Chapter 10
A Cloak, a Map, and a Plan
As much as Albus missed Hogwarts, as well as Rose, and possibly even Scorpius, he had to admit it felt good to wake in his own bed, in his own room, and in his own house. Once Lily had finally been persuaded to move all of her dolls out of his bedroom, it was really quite relaxing and made the four walls surrounding him feel all the more like home.
For now, he was enjoying the ability to sleep-in and not be interrupted by his class schedule or the noises of his dormitory. But as with most good things, it was not to last.
After exactly three days of extended rest, the sound of a sharp tapping against a glass surface dragged the quite annoyed eleven-year-old out of his meaningful sleep. He was expecting to see Blyth arriving with a letter of some sort, but when he finally opened his eye, Albus observed that she was still asleep on her perch beside his desk. Instead, when he turned to his window, he saw Giuseppe, the owl the belonged to Rose’s family.
The boreal owl’s pecking soon became more frantic as he let Albus know he was not going to be able to stand the outside cold much longer. The bird swooped in past Albus’ shoulder when the window was barely cracked open and an envelope dropped at his feet. He recognized the small, yet sloppy handwriting of one Rose Weasley, and had to force himself to pick up the letter and read what Rose had not stopped talking about since the night of the Erkling.
Albus,
Don’t forget: cloak and map.
Rose
Oh, how could he forget? Rose had only sent an owl reminding him of this every day since he’d arrived back in Godric’s Hollow.
He could understand why Rose thought these things would be useful to the Arcane ScoRA. He had grown up hearing the same stories Rose did: the ones where his dad, Uncle Ron, and Aunt Hermione would go on one adventure after another, hiding under the Invisibility Cloak, supposedly the same one from the story of the Three Brothers in The Tales of Beedle the Bard. They had also heard about how the less used Marauders Map had been invented by Albus’ own grandfather and his friends, mostly used to sneak around the school corridors late at night.
This was the exact reason James wanted the map in the first place and why their dad saw fit to keep the cloak hidden, so the Potter children would never be able to get their hands on it.
The only problem was that he had no idea where to start looking. He most certainly couldn’t ask where these things were hidden.
“Alright.” Albus turned to Giuseppe has though he might have an answer for him. “Where do we start?”
But the boreal owl’s tawny face didn’t so much as twitch in a change of expression.
“Fair enough,” Albus relented. “I’ll look for it.”
Giuseppe spread one of his wings and began cleaning his feathers. “Right, then. Back to it!”
And as though Giuseppe believed Albus was speaking to him, he turned up his other wing and went back to grooming.
“Alright, I’m heading out.” Albus’ dad wiped his mouth with his napkin and pushed himself away from the table. “All of you, behave for your mum today.”
With the Christmas holidays still going on and the entire family home together, things had gone back to the way they were before any of the Potter children had begun attending Hogwarts. Their mum would make big breakfasts of bacon and fried eggs, and the whole family would sit and eat together. Their mum would tell her brood secrets about the current Quidditch season, James would be throwing bits of toast at Albus when neither of their parents were looking, and Lily would usually be whining or begging for one thing or another. Truth be told, things had not change all that much while James had been away the past two years, save for the fact the Albus no longer had to clean food crumbs out of his hair.
Albus wondered what life was like for Lily, being the only child in their home for most of the year, the last of the Potter children, as well as the only girl. It had to be much more different from when he had been home with her as well. She was more than likely indulged a bit more than she already was with her brothers home and she wouldn’t have to share the attention or the limelight: two things she thrived in. The time Albus and James spent at home would more than likely be torture for their little sister.
“Will you be home early tonight, Daddy?” Lily asked.
Her father shook his head as he stood to his feet. “Sadly, Dark magic does not take a break for the holidays, lovely,” he confessed. “I’m going to have a lot of catch-up work to do starting today.”
This was something quite ordinary too. All of the Potter children knew that their dad loved to spend time with them, but as Head of the Auror Office, he could never stay away from his work for very long. Whenever he did take an extended leave from his work, he would almost always have to spend days where he couldn’t come home at all; he would be just be completely swamped beneath all the work that had to be done.
Albus’ dad kissed his mum goodbye, withJames making gagging sounds in the background the whole time. He then proceeded to give a parting hug to each of his children, making sure to give James and extra tight, extra long punishment hug.
“Bye, Dad,” Albus called out to his dad just before he stepped out the door to Apparate.
“Don’t be gone too long!” their mother called out of the cracked kitchen window to their father.
“I’ll try.” His voice was sympathetic, but held no promises. And with a familiar snap that came with Apparating, Albus’ dad was gone, for who knew how long. Albus watched his mother release a long sigh and then whip out her wand to get rid of the breakfast dishes.
“Alright,” she finally said, “James, Albus, I believe Hogwarts still hands out homework over the holidays. Why don’t you get a start on it? Lily, you still have to do some reading before the end of the week. Now would be a good time to get a start on it.”
And with that, the three Potter children were sent away. Lily whined, James muttered that their mum was probably more interested in getting rid of them than she was about their studies, and Albus pondered how he was going to get the map from his brother and the cloak from his father, his stomach churning nervously the whole time.
Almost no school work got completed on Albus’ part. Throughout the day, he would sneak away from his desk in an attempt to complete his so-called mission, but his mother always seamed to be right in the way of wherever he tried to get to: always just around the corner from him, or in the room that had no door for him to hide behind. James had already shown Albus how little latitude they would be given in wandering away from their studies that day…
“Mum,” James had asked while their mother was mulling over some notes from last week’s Quidditch match, “can I take the Floo to go visit Logan?”
Please, say yes, Albus found himself thinking frantically from his perch on the bottom few stairs. Please, please, please, please, please! If James was out of the house, Albus could at least search his brother’s room for the Marauder’s Map, even though he doubted James would be hiding it in his closet or under his bed.
Their mother twirled her quill in her hand while she contemplated the request. “How much homework do you have for the holiday?” she finally asked.
“Not a lot,” James responded.
The boys’ mother gave James a doubtfully stern look, showing that she did not entirely trust his judgment.
“History of Magic… and some Charms,” he listed off. “And a composition for Transfiguration, and then there’s Divination, and Potions, and…”
James’ voice trailed off as Albus made his way back up the stairs and back to the homework waiting for him in his bedroom.
Behind the closed door, he was quite sure he could hear a few swear words lacing his brother’s language. He found himself silently cursing the rejected request as well. If James had only been allowed to leave the house, it would have made his search so much easier. At least he probably wouldn’t have the constant stomach ache coming from the fear that James might pounce down his neck at any moment. Sure, he would still have to keep watch to make sure his mum and Lily didn’t notice any odd behavior, but at least James wouldn’t be able to guard the map.
So Albus spent much of his afternoon with his anxious mind going back and forth between what Rose would do to him if he didn’t give her what she wanted, and the pile of homework that seemed so much more intimidating than it had been when it had first been assigned. Tedious exercises for Charms, Transfiguration readings that might as well have been in Sanskrit, and some particularly unpleasant essays for History of Magic and Potions. Professor Patil let her former Ravenclaw colors show through by expecting an oral presentation on a specific dark creature from each student, and Professor Longbottom may have been a kind teacher, but that by no means made his class an easy one. Everyone in the class was expected to find five plants around their homes that had magical potencies to them, and hand in a composition on them. And the winter season creating an impossibility to simply go outside and list the first varieties of vegetation: that just added some real work to the task.
“Children, I have to run to the Prophet office for an hour. Don’t break anything while I’m gone,” Albus heard his mother shout.
Once Albus heard this, he could feel a smile spreading across his face. He knew exactly what would happen as soon as his mother left the house. Grinning, he turned back to his Charms exercises and kept his ears open, listing to his mother Disapparating from the backyard. He then waited for the telltale sound of the Floo Network’s whoosh, and he knew that James had snuck out to see his friend.
With a flourish of the wrist, Albus dropped his quill to his desktop and shoved the chair away. He felt a lot more confident with his mission now, even though just sneaking into the room right next door would hardly be considered dangerous by most people. Even Albus was willing to admit it was a little ridiculous”the way he was slinking along the wall as though he were in one of the Muggle spy movies that he saw at Rose’s house from time to time. But he was caught up in the moment.
“Albus!” came a piercing shriek that nearly made Albus tumble to the floor.
It was Lily, hanging from the stair banister. Her large brown eyes shifted back and forth between her brother and the door. A sly smile was spreading over her lips and a knowing glint graced her expression.
“Albus, what are you doing?” she asked him in a taunting tone
“Nothing!” Albus hissed. “Go away!”
But his younger sister did not budge. Lily swayed back and forth on the balls of her feet. Albus should have known better than to think Lily would leave just because he’d told her. Snooping was just as much of her nature as having red hair or breathing, and it was not something she would abandon very easily.
“If you’re not doing anything, why are you so angry?” she asked, smirk growing more distinct over her lips. “Why do you want to go into James’ room?”
“I don’t!”
Albus watched as his sister blinked and continued to sway. “You certainly don’t seem too eager to leave,” she pointed out.
“Go!” he shouted.
This time, it was Lily who nearly stumbled to the floor from the shock of the volume that came from her sibling. Big, fat tears began to well up in her bright brown eyes, but Albus wasn’t fazed. This was a common trick his little sister pulled; as the youngest, she believed if she could just make herself look pitiful enough, she could get her way on just about anything. It still worked on occasion with their parents, but Albus and James had had it used against them far too many times to let it affect them in any way.
“Mummy!” she screeched, as though she didn’t remember her mother wasn’t even home. “Albus yelled at me.”
Albus shook his head, exasperated as he watched the little head of red hair flash off. Lily thought her acts were so cute, but they took almost no time to wear on his and James’ nerves. Normally snapping and yelling was James’ tactic to get their little sister to leave them alone, but it was something Albus had never done before. Even he was a bit surprised about how he had just reacted to his little sister’s behavior; Lily probably more so, and his actions probably gave her a real reason to throw such a fit.
For ages, Lily screeched and cried all through the house, sounding more and more like a banshee. It was almost as though she believed that if she didn’t keep crying the way she did, she might not remember when their mother finally did come home. Albus slouched back against the wall and slowly sunk down to the floor, just waiting for his mother’s prowling yell to summon him to apologize. Not once did Albus move from his spot, just staring out the wall in a meditative trance. He didn’t think about homework, his family’s artifacts, and especially not the Arcane ScoRA.
“ALBUS!” he finally heard his mother shout from the kitchen door. “Albus, get in here!”
Why not? Albus thought to himself. It’s not as though I’m making any progress out here anyway.
“ALBUS!”
The shrill sound of his little sister was more than enough to bring Albus tumbling out of bed. Without waiting to be invited in, Lily poked her red-haired head in through a crack in the door. It seemed as though the transgressions of yesterday were completely forgotten. Albus had been sentenced to a vacation of not being allowed to leave the house for anything. Luckily, in the Potter and Weasley families, a loophole in any punishment was seen as open invitation. The children all thanked Uncle George for that particular reasoning.
“Mummy says you have to get up now,” Lily told him, showing off how much more of a morning person she was than her brother. “Rose is coming to visit today.”
And today, Rose would be the one taking advantage of that concept more so than Albus. It hadn’t been till just before bed the night before that Albus learned his cousin would be making a social call, and his parents were hardly the type to turn away family because one of their children was being punished. He doubted Rose knew anything about his home confinement. More likely, when Rose did not receive a response telling her what she wanted to hear, she decided to take matters into her own hands.
Breathing deeply, Albus rubbed his eyes and ran his fingers through his messier than usual hair. It couldn’t be morning already! He had been asleep for more than ten hours, and all he wanted now was to take a twelve-hour nap. His head felt like it was spinning, his stomach was in knots, and there was a lump in his throat that felt like it had been stuck there for months. Albus couldn’t believe all the stress all this mess was causing him. He was going to have an ulcer before he hit puberty!
“Albus!” his mother called him this time. “Get up and get dressed. Your cousin will be here any minute.”
Reluctantly, Albus finally pushed himself out of bed and threw on yesterday’s clothes, which were laying at his feet. He didn’t even bother to tidy up his hair, knowing it would more than likely become an all-day chore. His mother didn’t even chastise him for his sloppy appearance. In truth, Rose’s arrival today probably had more to do with Hugo wanting company than Rose wanting to check up on him. Rose was being exchanged for Lily. It was a common practice between the two households, but some part of Albus’ mind believed that this system was so at least one of the houses could be free of the hyperactive nine-year-olds, more than that Rose and Albus being complete terrors themselves.
“Albus!” he felt himself being tackled as Rose raced up from behind and hugged him tight. “C’mon, let’s go upstairs.”
Albus shook his head. He hadn’t even heard the sounds of the Floo Network or the sudden silence that always came with the youngest of the Potter children disappearing from the house. He really was out of it from all the stress!
Rose, on the other hand, was alert and dragging Albus all along the way upstairs in the same manner she always did. She was behaving the exact same way that Albus had been”skulking around the house”but with a constant smile on her face. Rose wasn’t bothered by stress. She thrived on it.
Their final destination was Albus’ bedroom. Any other time, Albus would have told himself that this was not the place to keep themselves safe from people poking their heads in, but even that small task felt as though it would cause too much strain.
“So?” she asked him once she seemed sure all was still. “Did you…”
Albus shook his head, keeping his eyes on the floor. “No,” he sighed.
Rose crossed her arms and pursed her lips. It was funny how all the Weasley woman, related or married in, seemed to have the exact same look whenever they were disappointed. “Well, I doubt he would have hidden it somewhere he wouldn’t be able to get to it everyday; otherwise what’s the point of having it?”
“But Mum and Dad know James’ character better than anyone. If he were hiding something from them, they would do anything short of turning the house upside down to find it.”
Rose was about the utter the same exasperated sigh that all the Weasley women had as well, when she was interrupted by a sharp tapping at the window. It was another owl, but this time, it was neither Blythe, nor Giuseppe. It was covered in smooth, dark brown feathers and was quite large; large enough appearing that it seemed as though it could easily carry a boxed human head across Britain. Today, however, all that seemed to be in its claws was an ordinary-sized envelope. Albus strained to open the window, but surprisingly, the large bird hardly needed any room at all to squeeze its way in.
“Whose owl is this?” Albus asked Rose as the creature swooped down on his bureau.
“I dunno,” she replied. “I don’t recognize it.”
Carefully, not knowing how friendly this strange owl would be, Albus took the envelope from its beak. The flap was seal with a bit of deep blue wax, but it had no address, no handwriting, nor anything else that would offer a clue as to who sent it. Except for the weight, Albus might have thought someone had just pulled the envelope new out of the box and sent it off.
“Well, open it!” Rose shouted. “See who it’s from.”
Obediently, Albus tore at the envelope and extracted the crisp parchment.
Albus,
I have a feeling Rose will be visiting you at some point over the holiday, so make sure you show this to her. I would have written to both of you, but I can’t shake the feeling that any letter arriving from a Malfoy would spontaneously combust on impact with any place inhabited by a Weasley. Also, make sure Rose knows that last sentence was just a joke, and that she doesn’t take it too personally.
I hope you both are having a nice holiday, but knowing Rose, you are both already back to work. And I can’t very well have you two getting ahead of me and making me look like the lazy member of our organization.
My parents even invited some of our professors to the party: Professor Vhartan, Professor Dugan, Madam Wood and her husband. Please note that they are teachers of some of our most difficult classes and leaders of the school Quidditch league. I’ve barely been a Hogwarts student for four months and they are already trying to make connections for me. Oddly enough, though, it seemed to be all too perfect; people with the best connections to the inner workings of the school locked in the same room with my parents and grandparents who could pry Ministry secrets out of an Auror?
Unfortunately, none of it sounded remotely useful to anything we need to know. Professor Vhartan made it clear that she did not need to be bribed to raise my Potions grade”I happen to be doing quite well. Professor Dugan went on and on about some archeological dig that he and his son went on in Northern Ireland, saying almost nothing about school; and Madam Wood offered my dad some predictions on future prospective on players for the Slytherin team and who are going to need to be replaced soon.
I did try a couple times to turn the direction of the conversation towards the creature infestations, but they wouldn’t say anything about it to me. They would all dismiss it, and once my mother even told me ‘not to bring up unpleasant topics over the holidays.
Scorpius
Albus looked to his side to Rose with her chin nearly resting on his shoulder. Her expression twitched as she finished reading the letter herself.
“He wasn’t serious, Rose,” Albus said.
“I know that!” Rose snapped, her freckled face turning slightly red. “Malfoy-boy isn’t going to be much use to us, it seems.”
“He’s trying,” Albus offered.
“Which is why we need to try all the more harder,” Rose told him. “We need to step up our game, and find those family relics of yours.”
Albus groaned, suddenly feeling completely exhausted. “Rose, I’ve already spent the better part of a week turning the house upside down looking for where James hid the Marauders’ Map. I haven’t even thought about where my dad has the Invisibility Cloak.”
Albus expected his cousin to flash her Weasley disapproval at him again, but instead, without warning, she grabbed his arm and once again proceeded to drag him behind her like a rag doll. Out of his room and to their left: it didn’t take very long for Albus to realize Rose was taking him right into the pit of the beast: James’ room.
“Rose!” he hissed.
Spooked, Rose looked over her shoulders. Finally, she leaned in and began whispering to her cousin.
“What do you want?” she snapped.
“I live in this house,” he told his cousin. “If these things were anywhere even near here, don’t you think I may have stumbled upon them? And I’ve spent my entire holiday paying even more attention to every little detail I see!”
Rose shook her head again, but this time, her expression held a soft smile and an insufferable-know-it-all look in her eyes.
“Albus, your brother is not a smart person,” she explained, “and you’ve been over-thinking his ability to keep secrets.”
Albus raised a confused eyebrow. He wasn’t quite sure what Rose was getting at.
“You just have to put yourself in your brother’s head,” she told him. “C’mon.”
Rose led Albus the last few steps down the hall and right through James’ bedroom door, as through she had every right in the world.
James’ room was a sloppy, disorganized mess with dirty socks decorating most pieces of furniture. Red and gold Gryffindor banners and grey Falmouth Falcon posters covered nearly every inch of the wall. The desk, however, was the one piece of furniture that was completely neat and clean, probably only because it was almost never used. Even the books were still stacked in a perfect little column and the quills and ink in a neat row.
“What are you two doing?”
It was James, leaning against the doorframe, tapping his fingers against his arm. Albus hadn’t even checked to see what his older brother would be doing today. He couldn’t believe he had been stupid enough to even allow Rose into his older brother’s room. If she didn’t end up paying for this grave sin, Albus would.
“This is my room. What makes you two think you’re allowed in here?”
“Go away!” Rose snapped.
James jumped at the rage of his fiery cousin and scrambled to race out of the room.
Albus was starting to believe that James was afraid of her. It was no secret around the school that Ravenclaw was the best house to be in for learning hexes; and the older students would often share techniques with the younger ones. For a small moment, Albus almost wished he had been Sorted into Ravenclaw as well, so that James would exhibit the exact same fear towards him.
“Now, as I was saying.” Rose calmed herself and returned her voice to a level tone. “When you want to find something hidden by someone of…below-average intelligence, sometimes the best bet is to look in the most obvious place where someone would hide something.
“Here.” Rose stopped him. “I’ll do it.”
Slowly, patiently, Rose strolled across the floor, taking everything in. Several Falcons players on the numerous posters were holding their brooms like weapons, and watched Rose, looking as though they were nearly ready to spring off the paper and attack. Within a matter of moments, Rose reached James’ unmade bed, teetering back and forth on her heels, as though even she wasn’t even quite sure of what she was about to do.
And without explaining her actions, Rose stuck her hand underneath the mattress and began fishing.
“Hello,” she piped. “Look what I just found!”
Rose pulled out her arm, and clenched in her fingers was an old, frayed-edge piece of parchment. “I think we have a map here. Like I said, your brother is not a smart person. The next time you need to find something he has, just try looking in the most obvious place.”
Rose stopped for a moment to consider what she had just proposed to her cousin. She suddenly shuddered. “Just make sure you’re ready for anything else you might find.”
Albus was still skeptical. “But we don’t even know if this is the right parchment!” He wouldn’t have trusted what his cousin had just found to have any magic in it whatsoever. It just looked like an old, ratty piece of parchment: he doubted he would even be able to write a school assignment on it.
“Don’t you remember all the stories Uncle George told us about this thing?” Rose asked him. “The map stays invisible until you recite the secret phrase. I solemnly swear I’m up to no good.”
Without even really thinking, Albus reached into his trouser pocket and extracted his wand. He didn’t have any logical reason to carry it around with him outside of school, and was soon sternly reminded why.
“Idiot!” Rose shrieked, yanking the rod from his hand. “You can’t use it here! If you use your wand, the Ministry will know in an instant and send an owl right to your parents! How secret will the Arcane ScoRA be after that?”
Albus felt like they had just run around in a giant circle. “Then how do we know if it’s really the map?”
“We’re just going to have to wait until we get back to Hogwarts to find out for certain,” Rose said. “I’ll keep it with me until then. If James catches you with it, I don’t know if I can guarantee your safety. All you have to do now,” she added as she folded the parchment and placed it safely in her pocket, “is get your dad’s cloak.”
Albus found himself unable to focus on achieving the rest of his mission. He just kept staring at his cousin who still seemed quite relaxed.
“What?” she quipped, when she finally noticed him staring.
“You don’t feel the least bit guilty about stealing?”
“Your brother stole the map from your dad,” she clarified, “and now we have it. Because it was already stolen to begin with, none of the blame can be placed on our heads.”
Rose’s explanation strangely made Albus a lot less guilty. Normally, he could not be talked out of beating himself over for even the smallest behavioral infractions. But as he thought about the reasoning even more, his guilt was soon replaced by a terrifying epiphany.
“Oh, Merlin…”
“What?” she asked him again.
“I’m my brother!” Albus exclaimed, becoming angry when Rose answered with laughter. “It’s not funny!”
Rose left with the Marauders’ Map just after the sun went down, leaving Albus with what he believed to be the more difficult of his two missions. Now that he thought about it, finding something James was trying to hide was easy. But there was no possible way his dad could be so easily figured out. The man was the Head of the Auror Office, responsible for tracking down the most evil wizards in the world.
Albus stopped himself; he was doing it again. He tried not to over-think the location of the cloak and just do what Rose said: put himself inside his dad’s head.
Okay, Albus thought to himself. I’m my dad. I’m Harry Potter. I’m away from home most of the day, and my firstborn son cannot be trusted to keep his hands off potentially self-damaging family relics. I need a place to keep it safe, somewhere I know it won’t fall into the wrong hands while I’m off keeping the world safe from dark wizards and other things that go bump in the night.
Albus paced back and forth as he continued to imagine himself inside his father’s head.
“Obvious, obvious…” Albus muttered to himself.
All these mutterings led him down the stairs, past the boarded up, under-the-stairs cupboard (which had been that way ever since he could remember), and to the tall hallway cupboard”the one his parents would hide their birthday presents and taken-away toys when the Potter children were younger. But eventually, the three of them had realized that they could find anything they needed in this particular cupboard, and their parents hadn’t hidden anything inside it for years.
Obvious…
It couldn’t be that easy, could it? Albus thought to himself.
Yet just as he turned his head, a flash caught his eye. A fold of silvery material glinted from between a stack of boxes. It was clear that someone had wanted to hide it some time ago, but years of being ignored had allowed it the opportunity to creep further and further into sight, until it could not be overlooked anymore.
“Merlin, he didn’t!” Albus exclaimed in a hushed tone. He look over each shoulder several time before he finally felt safe enough to reach up and slowly ease the material inch by inch out from its hiding place. Once he had it, he carefully unfolded the slick material which spread out to become a very large cloak; plenty large enough to hide at least three people beneath it.
The most obvious place… Albus almost laughed to himself had he held the cloak in his hands. The shiny material was slippery in his fingers. I guess James had to get it from somewhere.
Albus felt almost tempted to slip the cloak on over his head and take it around the house for test run. But instead, he held the cloak tightly to his chest and walked sideways against the wall so no one could see what he was carrying until he reached the bathroom. He locked the door tightly behind him and headed over to the long mirror hanging above the sink. He couldn’t fight his own curiosity anymore, and added with feeling that he was in the only truly safe room in the house, he unfurled the fabric and threw it around his shoulders.
His entire body was gone! He was nothing but a floating head, like some image out of a horror story. Everything covered by the cloak was completely see-through. It was exciting, and a little bit scary at the same time.
Suddenly, a fierce pounding hammered against the bathroom door. “Albus, let me in!”
It was Lily. Of course, she would be able to track him down at the exact moment he would get in the most trouble if their parents saw him.
“Go away, Lily!” Albus shouted at his little sister.
“Albus, let your sister in the bathroom!” his mother ordered.
His mother was there too? The universe just wanted him to be locked in his room until he was an old man!
“I’m sick!” he improvised. He faked a few good lurching sounds just for good measure.
Once he was finished, his mother’s voice became thick with sympathy. “Oh, are you feeling poorly?”
“I don’t know.” Even Albus could tell that sounded like a lie, so he faked a few more lurches to cover it up.
“Do you want supper?”
“No,” he answered his mother, trying to groan a little bit as he spoke. “Maybe later.”
“Okay, I’ll leave you alone then.”
Wow, Albus thought to himself. Turning into James was not nearly as difficult as it looked.
“But Mummy, I still need to use the bathroom!” Lily whined.
“You can use the downstairs bathroom,” Albus’ mum told her sternly.
Albus stayed in the bathroom for hours, after supper was over and even after the rest of the family had gone to bed. His mother had come to check on him every hour or so, worried, but still respecting Albus’ wishes for her to stay out. And also probably because she was a bit afraid of what she might see as soon as she opened the door.
It was a good thing Albus was not the type to become easily distracted or bored, or keeping himself locked in this room would have driven him insane. Every now and then, he would stand up and take a look at his floating head in the mirror, but he spent most of the evening sitting on the slippery tile floor. At least it wasn’t as cold as it once was.
“Albus,” he heard from the other side of the door. “Albus, are you feeling well?”
It was his dad, finally home from work. He couldn’t even clearly recall the last time he had seen his father for an extended period over the past few days. He felt a little sad that their first meaningful conversation in days was coming through a solid wood door.
“I have a stomach ache,” Albus answered, trying to sound as pitiful as possible. “I threw up.”
Wow, this works, he thought to himself. No wonder Lily won’t give it up.
Except now he was turning into both of his siblings.
“Do need me to get you anything?” his father asked him. “I know you kids don’t really trust my potion making skills, but I can look through the books and see if I can brew up anything that can make you feel better.”
“No!” Albus gasped. Even if he really were dying, he knew better than to swallow any potion his dad had brewed. He could still remember the incident when he was five and his dad had tried to brew a potion to cure James’ hiccups”his face turned lime green for a week.
“Alright,” Albus’ dad said with a slight chuckle. “Do you at least want me to stay up with you for a little while?”
“No, go to bed,” Albus assured him. “I’ll be fine.”
“Very well,” his dad said, his feet starting to shuffle away. “I’ll buy you something from the Apothecary tomorrow.”
It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to take anything for a stomach ache, but Albus still appreciated the gesture. And he wasn’t exactly worried about being found out for faking his sickness and anything else that might come from it. With his family believing he had been just on the edge of death the night before, no one would think anything of him spending the entire day in bed tomorrow. Another good hour of silence, and Albus really was starting to feel himself go insane, and was finally ready to go to bed. He knew he made a huge racket as he raced across the hall and threw his door open, slamming the knob against the wall.
Even after he had his bedroom door slammed shut behind him, he could still feel his heart pounding out of his chest. Once he was finally able to catch his breath, he exhumed the cloak from beneath his jumper, fining it slightly soaked with sweat. He could hardly believe it. I got it, he thought to himself, I actually got the Invisibility Cloak!
As he slid to the floor with his back against the door, he was soon reminded of even more stories his family had told him. He thought of his dad’s first year of school where he’d snuck a baby dragon egg out of the school and went sneaking into the Restricted Section of the library. He had also used the cloak to spy on the teachers, creep through the corridors. Having adventures upon adventures, upon adventures.
Rose and Albus and their activities in his own home could hardly be described as dangerous, but they carried the same feel with them that the stories his dad and aunts and uncles told.
It wasn’t his brother he was becoming more like.
“I’m turning into my dad!” Right down to the sense that he was trying to save the world at age eleven, regardless of whether or not there was really anything to save it from.
But unlike the previous thought, this one did not disturb him in the least.
The Arcane ScoRA and the Wand of MacArt by OliveOil_Med
Chapter Notes: Back at Godric's Hollow, Albus enjoyments of the comforts of home don't list for very long, as he only has a limited amount of time to find the Marauder's Map and the Invisibility Cloak.
Thank you to Azure, Caitlin, and Lizzy for being such wonderful betas!