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]

... 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?"

[honourbyname]

Albus nods.

"Yeah, that's the one. It's my brother's favourite tale. I really like it, too."

His dad, though.

His dad doesn't like telling it to them very much, when he was around to read stories.

[lilium_evansiae]

"I heard it from Potter, earlier this summer in Milliways."

[honourbyname]

"Potter -"

Oh.

"D'you mean my granddad, James?"

Also known as ... the mysterious 'JP' of her postcard?

His eyes automatically go to her desk.

[lilium_evansiae]

That's a very weird thought, Potter as a grandfather. It's somehow much weirder that Albus is his grandson than it is that Albus is her grandson.

Lily nods, though. "I guess that's the most precise way to refer to him, is it?"

Especially not when Milliways is involved. There could be a dozen generations of Potters visiting that place.

... though Lily rather hopes there aren't. Harry and Albus are one thing. She's not sure she can handle being someone's great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother any time soon.

[honourbyname]

Albus nods.

"Sorry, if it's - um. Weird. It must be weird ..."

[lilium_evansiae]

"It is," Lily says, easily. "But that doesn't mean it's bad. Just different, you know?"

For him, too, probably.

"And it sometimes makes things like verb tenses and forms of address a bit of a mess."

[honourbyname]

"Yeah, it definitely does," says Albus, nodding dumbly. "No one would really imagine this sort of thing would be an issue, because - well, they hadn't been to Milliways where time gets all ..."

He airily waves a hand for lack of a proper word coming to mind.

"M'glad your parents don't seem to suspect me of being ... related to you all."

[lilium_evansiae]

"My grandson who's the same age I am?"

Lily looks over at the door that leads to the rest of the house, her expression thoughtful.

"Sometimes, I think they suspect a lot more than they let on. And honestly, if they can accept that their eleven-year old daughther is a witch who has been selected to go off to a school for wizards ... everything else is probably going to pale. I half-think I'm keeping Milliways more a secret more for me than them."

[honourbyname]

"So ... d'you think they'd be able to handle it well, then?" asks Albus.

He turns his gaze from the items on Lily's desk - finally noting the skeleton Scorpius told him about - before he looks back at her.

"If you told them?"

[lilium_evansiae]

"They've handled everything else well.

"I'm just not sure I could handle this one.

"Maybe when ... things feel more ... decided."

[honourbyname]

"... decided?"

[lilium_evansiae]

"Well, yeah.

"It's like this. There are things that I know I'm going to do. But I haven't decided to do them yet. Like, say, marry James Potter.

"Or even go out with him.

"So ... I think I'd rather tell my parents things like that when I've made a decision, rather than when I've learned that I'm going to."

[honourbyname]

"Oh."

He looks apologetic.

"Yeah - of course," Albus agrees, nodding.

It hadn't even occurred to him that she would have to decide upon going out with and marrying James Potter, because it'd already happened in order for him to exist.

Time is weird.

[lilium_evansiae]

Weird and a bit non-linear here.

Lily shrugs. "I'm sure it'll all get worked out."

Somehow.

She nods to something behind him on her desk.

"I think Ben wants your attention."

The skeleton is carefully tapping one tiny bony finger against the part of Albus' sleeve he can reach.

(Lily kind of doubts Albus can even feel it.)

[honourbyname]

It's true; Albus really wouldn't have felt 'Ben''s bony finger unless Lily brought it up.

And then when he does, Albus gives a quite rightly embarrassing yelp of surprise.

"Agh!"

When you're not expecting magical moving objects in a perfectly Muggle room, in a perfectly Muggle world, you'd be jumpy too.

[lilium_evansiae]

Mr. Benedict Oliver Nathaniel Edgington-Smith takes a quick steps backwards, trips over a quill, and falls over.

He also loses his hat.

Lily does not laugh.

Much.

[honourbyname]

"Sorry!" is Albus' next reaction.

That looks like it could've hurt. Though if you're made of magic and a skeleton with no nerves anyway, it can't hurt all too much, can it.

Still, Albus reaches for Mr Edgington-Smith's little hat and passes it back to him once he's righted himself to his feet.

[lilium_evansiae]

The skeleton gravely accepts his hat, and sets it back on his skull.

"Albus, this Mr. Benedict Oliver Nathaniel Edgington-Smith, who used to be a broken teacup.

"And Ben, this Albus, who either is or will be my grandson, depending on your temporal point of view."