💛 @kindheartted liked for a STARTER!
❛ it’s not that weird for me to be in slytherin, right? everyone is just making a big deal about it for no reason? ❜
james won’t stop teasing him and rose is insufferable. albus sighs, grateful that grandpa ted is, at least, not as annoying as the rest of the family. it’s honestly kind of weird that he’s taking refuge from a family get-together in the corner of an almost-empty sitting room with a boomer—you’d expect him to be getting along with his cousins, instead—but albus really is very grateful for the company. even if it’s from a boomer instead of a zoomer.
❛ i mean, you’re muggle-born, right? when you went to hogwarts, i assume you must’ve, like… stood out, or something? ❜ he really doesn’t know the statistics of muggle-born students enrolled at hogwarts as the years have passed, but he can only assume there must’ve been even more prejudice back in the boomer days. ❛ it’s not the same as being a slytherin in a family full of slytherin-haters, but i guess it has the same energy? ❜
or maybe it doesn’t have the same energy at all, and albus is just being insensitive and minimizing grandpa ted’s struggles. but he doesn’t care. he feels Angsty™ and a whole summer without scorpius really doesn’t help.
ted leaned back in his chair, listening to the younger’s words very carefully. he’d been told multiple times that he had absolutely nothing in common with everything slytherin represented— yet, he knew exactly what his grands on-by-choice was talking about. it had been quite a while since being different like that had made him feel isolated or frustrated, and all those times he’d had to run from people who wouldn’t accept who he was were still painful to remember. ted felt so sorry that this child he loved very much still had to go through similar things, especially when much of that criticism seemed to come from his own family.
yet— he couldn’t help but smile. « you know, back when— » he chuckled, realising what he’d said. « you youngsters don’t like when we say this, do you? but, back when i started my time at hogwarts, things were not like they are today. being a muggleborn was so much worse back then, and i was lucky i was in hufflepuff, where people did accept me, after all. » and people had hated slytherin much more, too. with every reason to do so.
his gaze went to the pictureframes all over the wall opposite of where he sat— they were memories of many years as a happy family, despite the enormous prejudice they’d had to face from the beginning. « albus, do you remember how i met your grandma? you know, i thought she was just an evil slytherin at the beginning, too... »