lilium_evansiae | Evans Home, August 1976

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Evans Home, August 1976

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.

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"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.

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."

Albus laughs a little.

"How do you do," he says to the skeleton who has, by far, the most impressive name he's ever heard.

Then to Lily: "A broken teacup, really? Scorpius told me it was a bit of a long story, his ... coming to life."

"Broken, Transfigured, and animated," Lily says.

The skeleton bows.

"It was actually a very impressive piece of magic."

"D'you mean he did it?" Albus asks, glancing at Mr Edgington-Smith again, smiling as he bows.

"Yeah, Scorpius made Ben.

"Well, except for the hat."

Wow.

That is an impressive piece of magic.

Albus isn't even sure he could create an animation charm that'd last this long.

Albus decides to inspect the little skeleton a little closer, bending forward so that his grey-coloured eyes are more at level with the skeleton and Lily's desk.

"He always said maybe the Hat made a mistake putting him into Ravenclaw because ... he wasn't clever enough or some rubbish like that. But obviously this is a testament to how wrong he is," says Albus.

Does the ridiculously inaccurate low opinion of yourself get issued with the blue and bronze tie or something?

Because this is getting silly.

"I don't think the Hat makes mistakes," Lily says.

Ben looks back at Albus.

Well, all right, Ben directs his eyesockets in Albus' general direction.

"How are things with him? D'you mind if I ask?"

Albus, who had decided to wave a finger in Ben's general direction - quite experimentally - turns his gaze from the skeleton to his grandmum.

Then he straightens, his attention wholly diverted.

Sorry, Ben.

"Well, um. I had that conversation with him, like you told me to. It was definitely a better idea to talk to him instead of writing a reply letter," he replies, trying not to stammer his words.

So far, so good.

"I don't know the rest of it yet, but we're still friends, which I'm incredibly glad about."

"Good," Lily says.

That they're still friends and that they talked.

(Letters are all good and well for Mr Darcy and Captain Wentworth, but the average teenaged boy is not, in Lily's experience, all that in touch with his inner Austen hero.)

"And I'm sure you'll figure things out. Just give yourself time to."

Albus nods.

"It's still ... a lot to think about. Possibly too much to think about right now," he admits.

He hasn't touched Scorpius' letter since the conversation.

(Not that he'd really need to for all the times Albus has read it in the first place.)

"But the important bit was talked about and the rest ... yeah. I'll figure it out later."

"Yeah, you will.

"Just try to trust yourself, okay?

"I have to think that with that anything like that, you'll know. It's when you start trying to talk yourself into things and out of things that you get yourself in trouble."

"I'm really rubbish at making sense of this sort of thing, though," Albus says with a bit of a sigh. "I don't even know how to begin to ... trust myself with any of this."

He shrugs.

"Besides, by the time I figure it all out, um. If I ever do, I mean. Then ... it'd probably be too late."

... wait. He hadn't meant to admit that last bit aloud.

"You really have got to stop being so hard on yourself, Albus.

"It will help, with trusting yourself."

But beyond that?

Sorry, Albus.

This is one you have to figure out on your own.

Albus nods again, though he's still not sure he's convinced of that.

Trusting himself has never been a strength.

"You know, besides it giving me a chance to - um. Come here, see a Shakespeare play and spend time with you and meet my great-grandparents, I sort of liked being able to assume another person's identity today.

"Not that I don't like being related to you, or anything," he adds quickly. "It's just ... it was a nice change, you know? Acting like I was someone else for a bit."

"So, who were you acting like today?"

"Like a sixth year Ravenclaw wizard from a really normal, not famous family who's got a really big interest in Muggle literature and actually really wants to go to Oxford to study even if it might seem a bit impossible at the moment."

Albus shrugs.

"And he's a lot more sure of himself and what he wants to do and what he likes, and - um. He stutters a lot less."

"All right," Lily says.

"So ... what would happen if one day a week you acted like him, every week?

"Because I think you might be more like him than you think you are."

Albus looks at Lily, almost pleadingly, as though seeking validation.

"Really?

"I mean, I ... I suppose I could try it."

"Of course you could," Lily says.

"I think I told you this once, but I spend a lot of time pretending I know how to be a prefect.

"And so far, everyone has believed me."

"I'm sure you're brilliant," Albus says, nodding. He remembers. "And I mean - I can pretend to be Albus Spenser all I want, but ... everyone still knows who I am. They still treat me like they're expecting me to do something impossible, something miraculous."

Or barring that, they expect him to bugger it all up because no one could ever come close to being as brilliant as his dad.

Well.

Anyway.

"Yeah, well, fully a quarter of my classmates treat me like a Mudblood who has no right to be at Hogwarts.

"Sometimes, you just have to let people be wrong about you. Because they will. And there's not necessarily anything else you can do about it.

"So be the Albus you want to be -- Potter, Spenser, whatever. Because from what I've seen, he's a pretty cool guy."

Or course, that's advice that's a lot easier to give than to take.

Of course.

Not that Albus doesn't appreciate it, nevertheless.

Particularly not from his grandmum.

Albus smiles.

"Well - thank you, Lily. I suppose it's just something I'll have to work on, anyway. But ... I'm sorry people treat you like that. People in my timeline don't really - it's not a big deal anymore, blood purity."

Of course you'll always find the older generations trying to pass on their unwanted 'pearls of wisdom' down (and some will, still, take it), but a good deal of people his age aren't too fussed.

Lily raises an eyebrow.

It's kind of hard to believe that things are going to change that much in two generations, really. (Much as she wants to.)

But that probably skirts too close to Things She Can't Know (or won't let herself know), so Lily just nods. "Thank you.

"Speaking of thanks," she says, "I should really remember to thank Tuney. She picked an excellent weekend to go to Blackpool with her friends."

With people like his dad and aunt Hermione and uncle Ron as Aurors, and most of the prejudiced witches and wizards sent to Azkaban, or simply too afraid to come out of their homes, it's a little easier to believe.

After the second Wizarding War, very few were looking for ways to send up another uprising.

Not to say everything's all roses, but it's peaceful enough that Albus doesn't worry about any of this.

"Oh. Yeah. Is that where she went?"

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