”Knowing you doesn’t make it any easier to love you, Albus.”
It didn’t, Albus Potter reflected almost calmly later, his sister’s voice ringing in his ears like sound richocheting endlessly round and round within an old gong, ages after the little, unplanned Potter reunion was over- it really didn’t. And he knew himself the best of all………so what did that say about him?
‘You can love others only after you learn to love yourself.’ Would probably be one of the whackjob, spiritual advices provided by someone like Lysander’s mum in response, all serene and Zen-like. ‘Self acceptance is key.’
Well if it was a key, Albus thought, swirling around the clear amber liquid dwelling at the bottom of his goblet with a cherry stick, fingernails digging into the base tightly, then it was one that opened a bloody useless door that led to an even more useless place inhabited by saints and angels and more impossible and frighteningly, people who’d ‘achieved peace’ (his lower lip curled into an irrepressible sneer at the thought) with themselves and others. Peace was a sham, something to be pursued and never achieved, a bait that dangled tantalisingly and forever out of reach, making people jump and grab and fall all over themselves for nothing. Peace was the illusion that he thought he’d……well, maybe snagged the tail end of when he’d brought the Rookwoods home- except his brother had waltzed right back in as well, and thoroughly disabused him any such ridiculous….pitiable notion. Pitiable yes, the Firewhisky in his brain crooned, his elbows almost stuck to the countertop of the bar, arse numbed against the wooden barstool, joints frozen and locked in place in the position they’d assumed hours ago when he’d first walked quietly out of the house and Apparated here; that was exactly the word for him. He had absolutely no idea why he’d ever presumed better.
And so he sat there and did nothing, the writer’s brain peering out through the curtain of Firewhisky that hung like a haze- watching people who celebrated and mourned alike, taking a sardonic pleasure almost like Saki’s protagonist in ‘Dusk’ in the latter, in the little dramas that played themselves out in the little bar- the blonde cosseted up in the corner booth who looked altogether unaware of the existence of the man currently kissing up her fingers and absorbed in the one in the adjacent booth who cast secretive, lovelorn glances from afar; the probably underage girl at the front in the skimpy shorts who rejected every man that tried to pick her up, pretending she wasn’t gazing wide-eyed at the thirty year old corporate woman in a suit sipping frostily from a Margarita; the man whose pockets bulged with Galleons and whose pupils were ragged with Spice, breathing corpse-like into his sleeve- all this and more, watched with an unerring eye that was dissociated from the heart, which in turn felt a curious sort of detachment from the tumultuous crests and troughs of its own life, so absorbed in watching the lives and troubles of others play out on the public stage. He’d only just begun to wonder, albeit absently, if the nineteen year old would ever screw up the courage to relinquish the seat and the beer bottle she’d been hanging on to like an anchor and actually approach the other woman- when another voice intruded into his thoughts most unwelcomingly.
“Sad, isn’t it?” The bartender nodded towards the front of the bar, and continued doing what all the world’s bartenders did: which was scrub down the bar with a grimy piece of cloth that looked as if it had seen better centuries, and pretend as if his conversation was actually wanted.
“Excessively.” Albus curved his lips in the facsimile of a smile, the way only he knew best- and turned his face away to the side, discouraging any further attempts at conversation. He wouldn’t drop his chin to the bar like a heartbroken drunkard just yet, his dignity was too impenetrable for that.
“The games that life plays.” The bartender went on, as if he was a kindly old soul lending a bit of compassion and companionable words to a lonely heart at his table- which f*ck, was exactly what this looked like, wasn’t it? While his pride blazed to an acid scorch inside his chest, with none to show for it but a twitching nerve in the jaw, the unwanted spring of pity flowed on- “-good lookin’ fella like you, why don’ you go over and say hello?”
“I’m perfectly comfort-“ -able here, thanks was what his voice should have said, but it halted suddenly: because while the bartender had clearly proved himself indubitably blind, surely he realised the girl was too young and more importantly, a little too fascinated by breasts for him to embarrass himself in front of, right? So he resumed, a little cautiously, “Who….exactly are you talking about?”
“The redhead, of course.” The bartender was frowning a little, as if now reconsidering his boundless helpfulness and Albus’ own intellect, the latter of which was something that no aspersions had been cast on since he was twelve, thank you very much. “Terrible tragedy, such a sweet voice she had too….” He trailed on, then twisted his bald pate to the side and called out before Albus had the presence of mind to stop him. “Mai!”
The woman sitting next to the nineteen-year old turned- and Albus’ mind, all too rational to lose itself entirely in alcohol raced to arrive to the conclusions: so that was what the entire mime act had been about. The bartender pointed rather helpfully to the glass tumbler filled with dark brown liquid, which was set even more helpfully right next to Albus’ own, as an indication for the apparently voiceless woman to come and collect her drink from there, and no doubt in the bartender’s perfectly simpleton mind ‘make friends’ in the entire process. And instincts proved to be too strong, for instead of scowling or making a perfectly good old fuss like the blasted reserved introvert he was, the mask rose to the, his surface just as easily: an upward curve of the lips, a gleam of white at the corner, a perfectly amiable crinkle of the eyes.
“This is….” The bartender trailed off again, brow clouding over in confusion and apparent realisation that he did not, in fact, know a name, and Albus inserted, twice as gracefully, with all the politeness and courtesy that befits the Queen of England. “Albus Potter.” Bloody twat, brain’s probably degenerated with all the alcohol fumes….
Said bloody twat’s eyebrows jerked up immediately, grimy cloth falling to the floor from a suddenly motionless hand, and Albus’s smile grew imperceptibly brittle. Yes, don’t quite stand up to the expectations, do I?
by 
