juls

Like. I’ve always sorta understood that things grow moldy or stale or sour or such if left out, but I never really internalized it in a meaningful way.

But now I’m just like.

Yeah. The hungering dust. There exists omnivorous dust in the air that will eat my food if I don’t.

Those bagels have been sitting there for a week. Are we going to eat them soon or are we leaving them for the hungering dust?

Pizza’s been sitting out on the counter for an hour. Everyone’s enjoying the pizza, but if we don’t want “everyone” to include the hungering dust then we should probably put it away soon.

That’s just. That’s how food works to me now. There exists an invisible predator in the air that hungers for your yummies, and it will not hesitate to eat your food if you don’t make the effort to protect and preserve it. And eat what can’t be preserved before the dust can.

“go bad”, it just gets eaten

by something else first

albus struggles to feel the love his family gives him and feels that he’s not worthy of it and will never receive the kinds of love he knows. all because he believes he never lived up to truly being a potter. but scorpius really sees him for who he is. not ‘harry potters son’ or the ‘slytherin squib’. he sees albus as his best friend and his guiding force when things feel dark and helpless. holding on to the one he loves so dearly when he felt cold and weak at the hands of the dementors? that decision was always easy.

scorpius is seen as a curse and unloveable, the supposed child of voldemort, and feels unworthy from that sentiment. like he’ll never feel true love because he lost love from his mother and was seen as something evil from a terrible rumour. but albus sees him as a light in the darkness. his light in the darkness. and albus would sacrifice his own life if it meant scorpius could be safe. because scorpius in pain is his worst fear. he’d rather die than see the one he loves tortured. that decision was always easy.

James: You doodled your wedding invitations…

Albus: Don’t be an idiot. Those were our joint tombstones.

BUT nothing can match the absolute hilariousness of albus and scorpius' patronus being a scorpion and asp, respectively.

like, imagine, okay. when scorpius manages to produce a corpeal patronus and it's an asp, let's be real, he's not going to recognize that it is an asp specifically because I highly doubt snake species were scorpius' taste for hyperfixations. so, he sees it's a snake is like "oh for slytherin, i guess" and goes about his day. then in his DADA class, there's this one student who knows a ton about snakes (watch it be a gryffindor, I love irony) is like "ummmmmmm that's an asp 🤓☝️" and everyone is giggling and oooooooing and it has not yet clicked for scorpius. he sees everyone making their eyebrows dance and is like, "you guys good 😭" and no one tells him shit. anyways he's going about his day with albus, and everything is dandy and full of homoerotic tension. that night, scorpius sees on one albus' papers, and he wrote his name as "ASP." when scorpius inquires him, albus is like "mate those are my initials, albus severus potter is a mouthful, " and only THEN does it click for scorpius and he's sitting there going "oooooooohhhhhh" in his brain.

meanwhile, for albus, when he sees that scorpion patronus, he clocks it immediately and goes in a full-on gay crisis. like it is bad, yall, it's so embarrassing. because he thinks his feelings are unrequited, resolves that scorpius can NOT know. anyways, he's in DADA and everyone is producing their partronus' and albus absolutely refuses to do it in class, so albus fakes sick and teacher, who's absolutely done, is like "fineeeeee leave." anyways, albus rocks up to the hospital wing, and she's like,"dude. nothing is wrong with you. go back to class." but albus is a menace when he's determined, so he sees the stairs and flings himself down them billy-loomis-style and breaks something for real. a few minutes later he's hobbling to the hospital wing, and despite the pain, he's smug as fuck. after treating albus, madame pomfrey starts drafting her resignation letter. (while all this is occurring, Scorpius produced his patonus in class).

anyways, a couple days later, albus is FORCED to at LEAST TRY to produce his patronus in front of the class. and after much cajoling and threatening, he does. and it's a scorpion. and after witnessing scorpius' asp patronus days ago, the class is going absolutely WILD. theres hollering and there's gasp of astonishment and everyone's teasing them, and basically it's what albus feared.

Just… Albus in the cursed child, for as mixed as people seem to be on it… Albus as the certified middle child who doesn’t have the cloak, doesn’t have the map, who doesn’t even have a family name?

Can you imagine little Al (not yet Albus because that’s a name he truly goes by once he has Scorpius) tucking himself into the cracks of the door as he hears his parents talking, hears his dad say it would have been better to know they were having two boys so they could have just called him Sirius

Al, getting teased by his invisible brother, yet seeing so distinctly that his father chose James over him for their family legacy

Al, who grew up on the filtered advice of a distant, out of reach mentor who he could never live up to. Not like James with his fun, his humor, or Lily with her love and her girlhood.

(Albus, who will hear Cedric called the spare and understand far too well what it’s like to be of secondary importance)

Al, who out of all his siblings looks the most like his father, a reflection to every family friend of what harry went through and an eternal reminder to himself and the world that he will always be his father’s legacy (he will look in the mirror for most of his adult life and see his father before he sees himself)

Al, age 11, seeking comfort on the train platform as everything changes around him and getting another lecture about bravery that he doesn’t feel he has

Al becoming Albus on that train, when the boy who would become the most important person in his life actually asks him, asks him what he wants to be called

Albus, under the sorting hat, struggling but thinking about who he wants to be outside of his family’s legacy and getting put in Slytherin for it

Albus, who grew up on war stories and hogwarts hyjinks staying up half his first night because he’s afraid of his peers, but doesn’t want them to know that because he so desperately and conflictingly wants to both fit in and stand out

Albus, who is bad at flying, humiliating himself in front of his peers, because he isn’t harry but isn’t Quidditch player Ginny either… Albus, who all the adults see as Harry’s extension; Albus, who struggles with charms like Lily never will, who can barely make his matchstick silver under the blue eyed portrait in the room, who struggles to parse through the moving and unequal words of wizarding textbooks, who attracts bullies like flies and doesn’t yet have his mother’s hexes to fight back

Albus, struggling to write that first letter home, to tell his parents and little sister that he’s different from them; Albus who doesn’t even get to tell them because James tells them first

Albus, who doesn’t get a green scarf and hat until after the first snow, unable to parse if it’s the color, the fact that he’s the second born, or maybe just that it’s him that made it come later than James’ had

Albus, who goes back home for Christmas and faces his father’s disapproval for befriending a Malfoy, his father’s distrust and attempts to assure his morality for befriending someone harry assumes cruel and antagonistic

Albus, having to hold awkward conversation with Rose and Ron and Hermione, because neither of the kids want their parents to know they’re not talking (they find out eventually, and though they’re nice about it, Albus knows they’ll always put Rose’s feelings first)

Albus, who is suddenly assumed more malicious and problem causing than he ever was before, who suddenly is seen as a prime person to scot the blame off to when things go wrong

Albus, who gets chosen after his sister (“just like her mother!”) during the family quidditch match; who gets meaningful looks from his Uncle Percy; whose Christmas sweaters are no longer red but never green; who suddenly cant seem to talk to his uncle ron anymore, someone who used to understand what it was like to be James’ brother

Albus potter who stradles the line of too Potter for Slytherin and too Slytherin for his family.