A Talk with Rose
Rose finds Albus sulking in the garden. Teddy had gone to find her not wanting to upset Albus any further. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t angry. The two boys had a couple years on Albus, and should know not to touch his sore spot. She’s made Teddy and James both aware that when they get out of this family gathering she will have their heads. Going off on her cousins will have to wait though (family gathering or not), all of her concern belongs to a heartbroken Albus.
“Albus,” Rose says, approaching his shaking figure, curled up, on one of the stone benches, under a tree in the Weasley garden, “it’s Rose, Teddy told me what happened and said I should come find you,” she says as she approaches. The poor boy is clearly a wreck over what happened. Now that Rose is closer she can see his head buried between his legs as an attempt to muffle his cries.
She sits beside him, “It’s not a crime to like him,” she says rubbing circles into his back.
“It feels like it…I thought I had a chance . It was all a lie. Rose, you don’t understand,” Albus says between sobs. It comes out all muffled from leaning in on himself.
“I still think you have a chance,” Rose says in a knowing voice.
Albus scoffs, “No Rose, he likes you. He could never love me,” Albus says, barely getting through without crying harder.
“Albus, that’s no way to talk about yourself,” Rose says before hugging his crying figure. Albus moves to hug her back.
The two of them stay like that a while with Albus wrapped up in her arms as she rubs his back and affirms that everything will be fine, that nothing is wrong with him. After Albus calms down a bit he pulls away from Rose’s embrace.
“Thanks Rose,” Albus says, whipping tears from his eyes, “sorry for getting you covered in snot and tears,” he says, attempting a small apologetic smile.
“Honestly not how I thought we were going to spend the afternoon, but it’s not like I mind,” she says, shrugging and giving him a confident smile in return. There's a pause as Albus half expects her to get up and leave. When she doesn't his gaze drifts to his hands currently sitting in his lap. He feels a sense of emptiness.
"Want to talk about it?" Rose offers.
"Not dying to…but I'm not entirely sure what there is to talk about? It wasn't real," Albus says grimly.
"It was real enough to you and your feelings are real."
"I guess…"
"You guess? What, you don't trust you really do?" Rose questions rather amused at how dense both boys seem to be.
"He's pretty?" Albus answers with an unconvincing shrug.
"Albus, it's okay to like him, and it's okay to admit you do. I get that it's scary, you're his best friend so you've got that going for you," Rose says, trying her best to encourage him.
"I don't want to admit it. I don't want to recognize these feelings. Not when I know he doesn't feel the same. Can't I just go back to being oblivious to them?"
Rose gives him a sad smile, "At least think about it, okay?"
Albus turns his gaze back to his lap and gives a small nod.
"Good, Scorpius should be here any minute. I'm going to leave before I make things awkward but come find me if it gets worse, yeah?" Rose says rising from her seat. She casts a cleaning charm on the soggy sleeve of her shirt. Albus watches as it disappears and feels not as guilty about it as he did a moment ago, "You and Scorpius should come play with us anyway," she insists and laughs when Albus groans. She ruffles his hair before walking off.
When she's gone Albus is left alone with his thoughts. If Rose knows she'll make it worse, why would she say that Albus has a shot with Scorp? They've never talked about sexuality even when Albus came out. Albus thinks he definitely would have felt safe enough to say something if Albus had just told him his own sexual preferences.
None of it makes any sense. Why does nobody understand? Scorpius won't ever like him. Might even think he's disgusting.
Overwhelmed with frustration he gets up and starts throwing the gnomes over the fence. Tears start to well up in his eyes again as he throws the stupid creatures as hard as he can.