Days After Death

"I wouldn’t have interrupted,” James tells him. “It’s just, the Minister’s there.”

Shit, Harry thinks, walking so fast James has started to jog a little to catch up. Harry slows only so James can lead them, although he has a good idea of where Albus would be.

“Aunt Hermione?” Lily asks, clearly not having got the memo to use formalities despite their familial connections, especially when addressing the Minister of Magic. “What, is she giving him some lecture?”

“No,” James shakes his head, panting. “No, he doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”

“Typical.”

The Ministry didn’t really have an official detainment section in the Auror Headquarters, as most detainees were taken to the Ministry Detention Area, now cleared of all Dementor activity, and brought to a separate interrogation room or kept until they were bailed, released or awaited their court date. Some individuals though, such as Albus, who had connections to those higher up, could go straight to the office to hash out their inevitable bailout. Such meetings with Albus have become so frequent that Harry found them more of an annoyance than anything else. He could drive himself mad in circles if he so chose to let himself become angry with every encounter, but instead he had to reside in the fact that Albus was… troubled. And he really couldn’t do much to help him if Albus didn’t want to put the effort in himself.

So thus became the pattern where Albus would cause some ruckus, get himself arrested, call for James and James would call for him, for whatever reason. He doesn’t exactly know why James has to get him every time, even if he does need an Auror to sign off to. Everyone in the department knows who they are, and they would be let go regardless of which Auror James selects. Harry is their boss, after all. And their aunt is the literal Minister.

Seeing as she beat him to it, Harry concludes that Hermione wanted Harry for reasons unrelated to his position.

Surely she doesn’t expect me to school him, Harry thinks bitterly. Albus had all the Weasley stubbornness and the Potter nerve. There is no getting through to him.

James leads Harry and Lily (who insisted she join) through one of the infinite archways of the Ministry, the walls polished black and the monotonous scratching of quills against parchment filling his ears as they stroll past desks and desks of case and record managers. James leads them deeper into the filing offices until they arrive at the front of a sparsely populated hallway of Auror case files. Harry caught on Hermione’s intention immediately.

The three find the Minister and Albus at the back of the dimly lit hall. Albus’ demeanour protrudes an arrogant nonchalance, with his back against the wall and his arms loosely crossed over his front. His hair is mussed, and Harry can spot the blackening bruise along his cheek and the cut on his lip and above his eye. Hermione has her fists on her hips, gripping each two wands, seeming in the midst of calmly lecturing his second born. Though her hair was, by default, naturally a curly mess, she had been able to tame her hair to controlled curls since her first term as Minister.

“Hermione,” Harry greets, making a point to address her first, “sorry to inconvenience you like this.”

He can hear Albus snort behind her, and he bites his tongue before he can say anything to him.

Yes, Al, I still have to apologise on your behalf like you’re a child.

“Not at all, I was hoping to talk with you later so I thought I may as well meet you here,” Hermione says breezily, always calm, always on top of it. She’d make him feel like a fool with her mannerisms if she wasn’t his best friend.

He nods at her, and very rarely does he not have to hope that she understands that he’s grateful to her through the micro-expressions of his gaze, his pursed mouth. She nods back, understanding him, her expression more of a ‘I’ll be having to clean up after your messes for the rest of my life,’ and then she moves to the side so he can deal with his.

He finally turns his expression towards Albus, but before he can say anything, Lily steps past him briskly.

“Hey Al,” she drawls, her tone dripping with condescension, and Harry has to tap down the flare of annoyance he feels at this.

“Lily,” Albus replies, disinterested. Whether he even knew Lily was an Auror now was dicey. Harry had certainly not told him, and Lily probably hadn’t. It probably was through Ginny or James then, perhaps even Rose, if those two still talked to one another.

“Albus,” Harry cuts in, before Lily can say anything else to aggravate Albus. The last thing he needs after having to deal with this mess in the middle of a work day is to break up a sibling quarrel. “What happened?”

Albus shrugs.

“Got into a fight,” he sniffs, not even looking at him. Harry would like to think it was out of embarrassment, but the way his eyes flit to studying the empty corridors around them make it seem as if he’s just bored with all of them, which Harry supposes is purposefully done, which makes him more irritated. “At a bar.”

“A Muggle bar?” Harry manages, though he knows some of his irritation slips out.

“Yeah. Sure. Didn’t use any hexes though so it should be good.”

“You got arrested by the Muggle police,” James says, and Albus finally turns to look at at least one of them. “You can’t keep doing this.”

“Your brother is right,” Harry growls before Albus can respond, and Albus looks away from him again. Back to the corridors. “I can’t keep up and leaving in the middle of meetings to deal with this. I’ve tried to help you before, but it’s obvious to me you want to keep your life messy. Fine, you’re an adult now, so you can pick your poison. But you will not interfere with my life or your siblings’, got it? You need to start thinking about others before doing the things you do.”

“I do think about others, just not about you, necessarily,” Albus says, as easily as if Harry asked him what the date was. “And I didn’t ask for you, you know, I asked for my lawyer.”

James just sighs behind him.

“There’s just no point with you, is there?” Harry shakes his head.

He doesn’t know if he’s saying this to Albus, exactly. He thinks he’s just musing himself. Albus never seems to listen to anything he says, never seems to care. At this point, there just isn’t any reason for Harry to try and help him, and he’s had to learn to accept that fact over the recent years. No matter what he says, how genuine he feels, no matter how anyone ever feels, Albus will keep blowing his own horn until he opens his eyes one day and finds himself stuck in a situation no one is going to help him out of. It was like witnessing a slow moving train crash, and it’s a wonder Harry still cares. He’s been watching this happen for years.

As usual, Albus doesn’t respond, not caring what he says. It’s these small, ungrateful gestures that really unnerve Harry, the full extent to how much Albus disregards his life, his own relationship with his father, his little sister too. He has no idea how Harry would have killed to have what he has now, and he’s standing there not even bothering to look at any of them.

No. No, Harry won’t be doing this with him. It’s just a circle, when it comes down to Albus. And it is Lily’s first day and Albus will not mess that up for them.

So Harry turns to James, who he also doesn’t look at. But that’s just because he’s… well, he’s James.

“Where do I need to sign?”

“What?” Lily snaps. “You’re just gonna let him go like that? He’s always messing up and now he doesn’t even get shit for it?”

Albus scoffs.

“Look, Dad, he's literally scoffing at us!”

“Okay, how about we relax a bit?” James says, physically getting in between Lily and Albus. Harry just turns away, shaking his head. He’s been down this road too many times. Right now he just wants to talk to Hermione and figure out how to tell Ginny of Albus’ appearance, or how to cover it up. It’ll do no good anyways. “You two should really get on with work anyways–”

“Here’s a crazy idea Lily, why don’t you go off at me then?” Albus offers. “Prove that Daddy doesn’t have to do everything for you.”

“No–”

“Fine!” She huffs, and Harry moves to where Hermione is standing further away, pretending to not hear what’s going on. “You’re such a selfish twit, you know that? You fuck up your own life by getting into fights or drugs or whatever the fuck and then try to make it everyone else’s problem. But it’s bloody old now, Al.”

She rages on, and Harry taps Hermione on the shoulder.

“Heard you wanted to talk to me?” He asks her.

She casts a long look at where Lily is still yelling at Albus (“You’ve always acted as if it was everyone’s fault but your own, the way you’ve ended up. It’s petty and underhanded and so immature.”).

“I should break it up, I know what you’re gonna say,” Harry sighs before Hermione can open her mouth, for just the way she’s frowning at his kids makes her disappointment in him all the more palpable. Despite how close he is with her, he’s always felt the urge to impress her, and show her that he can fix his own problems without her interference. Clearly, that was pretty rich.

“It looks messy,” Hermione comments, raising a brow and looking at him. “Which is why you must fix it. You’re the father.”

“I know, I know,” Harry sighs again. It was always a pain when Hermione is right. Most of the time she simply points out the obvious, a truth that he doesn’t want to confront.

“I’m always here, you know,” she says, just as soon as he hears James cut in to defend his quiet brother (“Lily stop, you’re just being cruel now”). “I almost literally have lived and breathed the Ministry for the past decade, and… I’m sorry if I’ve been distant.”

There’s something in the way she says that line that makes him stop short. Had it been anyone else, Harry probably would have just assumed it was a nicety, a comment on the common distance from two close friends in their adulthood. But Hermione is a master at masking herself, being the Minister and all. Over the decades, Harry has picked up on her small mimicries of concern and turmoil, and so he mulls over the reasons as to why this is so.

“Trouble with Ron?” Harry asks softly.

“No, at least, I don’t think so.” Doubt crosses her mind. “Why? Did he say something to you?”

“Not at all.”

She physically depresses with relief, and though she seems more pleased, the tension in her stature hasn’t disappeared.

“That’s good,” she nods, in a very business-like manner. “Harry, deal with your kids, please, then stop by my office later today.”

“Okay, we’ll talk soon,” he tells her, and tries to communicate to her that they’ll have to catch up, if not today, then outside office hours, and soon. He’s been feeling stressed lately and the last thing he needs on his mind is his two best mates having a quarrel over work hours. He’s missed her, and Ron too, a lot recently.

She gives him a friendly little wave, and Harry steels himself as she walks off, heels clacking against the hallway, and turns to face his kids.

Albus is looking directly at him, but as soon as Harry makes eye contact with him, he looks away quickly.

It seems the argument has escalated quite a bit.

“Do you ever wonder why the only person who only really talks to you nowadays is James?” Lily sneers at Albus. “It’s because he fucking has to, dealing with your bullshit!”

“Lily!” Both Harry and James exclaim, aghast.

“When will people in this family realise that being nice to him doesn’t achieve anything?” She says loudly, exasperatedly. It’s no good, getting Lily worked up like this on her first day at work.

“No, you’re just being presumptuous,” James responds hotly, crossing his arms. He looks more hurt than Albus does. Granted, however, Albus wears the expression of light amusement.

“Is this your idea of tough love?” Albus asks innocently, and Lily looks like she’s about to give him another, more uglier bruise.

If Harry had to compare the relations between Lily and Albus, the image that came to mind were of two individuals waist deep in gasoline, one holding three lit matches and the other with five, goading the other to drop their fist first.

“Lily, stop. You’re rising to the bait,” Harry speaks.

“Oh, who cares? If he’s the one that wants to fight so bad then why are you reprimanding me?”

“I’m not reprimanding anyone.”

“Exactly. You should be reprimanding him.”

“He’s not a child anymore, Lily, if he wants to screw up his life then he can go ahead,” and at this, Harry looks directly at Albus.

Still nothing, nothing that tells him he’s being taken seriously. He honestly doesn’t understand why Albus, of all people, has sufficed to hate him so much. There had always been a certain enmity between them that he could not place with any of his other children, and Harry had used to mull over it in the early hours wondering how it could be his fault, why it probably was and why he couldn’t understand what he had done wrong. It tired out sooner or later.

“I’ll give him a firm admonishment all the way out of this maze of a Ministry if you want, but I honestly just need one Auror to sign the release papers so we can all get about our day,” James grumbled. “I’m a man in high demand, you know.”

“Don’t believe it,” Lily responded, and it sounded as if she had wanted to be light about it, joke with him, even, but it came out all wrong. Stiff, forced, cringeworthy. It was no good. This little reunion between all of them was getting them nowhere productive.

“Where are the papers, James?” Harry asks and James summons them with a flick of his wand, like he had the spell on hand. Harry just sighs and summons his quill.

The silence that follows after it weighs on him like a suffocating reminder of mistakes, of why he flounders so foolishly in the presence of his three children, a perennial impediment. The scratching against parchment permeates the dingy air around him, and he feels a body move beside him, who he knows is Lily. James and Albus will be standing side by side, because Albus needs someone in his corner and it can’t be him, and it won’t be Lily, so it has to be James, and when Harry looks up he finds it exactly how he knew it would be. It’s a wonder how a person can still experience such disappointment when they’ve lived this scene many times before, without any indication of change.

When he gives the signed parchment back to James, he’s itching to escape the dismal setting, the suffocating inky black walls of the hallways. The secrecy of it all makes him feel dirty. The fact that he rather not sign the parchment for his own child makes him feel dirtier.

“Thanks Dad,” James says, like he always does, as if it’s him Harry’s pulling strings for.

With a relish of his wand, Albus’ shoulders relax, a gesture that seems noticeable enough since Harry had not even realised Albus was tense beforehand. Not a moment later, his uncuffed hands stretch out before him, and he yawns, a lazy, despicable, and enraging gesticulation.

“Happy?” Lily snaps, and Albus turns her head towards her, surprised as if he had forgotten entirely of her presence.

“Hm,” he says, noncommittally. “What are you doing at the Ministry anyways, Lily? Parties got that boring for you, did they?”

“I work here, dickhead.”

“Right, right.”

“Enough,” Harry put on his best authoritarian tone. It makes him feel like a fool. Ginny would probably call him a fool if she were here right now. “James, escort your brother out please. Lily and I have work to do.”

With that, the two divided groups separated further, and starting with Lily and Harry, begin to make their way out the corridor. He could faintly hear James and Albus murmuring to each other, James’ tone a little harsher than Albus, as if he too thought it was worth the time to scold him.

“We ought to just not come next time,” Lily tells him quietly. “Because you know he’ll just keep going on like this. I don’t understand why he’s like this.”

“No one understands Albus except Albus himself.”

It was probably the only thing Harry was truly sure about his second son, which he supposed was quite depressing, really. But if he had a knut for every hour he had spent in self-reflection over how he had gone wrong in raising Albus, he’d be thrice as rich as he was now, and probably could buy out the Malfoys. There was just no use, dwelling over it.

So Harry decided to do what he always did, and looked forward. There was only ahead, and ahead of him was an interrogation with a Squib on a case the Minister seemed to possibly want to meet privately with him about. He couldn’t mess that up.