Chapter 4
The Weasley Quidditch Training Gauntlet
A large party could either work for or against you when you were trying to keep hidden. If there were enough people who knew you, you could have your exact location pointed out at any time to anyone who wanted to find you. But at a party where most of the people had only seen you about three times in your whole life, it was the next best thing to an Invisibility Cloak (which Albus was now kicking himself for not bringing with him).
But being small for his age and a lot more agile than he was ever given credit for, Albus was making do with what he had. Come to think of it, he hadn’t even seen James since bolting away from his family as soon as they had stepped out of the Floo.
Years of being a member of the Weasley clan had made Albus quite adept at weaving his way through crowds of adults. All together, there must have been at least a hundred people that Albus didn’t know and”according to Uncle Ron, at least”most of them were still somehow related to the Weasley family. But Albus had long known his Grandmum Weasley was never one for doing anything halfway.
At the center of it all was Uncle Charlie, and his almost-new blushing bride clinging to his arm, using her best English skills to keep up with the rush of questions all around her. Her children and Albus’ new cousins, Hendric and Stela, were seated off to the side, indulging in their new grandmother’s cooking, their eyes darting as they tried to translate the English all around them into their native Romanian.
This whole gathering served as a sort of belated wedding reception. Uncle Charlie and Albus’ new aunt, Sorina, had gotten married just two weeks before Christmas last year. It hadn’t been anything fancy; they had gone to the Romanian Ministry of Magic where the only ones present were their children and a few work colleagues to serve as witnesses.
This was the way the both of them had wanted their wedding, but, of course, Grandmum Weasley couldn’t stand the idea of the two of them not having a ‘proper’ ceremony. The kind anyone remotely related to them, and everyone who had spent more than five minutes with either of them was invited. They couldn’t be married, again, naturally, so Grandmum Weasley opted instead to throw this large gathering for them.
And even though Sorina had only been married into the Weasley family for half a year, she already knew better than to try and talk her new mother-in-law out of anything she was adamant about.
So after an entire afternoon of weaving through the crowds, Albus took an uneasy seat beside his new cousins. Surely if James threw a sack over his head and tried to drag him away, Hendric and Stela would at least try to do something.
“Hei-llo, Ahl-boo-s!” Stela was the first to acknowledge him. “Is vonderful pahr-ty, no?”
Hendric nodded in Albus’ direction, but his attention was focused on someone else; a lady with hair more grey than red, but whose energetic, jittery movements showed no reflection of her age who ran up to Uncle Charlie and Aunt Sorina. “Ah ha! There you two finally are!”
Uncle Charlie shifted uncomfortably where he stood. “Hello, Aunt Bethany.”
Aunt Bethany was Albus’ great aunt, the wife of his grandfather’s brother, Cephas. Albus had only met his great aunt and uncle a handful of times, but it was more than enough to create an impression. While Uncle Cephas was considered by many too even-tempered to even be a Weasley, Aunt Bethany more than made up for it. She was loud, impulsive, and the sort of busy-bodied gossip that most could only dream of being.
She also appeared to have trouble telling when she was making people uncomfortable. Either that or she just didn’t care.
“Charlie, Charlie, Charlie!” The woman hugged him tight around the neck. “Oh, and this must be Serena! It is so nice to finally welcome to the family! I have heard so much about you.”
“Sorina,” Albus Romanian aunt corrected her. “And yes, I ahm very hah-ppy to be married to Charlie and to finally be meeting all his family. We live so far away, I ahm sure zis vill be a very special treat.”
Aunt Sorena had known the woman for all of two seconds, and she already seemed to be getting a feel of just what kind of person Aunt Bethany was.
“And those two must be your children, aren’t they?” She tilted her head towards the two new cousins at the nearby table. “I can see they take after their mother, but then it seems that none of the Weasleys in this generation have the typical family traits.”
Aunt Bethany was hinting at something, but Albus wasn’t quite sure what, and neither Hendric nor Stela seemed to have a clue either. “Hendric and Stela are my children from my first marriage,” Sorina tried to explain. “Charlie is their stepfather.”
“Hendric and Stela are still going by Iliescu,” Charlie added in. “It’s what everyone knows them as, and it doesn’t make sense to change their names when they’re teenagers.”
The older woman wrinkled her nose just a little bit, and one of her eyebrows drifted upwards. Albus had already heard his parents talking about how some of their older relatives we not quite as accepting of the notion of ‘blended families’.
Aunt Bethany changed the subject again. “Where is it your children go to school again?”
“The children both go to St. Daniildumitru,” Charlie responded again, starting to become short. “In Romania.”
“Really?” Albus’ great-aunt remarked. “And no thoughts of having them start up at Hogwarts now that you’ve married into a British family?”
By now, Uncle Charlie was through with trying to be subtle. “Aunt Bethany, we live in Romania. The children speak Romanian as a native language, and it is what we speak at home. And they already have all their classes and friends there.”
Since Christmas, Albus had been hearing second-hand opinions about what everyone in the wizarding world thought about Uncle Charlie’s impromptu marriage; even that his uncle had married the single mother out of pity
Albus could feel an argument or a scene beginning to start up, and neither were conducive to remaining hidden from his Quidditch-raved cousins. Albus moved up from the table and once again began his meandering until he settled in a fairly safe place between his grandmother and his aunts.
“”I ‘ate you!” Aunt Fleur was saying. “You ‘ave no morning sickness, no swollen ankles, and you ‘ave already lost all ze baby weight! ‘Ow ees zat even possible?”
Aunt Fleur was standing along with Albus’ Aunts Audrey and Angelina, and his Grandmum Weasley in a circle around Luna Scamander, who seemed to be glowing with that aura new mothers were said to have…and maybe a touch of embarrassment at the comments on her weight. Albus had earlier seen Rolf chasing after the twins, Lorcan and Lysander, who more or less ran around like wild animals themselves. Luna was standing among them, her entire frame draped in sun-colored robes, holding her four-month-old daughter in her arms.
“Albus!” Luna called over to Albus as soon as she saw him. “Come over here! You still haven’t properly met Astrid.”
Feeling somewhat safe in the company of so many adults, Albus decided to indulge Luna. A person could have argued that it wasn’t possible to be ‘properly introduced’ to a baby, but Albus knew full well there was no point in trying to argue with Loony Luna.
“Hello, Astrid,” Albus said to the baby, letting the infant grab hold of his index finger.
Little Astrid Scamander had a moon-shaped face, as well as very round and wide eyes. Bits of dirty blonde hair poked out from beneath her soft yellow bonnet, and her pale blue eyes were directed up at the sky, watching the clouds.
“I can’t believe you’re already going back to work,” Aunt Angelina said. “I stayed home for more than six months when Fred was born, and it still killed me to leave him for the first time.”
“And then came Roxanne right after that,” Audrey reminded her.
“It is the life of a Magizoologist,” Luna remarked in that dreamy tone of hers. “The wonders of the natural world aren’t going to wait for me.
“Actually, Molly,” Luna then said as though she suddenly remembered, “next month, Rolf and I will be heading to Peru to study Peruvian Vipertooth dragons. Recent hatchlings have been growing to nearly a hundred and seventy-eight percent of their usual size, and Magizoologists think there may be an environmental cause behind it.”
Gramdmum Weasley already assumed what Luna was going to ask. “And you would like me to watch Astrid and the twins while you two are away?”
Luna appeared confused. “No, we’ll be taking Astrid and the boys with us. But it is very cold in Peru, especially up in the mountains, and I was wondering if you had any knitting projects you might be willing to spare.”
“Y-you are taking an infant with you to Peru?” his grandmother stammered. “To study dragons?”
“I don’t see why not,” Luna told her. “Rolf grew up traveling with his parents all around the world, and we have been doing the exact same with the boys. Why wouldn’t we be taking Astrid along with us as well?”
Albus could only imagine all the terrible scenarios going through his grandmother’s head. And once again, Albus decided to leave before too much attention was called to his location. Wandering through more crowds eventually led Albus to his dad, but he stayed away because he wasn’t completely sure if his own Quidditch-raved father would be in on delivering his second-born to the Weasley Quidditch Training Gauntlet.
From behind a pair of cousins with ridiculous feather-topped hats, Albus saw his dad standing off to the side conversing with Teddy, his godson, who was also an honorary sibling in the Potter family. For as long as Harry could remember, Teddy had been as much a part of family functions as he, James, or Lily were, so it was no shock that he had been invited to the party as well.
This was actually the first time Albus had seen his godbrother in a long time. Since the spring, Teddy had been working as a research assistant. He was always saying how he like his work, but it didn’t pay very well apparently. Even today, Teddy’s ‘good’ clothes were notably worn and Albus could see him stuff biscuits into his pockets.
Despite all this, Teddy refused any and all money Albus’ dad tried to offer him. And yet Albus’ dad would never stop trying to offer. He overcompensated with Teddy; everyone said so. Growing up, Teddy was easily three times as spoiled as any of the Potter child, and Albus’ father could do that, because Teddy’s gran ‘co-parented’ with him (even though Andromeda Tonks had made it clear she disliked having to always be the bad guy). But the Potter children were never jealous of Teddy. He was always willing to share any treats he was given and had always been like the world’s best big brother to all of them.
Even as an adult, this hadn’t changed, and his godfather hadn’t changed because Teddy was an adult either.
Albus was about to take the risk of saying hello to his godbrother when a sudden shout caused Albus to snap his head back over his shoulder. “Hendric, how coo-uld you do somezing like zis?”
“Stela is zirteen years old! She shoo-uldn’t even need a baby-sitter!”
Albus’ ears filled with the sound of English shouting in thick accents. Aunt Sorina and Hendric were standing nose to nose, not caring who was watching, switching back and forth between Romanian and English. People around them were staring, but they just continued going about their conversations, keeping one eye on the mother and son.
Eventually, Albus’ curiosity got the best of him, especially since Stela seemed to be the topic of conversation and yet nowhere to be seen. “What’s going on?”
Aunt Sorina looked down in her nephew’s direction and her expression became slightly softer (although that wasn’t saying much). “Your cousin seems to zink he is on vacation from vatching his only sister,” she remarked harshly. “And now Stela is missing in a country where she barely speaks ze language.”
“Nozing is going to hah-ppen to Stela!” Hendric yelled again. “She probably went looking for more of Grandmah-zer Veasley’s cakes or went to see ze farm ah-nimals.”
But Aunt Sorina still had her attention on Albus. “Ahl-boo-s, you go heh-lp Hendric look for Stela,” she said, “because I clearly cannot trust my own son to do it!”
This threw Albus a little off guard. He still hadn’t completely wrapped his head around the idea that Stela had gone missing, and now his aunt wanted him to go off looking for her. But Hendric grabbed his cousin by the arm and began to pull. “Come viz me, Ahl-boo-s,” he insisted. “Ve vill find Stela in no time!”
Before Albus knew it, he was being led away from the party and towards a large grove of trees at the end of his grandparents’ property. And for all Albus knew, it was because Hendric was desperate to escape rather than find his sister. “You don’t find her, don’t bozher coh-ming bah-ck!”
“She doesn’t mean it,” Hendric said reassuringly when he looked over his shoulder and saw the worried look beginning to take over Albus’ face, continuing to pull him towards the maze of trees.
Once in the grove, Hendric took the lead, even thouh Albus was sure the older boy had no idea where he was going or why he had any idea why Stela would have ventured in there. The grove on his grandparents’ property if overgrown and the ground was covered with vines, exposed tree roots, and thorny plants just looking for bare legs to catch. A thick canopy of leaves blocked out most of the sun, and what little light did get through gave the trees frightening faces like in fairy tales.
And of course, the Weasley grandchildren would all go exploring there while the adults would have their boring Sunday afternoon chats over tea, usually coming back with their clothes in shreds and wearing dirt as a second skin.
It didn’t take very long for Hendric to find himself lost and in over his head. “Zhis is much bigger zhan I zhought,” he remarked once they reached the center of the grove. “Ve should split up. You keep going straight, and I vill look to ze right and ze left.”
But Hendric didn’t even wait for Albus to say ‘alright’ before he took off on his own. Albus began moving forwards through the woods, keeping one eye out for Hendric. Albus knew he would be able to find his way out easily (he had already been lost in here too many times for it to happen again), but he would probably have to end up telling the adults to form a search party to go back in after Hendric, and then both him and Stela would be missing, and Uncle Charlie had said more than once he was absolutely not going to have any more children because he and Sorina would be in their sixties by the time they were finished raising”
But Albus was interrupted from these rambling thoughts when he saw what had to be the ultimate proof that the universe existed only to mess with him. There was Stela, plucking the petals off of daisies and murmuring to herself.
Albus’ jaw physically dropped, not really sure of just what to do now. “Hendric!” he shouted out into the woods, but received no answer. This had all been much too easy…
“Ahl-boo-s!” A set of arms grabbed him from behind, holding him tight around the neck. “Is nice to see you!”
Albus soon found himself spitting dark strands of hair that didn’t belong to him out of his mouth. Stela was right behind him, but he had no idea how she even snuck up on him so fast. “Nice to see you too, Stela,” he managed to gasp. “Can you please let go?”
Stela acted as though she didn’t understand him and just hugged him tighter. Albus tried to move away, but Stela followed him, arms still clinging around his neck. What did his cousin think she was doing? The girl was a year older than he was, for Merlin’s sake! “Stela, please! I’m not getting any air!”
That was what it took to finally get Stela to let go of his windpipe. Once she did, Albus began to contemplate just how he was going to find his way back to the party, but Stela had other ideas. “Ahl-boo-s, come see vhat I find!” she prompted, beginning to pull at his arm. “So ah-mazing!”
Albus tried to pull away, but Stela pulled harder, determined to get her way. Through all the tangled trees and brush, Stela eventually led her younger cousin to a small clearing in the middle of the grove. Strands of grass were charmed white in straight lines, and there were large, but battered, hoops on top of tall poles on either end of the field. There were rough wood benches on the sidelines and the tree branches leaned away from the field, as though pushed by an invisible force.
Stela had found their uncles’ old Quidditch pitch.
Albus had seen the field a few times already. He knew his mother and his uncles didn’t have a lot of money growing up, so most of their free time was spent here, practicing Quidditch and flying. Much of the old field had suffered from years of neglect, but a lot of the wear and tear came from years of use as well. Despite this, the cousins would still use it for unofficial matches against one another, though Albus would always be lying on the grass and watching.
“Is Quidditch field, I zink,” Stela remarked as she wandered out onto the field. “Veasley family like Quidditch?”
As Stela began pointing out various things on the pitch, Albus became very aware of large shadows suddenly swooping over them, much too large to be any sort of bird. Even before the panic set in, there was the realization that he was trapped.
“No use in screaming, Albus,” he could hear Roxanne say from up over his head.
Albus finally got the nerve to look up, and he could see both Roxanne and Fred hovering right above him. “And don’t think going crying to the adults is going to do any good either,” Fred told him.
When he looked back down again, here in the center of the field stood Uncle Charlie and Uncle George, the dress robes they had been wearing early were gone. Stela rushed away from Albus to go join her stepfather, along with Hendric, who seemed to appear out of nowhere.
Uncle Charlie gave his stepchildren a very pleased look. “Thank you for your assistance, kiddos,” Charlie told the two of them.
“No zank you!” Stela pouted with her hand held out. “Vant moh-ney like Charlie proh-mise!”
Albus’ uncle chuckled to himself, but he eventually did reach into his pocket and handed over and handful of Galleons. At this, Hendric was outraged. “Hey, I heh-lped too!”
“It’s not my fault you agreed to work for free,” Charlie said to his stepson. “You’ve got a problem with it, go take it up with the Dragon Lady.”
Albus had heard Uncle Charlie refer to Aunt Sorina by this pet name a few times before, and appearently his children knew it too, because it put a stop to Hendric complaining, although he did stomp away from the field in a manner better fitting of a four-year-old. Stela followed after him, taunting him with the shuffling of the coins.
As Stela sauntered past him with a smug and satisfied look on her face, Albus found himself gaining perspective on what seemed to be a real sneaky streak in his new cousin. Perhaps it was a good thing that Uncle Charlie’s new children wouldn’t be going to Hogwarts or changing their name to Weasley. He didn’t know how his family would react to the shame of one of their own becoming a Slytherin.
Once his new cousins were gone, his uncles began speaking up again. “You must have known this was coming, Albus,” Uncle Charlie said, sounding the most sympathetic out of all of them (though that wasn’t saying much). “Every Weasley who wants to try out for Hogwarts Quidditch first has to make it through the Weasley Quidditch Training Gauntlet to prove that they are worthy.”
“But I don’t want to try out for Quidditch!” Albus protested. “James promised Tracy Corner that he would offer up another Weasley-Potter hybrid to replace Maddox Dugan!”
“Details, details,” Albus suddenly heard James speak up before his words could be considered by all the others. “Those aren’t going to help you dodge those invisible Bludgers.”
Albus gulped. Invisible Bludgers? James hadn’t mentioned those two years ago!
By now, James, and Louis as well, had joined Fred and Roxanne over Albus’ head. “But don’t worry,” James offered with sarcastic assurance, “the family has no intention of sending you into that tryout unprepared.”
By now, pretty much everyone who would have been involved in the coming mess was there.
The Weasley Quidditch was supposed to be absolute torture. Supposedly, the training was horrific, that Ron had to spend the entire week before returning to Hogwarts under strict bed rest if he wanted any hope of being able to walk on his own or having proper function of his limbs. Albus’ uncles had flat out refused to put his mother through the training. They had said it was because she had been able to make the team as a substitute without the training, but his mother said she had heard them all agree that the sessions were too tough for a girl. The mother Albus had been raised by surely would have protested this unjust biased, but to be honest, the Potter children were convinced she was too happy to have avoided the training herself to protest too vigorously.
“We all had to go through it, Albus,” Louis said next. “It’s best to just get through it and get it over with.”
“Like ripping off the world’s largest, most painful bandage.” James added some alliteration.
Albus’ arms went to hug himself around his shoulders in a self-calming behavior. By now, the reality that he was about to face the Gauntlet was really starting to set in. And of course, no one made the suggestion not to go through with it; even if Albus made it clear he didn’t want to join the Quidditch team.
“Alright, boys!” Uncle George clapped his hands and took charge. “What position are we trying out for this time?”
“Keeper!” James shouted before Albus could even react.
Finally, Albus tried to speak up for himself. “Mum and Dad are never going to let me go through this,” he said. “Especially not unwillingly!”
“You think your mum and dad don’t already know you’re here?” Uncle George asked. “There’s nowhere on Earth we would be safe if your mother learned we took you for Weasley Quidditch Training Gauntlet and didn’t tell her.”
“And your mother is just as committed to carrying on the Weasley Quidditch legacy as the rest of us are,” Uncle Charlie said next. “We wouldn’t put her through the trial because she was a girl, and she would most certainly never allow us to pass over you with our family training.”
Uncle George spoke up again. “And you’re going to be here for all three days of it!”
Albus was suddenly becoming increasingly horrified. He had forgotten that little detail about the training. “But where am I going to sleep?”
At that question, everyone burst into loud laughter. Albus grimly realized there would be no sleep. Sleep was for the weak.
Suddenly, a broom”a Nimbus”was pushed into his hands. “Enough stalling, Albus!” Uncle George told him. “Climb up and fly up to your cousins to get started. And I don’t want to hear ‘I don’t know how’ as an excuse! Climb up, fall down, climb up again, fall down again, and then join your cousins.”
“Splendid!” Charlie exclaimed once Albus finally managed to remain somewhat steady on the broom. “Now, the first thing we need to work on is getting as comfortable on that broom as you are on your feet. Once you can fly it without making any mistakes, you’ll fly it backwards. And once you can fly it backwards, then you’ll fly it blindfolded.”
Albus gulped as soon as he heard what was said next. “And then, the real work will start.”
He tried to think of just one more argument, but Albus was beginning to see that he was only delaying the inevitable. His uncles, his brother, and his cousins were all staring out at him with glares that Albus could feel all the way down to his bones. He stared down at the broom in his hands and took a deep breath as he prepared to climb and the fall he knew would quickly follow.
Albus finally finished the course to his uncles’ satisfaction at about four the next morning. Breakfast consisted of a Pumpkin Pasty which Albus had to eat on his broom because they could not waste the time for him to climb off the Nimbus and climb back on again. But now that Albus was considered a competent flyer, it was time for him to fine tune the practical aspects of the game.
It started out harmless enough, beginning with Albus and Roxanne passing the Quaffle back and forth between one another and then the other kids all taking turns throwing the balls with Albus either catching them or swatting them away from the goal. But then his uncles decided it was time to pick up the pace, and before he knew it, Uncle George pointed his wand, and Albus found himself tethered by the leg to the Quidditch Hoop.
Albus found his worry returning afresh as he looked down at the silver cord synched tight around his ankle. “Uncle George…” he almost whimpered.
“A good Keeper never abandons his guard post, Albus,” his uncle told him. “But until then, you’re going to need something to remind you of that.”
Something to remind him? Reminding had nothing to do with it! He was tied to a post for Merlin’s sake; like a dog!
“Now then,” Uncle George moved on, “we can start to focus on the principle of guarding your post and honing your reflexes whenever you see the Quaffle coming.”
“Not that you’re going to have to worry about going fast for very far,” Charlie said from down on the ground. “Just fast and far enough to keep the Quaffle from going through the Hoop.”
“Or to get away from it fast enough to keep from breaking your nose,” Roxanne added just before giving the Quaffle another hard toss in Albus’ direction. Albus’ arms shot up to protect his face, and there was a sharp sting when the Quaffle actually did hit him and it made a very loud, sharp noise. But Albus had stopped the ball from going through the goal post.
“Not bad!” Uncle Charlie commended him. “Now everybody get in line and see how he does with stopping more than one!”
The practice continued in this fasion for a long while, gradually becoming more and more difficult and Albus’ injuries becoming closer and closer together, with more and more trials at at Uncle Charlie’s armature Healing abilities.
“If you’re going to make your living working around dragons, you need to have at least a basic knowledge of the art of Healing,” he said as he mended Albus’ arm. “As long as your intestines are falling out of a hole in your side, there’s nothing I can’t handle.”
Albus’ digestive track never did end up leaking out his side, but pretty much everything else that could happen did: broken bones, bloody noses, head injuries, sprains, and lots and lots of bruises. Muggles probably would have seen this as some horrific form of child abuse, but for any competent wizard, healing a broken bone was as easy as putting on a bandage.
And yes, there really were invisible Bludgers, although Albus had no idea where his uncles would even get invisible Bludgers.
“Uncle George, why am I doing this?” Albus had to ask as he ducked his head to avoid yet another concussion.
“Blimey if I know, but you look hilarious doing it!”
“Your Uncle George knows full well what they’re for!” Charlie spoke up at the sound of the Gauntlet being mocked. “During a match, a Bludger doesn’t discriminate in who it goes after. And you’re not always going to have the luxury of being able to see them coming. You need to be able to feel them coming. Especially when you’re the Keeper and you need to also be watching what everyone else is doing.”
Albus never got a chance to answer, because one moment later, one of those invisible Bludgers cracked him on the side of the head and knocked him off his broom. In the back of his mind, Albus was hoping he would snap his neck so he could put an end to all of this. But, of course, his survival instincts kicked in and he used his arms to cushion the fall, earning him yet another broken arm and a broken collarbone.
After that, his uncles just let him settle on his broom for a while, and Albus actually thought his uncles were giving him a break, but that delusion was shattered as soon as he looked up through his hair and saw Uncle George flying up towards the goal with a long bundle of brown cord tucked under his arm.
Roxanne spoke up before Albus did. “Dad, what are you doing?”
“Roxanne, Louis, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re a girl and you wish you could throw like a girl.” Uncle George ignored the affronted looks as he began tying the cord to the goal hoop. “Not that you’re not good Quidditch players, but Albus is going to be facing people with much stronger throws than you have.”
Then Uncle George tied the other end of the cord to the other side of the hoop and began flying out and away. Dimly, Albus finally became aware of just what his uncle was doing. It was a slingshot!
“And we are doing Albus no favors by letting him think he’s never going to face anyone tougher than his own cousins,” Uncle George told them as he took hold of the Quaffle from his daughter and began to fly back towards the makeshift slingshot he had created.
“Alright, Albus,” Uncle George placed the Quaffle in the leather catch, “get ready, and if you do get hit, remember not to tense up, or you’ll just end up breaking more bones.”
But ignoring this, Albus cringed, clenching all his muscles, and abandoning all though of trying to stop the Quaffle. He was just getting ready to be hit.
Albus wasn’t exactly sure when the Gauntlet had ended, but at some point, he became aware of the fact that he was on his grandparents’ sofa instead of slumped over a broom. Every now and then, his grandfather would ask him how he was doing and his grandmother would try and get him to drink some water or coax him into eating, all the while muttering about ‘bloody Quidditch obsessions’.
And by now, Albus had to agree with her.
Over the course of the training, Albus had broken each of his arms, his leg three times, fractured his jaw, and had gotten more bloody noses than he could have counted. Of course, though, he would keep going, thanks to Uncle Charlie’s proficiency at healing broken bones. But they must have been satisfied with Albus, because he wasn’t training anymore, but he also wasn’t dead.
Time bled together and Albus was never really aware of when night and day began, and couldn’t even tell the difference between when three minutes had passed and when three hours had.
At some point, though, he was yanked out of the haze by a sharp series of shakes at his shoulders and an all too familiar shouting in his ears. “Albus!” Rose screeched.
Albus instantly began cursing his cousin in his head. He wasn’t shaken very hard, but even the light touched caused excruciating pain. He wasn’t even sure how the simple act of breathing didn’t hurt.
Finally, Rose seemed to gain a little insight. “I shouldn’t even be asking you how you’re feeling right now, should I?”
But Rose still took a seat on the small, unoccupied portion of the sofa and continued talking as though she had stopped in for afternoon tea. “I still really felt like I should see you. You haven’t been home in days. The Side-Along Apparation was a lot of fun, though, I will admit. Using the Floo is just so same-old, same-old.”
Albus briefly wondered who it was she had Apparated with, but then he managed to look up towards the entryway and could see a very tall body topped with bright turquoise hair. It was Teddy Lupin, looking as though he was trying to determine whether or not it was a dead body draped over the sofa.
Rose grabbed a hold of his hand, forcing him to wave. “Say hello to Teddy, Albus!”
When Albus yelped like a kicked dog, Teddy cringed. “Rose, I don’t think Albus really feels like talking now.”
Rose didn’t seem to understand the inflection. “That’s alright. He can listen.”
Teddy shook his head, leaning against the doorframe. “I see the Weasley Quidditch Gauntlet is still alive and well.”
At that moment, Albus couldn’t help but feel a small amount of resentment towards his godbrother. Teddy had never gone through the Gauntlet himself; he had never played Quidditch while he was at Hogwarts Lucky bugger!
“Come sit, Teddy,” Rose encouraged him. “It’s not polite to have conversations from across the room.”
Still shaking his head at the ridiculousness of it all, Teddy eventually did make his way over to the couch and took a seat on the single remaining bit of space. Rose began to talk to Teddy, as though there were nothing unusual about having a conversation when one’s cousin was lying face down beside her, moaning in pain. “What has Victoire been doing these days?”
“I actually haven’t been seeing a lot of Victoire lately,” he told Rose. “She spends a lot of time at work, but she has to if she wants to take over old Miss Norwood’s school by next year.”
Albus wasn’t surprised. Taking over the small primary school had been what was taking up most of his cousins attention for several months now. Even though the one room school had only fifteen students, they were all different ages and it took a lot of effort to come up with lessons and homework for all of them. Victoire would be spending the next year as a teaching assistant for Miss Norwood, who was planning to retire from thirty-five years of teaching in May. And once that happened, Victoire would be taking up the post of teaching the young students and would be in charge of running the party.
At Charlie and Sorina’s party, Albus had also heard a lot of people say Victoire was ‘wasting her potential’ with teaching primary school, but Uncle Bill and Aunt Fleur took each biting comment in stride (although Aunt Fleur needed to be stopped from reaching for her wand on more than one occasion).
The immediate family knew that Victoire was doing what she wanted, and wanted to work for fulfillment rather than gold. It was part of what made her and Teddy so compatible.
When Albus finally managed to look up, he could see Teddy looking at him very sympathetically. “If you think you trust me, Albus,” he offered, “I could try a few healing spells if you’ll tell me what hurts the most.”
Albus moaned something into his pillow that so intangible that even he didn’t know what he was saying.”
“Mahgahooo is not a bodily organ.” Teddy started to laugh, but it died once he realized there wasn’t anything really funny about it. So instead of the spells, Teddy started rubbing Albus’ back. It stung and Albus could feel his muscles flinch at the touch, but it was still sort of nice. At least someone was putting Albus wellbeing before Quidditch or Arcane ScoRA business, which Rose didn’t wait any longer to start bringing up.
“Teddy, you’d better go back to the kitchen,” Rose suddenly interrupted, tilting her head towards the doorway. “You promised Grandmum and Granddad Weasley that you’d sit and talk with them.”
Teddy must have already known that Albus’ grandparents weren’t going to let him leave their home without putting him through some form of interrogation, so he decided it was better to get it over with sooner rather than later, and stood up to return to the kitchen, where Grandmum Weasley awaited him with tea, biscuits, and a long mental list of questions.
As soon as he was gone, Rose leaned down and whispered in her cousin’s ear. “Albus, there’s a reason I asked Teddy to bring me here.”
Albus groaned as he turned his face into the pillow. Of course, there was!
He heard the sound of paper rustling and he suddenly felt his chin pulled over to the side so his eyes could be focused on something. “Look at what was printed in the Daily Prophet this morning.”
Albus struggled to move his head to look, but even if he hadn’t, he had a feeling Rose was going to tell him all about it anyway.
“Maddox’s mother is still at it.” Albus was having trouble getting his eyes to focus, so supposed he would just have to take her word for it.
Albus had broken at least seventeen bones over the course of a week. Did she think he had been putting a lot of thought towards Maddox Dugan’s mum?
“She’s saying all kinds of things about us. Like the reason I wasn’t sorted into Gryffindor was because the Hat knew there was something wrong with me. She says you’re so obsessed with trying to be like you dad, you would have gone after anyone to make yourself look like a hero. And Scorpius…she’s not even trying to be creative with him. It’s all ranting about Death Eaters, and family legacy of evil, and on and on and on….”
Any other time, Albus probably would have been outraged, but he couldn’t even work himself up enough to become mildly annoyed. Even anger hurt!
“Dad doesn’t even try to hide the paper from me anymore,” Rose told him. “Everybody’s seen it, and I don’t think he sees any point in it anymore. He was telling me the other night how people would probably be talking about it on the train and at Hogwarts and that we should be ready. I’ve already written to Scorpius just in case his parents are trying to ignore it all and brush it under the rug.”
Albus moaned a moan that could have been perceived as anger, frustration, or excruciating pain. Albus didn’t even have the energy to try and figure out which one it was.
“I’ll let you think about,” Rose said, finally getting back up. “I should probably be going home. There’s only three days until we have to be at Kings Cross.”
Albus groaned and buried his head in the sofa cushion once again as soon as Rose left him in peace. Three days? Albus doubted he would even be able to walk by then!
The Arcane ScoRA and the Blood Pact by OliveOil_Med
Chapter Notes: Albus does his very best to avoid his cousins at a family gathering, but in the end, he has no choice. He had to face the Weasley Training Gauntlet.
Thank you to my betas, Pippa and hogwartsbookworm!