(( What can I say......I'm brilliant that way.
))
Looking back on it, it was a picture-perfect moment. Albus would liked to have had a camera.
Two people, isolated from the flow of the world, from the ebb and flow of the ties and tangles of human relations, laughing. It would have seemed strange to anyone who knew Jack Dyllan, to anyone who knew Albus Potter, to anyone who cared to know the subject of conversation, but it was good anyways. A moment which lightened hearts that had carried loads spanning miles of the road, and now anxious to sleep.
But there was too much left to be said.
And hell, Albus didn't like calling himself a coward either.
So taking in a breath, unnoticeably, he spun around to face his..friend. Yes, friend. He didn't quite meet her eyes, not yet, but he faced her, and that was half the battle won. "What if.....I say whatever I want to and....." The pull was too strong, he had to look at her now. "You don't forget it by tomorrow. You live on with the knowledge that your best friend's brother is a murderer, and I live on with the knowledge that there's someone on earth who knows that I'm not a porcelain figurine." He shifted forward by a bare inch, "That sounds acceptable to you?"
One second. Two.
Then he shifted away, and turned away, and downed a massive gulp of the Firewhisky. The fiery liquid slid down his throat, too cool still to compare to the burn in his chest. But the very action was comforting, and Albus started talking, casual, matter-of-fact, absently wondering when his shields would revive and snap back into place, "Visited my father's grave today. Don't know why I do it, I hate the bloody sight of it, but I still visit it on my birthday every year. Quite the self-destructive habit. Oh, its my birthday, did you know?" One more swig. "Mum certainly didn't. Not James. Not Lily. Not even bloody Rose or Hugo or Grandma Molly. Strange.....I always thought she liked me."
He was going on and on, and really, he should just seal his lips right now. Why wasn't he doing it again? "So I got pissed naturally, and slipped off to the Dean Forest. I go there to practice the spells I invent. Oh, I invent Dark magic too, did you know that?" One more swig. The bottle was more than half empty. "Surprise, surprise, the Ministry found today of all days to detect Dark activity there. Sent an official. Avariella Hudson. Muggle-born. I dated her briefly in fifth-year. My first kiss. She didn't remember it, sadly. Its strange you know, considering how famous I am, that people don't tend to remember me much." This laugh was different from the first. It was curiously mirthless.
He was talking, faster and faster now, the grip on the Firewhisky bottle turning tight, as if it was his life's anchor. His knuckles were turning white, "She was screaming, loads of shit. I don't remember it right now. Crap about how the son of Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley was Dark, and how she would hand me over to Azkaban. She spoke about telling Mum, and James, upstanding citizens that they are, and how they'd surely help in handing their son over to prison. I half-believed her, you know."
"We dueled. She was damn good, faster than me. She had me down on the ground, on wandpoint, and she called me a....... worthless coward, I think. Unworthy of bearing my name. I cast the first spell I could think of, and her guts were s-s-....scattered all over the floor. I g-gathered her up, stitched her together, and deposited her in St. Mungo's. Hopefully she's alive."
The bottle of Firewhisky hit the table, well and empty. The last sentence was almost a murmur, "Splattered guts look awful, did you know?"