I Think I Know You

It had really been too long.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. He was the son of a Weasley after all. He was supposed to feel comfortable, at home here. Not uneasy. Not quiet. Not nostalgic, of all things.

But then again, Albus had always been the quiet one. He as a child had been target of too many pranks, so walking into Weasley Wizarding Wheezes had always been downright terrifying. It might as well have openly painted a target on his back, one which announced in purple, bold, glittery letters: Moron Walking In. Feel free to Indulge yourselves.

Albus resisted the urge to smile. James would've loved such a sign. Probably.

That word 'probably' pissed him off a lot. Sure, Albus had been the one to distance himself from the family, but it was downright pissing off that now he didn't know if his prat-like elder brother was still a prat or not. In the whirlwind that had been his life for the past two weeks: meeting Jack, accepting lessons from Katrina-Carlotta, setting up the Rebels: family had been left somewhere far behind. He hadn't spoken to James or Lily in ages. Maybe everybody had changed, just like him. Maybe James had grown up.

Albus resisted the urge to snort. Grown up. Sure, when pigs start flying. But then again, in the world of today, all was needed was a simple charm to attach wings on pigs. So that was that.

James stared up at the sign to the Wizard Wheezes, wanting desperately to see his younger brother, but a hesitant feeling rising within him as well. Albus had distanced himself from the rest of the family for so long, and James had been too damned stupid to realize it....always being too involved in his own life....until it was too late. His family had split apart, and James blamed himself. It had been his job to hold them together after their mother died, but he had failed. First Albus's estrangement, and then Lily being closer to Teddy than she was her own brothers. A family that had once been so close and loving was now broken, waiting for someone to come in and sweep up the pieces. James could only hope that he was able to wield the broom.

His temporary paralysis finally breaking, James walked up to the door and pushed, the tinkling of a merry little bell signaling his arrival. James's eyes wandered briefly around the small store, but they quickly fastened on the face of his little brother, of Albus. A strange feeling rose up in James's chest, and he almost felt that he could cry. It really had been too long.

"Albus!" James cried out jovially, expertly hiding his true emotions behind a cheery voice.

James spread his arms out, ready to seize Albus into a welcoming embrace.

"Albus!"

Albus blinked. That was his name. Spoken by a voice. An exceedingly familiar voice.

He turned, then half-choked, "Ja-James."

The same hair. The same eyes twinkling in amusement. The same merry smile. His elder brother looked just like he'd always done. Albus felt something thick rise up his throat, and he swallowed, eyes widened. He took one step, then another......and halted.

A ridiculous memory flashed before his eyes, of James hugging him before taking his head in a firm grip, choking his throat and mussing up his hair, being 'affectionate' as he liked to call it. Albus stared at his brother dubiously, suspecting him for a few seconds. Then he gave his head an internal shake. Merlin, he was acting like an idiot. This time his steps didn't falter, and his arms went around James in a brief, but tight hug.

"Good to see you." It surprised Albus to realise that he actually meant his words. "Its been too long." Then the moment tending a bit too much to sentimentality, he stepped back, words taking on a faint joking lilt, "So where've you been, you prat? Too busy playing games and enjoying your celebrity status?"

James grinned, but it was a strained sort of grin. His brother had been gone too long. He had missed out on all the trials he had gone through....the turmoil....the heart-break. James was no longer the fun-loving prankster he had been as a child. He had turned hard....cold...and cynical, but James didn't want Albus to see what he had become. He wanted to be that arrogant prat...the celebrity....the prankster. He wanted to be that brother Albus would remember from his childhood, so he hid the ghosts from his past best he could, the mere presence of Albus making him happier than he had been in years. The family could be together again...something so important to James...more important than anything else in his life.

"Oh, you know," James laughed, tousling Albus's hair, "Touring the world, playing Quidditch, and trying to dodge the masses of adoring fans. All in the life of being a Potter."

James realized that his voice had fell a bit flat at the last sentence in what was supposed to be a joke. The full force of the realization that here he was talking to the only other soul who knew what it was like to be the son of Harry Potter. Sure, Lily had her share of admirers, and people who expected more out of her, but it had always been so much harder on the boys. Trying to live up to the expectations others set for them, fighting to step out of a shadow cast so large that at times it seemed impossible. James had coped by following in his father's footsteps, trying to prove himself and rise to the standard which was held for him....often to the detriment of himself. It had turned James into an alcoholic and a womanizer. When looking in the mirror he saw the worst of his father in him, rather than the best. James had been so self-absorbed in living up to what was expected of him, that he had so often ignored what his younger brother must have been going through. The only son in the family to be sorted into Slytherin. Of course it had started rumors. Of course Albus must have been feeling isolated, and in response to the fame, he had done the opposite....he had withdrew. James often wished that he had seen it sooner....had tried to connect with his brother before it was too late, but it had taken the death of his mother to realize what had happened, and by then it was too late. James could only hope now to repair the rift which had grown between them.

Albus scowled as James messed up his hair. "Ja-ames." He ducked from beneath his brother's grip, voice almost lilting towards petulance. Once a prat, forever a prat.

All in the life of being a Potter.

Albus inhaled as he heard the line. James didn't look particularly.....happy while saying it. Almost morose, resigned. That wasn't right. That wasn't right at all. His brother wasn't tired of being a Potter, he revelled in it, he used his last name to the fullest extent to reap all the benefits he could, he...

And you haven't seen him for a year.

It seemed world-altering, that thought. The world couldn't be right if James Potter was unhappy. He had to laugh, smirk; not stand there in the pale morning light filtering in from the nearest window, a closed-up look on his hardened face. Could it be? Had Albus actually not been the only one hiding behind a mask?

"Well, its too bad none of your adoring fans are here then. Just you and me, brother." Albus didn't quite know what he was doing, extending an olive branch of sorts. He hated and admired James, that was how it had always been. The Gryffindor Quidditch star and the Slytherin recluse. The upstanding member of the Order, and the fearful boy in green who ran away from action, from heroism. The true son of Harry Potter, and the fake. But the conversation with Jack a few nights ago had addled his brain perhaps......maybe that's why today, his elder brother was seeming oddly human to him.

"So how has life been for you?" It was a test, almost. If the reply was neutral, the response would be so, and they would go away on their own designated pathways. If not......then maybe they could be brothers again. By more than name and blood.

James laughed the first real laugh he had experienced in months as Albus ducked from underneath his hand. It was almost like old times. James had worried that Albus would have grown too distant...that he would have no more interest in being a family. Perhaps those worries were unfounded. Then Albus asked that dreaded question James knew was coming. James desperately wished they could go back to the life they had once had, where no one was pretending to be happy for the sake of family.

James wrestled for a few moments with whether he should hide his unhappy past from Albus, or finally tell him everything. He had never spoken much about Jamie after she had cheated on him, and he wasn't sure if Albus had even known about Kanade. James had been so involved in his own life at that time, that he had rarely made time for Albus or Lily. The only grief he could remember sharing was the death of their mother...and James definitely was not going to bring that up.

"Well....to be honest," James replied in a wearied voice, "The world has been damned dark....damned dark for a long time now. I don't know if it is something to be talking about here, though....it's a long story, and not a very happy one."

James didn't want Albus to think he was being spurned, however, so he quickly added, "Not that I don't want to tell you, just want to wait for a more relaxed and quiet atmosphere."

James took a sweeping look around at all the gadgets in the store, whirling around and making a variety of loud and annoying noises. He smirked. It was hard to be depressed when you were inside the Weasley Wizard Wheezes.

"And what about you?" he asked, "What have you been doing? Where have you been? Me and Lily were worried that you would not return."

He didn't get the sunny, jovial "It rocks!" response he had been expecting, and somehow fearing. No, James confirmed his suspicions that all was not well. Albus clamped down the urge to demand every tiny fact out of his big brother's mouth, at least James had let out something.

"Alright, I understand. The Wheezes isn't exactly the best spot for a discussion of..." Of what? Secrets they had been mutually hiding from each other? Albus let that sentence trail off into nowhere. "We'll get together some time. You, me, Jack...." He bit his tongue halfway. Where had her name come from? "You...can..erm...catch up with your best friend, and I with my brother." Yes, that was safe.

Then James turned his question on him, and for a second, Albus surrendered himself to instinct and smiled amiably, but neutrally. "Me? Fine, just fine." Then he cursed himself inwardly. Merlin, this would just take him and James back to the beginning of the vicious cycle. "I mean....I've been....here and there." Darn it, why was this so hard? "I....wrote a book. And...started a movement of sorts."

Yes, enough information. They were mending bridges yes, but they couldn't afford to go too fast too soon. If James found out about the Dark magic.....or about Du Hunt....or Merlin forbid, about Avariella Hudson and what had happened in the Dean Forest....ice flooded into Albus's veins. Jack would have kept her promise, he was sure. She would say nothing. Because as much spilling those things to Jack had calmed him, reassured him, James was an entirely different matter. Throughout childhood he had desired his brother's approval, though it wasn't precisely the same today, he still didn't think he could bear to see James's disappointed gaze, or disgust, or contempt. No, some things were meant to be hidden.

"Oh, you're friends with Jack?!" James asked excitedly, "She's the newest beater on the Quidditch team, and best one we've ever had too. Haven't seen that gal yet since I've come back. I didn't realize you two knew each other well."

James realized that he was rambling a bit, and deftly switched the subject, centering on the other two pieces of new information revealed.

"A book, aye...." he mused, "What's the book about? Is it tied to this movement you mentioned?"

((Muse.....fail....XD))

"F......friends?" Albus was staggered when the question was posed. He pondered on it. They talked. Joked. Confessed secrets. Yes, that ticked all the checkboxes. "Yes, I suppose so." Terming their relation as a friendship seemed oddly....incomplete though. Like calling the Weasley Wizarding Wheezes a 'joke-shop'. The word couldn't quite do it justice. Similarly, friendship....didn't quite cover all the dimensions. But there was no other word there which could do justice to the strained silences, the cold snapping, the emotional breakdowns. He knew her deepest, darkest secret. And she, his. But he didn't know her favourite color, or breakfast, or book, or past-time....or even her parents' names. "But, I....wouldn't quite say that we know each other well."

"I would send the book through owl-post to you myself, but I don't think you'd care about dry politics." Well, that was an understatement, Verba Non Facta was anything but dry. "Or on second thoughts, maybe you would. Insults galore." Albus had to proceed carefully from now on. He knew his brother could be trusted, but what he was doing was not strictly legal. And there was the safety of other people involved in this. Without thinking, he withdrew his wand and cast a muffliato, "Before I tell you anything, what is your...uh, opinion on the Ministry?"

James felt slightly relieved when Albus affirmed that he did not really know Jack all that well...though James was unaware of the feeling, and would not have been able to explain it had it been a conscious emotion.

Though he was hardly interested in a book about politics (Albus had been quite right about his taste in books), James's attention was piqued when Albus drew out his wand to cast the muffliato spell. Now, what could his little bro have to say that could not be overheard? James fidgeted slightly, this act towards secrecy making him nervous. The room had quite suddenly taken on the air of a discussion bordering on illegality.

"The Ministry?" James echoed, stroking his chin, a nervous habit he'd had since childhood, "I suppose they are not quite up to my personal expectations, but...." James paused. Albus wouldn't be a cronie of the Ministry, right? He couldn't bring himself to think that Albus would betray his own brother should he speak badly of the Ministry...but then again, he knew how politics could twist the morals of the best of wizards and witches.

"Why do you ask?" James countered, trying not to sound suspicious. It wouldn't do for his brother to think he wasn't completely trusted so shortly after their reunion. James didn't want to sabotage what they had left of their relationship for anything.