard them, too, growing up. Dad just read us whatever else he took it into his head to read us, too."

[honourbyname]

"We heard a lot of Beedle the Bard stories," Albus says. "Mum mostly read to us. Dad worked late a lot of the time when we were really young."

[lilium_evansiae]

Lily very deliberately does not ask why Albus' father was working late a lot of the time.

"Beedle the Bard?"

[honourbyname]

It wouldn't be a terribly dangerous question to ask, but Albus doesn't notice this.

"Yeah. He's ... sort of like a Mother Goose, I suppose. His name is used to gather a bunch of stories. Like Babbity Rabbity and the Tale of the Three Brothers."

[lilium_evansiae]

"Oh," Lily says, realization dawning. "I've heard the one about the three brothers, I think.

"With the gifts from Death?"