thealbus @ 2012-03-19T23:40:00

2012-03-20T02:53:22Z

title: and so it goes.
pairing: albus potter/gemma hathaway, next generation, post hogwarts.

He was happy.

He was happy.

Albus had wanted to be with her since before he even knew he liked girls, judging by the way his Amortentia smelled in Potions class. He couldn’t help but like Bridgette. They had played together, with Rose, ever since they were children. It was like a story out of one of those Muggle fairy tales, his mum told him.

He never saw her, but always saw her.

The one night he had spent with her had been more exhilarating than most nights with Bridgette, if he was honest with himself. Riley and Justin had encouraged him to go after her. He had to.

So he had.

And it had almost worked, but she had been unyielding, and she was available.

And damned if Albus didn’t want someone who was available for him. It was in his DNA. He was always the one who had to compete, to act out, to make himself seen. James was the first. Lily was the baby. But Albus—he was the middle, given an unfortunate name and a legacy that he couldn’t possibly hope to live up to in his life.

So it had begun. Albus Potter began dating Bridgette Devereux, Rose Weasley’s best friend, at the end of their sixth year; but more than that, Bridgette was a complication within his family if they ever went wrong. It would inevitably be his fault, because Rose blamed him for many things, and he knew he would get the brunt of it.

Seventh year came and went. People started getting sick, and he and Bridgette had too much work to spend any time together. Moments were stolen between classes and during study sessions, but nothing more than moments. Nothing that Albus wanted.

She collapsed in his arms one day, and it was like he felt something break within him. Everyone around him was getting sick—what was the commonality? Why were his friends, his family, falling ill? Why was she sick?

He wondered, briefly, madly, if he was the common thread; if the Greys had somehow developed a vendetta against the Potters to hurt all of those they held dear. But it was a mad notion he had, and so he finished Hogwarts, passed his N.E.W.T.s, and joined the masses of the wizarding world.

But she was still in St. Mungo’s, waiting for a cure that might never come.

So he would visit her.

And he visited her once every few weeks, the visits increasing with time as his time spent with Bridgette decreased. They were still together, yet they never acted like it. All the while, he grew closer with her, and sometimes, when she fell asleep, he would be in bed beside her, holding her until the coughs subsided.

One day, the newspapers cried out a cure for Grey’s Disease, and he was at the hospital before he could stop himself. He knew he should be seeing Rose, but he couldn’t help himself.

He knocked on the door for Room 214, and it wasn’t he who opened the door this time.

“Hi,” she said softly, smiling, with more color in her face than he had seen in months.

He couldn’t help himself. Before he knew it, the door was shut and his hands were cradling her face, lips pressed to hers in a desperate plea for her to respond, and the plea subsided as he felt her respond beneath her lips, felt her frail hands reach up to cradle his face in return.

“Hi,” he responded finally, moments later. “You’re better?”

She nodded. “I didn’t want to tell you the other day when you visited, but I knew they were coming to cure me this weekend. I’ve been waiting for this moment for two days.”

He felt a rush in the pit of his stomach and picked her up, twirling her in a circle. “I’m so glad you’re better.”

She smiled back, laughing as he twirled her, but as they came to a stop, she looked down at him. “What happens now?”

The question he dreaded. He froze, and set her down slowly, and moved to sit on her bed. “This has to be handled delicately,” he responded, calculating his response. The moment had come when he simultaneously was happy and yet hated himself with every fiber of his being. He sat quietly for a few moments.

Abruptly, he stood. “I’ll come to you when I have an answer.”

“Albus, what—“

“No, I’ve got to do this myself.” He kissed her swiftly, and was gone from her room as fast as he had appeared.

Her seventh year began, and no word from Albus. It was infuriating. She learned to stop looking for owls to come from him, and she was never surprised.

Except for one day, when a barn owl appeared with just a few words scribbled across it. Meet me at the Three Broomsticks during your next Hogsmeade trip. At dusk.

And so she did.

He brought her up to a room above the pub to speak with her, with a tip to Rosmerta not to let anyone bother them. Purely innocent, he said, but he needed to speak with her alone.

They sat, and the words came hard to him. She could tell they did.

“I love you,” he said, and though she knew she should be thrilled at the words—the first time anyone had ever spoken them to her—she felt angry, betrayed, and broken hearted.

“Then what took you so long?” was all she said.

He took a breath and began to explain that Bridgette had known all along, that he had been ostracized from his family after he and Bridgette had broken up, and that he was trying to cope with the loss of his family in favor of her.

She pulled him into her arms, and suddenly her broken heart was no longer for him anymore. It was for the both of them.

“I can’t make you choose between me and your family,” she said.

He looked up at her, and with no words spoken, their lips met, the intensity growing as the kiss deepened and lengthened, and later, they would move from the chairs in the room to the oversized bed.

He was lost in her, without her, and he was still with her.

But not for long.

thealbus @ 2009-07-11T16:53:00

2009-07-11T20:54:09Z

I think I'll be alone forever. Everyone else is pairing off around me. It's ridiculous.

ooc: just testing al's journal layout wooo.

Albus Severus Potter

thealbus @ 2012-03-19T23:40:00

thealbus @ 2009-07-11T16:53:00